APPENDIX 1
RESPONSES TO SPECIFIC QUESTIONS FROM NEW
COLLEGE DURHAM
1. New College Durham provides a BA Social
Work to 105 students currently in partnership with the University
of Sunderland.
2. The College has provided us with the specific
answers to the Committee's areas of interest.
Are entry routes to social work sufficiently flexible
to encourage mature entrants, re-entrants and people considering
a career change?
3. Entry routes to the Social Work Degree
programme are via UCAS. There is a "points" requirement
for those who wish to pursue their training aged 18 but this is
relaxed for mature entrants who need to demonstrate some experience
in the social care field either professional or personal. The
majority of New College Durham's social work students are mature
and often from non-traditional backgrounds. In addition, there
is a flexible part-time route available.
4. It would appear that the entry routes are
flexible enough to encourage applicants as we have approximately
four applicants for every place available. On application there
is a short listing process and applicants are invited for interview
which consists of a group discussion, a written piece of work
based on the participation in the group and then the interview
itself.
STRUCTURE OF
TRAINING
Is a three-year bachelor's degree/two-year master's
degree the right format and level for initial social work training?
5. New College Durham only offers a three-year
bachelor's degree so our response relates to this only. The Social
Work course team believe that it is the right format and level
for "initial" social work training. The academic input
and study provides the students with a sound basis on which to
build their expertise as social workers. It provides the underpinning
knowledge of theory, models and frameworks for practice which
can be put into practice during the practice placements. (30 days
at Level 1, 80 days at Level 2 and 90 days at Level 3).
6. There is a growing concern relating to the
availability of practice assessors within placements. The Practice
Teachers Award, seen as a benchmark standard for those who wished
to be involved in practice learning and assessing, no longer exists.
Even with the introduction of the new Post-Qualifying Framework
there is not an equivalent. We are aware that Children's Workforce
Development Council and Skills for Care are shortly to produce,
for consultation, outcome statements for a Practice Assessor Award.
7. Practice Teachers have often moved on due
to promotion, retirement or change of career and no new Practice
Teachers have qualified in the last three years. This inevitably
restricts both the number of placements available and the quality
of student assessment as existing Practice Teachers take on more
students in an attempt to bridge the gap.
8. Organisations often do not have the resources
to fund large numbers of staff to undertake study to become Practice
Assessors. The provision of placements is no longer a Key Performance
Indicator and other training can take priority over practice education.
Staffing levels within teams is also an issue which can prevent
teams from accepting students as team managers. A definition of
statutory placements and the General Social Care Council's (GSCC)
proposed requirements about student participation in statutory
placements is awaited. Dependant on these, the provision of appropriate
placements may become more problematic.
Following initial training, how should newly qualified
social workers be equipped with further skills and experience
they need?
9. The GSCC requirements for the training
of social workers, and the Quality Assurance Agency benchmark
standards, reflect the generic nature of the degree programme.
It is "initial" training. We do not and cannot train
students to fulfil the particular requirements of whichever job
they take after qualification. We can, however, give them the
skills and levels of understanding required as qualified social
workers. However, the variety of opportunities available to them
eg "children in need" teams, "looked after"
teams, leaving care, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services,
therapeutic teams, youth engagement services, fostering/adoption
services, makes it unrealistic to even suggest that the Social
Work degree should prepare them for individual roles. Despite
this employers, via the CWDC consultation on Newly Qualified Social
Workers, have expressed the view that students should take up
employment ready to "hit the ground running".
10. The Social Work team at New College Durham
very much see the NQSW year as a time when students apply and
consolidate their skills in their chosen setting. They still need
help and support to do this and this should be through good quality
supervision, time for reflection and carefully managed caseloads.
Several of our agency partners have been involved in pilot schemes
for NQSW and early indications show that in authorities where
practice learning has been given priority the NQSW implementation
has been successful. There maybe a need to maintain a connection
with the NQSW's qualifying university or college over this first
year to ensure that they still receive academic support and good
access to research to inform their practice. This would perhaps
involve some mechanism where the university or college, and the
employer, are collaboratively involved in the assessment of the
NQSW's abilities and potential just as employers are involved
in the assessment of final year students.
