Michelle Lefevre

• Doctor of Social Work
• Professor at University of Sussex

Innovation activity in child and family services has accelerated over the past 2 decades, particularly in England, where substantial government investment in pilots, diffusion activities and evaluations has created an emerging body of literature on effective approaches and characteristics of efficient practice systems. However, the literature on th...

For over a decade, UK policymakers have responded to global ambitions to protect children from exploitation and other forms of extra-familial risks and harms by recommending that social workers coordinate local responses. This has required a significant shift in the design and delivery of social care services. In this article, we report findings fr...

Background This article re-envisions the concept of value in relation to safeguarding and welfare services to young people who are experiencing adversity, risk and disadvantage. Current use of the terms ‘cost-effectiveness’ and ‘value for money’ within the policy and practice sectors is dominated by the concept of financial costs, most particularly...

This paper explores how seven organisations from the children's social care sector in England adapted their service during the Covid‐19 pandemic restrictions to better meet the needs of young people experiencing extra‐familial risks and harms. Particularly, it focuses on these organisations' experience of attempting to transform services in a uniqu...

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-BD licence. Based on the findings of the Innovate Project, a four year pan-UK study to identify the processes of innovation in care, this book asks: how can services be re-envisioned and transformed through innovation? The authors provide an overview of the project findings and offer insights into the core condi...

Purpose This paper aims to present a mixed methods study of child criminal exploitation (CCE), particularly in the form of “county lines”, in three local authorities in southeast England. The data is analysed using a framework constructed from two relevant contextual and relational theories to understand experiences of CCE and the safeguarding resp...

As an increasing number of children’s services departments and voluntary sector organisations adopt Contextual Safeguarding (CS), efforts to evaluate its impact are developing. In this chapter, we will outline three different approaches taken to evaluating contextually oriented systems and interventions and reflect upon the cultural as well as prac...

Authors set out five key features of promising social care responses to extra-familial risks and harms drawn from studying international systems

This article looks at the impact of 'agile technological surveillance' on heterosexual women survivors of domestic abuse/coercive control. This paper argues that the 24-hour surveillance afforded by mobile phones creates a modern panopticon (as outlined by Bentham). Feelings of being constantly watched causes in survivors surveillance themselves as...

The digital version of this book is available free open acess at https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/book/9781447367277/9781447367277.xml During adolescence, young people are exposed to a range of risks beyond their family homes including sexual and criminal exploitation, peer-on-peer abuse and gang-related violence. However, it has onl...

During adolescence, young people are exposed to a range of risks beyond their family homes including sexual and criminal exploitation, peer-on-peer abuse and gang-related violence. However, it has only been over the past two decades that the critical safeguarding implications of these harms have started to be recognised. Social care organisations a...

This open access article is freely available here: https://academic.oup.com/bjsw/advance-article/doi/10.1093/bjsw/bcac183/6713577 There has been substantial investment by governments and charities in the UK in the development, diffusion and evaluation of innovative practice models and systems to safeguard and support vulnerable children, young peo...

Purpose This paper aims to explore the possibilities in using such national, statutory data sets for evaluating change and the challenges of understanding service patterns and outcomes in complex cases when only a limited view can be gained using existing data. The discussion also explores how methodologies can adapt to an evaluation in these circu...

Purpose Substantial government investment has accelerated innovation activity in children’s social care in England over the past decade. Ethical concerns emerge when innovation seems to be propelled by a drive for efficiency and over-reliance on process output indicators, as well as, or even instead of, improving the lives of children, families and...

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) permeated social work practice before coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In addition to ICT-based formal services (e.g. e-counselling), social workers used ICTs informally as an adjunct to face-to-face practice. Building on our previous research, our cross-sectional online survey examined social w...

This article considers the role and importance of the intersubjective practice space created between social workers and unaccompanied young females (UYFs)—girls and young women under eighteen years of age, who arrive in a country, not in the care of a parent or guardian, and claim asylum in their own right. The voices of UYFs are under-represented...

