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Contents

1. Principles Underpinning the Transfer of Cases
2. Case Transfer Standards
3. Transfer Meeting
4. Emergency Transfer Standards
5. Handover of Management Responsibility from one Team Leader to Another

1. Principles Underpinning the Transfer of Cases

• Children and their families should experience the minimum number of transitions in receiving our services;
• Wherever possible cases should follow the same case-worker to ensure the maximum continuity;
• Where the transfer of existing cases to new workers is unavoidable, the children and families must be given the maximum information about impending changes, at the earliest possible opportunity;
• In most cases in sibling groups, the children will have the same social worker, unless it can be demonstrated that this is not in the child's best interest;
• The siblings of a child who becomes looked after may be allocated the same social worker, even if the other children are not looked after themselves; however there will be circumstances that this is not appropriate.

2. Case Transfer Standards

The following tasks should be updated and/or completed prior to transfer:

• Chronology must be up to date;
• Case notes must be complete, up to date and finalised;
• Any open assessment should be completed;
• Record of case management decisions and supervisions;
• Agreed relevant outstanding tasks in EIS ‘to-do’ list;
• Before transferring, the case should be quality assured and signed off by the transferring team leader to ensure all outstanding work has been completed.

3. Transfer Meeting

When a decision has been reached to reallocate a child or children to a new social worker, for sound case planning reasons or because the original social worker is leaving the service, then it is imperative that a handover meeting takes place with the current social worker and team leader and the newly allocated social worker and their team leader.

• This meeting should identify any outstanding work to be completed by the current social worker or passed on to the new social worker and be briefly recorded on the child’s file on EIS;
• Where there is agreement to change social worker this must be planned carefully;
• There is an expectation that the current social worker will introduce the new social worker to the family during a home visit and have a period of transition concluding with a meeting (TAC/core group etc). This will ensure a smooth transition;
• The previous social worker will be available to offer advice and support to the new social worker as needed. 

4. Emergency Transfer Standards

• When reallocation is required and none of the above planning can take place, the reallocating team leader should look to reallocate within their own team and ensure that there is a clear recording on the case file to indicate why no handover could take place and the remedial action that is planned or in place to ensure continuity of service provision and relationships;
• For example the team leader may decide to call a TAC meeting, core group meeting etc. and attend/chair to hand over to the new social worker, or may arrange for a known member of the existing team around the child or family to introduce the new social worker;
• Sensitivity should always be applied when historic/existing relationships are fractured unexpectedly. 

5. Handover of Management Responsibility from one Team Leader to Another

• There must always be a 3-way meeting between the outgoing team leader and the new team leader when a social worker moves teams or a team leader leaves the role or authority. This meeting should ideally take place 2-4 weeks prior to the transfer of management responsibilities;
• This meeting should be fully recorded with the social workers supervision notes on EIS
• At this meeting the team leaders and social worker should discuss all cases open to the social worker. The new team leader should be satisfied that they understand the decisions that have been made and that these are available to him/her on the case file and in the social workers supervision notes;
• The social worker and outgoing team leader should advise the new team leader of any other responsibilities that the social worker has, i.e. link school, student placements and any outstanding or forth coming training;
• The social workers up to date PDR should be made available;
• The social worker and out-going team leader should advise the new team leader of any capability or HR issues;
• If there are any issues that cannot be resolved between the team leaders then the locality leader for both team leaders should be advised and a 4-way meeting held between the team leaders and the locality leaders.

End