CONTENT OF
INITIAL TRAINING
Is the generic social work degree fit for the
purpose of training children and families social workers? Is there
sufficient scope for specialisation?
11. There isn't sufficient scope for specialisation
but it is our view neither should there be. Students need to focus
on obtaining and enhancing their skills in a generic sense and
it is our belief that the specialisation should take place post-qualification.
12. Many students do not know where their talents
lie and arrive with fixed ideas about where they want to work
following qualification. For example, one student at New College
Durham maintained from her first day that she wanted to work in
the field of mental health and expressed great dissatisfaction
about having to do a placement with a children's service. Her
final year placement was in a mental health setting and she focused
her research and dissertation on an aspect of mental health. She
then decided that she preferred working with children and subsequently
went on to apply for posts within children's services. Two years
on, she is still working in a Leaving Care team. Undoubtedly her
interest in mental health issues will inform the work she is doing.
If this young lady had to choose a specialism during the course
of her degree not only would Children's Services have lost a good
social worker but they may have ended up with a worker with no
insight into the issues affecting many parents. Adult Services
would have also not been able to retain a social worker who was
realising that her interests lay elsewhere. Students need to experience
a range of placements to inform their education and career choices.
Does the content of training reflect the tasks
social workers will be asked to undertake when in employment?
Is the balance of knowledge, skills, values and experience correct?
13. As outlined above the range of tasks, in
a range of different settings, will vary considerably. However,
what is common to the majority of social work roles are the tasks
of assessment, analysis, care planning, intervention and review.
The content of the training currently focuses on the skills, understanding,
methods and frameworks to undertake those tasks in any setting.
The skills needed are the same whether applied in adult or children's
services. There is also a focus throughout the three year degree
programme on the dilemmas, both ethical and moral, which social
workers face on a daily basis.
14. What a social work programme cannot provide
for students is knowledge about individual employer's expectations,
processes and procedures. Each agency may even follow national
guidelines in different ways. In our view the balance of knowledge,
skills, values and practical experience are correct for initial
social work training.
QUALITY
How effectively does the General Social Care Council
regulate the quality of training?
15. The GSCC must, of course, give approval
for all social work programmes and they require an annual report.
Continued monitoring is completed via the regional inspectors.
The inspectors attend Programme Management Boards and are available
for other meetings, if required. Every five years the social work
programmes have to be re-validated. GSCC instigates this and is
a party to the whole process. They are fully aware of the content
of programmes, the background and input of the teaching staff
and the content of individual modules. During the validation process,
and as part of the Programme Management Boards, they will hear
the views of students from student representatives and service
users and carers who are involved with our programme. Whilst the
GSCC are involved in our programme it is not automatic that they
are involved in the formal processes of validation, review and
re-validation in other universities and colleges.
16. The regional inspector also attends other
regional meetings such as SWENE (Social Work Education North East)
so will also be aware of the input each university of colleges
makes regionally and to specific projects and interests.
How can the quality, suitability and supply of
practice placements be assured?
17. This is a topic which has been the focus
of regional work in the North East over the last two years. There
is a sub-group of the Regional Strategic Planning Group, the PQ/PL
Forum. This began as a forum for sharing good practice and information
about the development of both Post-Qualifying programmes and Practice
Learning. However, with funding both from SfC and CWDC there have
been a variety of projects carried out focusing on increasing
the supply of practice placements (particularly in the voluntary
and independent sector), establishing workforce data to inform
planning and enhancing the student experience of placement with
the LA organisations. These have resulted in some tangible products
which have achieved their aims. For example the VIPLEX (Voluntary
and Independent Placement Exchange)—project has developed
approximately 50 new placements in the voluntary and independent
sector through supporting organisations to accept placement via
training and also the development of their own organisational
procedures. We now have regional estimates of the number of placements
we will require in the coming years. In addition, a Code of Practice
about the supply and support of placements has been produced and
accepted by the Regional Planning Group. This is being disseminated
at Director level via ADASS and ADCS.
