Category Archives: Research and Evidence Informed Practice

Evaluating the performance of social care as a system: an introduction to the Vanguard Method

A one day  workshop delivered by Joanne Gibson and Brendan O’Donovan of Vanguard Consulting – Chaired by Sue White University of Sheffield

Wednesday March 6th 10am until 4pm  at University of Sheffield, Elmfield, Seminar Room G18

We have worked with a variety of social care organisations in the public and voluntary sectors. Our studies show that many public service systems are set up to assess rather than understand, to transact rather than build relationships, to refer on cases rather than taking individual responsibility and to prescribe packages of activity instead of taking the time to understand what might improve someone’s life. The result is that problems people face are not resolved, public services generate escalating levels of ‘failure demand’, and costs are driven ever upwards.

How can things be done differently? What might a concrete alternative look like? That is what we will try to explain over this session which has been designed to provide you with a different frame of reference, hopefully creating some curiosity and encouraging you to learn more about the Vanguard Method, in order to tackle some of the issues that you and your services face.

The Vanguard Method is unique in that it starts by studying a service as a system from the service user’s point of view, to gain knowledge of the ‘what and why’ of current performance. This session will give a high-level explanation of the key Vanguard Method principles required to study and understand how and why your current system works in the way that it does. We will go on to talk about what has been learnt through the application of the Vanguard Method in various people centred services, giving examples and results from organisations that have started to work in a different way.

This day will act as an introduction to what you could learn on a 12-day practical module that we are planning to run in conjunction with Sheffield University.

This Masterclass forms part of the module ‘Researching Everyday Practice’ There are 10 places available at a cost of £50 per student on a first come, first served basis.

Contact:  Sally.Dean@sheffield.gov.uk , interim Project Manager to book a place by 15th February 2019.

Further information from Sue.White@sheffield.ac.uk

Research reviews and practice resources

Members of the social work research and teaching team in the Department for Sociological Studies at the University of Sheffield have developed a short series of research reviews and practice resources based on their recent research and practice interests. Children’s social care staff at Rotherham Council also assisted in the development of these resources in two focus groups held in 2015. The resources aim to provide an accessible summary of key issues and developments about several topics within children’s social care accompanied by practitioner orientation activities, thinking points and messages. For more information please see. They include

  • Sen, R (2017) Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE): Awareness, identification, support and prevention. Download hereCSE Practice Resource Sen June 2017
  • Leigh, J (2017) Supporting practitioners in Children’s and Adults’ Social Care. Download hereLeigh 2017 Support practitioners in social care FINAL
  • Churchill, H (2018 Forthcoming) Whole family support.
  • Churchill, H and Laing, J (2018 Forthcoming) Parental, Child and Family Engagement in Family Support and Child Protection.