Published by Messy Social Work
Welcome to the Messy Social Work podcast. The hosts are Richard Devine and Tim Fisher. Check out our website here: https://www.relationalactivism.com/
Listen on Apple PodcastsRelational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
Why do experienced professionals sometimes fail to see what is right in front of them? In this episode of Connecting Research , we explore Margaret Rustin's influential analysis of the Victoria Climbié case and her argument that professional failures in child protection are not simply the result of poor practice, incompetence, or inadequate procedures. Instead, they can reflect powerful psychological and organizational defenses against unbearable emotional realities. Drawing on psychoanalytic concepts including turning a blind eye , avoidance of mental pain , splitting , and mindlessness , we examine how exposure to child suffering can overwhelm practitioners' capacity to think, reflect, and act. Rustin invites us to consider how social workers, health professionals, police officers, and organizations can become caught in defensive processes that obscure the meaning of what they are seeing, even when the evidence of harm is available. The discussion explores what happens when thinking itself becomes painful, why anxiety can interfere with professional judgement, and how supervision, reflective spaces, and systemic support are essential if practitioners are to remain emotionally present with children who are suffering. Rather than locating blame solely in individuals, this episode asks how child protection systems can help workers bear the difficult realities of abuse, neglect, and trauma without turning away from them. A thought-provoking conversation about the emotional demands of child protection and what it takes to keep children in mind when the realities they face are hardest to bear.
In this episode of the Messy Social Work Podcast , Rich and Tim discuss Richard's recent blog, 14 Lessons from 11 Years at Bath and North East Somerset Council , written as he prepares to leave frontline children's social work after more than a decade in B&NES and take up a leadership role in Solihull. Together, they explore fourteen reflections shaped by years of child protection practice, relationships with children and families, mistakes, uncertainty, and the ongoing challenge of working in complex systems. The conversation covers the limits of professional influence, learning to live with impossible demands, reducing harm rather than pursuing perfect safety, and why social workers themselves help create the system they often talk about. Rich and Tim also discuss authenticity with families, balancing compassion and accountability, the value of curiosity and "not knowing", the tensions at the heart of child protection work, and why meaningful change is often rooted in relationships rather than professional heroics. This is a thoughtful and honest conversation about what social work teaches us over time: how to tolerate uncertainty, stay connected to people, and hold onto what matters most when there are no easy answers.
In this episode, we’re joined by former undercover drugs officer Neil Woods to explore the ideas at the heart of his book Good Cop, Bad War . Drawing on over a decade working covertly inside drug markets, Neil gives a sobering account of how the “war on drugs” actually plays out on the ground - and why, in his view, it so often makes things worse rather than better. Neil talks about what he witnessed firsthand: the way enforcement can unintentionally strengthen organised crime, increase violence, and pull vulnerable people - especially children and young people - deeper into exploitation. He reflects on the disconnect between policy intentions and real-world impact, and how the system can end up targeting those with the least power while leaving wider harms untouched. We also explore the personal toll of this work. Neil shares his experiences of moral injury - the strain of repeatedly acting in ways that conflict with your sense of what is right - and his experience of complex PTSD. Turning to social work, we think about what all of this means for those supporting parents who use drugs. Rather than seeing substance use purely as a problem to be eradicated, this conversation invites a more reflective approach - one that understands the role drugs play in people’s lives, recognises the impact of trauma, and prioritises relationship-based, harm-reducing practice. This is an honest and thought-provoking discussion about policy, practice, and the unintended consequences of intervention - and a challenge to think differently about what helpful support really looks like for families. Contact Neil here: https://www.neilwoods.net/contact-neil-woods https://www.neilwoods.net/ His book is available online and on audible
