My life, my records: Child-centred social care record keeping and access

Essex County Council and University College London are thrilled to invite you to the My life, my records: Child-centred social care record keeping and access conference on Thursday 10th April 2025. The day will be driven by research, practice and will offer a day for learning and reflection.

Keynote speeches will be delivered by Essex Children in Care Council (Missing Chapters Peer Led Research), MIRRA (University College London), Copenhagen University College and Doctor Joanne Evans, Monash University, Australia.

Delegates will have the opportunity to attend two workshops of your choice throughout the day.

The workshops on offer are:

Involving children in good record keeping

This interactive workshop, led by young people with lived experience of care, offers a powerful perspective on social care recording. Participants will gain insight into the relationships young people have with their records and the impact of language used in these documents. Young people will emphasise the critical role that understanding one’s care journey plays in building a sense of identity and belonging. Through open discussions and activities, participants will learn how to support children in care make sense of their past, understand their present and plan for their future. The workshop aims to foster empathy in practice and empower children in care to better understand their care journey.

Delivered by: Essex Children in Care Council supported by the Involvement Service, Essex County Council

Trauma-informed and person centred record keeping frameworks

This workshop will broadly introduce approaches to trauma-informed record keeping before focusing on the person-centred record keeping framework developed through the MIRRA project which centre the needs of the person in care. Participants will be encouraged to think through the applicability of the framework in their specific working contexts identifying benefits and challenges to implementation.

Delivered by: MIRRA Project, UCL Department of Information Studies - Anna Sexton and Elizabeth Lomas

Supported reading of case records

In search for answers or in an attempt to create a coherent life story, the so-called case records, often play an important role for care leavers as “keys to the past”. But reading the records alone, can potentially result in overwhelming emotions of grief, lack of control and ultimately create some degree of re-traumatization.

In this workshop, led by Danish Care Leavers and curators from the Danish Welfare Museum, we will focus on the importance of support during the actually reading of documents and in the subsequent processing of the past, as a way of minimizing the negative impact for care leavers.

Participants will gain insight into the “Danish model”, which focus on supporting care leavers’ own agency, individual reading of case records, and the importance of processing and reclaiming the past.

Through open discussions and activities, we will explore and discuss key element in a good practice that transcend national differences.

Delivered by: The Association of Children placed in care and care-leavers - TABUKA - Bente Nielsen, Denmark.

The Foster Care Children’s Union - De Anbragtes Vilkår - Helga Nielsen, Denmark

The Danish Welfare Museum - Danmarks Forsorgsmuseum - Jacob Knage Rasmussen & Sarah Smed, Denmark

International legal perspectives

In this workshop, we will closely examine the legal challenges that exists for people in care or with care experience in accessing their records. How these requests are managed varies across jurisdictions, authorities, institutions, and practitioners. These differences arise from variations in the legal framework, organisational practices, and individual approaches. We will focus on:

• Access and retention

• Redaction and third-party information

• Support for younger and older cohorts

• How care-experienced people are written about

We will explore positive and negative experiences and examples, aiming to identify clear recommendations for regulators, decision-makers, and practitioners.

Delivered by: Augusta Itua and Idamarie Leth Svendsen

Supporting access to care records

Here, staff and/or volunteers from The Care Leavers Association will be outlining their experience of providing advice and support to fellow care leavers of all ages who are seeking to access their care records. As well as outlining the issues experienced, we will also be explaining the value of such advice and support being delivered by fellow care leavers who have already accessed their files or, at the very least, understand from personal experience the significance of these documents.

Delivered by: The Care Leavers Association UK - Staff and/or volunteers

Developing social workers practice in good record creation

In Denmark, we have developed 9 record creation principles following qualitative research with care leavers and social workers. They are used as guiding principles for developing social work and other professionals’ practice in creating records. Young care experienced people have contributed to developing the expertise of professionals in municipalities (local authorities) and reminding professionals that records may be read by children in care or leaving care.

This workshop sheds light on some of the ways social workers can reframe language in record creation, such as by writing to the child, instead of writing about the child and will explore some of the dilemmas social workers encounter when creating records.

Delivered by: Copenhagen University College and DAV

Anne Homann Bjerregaard, Fransika Mannerup, chairperson from DAV, Idamarie Leth Svendsen and Mette Larsen

Workshops are allocated on a first come first served basis so book your ticket today to secure your workshops of choice!

Lunch and refreshments will be provided throughout the day.

This event is open to:

· Care experienced people

· Social care professionals (social workers, team managers, service managers and directors)

· Social work system commissioners and developers

· Policy makers in the Department for Education and Ofsted

· Data protection, information access and records management professionals

· Third sector organisations