Liam Docherty

I currently am employed as a Family Support Worker within the Glasgow Intensive Family Support Service (GIFSS) which provides whole family support to children referred aged (12-18) who could be at risk of family breakdown and placed into care. GIFSS has provided me with a framework for practice which has upskilled my knowledge as a practitioner. My professional development ensures that I can enter crisis point events and work from a strength-based approach to amplify the positive connections for individuals and families. From experience I have learned to use valuable tools to help families to reflect on times of crisis. A tool that I have used with families is sequencing the events of a day to a week to identify different pressures that can affect people within the house. This allows the family to look at others’ views and to begin to understand the emotions of other people within the house. I know understand the importance to promote all strengths within a household. Often people feel judged by services and this reinforcement of the negatives being highlighted can help to create distance between workers and families. By looking to promote the positive but recognize the challenges this is a more supportive approach which can be helpful for working with families. I understand the importance of collaboration and will update social workers daily about the interactions that I have had with families. My experience has provided me with the confidence as I have presented at multi-agency meetings and children panels. I also participate in a group supervision process in which I present the current support for families to social workers and external partners. I value all opportunities for self-reflection and any chance I can get to complete training and expand my knowledge is key for my continued growth as a person and as a professional.

I initially gained experience as an Assistant project worker at Includem a children and families third sector charity within the early and effective intervention service supporting children reffered by social workers aged (0-12). In this role, I was responsible for completing risk assessments and would also work alongside families to tailor their support plans to reflect the unique needs of the family. This experience has provided me the experience to be trauma informed and sensitive when supporting people. Validation is the first step to building relationships with people as by taking an interest in their story and empathizing and recognizing the challenges they have experienced is key to forming trusting relationships. This skills gained through working in a whole family support allows me to assess the strengths and challenges within relationships. I have learned the importance to help change the narrative for children and parents to help them understand others perspectives. Thus, helping to reduce tensions within the home and improve relationships for the whole family. Working in early intervention provided more opportunities to work with parents. This role helped me to fully understand the importance of being trauma-informed and how to validate parents as this can help analyse the intergenerational trauma that could play a part in some of the challenges that present the family at the current time.

My responsibilities in this role include the delivery of quick and appropriate service to customers, while being able to communicate effectively to ensure service runs at an appropriate pace. A fast paced environment ensures that you have prioritise tasks and correctly make decisions that will provide a high standard of service, that is tailored to the customers needs. As part of my role of working with hospitality, the value of a team approach are essential, as often a busy service ensures that at some point all members will require support to help them manage the busy period. Thus communication is essential to ensure that you can highlight when you need help in order to meet the needs of a customer. It is important to look at the wellbeing of your colleagues when working in the hospitality industry as naturally people will do all they can to provide the best experience possible for the guest. Thus, I have found that it is important to look at the body language of colleagues and to analyse when it is important to go and offer my colleagues more support.

One of my hobbies that I enjoy is playing darts. During my final year of high school I used to volunteer on a Wednesday night to help run the Glasgow Youth Darts Academy. This project meant that I would work with a number of primary and secondary children to help reform there skills and to teach them sporting etiquette. As a mentor, I could relate to the circumstances of disadvantaged children and provide them with a focus to engage with national competitions, in order to find an interest that would keep them off the street. Through this project, I have developed a relationship and still take the opportunity to track the progression of the children in their enjoyment of darts.