In this episode, we sit down with foster carer Gareth K Thomas to explore his experiences of caring for children who have lived through trauma, and what it really means to offer trauma-informed care in practice. Gareth shares honest reflections on the realities of foster care - the rewards, the challenges, and the emotional impact of supporting children who have experienced adversity. We talk about how trauma shows up in behaviour, how carers can make sense of what they’re seeing, and the importance of staying curious, compassionate, and regulated in the face of difficult moments. The conversation also explores: What trauma-informed care looks like day-to-day The importance of relationships, trust, and consistency Supporting children without losing sight of yourself The wider system around foster care - what helps and what gets in the way As ever, this is a grounded and thoughtful discussion that keeps the focus on real-life practice, not theory alone. Gareth on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garethkthomas/ Gareth's website: https://garethkthomas.com/ https://www.clrfd.com/48/ Gareth's forthcoming book https://a-z-book.com/
Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
In this episode, we speak with Maddy McCormack, a social worker early in her career, about the realities of stepping into practice with children and families. Maddy reflects on her route into the role, what day-to-day social work actually looks like, and what she’s had to learn beyond training to be effective in her first year. We explore how she builds relationships with young people and their families, especially in contexts of risk, conflict, and uncertainty. She speaks candidly about the emotional demands of the work — including doubt, moral distress, and the cases that stay with you — and how this can shape thinking and practice under pressure. We also discuss what helps her stay relational when things are tough, what sustains her in the role, and the moments that remind her why the work matters. An honest conversation about learning on the job, staying human, and the emotional weight of social work. Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
In this episode, we sit down with Sharon Shoesmith to revisit one of the most defining and contentious moments in modern child protection: the case of Baby P, and the national reaction that followed. Sharon reflects candidly on what it meant to become the focus of public anger—labelled, scrutinised, and ultimately removed from her role—despite leading a service that had been judged as “good” by Ofsted. We explore the personal toll of that experience and the powerful social and political forces that demand accountability in the wake of tragedy. Drawing on psychoanalytic and social theory, the conversation moves beyond headlines to examine how society processes—and often avoids—the reality of harm to children. We discuss the idea of social workers as “containers” for collective anxiety, the “pain of knowing” about abuse, and why narratives of professional failure can feel easier to accept than confronting human cruelty within families. We also interrogate the enduring legacy of the Baby P case: the rise of “never event” thinking, the political promise of certainty, and how fear has shaped systems that prioritise compliance over meaningful risk management. Along the way, Sharon challenges assumptions about gender and harm, reflects on what remains unlearned, and offers a clear-eyed perspective on leadership in conditions defined by uncertainty. This is a thoughtful, at times uncomfortable conversation about blame, denial, grief, and what it really means to safeguard children in a complex world. Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
In this episode of the Messy Social Work podcast , we begin with a conversation with Natasha Dube, before Rich and Tim discuss Liz Bosanquet’s new book, Systemic Social Work Practice. The discussion explores how systemic ideas can move beyond theory and into everyday practice, helping practitioners think relationally about families, organisations and the wider systems shaping people’s lives. A conversation about curiosity, context, relationships and what systemic practice looks like in the reality of social work. Link to Book https://uk.jkp.com/products/systemic-social-work-practice Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
In this second bonus episode, Rich, Tim and Charlotte build directly on Part 1, turning their attention to the four remaining ideas from Rich’s blog on resilience in social work and exploring how these play out in practice. The conversation moves beyond individual productivity and into the ethical and emotional costs of working under sustained pressure. Drawing on Vikki Reynolds’ work, the episode explores burnout not as a personal failing, but as a response to spiritual pain, moral distress and ethical trespassing – the harm that occurs when social workers are repeatedly required to act against their values within constrained systems. Together, they reflect on how time pressure, risk management and organisational demands can quietly erode meaning, solidarity and hope, and why self‑care alone is never enough. Instead, the focus shifts to collective ethics, justice‑doing, and mutual accountability, asking what helps social workers remain human, connected and sustainable in