Mobile phone ownership has become almost universal, with smartphones the most popular consumer electronics device. While the role of technologies and digital media in the domestic abuse of women is gaining international attention, specific information regarding how mobile phones, and their various ‘apps’, may assist perpetrators in the coercive con...

Analysis of data from a two-year evaluation of the piloting of a child-centred framework for addressing child sexual exploitation (CSE) in England revealed an intrinsic practice dilemma, whereby many practitioners experienced profound ontological, ethical, emotional and intellectual dilemmas in reconciling young people’s rights to voice, privacy an...

Analysis of data from a two-year evaluation of the piloting of a child-centred framework for addressing child sexual exploitation (CSE) in England revealed an intrinsic practice dilemma, whereby many practitioners experienced profound ontological, ethical, emotional and intellectual dilemmas in reconciling young people’s rights to voice, privacy an...

Practitioners must be able to listen, talk, communicate and engage with children and young people if they are going to make a real difference to their lives. The key principles of collaborative, relational, child-centred working underpin all the ideas in the 2nd edition of this bestselling, practice-focused textbook. Using an innovative ‘Knowing,...

Research with children and young people at risk of child sexual exploitation (CSE) has highlighted that professionals need to engage children in relationships of trust if they are to be most successful in enabling children to explore and address risky behaviours, situations and relationships. More needs to be understood about professional approache...

The research activity of social work academics in the UK has been of interest and concern amongst academics and research funders. Multiple initiatives have been implemented to develop social work research activity, yet research by social work academics remains limited, hindered by lack of time, support infrastructures, funding and training. Through...

The Routledge International Handbook of Social Work Education provides an authoritative overview of current understanding through coverage of key debates, exploring the state of play in particular social work education fields and reflecting on where the future might be taking us. The overall aim of the Handbook is to further develop pedagogic resea...

In the UK and the USA, social work academics must balance the requirements of research excellence against the time, expertise, and focus needed to ensure students are ready to practice safely and effectively with service users and carers. However, there is variation to the extent to which academics have experience in both research and practice. Thi...

There are continuing concerns about the quality of social workers' communication and engagement with children. This has led to a focus in England on whether qualifying courses prepare students sufficiently for practice. Although research has uncovered the capabilities social workers need to engage and communicate effectively with children, there ha...

Qualifying social work education must provide students with a variety of experiential, personalized, participatory, didactic and critically reflective learning opportunities across both the taught curriculum and in practice placements if deep learning of the capabilities needed for effective communication with children and young people is to be ens...

Socialworkersemployedwithin statutory settings in countries such as theUKare subject to legal and policy requirements to communicate directly and effectively with children and young people. Qualifying social work education is expected to prepare students so that they can practice competently. However, in England at least, practice and education are...

It is now clear that if professionals are to make a real difference for children and young people, they must be able to engage and communicate with children themselves, not just their parents and carers. Practitioners must be able to listen to children, support them, keep them informed, and fully involve them in matters which concern them. This tim...

Currently, there is no explicit requirement for qualifying level social workers to be skilled in communicating with children. In a recent Knowledge Review, we argued that practitioners should have a basic level of competence in such skill at the point of qualification. If that argument is accepted then how this should be acquired within the qualify...

Twenty years after survey evidence showed that UK social work students could complete their training without having learnt about or worked with children, new research suggests little has changed. There is still no guarantee that any student on qualification will have been taught about or assessed in communication skills with children and young peop...

Practice learning has moved to centre stage in the new Degree in Social Work in England, Wales and Northern Ireland with a 35% increase in placement days. This increase has proved a challenge to existing structures and new models are developing. Student perspectives need to be taken into account. The nature and impact of the relationships formed be...

Childhood sexual abuse is associated with a range of detrimental effects on interpersonaland intrapsychic functioning and is a significant factor for some survivors in seeking psychotherapy,as they struggle to find ways of managing or overcoming the damaging impact of their experiences. Within this paper, I shall explore these dynamics through anal...

Children rarely have the language or the cognitive development to process and convey their experiences solely through words, so spontaneously complement these with symbolic forms of expression and communication, such as play, metaphor and a variety of visual, auditory and kinaesthetic imagery. Consequently, social workers need to supplement verbal...