Terms of Reference

CFAB External Evaluation of Social Work Service 2019-2021

October 2021

Terms of Reference (ToR)

CFAB External Evaluation of Social Work Service

Contents
Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1
Objectives ..................................................................................................................................... 1
Evaluation questions ..................................................................................................................... 2
Context – key issues ...................................................................................................................... 2
Staff and management changes: .............................................................................................. 2
Impact of pandemic .................................................................................................................. 3
Core services ................................................................................................................................. 4
Advice line: ................................................................................................................................ 4
Casework:.................................................................................................................................. 4
Training delivery: ...................................................................................................................... 5
CFAB’s impact on good outcomes for children ............................................................................. 6
Quality of service and the International Social Service ................................................................ 6
Methodology................................................................................................................................. 7
Audit Case Sampling ................................................................................................................. 7
Expertise of the evaluator............................................................................................................. 8
Reporting ...................................................................................................................................... 8
Workplan....................................................................................................................................... 9
Other support ............................................................................................................................... 9

Introduction
This ToR sets out the scope and specifications for the external evaluation of CFAB’s inter-country
social work services.

Previous external audits of CFAB’s inter-country social work services were completed in 2010
and 2013 (report completed in 2014) and 2018 by an Independent Social Work External
Evaluator. The last evaluation recommended the evaluation every two years, and hence this ToR
was devised with a view to commissioning an external evaluation in 2019-2021.

Objectives
Whilst the findings of the evaluation may be presented externally, the evaluation is intended
first and foremost to be a tool for the CFAB team and Trustees to inform on-going practice and

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the strategic development of CFAB. The specific objectives of the evaluation are to evaluate if
CFAB is offering a good quality service that:
 is compliant with legislation, guidance and good practice
 adheres to social work values
 contributes to positive outcomes for children

Proposal for the 2019/2020 evaluation will identify strengths and weaknesses in CFAB’s social
work casework, measuring against the recommendations from the last evaluation completed in
2018 and make suggestions to further improve the service where needed.

Since the period subject to this external evaluation includes a unique circumstance of social
work under the unprecedented crisis facing the global pandemics, this is also a good opportunity
to reflect and assess how CFAB Social Work Team has handled and managed the impact of the
Pandemics. Furthermore, evaluation is also expected to measure how we met the three CFAB’s
overall organisational strategic goals.

Evaluation questions
The key questions which should be addressed in the external evaluation are:
1. Does CFAB adhere to social work values, legislation, guidance, and good practice?
2. What are the strengths and weaknesses of CFAB’s inter-country casework? These
should relate to:
a. The quality of service *see note below on quality of service
b. Staff structure and team-working (i.e. make-up of caseworkers and social
workers, line-management, and staff roles) and expertise
c. Case management procedures e.g. Service standards, allocations, referrals,
recording, closures
d. Capacity development including supervision, professional development plans
and trainings
3. Does CFAB’s involvement have a positive impact on the outcomes for the child and/or
on the resolution of the case? What was CFAB’s added value?
4. Are there ways in which CFAB could have done more for the efficient resolution of the
case?
5. What are the key challenges and risks that the casework service faces? How can the
organisation mitigate these challenges and risks in the future?
6. How has the CFAB Social Work Team delivered against CFAB’s organisational strategy
and mission that have impact on our casework delivery?
7. How do you evaluate CFAB’s handling of crisis facing the global pandemics which has
affected not only CFAB’s immediate operation but also roles and functions of worldwide
social work?

Context – key issues

The following issues should be taken into consideration for the evaluation:

Staff and management changes:

Since the last external evaluation in 2018, Social Work Team has retained majority of dedicated
and knowledgeable social workers, but also have worked to reduced team capacity reflecting

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reduced number of case referrals and CFAB’s budget constraint as a whole. Social Work Team
structure has experienced a few changes since the last evaluation in 2018, as follows;
 At the time of the previous evaluation, we were the team consisting of 4 (3FTE including
2 part-time) social workers and 3 case workers.
 Halfway through 2019 until April 2020, it has reduced to 3 (2.5FTE including 1 part-time)
social workers and 2 case workers. This includes a post which have split roles for
casework and training & membership management.
 Currently (since April 2021, as of 15.09.2021) 4 social workers (3 FTE including 2 part-
time) and 2 case workers (both newly recruited in June & July 2021, one of them on 6
months contract). 1 fulltime social worker on 6 month contract is due to start in October
2021.

