Expert slams social work practices

Education expert Chris Waterman has claimed the idea is flawed and said that instead, "personal mentors" such as retired teachers or social workers should act as champions for children in care.

In his paper Motivation and Agency in Social Work Practices: of halos and horns, paupers and princes, Waterman says that in organising social care practices in the same way as GP practices "it is either naive or disingenuous to assume a model that operates in primary health care and school education can be replicated in this very different context."

But economist and academic Julian Le Grand, who came up with the idea of social work practices, has dismissed Waterman's suggestion and insisted his model will work.

He countered: "There are professional partnerships in other areas which demonstrate the things we would like to see."

Waterman's alternative option of having personal mentors for children would see professionals such as retired teachers take a continuous interest in a child through peer support.

But Le Grand said: "We do have mentors for looked-after children -they are called social workers. Let's just make social workers work better."

Waterman, who is director of the Institute for Research in Integrated Strategies, has delivered a copy of his report to the Department for Children, Schools and Families, junior schools minister Lord Andrew Adonis and peers reading the Children and Young Persons Bill.