the work. The episode closes with a reframing of resilience – not as coping better alone, but as finding ways to work in solidarity, uphold shared values, and resist the pull towards isolation, cynicism or burnout in systems that are often set up to make ethical practice hard. Vicki Reynolds: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Justice-Doing-Intersections-Power-Vikki-Reynolds/dp/0648154521/ref=asc_df_0648154521?mcid=4f50e58863e23cc9bff9cd708bb93084&th=1&psc=1&tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=697323391178&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=3967307359554161200&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=1006502&hvtargid=pla-716807874168&psc=1&hvocijid=3967307359554161200-0648154521-&hvexpln=0&gad_source=1 Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
This episode explores time management as both a practical challenge and a lived experience in social work. Rich shares techniques such as Stephen Covey’s urgent and important quadrants, Cal Newport’s time blocking and the difference between deep and shallow work, while also being honest about how difficult these are to sustain in real practice. The conversation moves into presence, stress and pragmatism, recognising that social workers are often pulled between statutory timelines, emotional labour, family needs and constant interruptions. Tim brings in Barbara Adam’s work on time and temporality, alongside Shakespeare’s “time is out of joint”, to describe how stress can alter our experience of time. The episode ends with the idea that time management is not only about productivity, but about how we remain present, realistic and human in demanding systems. Drawing Futures Barbara Adam and Seth Oliver https://graffeg.com/products/drawing-futures?srsltid=AfmBOorYwNJGBZKMmdWO1VEy2_b7YP2ZiTSzlXNqHfxBM8byjHNQAJVb ............... Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
This bonus episode picks up where the previous conversation left off. Rich and Tim return to six years of journals to explore the next three themes that emerged — the ones that didn’t fit neatly, resolve cleanly, or offer easy lessons. They begin with work and purpose , tracing how Rich’s journals reveal a constant back‑and‑forth: ambition and exhaustion, pride and resentment, meaning and burnout. They talk about the pressure to have impact, the cost of carrying work into every corner of life, and what it’s like to slowly admit that a role you can do well may no longer be one you want — or can — sustain. The conversation then shifts to habits, routines, and distraction . Rich reflects on years spent building systems to hold himself together — morning routines, fasting windows, time‑blocking, strict rules around focus — and how fragile those systems were in the face of poor sleep, stress, or emotional overload. Together they explore the pull of distraction, the fantasy that the “right” routine will finally work, and the fatigue that comes from constantly trying to out‑discipline your own mind. Finally, they turn to gratitude and meaning , and the complicated way both appear in the journals. Rather than gratitude as calm or resolved, Rich describes it as something tangled up with anxiety, guilt, fear of time passing, and the effort to notice life while struggling inside it. They talk about how meaning shows up not as insight or philosophy, but in ordinary, fleeting moments — often noticed only because they feel at risk of being lost. As with the first episode, this isn’t a story about transformation or self‑improvement. It’s about repetition, negotiation, softening, and the slow realism that comes from paying attention over time. A conversation about work that matters and costs something, habits that don’t hold, gratitude that isn’t peaceful, and the ongoing effort to live alongside yourself rather than fix yourself. Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
In this episode, Rich and Tim sit down with six years of personal journals and ask a simple but uncomfortable question: what actually changed? They focus on the first three themes that stood out when Rich reread everything back. First, Rich reflects on the long arc of his mental health — how early journal entries framed exhaustion, irritability and low mood as problems of discipline, productivity, or personal failure, and how long it took before he had the language to name depression honestly. They talk about what it’s like to believe gratitude should cancel out sadness, and how learning to recognise patterns didn’t remove the cycles, but did change Rich’s relationship with them. Second, they explore the gradual shift toward meditation and presence . Not as a neat self‑improvement story, but as something that moved from a ten‑minute experiment to a genuine anchor during darker periods. Rich talks about letting go of meditation as something to “get right”, the impact of retreat, and how presence started showing up in ordinary moments rather than on the cushion. Third, the conversation turns to the body — food, exercise, fasting, running — and the years spent negotiating, arguing, and