All the while, Social Work Team has been under a stable management with no changes to a
Principal Social Worker who supervises social workers and oversees the whole team’s operation
while a Senior Social Worker has retained direct supervisory responsibilities over caseworkers
and champion impact measurement work.

Policy Manager post no longer sits within the Social Work Team, but on the other hand
Membership and Training Manager post has become part of the Team. It is a split post
combined with a part-time role as a caseworker or social worker covering advice line duty work
and lower risk cases.

Above team structure does not include post(s) for (Family Unification) Post Placement Support
Project launched in February 2019 with three-year funding. The first 1.5 year of the project was
led by a full time social worker, who later reduced her working days, and hence another worker
was recruited in October 2020. In May 2021 the original worker left CFAB, and another social
worker was recruited and started part-time post in June 2021. Since June 2021, there are two
workers dedicated for the project and each of them work 3 days a week. The external evaluation
of the projection is conducted separately by an external evaluator.

Reflecting the steady decline in case referrals (on average 14% a year less) and earned income
in the several years leading up to 2020, we have been reduced to the situation to manage at the
lower level of resource throughout 2019/2020;
 1.5 FTE (a p/t caseworker and a senior caseworker), instead of previously total 3 FTE
Caseworkers.
 2.5 FTE (a Principal Social Worker, Senior Social Worker, p/t Social Worker), instead of
previously 3 FTE hours of Social Workers, combining working hours of a Principle Social
Worker, Senior Social Worker, Social Worker (Pt), Policy Manager or Membership &
Training Manager (1.5 day a week on casework) and Post Placement Support Project
Social Worker (1.5 day a week on casework).

Impact of pandemic
Then, 2020 saw a dramatic change in casework, with an increase of 28% in referrals, due to the
pandemic that has forced the UK local authorities’ to change their handlings of cross-border
cases. At the same time, CFAB Social Work Team has adjusted the way we work to meet the
increased demand, but feeling enormous pressure of still cautiously managing within the limited
resource level. This is due to anticipating further decline in the total income of the organisation
and observing the trend of case referrals in the year ahead beyond the pandemic.

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Core services
CFAB’s social work team’s core services consist of Advice Line, Casework Management and
Training Delivery. Whilst this evaluation’s focus is on casework, it is vital to have a systemic view
of diverse roles and responsibilities of Social Work Team in order to have accurate assessment
of the team’s capacity and function, which have impact on our casework management. Also
worthy of noting is Social Work Team’s increased involvement and participation in new service
development, policy campaign, marketing and communication.

Advice line:

Previous external audits evaluated CFAB’s casework services but not its advice line service.
There had not been requirement to evaluate our advice line service systemically prior to April
2015. However, as it is once of core services that is covered by all the members of social work
team, it is essential that the evaluation take it into consideration with respect to the versatile
roles and responsibilities of CFAB social work team members.

Advice line was funded by a grant from the Department for Education, but the funding for it
ceased in March 2016. Despite of the loss of a major funding, CFAB has continued with the
advice line service 5 days a week 9:30am to 4:30pm throughout 2018-2020, the period subject
to this evaluation. Hours of advice line was shortened to 10:00am to 3:50pm in May 2021.

Downward trend of the number of advice line enquiries is evident from below figures;
 1962 enquiries in 2015
 1846 enquiries in 2016
 1746 enquiries in 2017
 1848 enquiries in 2018
 1713 enquiries in 2019
 1711 enquiries in 2020

Casework:

CFAB offers 5 service levels as below.

Level 1 – child protection
Level 2 - record check
Level 3 – welfare home visit / initial screening assessment
Level 4 – full assessment
Level 5 – post-placement support

Level 1 and 2 services are usually allocated to caseworkers as these services do not require
Quality Assurance (QA) process. Level 3, 4 and 5 services are usually allocated to social workers,
or experienced caseworkers. CFAB social workers also usually take up to 5 incoming assessments
(UK-based assessments) a year, when UK Local Authorities decline the cooperation of the
services requested by overseas authorities or other international organisations. In 2020, only
one UK-based assessment was conducted by CFAB, due to Covid.

CFAB has managed;

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 588 cases in 2014

 414 cases in 2015
 370 cases in 2016
 308 cases in 2017
 264 cases in 2018
 238 cases in 2019
 242 cases in 2020
NOTE) above figures include both incoming and outgoing cases and do not include CFAB’s
(Family Unification) Post Placement Support Project.

