Stephen B.

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

ABOUT STEPHEN B.

I’m a social worker and practice development lead with over 25 years’ experience across children’s services in Canada and England, working in youth work, child protection, youth justice, domestic abuse and children in care. I’ve held roles from frontline practitioner and advanced social worker through to practice manager, consultant, trainer and trustee, which means I’ve written the assessments, court reports and care plans, chaired the meetings, conducted the audits, and sat with the children and families those documents are about.A big part of the latter part of my career has been workforce and practice development. I’ve designed and delivered a variety of training (assessment and analysis, chronology, trauma, neglect and strength-based practice) to multi-agency practitioners; supported local authorities and youth justice services to embed practice models; and led quality assurance, practice standards and model implementation work across social care, youth justice, early help. I draw on specialist training in traumatic stress, domestic abuse, healing-centred engagement and resilience.I’m particularly interested in how language, risk thinking and organisational culture shape what counts as “help” in systems under pressure from austerity, performance targets and risk management. My approach is relational, trauma-responsive and strength-based, but also honest about the structural constraints practitioners, young people and families are working within. I try to create spaces, through training, consultation, and writing, where practitioners can think critically and still feel supported to do the work in front of them.Right now, I- Develop and deliver bespoke training and practice development programmes for children’s services, youth justice, education and multi-agency partnerships- Support organisations with practice frameworks, quality assurance, reflective supervision and service improvement around domestic abuse, trauma and complex safeguarding- Write about practice language, trauma and the political economy of children’s services on Substack and speak with teams about these themes. I publish longer essays here: https://stephenbrock.substack.com If you’re interested in training, practice development support, or bringing some of this thinking into your service or partnership, feel free to connect here or message me to start a conversation.