‘Step by step, side by side’: the quest to create relational artistry through systemic practice within children’s social care

Abstract

This paper describes a quest towards relational artistry in the development of a systemic training programme in social care. As part of tiered delivery addressing staff at different levels in the workforce a systemic group supervision process was introduced, adapted from Proctor’s (1997) ‘Bells that Ring’ model. The paper describes the adaptation and delivery of the model through live supervision of senior practitioners by Systemic Mentors working in situ alongside the supervision groups. The project expanded in response to feedback leading to further initiatives to embed systemic ideas. These included a ‘systemic rucksack’ containing sets of cards to guide the supervision process. ‘Systemic champions’ went on to co‐produce and deliver workshops on key concepts for the whole workforce and to engage frontline workers and families in creating the next steps in the project.Practitioner Points Going step by step, taking a participative action learning approach to training in social care can maximise the potential effectiveness of training and help to embed systemic practice throughout the workforce Getting alongside staff through live mentoring, using relational artistry, can enhance participation and learning in systemic group supervision Relational Artistry can be described as a creative process of navigating through positioning and re‐positioning in the relational responsive flow of dialogue A Systemic Rucksack, including a collection of cards describing systemic concepts and roles in the systemic group supervision process can enhance theory/practice links and trigger reflexivity