In summary, since 2015 CFAB has seen a steady decline in advice line calls and case referrals,
10-15% each year. We analysed this was due to the combination of following multiple factors;
• Austere financial situation of UK Local Authorities
• CFAB beginning to charge Local Authorities for Level 1 services (sending child protection
alerts overseas) which were previously offered free of charge.
• Higher profile of the Central Authority (ICACU) and which offers some similar services
to CFAB but at no cost.
• CFAB’s long-neglecting account management, customer liaison, as well as the absence
of effective marketing for many preceding years.
• High turn-over of UK Local Authorities meant a drain of knowledge and customer
relations.
• UK social workers were travelling overseas to assess overseas family members, or
inviting them to come to the UK for the assessments.

A large decline in referrals we see in 2018 is due to redefining our capacity limitation and remit
as well as external reasons listed above. For example, we put a stop to ISS-Canada’s requests
for record checks on their foster care / adoption application due to CFAB’s, as well as a stop to
take requests of child protection alerts from the private individuals or other UK charities as these
cases are difficult to evidence and determine the child protection thresholds for CFAB not
holding a statutory authority to investigate child protection matters

While downward trend in the numbers of the case referral is evident from above figures, with
an exception of 2020, the number of referrals for Level 3 & 4 services for outgoing cases, as
listed below, has been steady consisting approximately 40% of total referral. Level 3 & 4 are
mainly UK court-directed work, requiring reports from overseas, many of which require labour-
intensive Quality Assurance (QA) process.
 109 (L3 x 31 + L4 x 78) in 2017
 110 (L3 x 41 + L4 x 69) in 2018
 105 (L3 x 35 + L4 x 70) in 2019
 107 (L3 x 34 + L4 x 73) in 2020

Many of those reports written by independent service providers overseas would need to
undergo extensive and time-consuming QA process by CFAB’s social workers court’s
expectations and quality standard. Complexity in casework management has risen with the
introduction of framework of kinship assessment (SGO / Connected Person’s Assessment) and
the stricter care proceedings timescale in accordance with Public Law Outline.

Training delivery:

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During the period subject to this evaluation, training delivery also become CFAB Social Work
Team’s team wide core activities. In 2018 CFAB developed a bespoke one-day training called
‘International Social Work’ (recently changed to ‘International Child Protection and Kinship
Care’. This training was delivered to over 20 UK Local Authorities, over 600 social workers,
student social workers and legal professionals, travelling all across the UK.

In early 2020 we changed the format of the training delivery to having a venue, to attract the
attendance of wider and mixed audience. Further change to the training delivery format
occurred during the Pandemic, adapting to the restrictions to the travel and the event
organisation, and from September 2020 we started delivering this training virtually half day
over two days.

Also throughout 2020, we have developed a new training called ‘International Social Work
Certificate Programme’ that consists of 2-3 hours of presentation videos by experts on several
cross-border topics. This Programme is due to launch in the end of September 2021.

CFAB’s impact on good outcomes for children

Research concluded in 2018 highlighted that for many cases CFAB has offered a crucial inter-
country services (obtaining an assessment of family overseas, or sending a child protection alert
abroad) we had not been able to obtain the case outcomes and capture the impact of our work.
In some cases, in order to know the final resolution of a case, the CFAB caseworker had kept
cases open beyond the time at which CFAB’s services were required. Also, often referring local
authorities had not agree to release information if CFAB is no longer directly involved in the
case.

In the past year, with a recruitment of the Impact Measurement Officer, CFAB has developed
systems and procedures to capture the impact of CFAB’s work are making on ensuring safety
and well-being on the children. For example, a reminder system is set up on Salesforce to follow-
up case’s final outcome, and revised survey questions.

Quality of service and the International Social Service

The quality of CFAB’s inter-country service is hugely dependent on the quality of services
provided by its overseas partners in the International Social Service (ISS) network. Over-reliance
on the network has historically been one of the main weaknesses in CFAB’s services. Although
the international reach which through the ISS network has given CFAB’s credentials as a leading
agent in the UK for cross-border cases, poor quality of reports such as lacking necessary details
and analysis and slow timescale from some of ISS network partners have become a liability issue
for CFAB in some cases. For majority of cases, with the reports from ISS network partners, there
is a limit to their acceptance for QA work by CFAB’s social workers. Besides, at times we have
more fundamental problem of untimely and ambiguous responses from some of our ISS
network partners.

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More acutely, CFAB’s position to gain cross-border cooperation within Europe are expected to
weaken in the light of UK’s EU Exit and the implementation of the Brussel II Amendment that
aims to strengthen European Central Authority. We are already informed of limited access to
cooperation of European local authorities via ISS braches in the major countries like Germany,
Spain and Portugal.

