Practising what practice preaches

Our collaboration with Birmingham City Council in piloting the PATHS social education programme as part of its Brighter Futures strategy has attracted national press notice, this week.

Coverage in The Guardian of Mark Greenberg's visit from the US Prevention Research Center where PATHS originated, focused on the programme’s introduction to Starbank Primary, one of 30 elementary schools involved in the first UK trial.

Correspondent Rachel Williams linked the activity to efforts to raise the quality of social care in the city in the wake of a critical review and the national fallout from the Baby Peter scandal in Haringey.

She quoted incoming director of children's social care, Colin Tucker, as believing that training, recruitment and retention, as well as openness, were key to achieving substantial improvements.

Tucker spent nine years on the social work front line, and has done regular duty shifts since taking over in Birmingham four months ago.

No-one would expect consultant paediatricians to have much influence over general practitioners, did they not have first hand experience of life on the front line, he told the paper.

“My staff expect and deserve a social worker to be at a director level. They need to know I'm a social worker at heart. And I need to know what they're doing.”