The ‘Doing What Counts, Measuring What Matters’ Innovation Project was a Department for Education funded joint initiative between the London Borough of Islington and University of Bedfordshire.  The systemic change programme was rolled out in Stages I & II. As senior project manager, I took a strategic lead in the development and implementation of the programme directly supervising the project team and coordinating with the University of Bedfordshire Research Team, Steering Group, IT Consultant, Working Group, and Training Team, as well as delivering training and workshops.

The project focused on the following workstreams:

• Motivational Practice model: Activity in this project stream included:

  • Developing and embedding Motivational Practice, an evidence-informed, goal-based model of social work practice.

  • Developed the skills and knowledge of social work staff through the design and delivery of 1500+ training days and workshops.

• Multi-Disciplinary support: A Multi-disciplinary team was established to ensure children and families got the ‘right support, at the right time’. The team incorporated family support, child & adult psychology and psychiatry.

• Measuring the things that matter: in partnership with the University of Bedfordshire Research Team we developed and implemented systems to measure the quality, impact and experience of service delivery, practice and supervision.

• Recruiting the 'right' people: the Motivational Practice recruitment protocol was developed and implemented to optimize the recruitment of social workers that demonstrated key social work behaviours, such as empathy and autonomy.

• Creating the conditions to practice: this element of the project focused on the organisational factors that enable and disable practice, including supervision, leadership, and streamlining bureaucracy. In collaboration with the University of Bedfordshire we developed a model of reflective supervision and identified key ingredients for effective social work supervision and leadership.