18. These have been major achievements for the
North East region but the funding remains uncertain as national
bodies focus on the supply of statutory placements. There does
not appear to be any recognition that we still need to focus on
the supply of placements from the voluntary and independent sectors
if only to free up statutory placements for second and final year
students.
Has the switch to degree-level qualification improved
the calibre of recruits and the effectiveness of newly-qualified
social workers?
19. With regard to the first part of this
question consideration needs to be given to two groups of recruits,
the mature students and those students applying to do a degree
at 18 years of age. The recruitment of mature students has not
been changed by the switch to the degree although there may be
implications from the widening participation agenda. However,
as a degree, applications are accepted from young people at 18
years of age. Many of these young people are excellent students
but over the course of the three years a few students find through
the practice placements that they are not mature enough to cope
with the everyday stresses of social work and leave the programme.
SUPPLY OF
INITIAL TRAINING
What factors influence whether HEIs offer social
work qualifying courses?
20. New College Durham has a long history
of providing social work qualifying programmes. Three members
of the social work teaching team qualified at the College and,
after many years experience of social work, have returned to deliver
training. The College's social work course is held in high regard
by local authorities and others and the mutual respect and collaborative
working between not only the College and its partner agencies
but also from the other regional universities and colleges, is
a huge influence on the success of the programmes and the decision
to provide them. Without our partner agencies, who supply the
placements on which we rely, we could not run the programme. Without
us the partner agencies would not have a supply of qualified social
workers to employ.
How effectively do the DCSF, DIUS and the CWDC
ensure adequate training capacity and workforce planning?
21. It is difficult to answer this from a College
perspective but New College Durham has been impressed with the
level of detail from CWDC when implementing the NQSW pilots. The
College was involved in the early consultations about this and
believes the training materials provided to support the pilots
and staff training are of a high quality.
POST QUALIFYING
TRAINING AND
CAREER PATHS
How can the quality, suitability and take-up of
post-qualifying training be assured?
22. From our perspective the new post-qualifying
Framework has not yet embedded itself either in the HEIs or with
employers. There was a period when HEIs were expected to develop
programmes in response to employer requirements. However, employers
were not articulating what they wanted from the programmes.
23. It has been very difficult to establish such
a programme at New College Durham as the PQ Awards have to be
validated by the University which validates our BA (Hons) Social
Work degree. We could not achieve this with our previous validation
university but as we move to validation with Leeds Metropolitan
University this option is more open to us. The process however
is complex and will take some time to establish fully in any HEI.
24. One of the issues is that the PQ awards (apart
from the first Consolidation module in some organisations which
is linked to progression) are not linked to career progression.
In most professions as you achieve higher qualifications you are
eligible for increased salaries or promotion to higher positions,
this is not so in social work.
25. The student's practice on the BA Hons.
is assessed against the National Occupational Standards. There
are no discernible links currently between the progression from
a BA student to NQSW through to the PQ awards.
26. Employers and the GSCC need to be explicit
about what they want from universities and colleges and collaboration
with employers would ensure that programmes would be suitable
for the local workforce. Places for PQ programmes should be properly
funded to include replacement staff costs. Linking awards to pay
and career progression would encourage social workers to be proactive
in taking up places offered.
How well do employers support the development
of social workers?
27. This is difficult to answer as a College
although we are aware that although the employers may not send
staff on external courses they may well have their own internal
training. We are not aware that there is any monitoring of the
quality and validity of that training.
How well are social workers trained to deliver
front-line supervision?
28. There is no specific training on the delivery
of supervision in the BA programme. Students do receive some teaching
about what supervision is, what they can expect from it and how
they can use it. It will be the senior practitioners or team managers
who deliver supervision and therefore the training will be internal
or from recognised management programmes. Many of these programmes
will focus on supervision but not with particular emphasis on
social work supervision.
May 2009
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