Anticipating this for the past few years, we have invested in developing new form of the
partnership beyond Europe and the countries covered under 1996 Hague Convention. This
network capacity building activity is in line with one of objectives in CFAB’s strategic goals, and
we now have more independent social workers or agencies abroad with whom we have bi-
lateral working agreements that enable us to carry out more QA work and specify the timescale.

Methodology
The following outlines the proposed methodology – for further elaboration by the external
evaluator and subsequent discussion and refinement as necessary with the CFAB team.

• Audit of electronic case files on Salesforce;

• Interview staff: CEO, Chair of the PPG and all members of the Social Work Team and
other CFAB’s members who contribute to casework management.
• Observe staff: 2-3 hours each of 1 caseworker, 1 social worker and the Principle Social
Worker
• Interview clients: 20 interviews including ISS partners, independent overseas service
providers, and local authority social workers. 10 of those interviews are with local
authority social workers or solicitors.

Audit Case Sampling

Number of cases: This evaluation should review 10% of CFAB’s cases per year. 10% casework is
approximately 34 cases, taking average of 2018, 2019 and 2020.

 Timeframe of Samples: CFAB’s Social Work Case Management System (CMS) has
changed over from eCare to Salesforce in late 2018 and early 2019. Cases recorded in
eCare is still available, but for the convenience of the assessor, samples should be
selected from cases which are recorded on Salesforce.

 Selection: Cases will be selected by the Principal Social Worker, in discussion with the
evaluator, with the objective of offering honest but meaningful samples which enable
CFAB to reflect upon and learn from cases which have been both successful and less
successful.

 Breakdown of case types: See table below.

 Cases should fall within a representative proportion of incoming and outgoing cases
(25% incoming, 75% outgoing).

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 There should generally be an even division of cases among level services, although
there should be slightly more level 4 (assessments/child placement), and fewer level
2 (record checks).
 There should be equal representation of work across the team, not restricting to
specific few team members.
 There is also an emphasis on incoming level 4 cases as these are where CFAB has
completed the assessment in-house.

Sample breakdown

OPEN CASES Total CLOSED CASES Total Total - Level

open closed
Level 1 2 outgoing 3 2 outgoing 3 10
1 incoming 1 incoming
Level 2 2 outgoing 3 2 outgoing 3 8
1 incoming 1 incoming
Level 3 3 outgoing 4 3 outgoing 4 10
1 incoming 1 incoming
Level 4 4 outgoing 6 3 outgoing 6 12
2 incoming 3 incoming
Level 5 1 either 1 1 either 1 2
outgoing or outgoing or
incoming incoming
Total – 17 17 34
Open/closed

Expertise of the evaluator

The evaluator should be:
 A social worker with current DBS check and HCPC registration
 Independent
 Have experience of auditing social work teams
 Understanding of the NGO sector and how this differs from local authorities

Reporting
The report is intended for the CFAB CEO, Principal Social Worker, and PPG (social work sub-
group) on behalf of the Board of Trustees. A synopsis will be presented to the Board. The
report would at a minimum contain the following sections:
 Executive Summary
 Background
 Summary of last audit
 Methodology
 Issues
 Findings
 Recommendations
 Conclusion

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Workplan
Evaluation to start in October / November 2021, and be completed within 6 weeks. Evaluation
Report to be submitted by the end of December 2021, followed by the presentation in January
2022.

Stage 1 (2 days):
 Identifying and reading background information – document review: CFAB policies,
2018 external evaluation report, statistics, feedback reports, and strategic delivery plan
documents, and so on.
 Identifying case samples
 Induction to Salesforce
 Booking interviews and observation
 Confirming plan of work

Stage 2 (10 days)

 Auditing Salesforce case files
 Collecting client feedback
 Interviewing and observing Social Work Team members
 Interim meeting with Principle Social Worker (and CEO, if necessary)

Stage 3 (2 days)
 Write-up report

Stage 4 (1 day):
 Submitting a draft report to CFAB CEO, Principle Social Worker and PPG

Stage 5 (1 day)
 Revising draft report and submitting a finalised report
 Presenting an evaluation summary to CFAB members

Other support
CFAB’s Principal Social Worker and /or Executive Assistant will assist with meeting bookings and
providing supporting reading materials E.g. corporate strategy, CFAB’ safeguarding policies and
procedures, Social Work Team’s strategic plan, service standards, previous evaluations, 2018
research report, job descriptions, supervision guide, caseworker’s guide etc.