Services

Martin C Calder offers the following range of services through his Training and Consultancy Service:

• Child Protection and Risk Assessment Training
• Analysis in children's services record keeping
• Intra-familial sexual abuse training
• Parent and child assessment training
• Supervision, consultation & wrap around support
• Podcasts and Practice Guidance
• Advisor on strategic developments
• Independent Research
• Chairing Training
• Serious case Reviews, Near Misses, File Audits and Expert Reports
• Assessment Frameworks developed for Frontline Practice
• Leadership and management training for senior and principal practitioners, newly appointed and experienced first line managers
• Suite Of Practice Guidence

Child protection & risk assessment training

I am able to offer individually tailored packages although below are some examples of frequently commissioned courses:

• Risk Assessment
• Pre-birth assessment
• Sexual abuse risk assessment
• Young people who sexually abuse
• Children with sexual behaviour problems
• Parenting assessments
• Parents with mental health problems and child protection
• Parents with dual problems and child protection
• Parents with a learning disability and child protection
• Self-harming behaviour
• Substance misusing parents
• Mothers of sexually abused children
• Mothers living with domestic violence
• Assessing adult male and female sex offenders
• Understanding the impact of sexual abuse
• Internet sexual abuse
• Assessment of unborn children
• Safeguarding/Child Protection

1. Introductory
2. Intermediary
3. AdvancedWok906584

• Assessing and managing domestic violence
• Building and sustaining resilience
• Assessing and managing allegations against professionals
• Core group practice
• Charing child protection conferences
• Assessing and managing neglect
• Assessing and managing emotional abuse
• Assessment of kinship carers
• Professional and organisational dangerousness
• Messages for Managers: Supervising complex cases
• Assessment and analysis
• Professional judgment in social care assessments
• Young people who perpetrate domestic violence
• Assessment and intervention with violence in adolescent peer relationships
• Self-harm by young people: causation, consequences & correctives
• Suicidal young people: a framework for understanding & risk assessment
• Working with resistant and hostile families
• Difficult & dangerous clients: theory, research & practice considerations
• Neglect – A 5-day training programme
• Managing People who present a sexual risk to children (PPRTC)
• Sex offending in specific populations
• Chairperson skill development
• Multi-agency assessment practice
• Safeguarding 14-18 year old young people

I can also develop new courses or tailor existing ones to suit the individual requirements of the commissioning agency or authority.

Supervision, Consultation & Wrap-Around Support

Martin has extensive experience of providing supervision as well as consultation to a wide range of staff. He has also been trained to maximise personal as well as task-orientated goals and he sees this as essential in the current stressful role many staff work within.

Martin currently provides professional supervision for staff working with children and young people who sexually abuse, children who are sexually exploited, children missing from home and children exposed to domestic violence in the home, given his expertise in these areas.

He has also provided group supervision to health staff in the child protection arena to furnish them with up-to-date information as well as support.

I have been introducing an agreed package of wrap around support to workers following on from any commissioned risk assessment training with the aim of providing them with subsequent sessions for reflecting on the materials and examining how they could best be applied. Several themes continuously emerge including:

• The fact that staff bring cases that they wanted to apply the frameworks received in training was useful
• Many examine whether they had selected the right tool to the task and if so undertaken the assessment appropriately
• Many cases may well fall outside the training provided but we examine a number of tools that better match the issues raised in the cases
• Some staff feel anxious as to whether they had understood the concepts and frameworks correctly and so this provides opportunities for refresher, reflection and application in safe environments
• Other staff attend the sessions even though they may not have attended the training as they are keen to get to grips with what others were talking about
• Some complex cases are in the legal process with no consensus of assessment or future plans so they want to test that the local authority position is sound and used as a platform for challenging others

In some areas the idea of wrap around support to embed the training has extended to the notion of GP surgeries – providing an opportunity for social workers with their team managers to bring individual cases that are complex and where practitioners are finding it difficult in progressing assessments and plans of intervention.

Advisor on Strategic Developments

Martin has spent periods of time seconded into posts to introduce thresholds for service provision, lead on the implementation of the Assessment Framework, introduce family support systems, and locate multi-disciplinary teams within the ever-changing structures. He has acted as an external consultant and trainer to several local authorities introducing the Assessment Framework. Martin is also advising on the introduction of a unified assessment framework in Scotland and UNOCINI in Northern Ireland. 

Martin has extensive experience of writing detailed practice guidance to support existing procedures and operational systems and these include sexual and physical abuse and neglect; domestic violence; parenting; kinship care; as well as a great deal of recent work around professional and organisational dangerousness. These are available for purchase and they are licensed for use on the intranet in the purchasing authority (see suite of practice guidance pdf).

He is also working to ensure that operational IT developments are supported strategically to ensure the focus remains on the children within the family as well as system output compliance.

Martin has written the national training programme on neglect and emotional abuse for CAFCASS and been instrumental in the commissioning of a pioneering assessment tool for CAFCASS Cymru focusing on children living with inter-parental conflict (Harold and Shelton, 2008).

Independent Research

Martin is proud of his links with many academics and academic institutions and is able to draw on a range of contacts to assist in the conduct of independent research. This can range from viability or scoping exercises for possible service developments (locating family support or family group conferences within the service delivery system), the evaluation of projects or systems against projected outcomes, as well as reviewing the available research to inform practice, procedure or wider system developments.

