Reflective Practice Support Sessions - Support for Significant Incident Reporting

Cafcass is seeking to understand the market for the provision of reflective/therapeutic group sessions to support social work managers and staff involved in managing or supporting significant incident reporting processes.

Incidents involving child death or serious harm (including suspected harm or sexual harm) are among the most distressing situations encountered by Cafcass practitioners. While existing provision supports individual social workers following such incidents, Cafcass is considering the introduction of additional support for managers and colleagues involved in reviewing and learning from these incidents.

The significant incident reporting process involves a range of staff, including specialist roles and senior managers, who may be regularly exposed to distressing information. This repeated exposure may have a cumulative impact on wellbeing.

Service Requirement (Indicative Only)

Cafcass is exploring services that:

Provide reflective, trauma-informed group sessions aligned to social work practice and supervision

Offer ongoing / periodic support, rather than one-off or reactive interventions

Support staff involved in reviewing, managing, and overseeing significant incidents

Can be delivered through a combination of remote and face-to-face sessions across England

Indicative Demand

Demand is currently unknown; however:

Cafcass employs approximately 1,700 social workers, including around 350 managers

Initial requirement is expected to support a core group of approximately 30 staff

There is potential for future scale-up to a wider cohort of operational managers

Suppliers should consider their ability to deliver services at scale if required.

Geographical Scope

Cafcass operates nationally across England. Suppliers are asked to indicate:

Areas where services can be delivered

Any geographical limitations

Information Requested from Suppliers

Cafcass invites responses from interested suppliers covering the following:

Overview of available services and delivery approach

Details of staffing arrangements and relevant qualifications

Experience of delivering similar trauma-informed / reflective services

Capacity and ability to scale services

Geographical coverage across England

Indicative pricing, which may include:

Retained annual fee models

Per-session pricing

Hybrid approaches

Engagement Process

This notice is issued for market engagement purposes only

It does not constitute a call for competition

Participation is entirely voluntary

Timescales

Duration of engagement: 2 weeks from date of publication

Suppliers should submit responses within this period. Responses are to be made via the Pro-contract portal. procontract.due-north.com/Advert ↗

Next Steps

The information gathered will be used to:

Inform service design and specification

Assess market capacity and capability

Support internal business case development

Cafcass reserves the right to decide whether or not to proceed to a formal procurement following this engagement.