Memorandum submitted by Barnardo's
INTRODUCTION
1. Barnardo's works directly with more than
110,000 children, young people and their families in over 350
services across the UK. These services are located in some of
the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods where child poverty and
social exclusion are common features. We work with children affected
by today's most urgent issues: poverty, homelessness, disability
and abuse. Our projects work with children aged 0 to 18 (or 24
in the case of young care leavers).
2. Barnardo's employs over 100 qualified social
workers to provide our services to children and young people.
Some of these social workers work in positions which require a
qualified social worker by law—most notably our fostering
and adoption services. Elsewhere we employ social workers in a
variety of different roles often working alongside other professionals
such as youth workers. These work in many different settings such
as leaving care services, services which support disabled children,
those which support young carers and family centres.
3. This document provides a summary of some of
the main issues regarding social worker training which Barnardo's
believes still need to be addressed. We have not answered all
of the questions put by the committee but instead have concentrated
our response on those questions where we have expertise. If the
committee would like us to expand upon the points made in this
document then we would be willing to provide oral evidence.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Barnardo's would like to see:
— More part time courses offered by social
work course providers and more sponsorships and secondments from
local authorities to help ease the routes into social work for
more mature graduates.
— Rolling out of the newly qualified social
worker status across the country, so all new social workers benefit
from a year with a reduced case load and more extensive supervision.
— Reform of the current system of postgraduate
training for social workers, so that a nationally recognised framework
of postgraduate qualifications is developed in this field.
— The development of the current social
work degree structure to allow specialisation into child and family
social work late in the initial degree programme.
— The development of more initiatives to
involve services users and experienced social workers in the delivering
of the teaching elements of the undergraduate programme.
— More support for practice teachers who
are providing support for student social workers in the field,
including encouraging organisations who take on students to recognise
the role of the practice teachers through the appraisal system.
— The development of a new "advanced
skills" social worker career path which would enable social
workers to advance through the profession, without having to move
into management roles and away from front line social work.
QUESTION 1
Are entry routes to social work sufficiently flexible
to encourage re-entrants and people considering a career change?
4. Barnardo's welcomed recent changes to
the qualification structure for social workers with the introduction
of the new honours and postgraduate degree programmes to replace
diplomas. We believe this change is important to help improve
the skills and knowledge of social work in the field, and should
also help to improve the reputation of social worker as a "profession",
thus helping to attract a larger number of high quality individuals
to the work.
5. We are, however, concerned that changes to
the qualification structure should not discourage mature graduates
from entering the profession. Life experiences such as the experience
of raising a family can provide useful insights and many such
candidates will be able to show great understanding of different
families' needs and problems—essential qualities in a good
social worker. Such candidates, however, often have extra commitments,
such as a mortgage, or childcare costs which can make it very
difficult to take two or three years out of the workplace unpaid
to re-train.
6. We therefore feel that it is important that
the current qualification framework is not allowed to act as a
disincentive to individuals seeking a new career in social work.
Some changes which could be introduced to help ease the current
disincentives on mature candidates to re-train include:
— Encouraging a greater number of institutions
to offer the new degree programmes on a part-time basis.
— Encouraging more local authorities to
think about offering sponsorship or secondment schemes where employees
are paid to study the social work degree through the Open University
following a period of employment with them.
— Introduce a well publicised nation wide
system of "golden hellos" for social workers—similar
to those available for teachers of minority subjects. Currently
while many local authorities offer golden hellos to newly qualified
social workers, the absence of a national scheme mean this is
often not known about. If mature candidates were aware they will
receive a one off lump sum payment on qualification which could
help to clear debts incurred while training this would act as
a further incentive to re-train.
QUESTION 2
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?
Following initial training, how should newly-qualified
social workers be equipped with the further skills and experience
they need?
7. As stated above Barnardo's supports the
current qualification structure and believes it has the potential
to deliver the high quality social workers to the field that children
in this country need. However, the content of both the academic
elements of the course, and the practice placements will be key
in making the new format a success. We address issues concerning
course quality in the next section.
8. It is also important that the completion of
the degree is only seen as the beginning of the qualification
process not the end of it. For years there has been insufficient
regard to the needs of newly qualified social workers who have
often been thrown into the deep end with a full case load very
early into their first job. Barnardo's therefore supports the
introduction of a newly qualified social worker status, similar
to the newly qualified teacher status. This system has recently
been piloted in around 90 local authorities, and involves providing
newly qualified social workers with an introductory year during
which they benefit from a reduced caseload and additional supervision.
We feel this scheme should now be rolled out nationally.
9. Following completion of the degree we also
believe there is need to further develop the post-qualification
framework. Historically there has been no nationally recognised
framework for postgraduate study in this field. We agree with
the findings of Lord Laming in his more recent report on child
protection[27]
that there needs to be reform in this area, and nationally recognised
qualifications in child protection should be developed. We are,
however, concerned that these should not necessarily be at a masters
level, and that they will not result in a requirement for a postgraduate
degree in addition to the undergraduate degree before a social
worker is considered qualified.
QUESTION 3
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?
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?
10. We believe it is important to keep the
general social work degree fairly generic. There are a number
of skills which we believe all social workers need to learn which
are important no matter which area the individual wishes to go
into. We also believe that there are many areas of family social
work such as child protection which will involve extensive work
with the parents, when understanding of issues more associated
with adult social work such as adult mental health problems, are
essential. We would also be concerned that asking student to specialise
too soon within their training may discourage individuals from
entering the profession, in our experience students often value
the opportunity to find out about the range of different work
which social workers do before making a decision on where to specialise.
