ChildProtection1aExp app for iPhone and iPad

Introduction
Experience an initial social work child protection visit in real time. This is one of a series of immersive 360-degree videos that aim to give you the best seat in the house so you can witness first-hand and learn from our research experiences.

In this app you will observe Steve (a social worker) carrying out an initial visit to the home of a 15-year old mother, her 3-month old child and her step-aunt. We recreate the challenges we observed social workers face in trying to establish and sustain long term relationships with children and families in high risk child protection cases. After using this app, please make sure you download and watch the next in the series to see the story unfold.

Background research
These series of apps recreate and share in real time scenes from our 15-month Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) funded sensory ethnographic research project (Grant Number: ES/N012453/2) entitled: Organisations, staff support and the dynamics and quality of social work practice: A qualitative longitudinal study of child protection work.

This app flexibly allows you to view the 360-degree immersive videos on your phone with or without VR viewers (such as Google CardBoard). However, to get the most immersive experience we suggest that you view the videos using a VR viewer (these can be cheaply obtained online from eBay, Amazon etc).

ChildProtection1aExp
In this app, you will walk alongside and site next to Steve who is accompanied by a researcher. Your task whilst experiencing this video is to observe how:

Steve’s outlook may impact on his ability to develop a close working relationship with this family.

Explain how time related issues may impact on Steve establishing and potentially sustaining a long term effective working relationship with this family.

From your observations, you will be asked to describe how interactions, atmospheres, people, objects in the house may have blocked or enabled Steve to either keep or lose focus on the child in this family.

You will be asked to record your answers after the watching the film and consider how these factors could impact your current or future practices. Your learning will benefit immensely from sharing and discussing your findings with others either face-to-face or online.

Feedback
We would really like to hear how this app has impacted on your learning and future social work practice. If you are not a social worker, we would still like to hear what you have learned from the process. Please make sure you leave your comments here in the App Review section or Tweet us at @Akali65.

For educators
If you are an educator looking to use this app as part of your teaching or training approaches, a good learning design is to ask learners to download and view the films before a teaching/training session. Then use the face-to-face contact time to discuss the learners experiences and questions in more detail.

This 360-degree film project was funded by the University of Birmingham, UK, ESRC Impact Acceleration Account.

The original 15-month sensory ethnographic research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and was carried out as part of a collaborative project of the University of Birmingham, University of Nottingham, University of Auckland, and University of Sheffield.

Authors
Dr Tarsem Singh Cooner - University of Birmingham, UK
Dr Lisa Warwick - University of Nottingham, UK
Professor Harry Ferguson - University of Birmingham, UK
Dr Jadwiga Leigh - University of Sheffield, UK
Dr Liz Beddoe - University of Auckland, New Zealand
Dr Tom Disney - Northumbria University, UK
Gillian Plumridge - University of Birmingham, UK