struggling for control. Rich shares what the journals reveal about shame, compulsion, relief, pride, and how physical routines were often attempts to regulate much deeper emotional states. They reflect on what softened over time, even when the patterns themselves didn’t disappear. This isn’t an episode about fixing yourself, forming perfect habits, or finding a breakthrough. It’s about noticing repetition, learning the difference between control and acceptance, and what six years of writing things down can teach you about how you actually live with yourself. The Interlacement of Violence: Three Temporalities of Violence in Everyday Life https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00380385251343490 Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
In this episode of Messy Social Work , Rich and Tim are joined by therapist and writer Jamie Crabb to explore his powerful article Care, and Being Seen in the Presence of the Enigmatic . Jamie reflects on what care really asks of us when things don’t make sense—when distress can’t be easily named, understood, or fixed. Drawing on his own experience of the care system, his therapeutic work, and psychoanalytic ideas, we talk about what it means to be “seen” when what is being communicated is embodied, relational, and often uncomfortable. The conversation moves through themes of care that falters, the temptation to explain or tidy away distress, and the quieter, harder work of staying present. We discuss how experiences that are not held can travel across time, how care messages land in the body, and why being seen is never neutral. This is an episode about resisting quick interpretations, tolerating uncertainty, and thinking more honestly about care as something felt between people rather than delivered through technique. As ever, it’s messy, thoughtful, and rooted in real lives rather than neat answers. Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
Janet Kay is a prominent kinship carer, trustee for the charity Kinship , and OBE recipient who advocates for families in England raising relatives' children. Based in Sheffield, she has cared for her grandson since he was 18 months old, advocating for better financial and practical support, and overcoming the "dump and run" lack of resources for caregivers. Key Aspects of Janet Kay's Work and Experience: Advocacy: She serves on the Independent Review of Children's Social Care's Experts by Experience Board and works to raise awareness of the 200,000+ children in kinship care. Background: Formerly a social worker and lecturer, she retired early to care for her grandson. Support & Recognition: She highlights the urgent need for legal, financial, and emotional support for kinship carers, who often face "invisible" challenges and limited resources. Campaigning: She works with the charity Kinship to support carers and helps set up local peer support groups in Sheffield. Honours: She was awarded an OBE in the New Year's Honours for her services to kinship care . Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
Professor Jonathan Scourfield is a leading UK academic in social work, currently based at Cardiff University. His work spans child welfare, social care inequalities, suicide and self‑harm research, and working with men across the life course This one https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=6079816 tests if participation quality (i.e., how well families said their voice was heard) was linked to outcomes and finds that yes it was, though not for all outcomes we measured. This paper https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/s7f8g_v1 compares FGCs at three stages of the child welfare process and finds no differences among them, which is good news for promoting their use more broadly, not just for families with a child protection plan or in pre-proceedings. (the proviso being that not all outcomes improve after FGCs, but you wouldn’t really expect them to). Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/
A few years ago, Rich carried out an assessment that concluded Juliette couldn’t safely care for her children. It was a difficult moment, shaped by years of substance misuse, trauma, and repeated involvement from services. That assessment recommended residential rehabilitation. Juliette went on to take that step. In this conversation, Rich and Tim speak with Juliette about what was happening in her life at the time, why previous support hadn’t led to lasting change, and what was different about rehab. She shares openly about addiction, domestic abuse, and the reality of trying to rebuild a life. Today, Juliette is clean, sober, and her children are back in her care. This episode is about what can happen after the assessment — and what it really takes for change to occur. Relational Activism: https://www.relationalactivism.com/ Rich's BASW Child Protection sessions: https://basw.co.uk/social-work-child-protection-professional-practice-programme Rich Devine's blog: https://richarddevinesocialwork.com/about/ Tim Fisher LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timfisher101/