11. However, there are of course a number of
specialised skills that child and family social workers need to
develop to be effective in their role, in particular in relation
to families with complex needs. It is therefore important that
trainee social workers are able to gain an understanding of these
issues while still training and before they begin working with
families directly. We believe thought needs to be given to the
best way to do this, which may be through the specialisation later
in the generic degree (probably around the third year). All students
would therefore have had the opportunity to gain a common set
of core skills and an understanding of the different career options
in social work before deciding whether to specialise into "children"
or "adult" services.
12. We believe it is still too early to fully
assess whether the content of degree courses on offer are sufficient
to equip students with the skills they will require as fully qualified
social workers. We do, however, have concerns. Research quoted
by Laming showed that two-thirds of newly qualified social workers
felt that the degree prepared them just enough or not at all for
their current role.[28]
There is also continued evidence that some of the degree courses
on offer are quite theoretical with a lack of focus upon the practical
elements of the role. We would like to see degree courses which
put a strong emphasis on the skills social workers will use in
the field such as analysis and assessment skills. The degree should
also equip students with important "soft skills" such
as how to talk to children and young people.
13. Degree programme which have a more practice
focus would be best achieved if more of those delivering the course
had day-to-day experience of social work. This could be achieved
by encouraging more secondments of social work teachers into practice,
so they may keep their skills and knowledge up to date and more
involvement of senior social workers in the delivery of degree
programmes.
14. Another useful initiative is to consider
more and better ways of involving services users in the delivery
of social worker training. Barnardo's has some experience in this
field and has developed the Total Respect training in Barnardo's
LEaSE (London East and South East) Region. This is a training
course which is delivered by young people themselves directly
to students as part of their degree programme. The training tackles
the issue of how to ensure the participation of children and young
people, for example, in decisions about their care. This received
a number of positive comments in a recent evaluation from social
work students who welcomed the practical approach:
"It was an excellent training occasion.
Reality based which was so good",
"Real experiences from first hand knowledge
helped me to build a more concrete understanding of young people's
experience".
15. The current degree programme is also
firmly reliant on good quality practice placements to fully train
students in the field. The difficultly is that the number of practice
placements available to students is limited, and the quality can
be variable. One of the reasons for the differing quality in practice
placements is that the quality of the placement is very dependent
on the quality of the practice teacher. The role of practice teaching
receives very little status amongst busy social work departments
and individuals often receive little or no credit through the
formal appraisal system for this important role. Ensuring that
the work of such practitioners is fully recognised, and is seen
as a key part of their job description rather than just an "add
on", would be helpful in ensuring that practitioners have
the time to dedicate to the training of students in the field.
16. An additional problem with the current
system of practice placements is that the limited number available
means that students are often not offered a suitable range of
placements. Barnardo's knows from its own experience of taking
students that we do get applications from students whose previous
placement was also in the voluntary sector—such students
may be able to qualify as social workers and get an immediate
job working in the statutory sector and yet have no experience
of what this type of work involves. We feel that current degree
course providers should be encouraged to place students in a range
of different placements during their social work training, to
give them the greatest range of experience possible.
QUESTION 6
Post-qualifying training and career paths
How can the quality, suitability and take-up of
post-qualifying training be assured?
What factors influence the continuing development
of newly-qualified social workers and their future career decisions?
How well do employers support the development
of social workers?
How well are social workers trained to deliver
front-line supervision?
17. As stated above, we believe that post-qualification
training for child and family social workers should be reformed
and a national framework for postgraduate training should be developed
to provide consistency across the profession. It is important
that qualifications developed under this framework are relevant
with enough emphasis on practice. Employers are unlikely to buy
into a system of postgraduate qualification which is seen to be
more about ticking boxes than providing the skills which social
workers need.
18. We also believe there is a strong case for
developing different career paths for social workers. At present
there is too much emphasis on social workers who wish to move
up in the profession being required to move into management and
to lose day to day contact with their client group. Such a career
structure does not help to develop those who are less suited to
a management role, and does not recognise the need for high level
practitioners who can deliver on the increasingly complex agenda
that social workers have to face. We therefore believe that to
improve recruitment and retention an alternative career path should
be developed to enable experienced staff to continue direct work
with clients while recognising their achievements through their
status and pay.
19. In considering how to develop a career structure
in social work which enables more choice for highly skilled professionals
between management and practice we believe that lessons could
be learned from initiatives introduced in relation to other public
sector professions. In particular the advanced skills teachers'
initiative could provide important lessons. This new, well paid
and higher status role has helped to provide a genuine alternative
opportunity for progression to highly skilled teachers who wish
to remain in the classroom, and in doing so has done a great deal
to raise teaching standards.[29]
May 2009
27 The Lord Laming The Protection of Children in
England: A Progress Report March 2009 available online at
http://publications.everychildmatters.gov.uk/eOrderingDownload/HC-330.pdf Back
28
Children's Workforce Development Council Research Team, Newly
Qualified Social Workers. A report on consultations with newly
qualified social workers, employers and those in higher education
(unpublished preliminary findings) quoted in The Lord Laming
The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report
March 2009 available online at
http://publications.everychildmatters.gov.uk/eOrderingDownload/HC-330.pdf Back
29
Ofsted Advanced skills teacher (2003) available on line
at http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/assets/3423.doc Back
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