In this episode I'm joined by my friend and colleague Jo Schofield, Director of Immigration Social Work Services and one of the leading experts on age assessment in the UK. Jo has spent her career working with unaccompanied asylum seeking children, acting as an expert witness in court, and developing the SAFE framework - the Social Work Age Estimation Framework - which is changing the way social workers approach this area of practice. We talk about what age assessment actually is and why it's...
Jul 6
43 min
In this episode I'm joined by Dez Holmes, Director of Research in Practice for a conversation that went in more directions than either of us planned and was better for it. We talk about Dez's career and what's driven it, the role Research in Practice has played in social work over the years, what it actually means to be evidence informed in practice rather than just claiming to be, and what we owe each other when we share things online. There's a LinkedIn rant, a surfing metaphor, and some of...
Jun 29
53 min
In this episode I'm back after a quieter month, off Instagram, in therapy, having acupuncture, and thinking about a lot of things. This one covers the personal and the professional in equal measure. I'm talking about the naming of social workers in the media following the Preston Davey case, why the way decisions in social work are actually made is so consistently misrepresented, and what I think our response as a profession needs to look like. I'm also getting into the social workers are sup...
Jun 28
32 min
In this episode I'm joined by Sean Monaghan, founder of Safer Now, whose route into safeguarding practice started in a youth centre in North Birmingham and took him through community violence intervention, hospital-based trauma response, and a recurring question: so what? We talk about what it actually takes to change practice on the ground, why skills training has to outlast the day it's delivered, the commodification of practice frameworks, and why measuring meaning matters more than ...
May 6
1 hr 8 min
Home visits are the main site where social work happens. And yet they are barely mentioned in Working Together to Safeguard Children 2026 or any version of Working Together before it. In this episode I'm exploring why this matters, what Harry Ferguson's research tells us about children being invisible on home visits, and why statutory invisibility leads to practice invisibility. I also wonder, in an increasingly virtual world, what happens to the home visit as a skill if we never name it as o...
Apr 29
18 min
ACEs - adverse childhood experiences - is one of the most referenced phrases in social work and safeguarding. But how many of us have actually questioned whether we are using it correctly? In this episode Vicki Shevlin explores why the research behind ACEs is weaker than most people realise, why correlation is not causation and what this means practically for your assessments, your reports and your conversations with other professionals. If you have referenced ACEs recently in your practice -...
Apr 22
12 min
In this episode I explore one of the most persistent and unhelpful narratives in social work; that there is a hierarchy of practice, and that unless you have done your time in child protection you have not done real social work. Drawing on my own experience moving from family facing practice to conference chair to independent social worker and trainer, I reflect on the guilt that comes with changing direction, the false divide between academia and practice, the overlooked contribution of adul...
Apr 17
16 min
In this episode I'm talking about one of the most consistent findings across serious case reviews; the invisible child and giving you one practical thing you can take into your next home visit immediately. Inspired by Harry Ferguson's new book Making Child Protection Work, I'm focusing specifically on direct work with infants and why greeting a child first, even a sleeping baby, matters more than you might think. This isn't about blame or shame. It's about small shifts that make a real differ...
Apr 1
15 min
In this episode, I'm reflecting on my own unexpected experience of having a record written about me, not as a social worker, but as a home educating parent. It's a small, almost comedic example, but it stayed with me, and it raises big questions about accuracy, context, and what families actually feel when their words are recorded without them. I'm also sharing my thoughts on what the Families First changes and updated Working Together guidance mean for social workers in practice, and w...
Mar 23
29 min
In this episode, I’m joined by Power 2 Prevail to explore what it really means to work with young people, not just around them. We talk about the power of youth work, how professional hierarchies can silence lived experience, and why “listening” isn’t the same as genuine inclusion. Together, we explore how care-experienced young people can and should shape training, learning and development, not as a token gesture, but as valued experts in their own lives. This conversation is about power, vo...
Mar 22
1 hr 3 min
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