Martin has been conducting an independent evaluation of the DVRAM across Northern Ireland 2007-9 that has also contributed to its extension, development and recent export in amended form to the All London Safeguarding Board area where he evaluated a multi-site evaluation. 

Martin is currently conducting an evaluation of materials that can enhance the engagement of domestic violence perpetrators in the assessment process and is part of a DAPHNE-funding bid to evaluate domestic violence assessment tools in several European countries.
Chairing Training

Martin has extensive and very recent experience of chairing a wide range of child protection and domestic violence meetings. He has translated this experience into the production of widely cited briefing paper on chairing child protection conferences (CareKnowledge Briefing,2004) and a training programme that is practical, grounded in the latest theory of groups, and applicable to a wide inter-agency audience.

Martin has also researched and written extensively around core groups and the issue of who is responsible for chairing them repeatedly arises. Martin is able to equip staff from all agencies to have the confidence and skills to chair formal meetings. Martin has developed a training programme to address these issues.

Several recent commissions have undertaken audits of practice knowledge and skills for staff undertaking this important role and developmental work to redress any gaps undertaken.

Serious Case Reviews, Near Misses, File Audits & Expert Reports

Martin has significant experience of serious case reviews. He is able to act as an independent chair as well as producing detailed practical overview reports, management reviews and interagency chronologies that link the theory, practice and research. Martin is able to communicate well with personnel across all agencies and work within the required timescales. Martin has also built up considerable experience undertaking reviews of cases where there has been a 'near miss' and in many circumstances providing reports commissioned within proceedings where file audits to examine poor decision-making have been court-directed.

Martin is evolving a system of collaborative independent assessments where he links experts with social care staff to undertake the assessments in a way that maximises the confidence and skill development of staff whilst delivering quality reports to secure the essential outcomes for the children involved (CIAP paper).

Assessment Frameworks developed for frontline practice

Calder M (2006) The silent minority: Domestic abuse perpetrated within ethnic communities: A review of the literature with recommendations for risk assessment. Leigh: Calder Training and Consultancy
Calder MC (2007) Domestic violence by young people: Towards an evidence-based framework for assessment and intervention. . Leigh: Calder Training and Consultancy
Calder MC (2008) A framework for conducting pre birth risk assessments. Leigh: Calder Training and Consultancy
Calder MC (2008) Young people who self harm: a framework for risk assessment, analysis and intervention. Leigh: Calder Training and Consultancy
Calder MC (2008) Suicidal young people: A framework for understanding and risk assessment. Leigh: Calder Training and Consultancy
Calder MC (2009) Risk assessment Framework. Leigh: Calder Training and Consultancy
Calder MC (2009) Internet sexual crimes: developing effective evidence-based responses. Leigh: Calder Training and Consultancy
Calder MC (2009) Working with involuntary clients: causation and assessment considerations. Leigh: Calder Training and Consultancy
Calder MC (2012) Intervention with young people who are violent. Leigh: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited
Calder MC & Bore S (2012) Assessment Practice Guidance for young people who present with sexually harmful or concerning behaviour. Leigh: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited
Calder MC (2012) Assessment of children with sexual behaviour problems. Leigh: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited
Calder MC (2012) Young people presenting with substance misuse problems. Leigh: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited
Calder MC (2012) Differentiating between normal & harmful sexual behaviour. Leigh: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited
Calder MC (2012) Treatment practice guidance for young people who present with sexually harmful or concerning behaviour. Leigh: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited
Calder MC (2012) Working with young people presenting with sexually harmful behaviour manual. Leigh: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited
Calder MC (2013) Treatment for children presenting with sexual behaviour problems. Leigh: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited
Calder MC (2015) Early Assessment of risk & need: supporting assessment guidance. Leigh: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited
Calder MC (2015) Threshold Matrix. Leigh: Calder Training & Consultancy LimitedCalder MC (2017) Adolescent resilience-vulnerability matrices. Leigh: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited
Calder MC (2017) Permanency risk and protective indicators. Leigh: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited
Calder MC (2019) Resilience-vulnerability practice guidance. Lowton: Calder Training and Consultancy Limited & Plymouth County Council
Calder MC (2020) Contemporary Risk Assessment Framework & Template. Lowton: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited
Calder MC (2020) Podcasts and practice guidance: An educative operational guide for frontline social workers (see pdf for details)
Calder MC (2021) Connected Person Assessment Template. Lowton: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited
Calder MC (2021) All things adolescent: A guidebook for professionals. Lowton: Calder Training & Consultancy Limited (see pdf for details)

Leadership & management training for senior - principal practitioners, newly appointed & experienced first line managers

We have been commissioned to develop and deliver a variety of training programmes for first line managers – to ensure they have the opportunity to keep abreast of the latest evidence-based materials that their frontline staff may be using, to develop peer support groups, to examine how to make their expanding roles & responsibilities more manageable, to examine how to work with increasingly complex cases and multi-disciplinary teams. Staff have thoroughly enjoyed the time to reflect on the way they practice and what they know and see this as a positive reflection of their organisations commitment to their value.

Work successfully undertaken for many organisations, local authorities and safeguarding boards, including