Why a different point of view may be the key to success for the independent review of children's social care.

I had the pleasure of meeting up with Josh MacAlister last week, in what turned out to be an open and honest conversation about the review of children's social care. Although I'd never reveal our discussion, we spoke for just over an hour and surprisingly he asked me just as many questions as I did of him. I raised a few issues I felt I wanted the review to focus on and we explored ideas around the future of fostering in general, it was a good chat and I enjoyed it immensely and most importantly

I remain extremely positive about how this may unfold, and why this review might be the review we didn't expect but may all need, let me tell you why.

A few years back I signed up with a responsible individual training course with a well known social work training company in London, I filled in all my details on the booking form spoke on the phone and over email twice and yet no one told me that this course was for responsible individuals for children's homes.

I slowly figured this out over the course of the morning session and at the lunch break, I asked the trainer why we'd only covered Regulation 44 visits so far and it then all unfolded. 

Part my error maybe, part theirs (mainly theirs)

However I stuck around for the remainder of the day, with no real need to answer any questions but with the mindset of using this as an opportunity to learn and grow as much as possible, however, what unfolded was something quite extortionary. 

It was the best training course I have ever been on, we engaged, we had long debates, we hashed out problems together and the energy just built and built, and I really loved the afternoon session. At the end of the day, some of the other attendee's came and spoke to me and they felt exactly the same. I reflected on this on the way home and I think it's fairly clear what happened. I was a different voice, a different way of thinking, our issues differed all bar the key one, 'keeping kids safe' and it was this common ground that tied the whole experience together. 

Yes, foster homes and residential homes have a lot of synergies but they also have huge disparities. In one a child lives in your home and the other you work in the child's home, same but different and rightly so.

The moral of this story is this, sometimes we need to be spectated by another pair of eyes, to have a critical mind to ask the questions we've all become bored with asking and scrutinise the answers in a new and unexpected way.

I think this review will do this, I think Josh will do this and I think we need this review now more than ever.

Added to this I think we should all collaborate with different professions more if you want to develop yourself book yourself onto a course that's a little bit left-field, if you want to develop your team invite someone new into your training sessions.

After all with new voices, come new ideas.