ticking the boxes and oppresive practice.

Now I have noted a few things about how things are very often measure driven and not based on any quality.

And here we have a paramount example.

It has come to pass that number one son has missed a bit of school. All for reasons agreed with school in advance, sanctioned appropriately and so on.

So I was a bit puzzled yesterday to get a letter from the school attendance lady saying that Tallie had been absent from school rather a lot.

Now, this was news to me so I duly got myself into school to find out what was going on, of course it was blank faces all round, no one knew anything. So this was one the "pupil support officer" had come up with all by herself.

Now it seems that she has decided that when attendance drops to 80% she automatically sends out a letter. This is not about quality intervention, nor is it about effective measures, it is no reflection of best practice nope it's about having a box and putting a great big tick in it.

Now, management is a big believer in prompt reply to correspondence and she is working on something which will definitely be a tick in her "sent a reply" box.

It will defiantly represent best practice, it will doubtless be an effective measure and it will ooze quality from every carefully crafted word....

But of course there is more, for some time now management has been off doing forestry management on a Wednesday. Since that became apparent the children's SW's have always made arrangements for meetings on other days of the week. It's difficult for them but they do it.

The fostering service though are different, You see their link worker LIKES to do her work on a Wednesday, and of course because she PREFERS to work a Wednesday and CHOOSES to work a Wednesday. Then management has to miss her work because of course the social worker is more important and we have to do as we are bid and fit in around her.

Now it turns out there is no real reason why this should be so something we quickly determined when we queried the constancy of Wednesday meetings.

But of course there is more, you see she also likes to get her phone calls done at the end of the afternoon. Between about 3.30 and 4.30 to be precise, anyone with children in school will be out. Of course should she catch us in she will catch us at a time we are generally in a rush or when we cannot really talk because there are lots of little ears earwigging.

All these are matters we have raised before and had agreement from SW management that there will be no further Wednesday meetings and phone calls will be at times we are likely to be free.

So anyway, today being Wednesday and management not being supposed to be here at exactly 3.45 the phone rang and it was....

But there was more, she wanted to arrange a visit for 11 AM next errr Wednesday.

She knew management should not have been here today and that we would be busy if she called at 3 45 and that next Wednesday management would only be here if she canceled her day at work in the forestry.

Personally I have been here before, with a manager that completely rescheduled everything so that things I had prearranged would fall on days I was tasked to do something with work.

It's called low level harassment or in current social work speak; oppressive practice.

So we are drafting up a little letter for her as well and yes it will represent best practice, though probably not be effective and there will be quality in every carefully crafted and selected word....