Memorandum submitted by Moira Gibb, Chair
of the Social Work Task Force
As Chair of the Social Work Task Force I welcome
the Inquiry set up by the Children, Schools and Families Select
Committee into the Training of Children and Families Social Workers.
The role of the Task Force is to advise the Government
on the content of a comprehensive programme of reform for the
whole social work profession across children and adults services
with the objective of developing and supporting a high quality
and self confident profession which meets public expectations.
An essential element of this work is to understand how best to
prepare social workers to undertake the demanding and complex
role they have in society and we view improvements to education
and training at both initial and post-qualifying level as one
of the essential building blocks to the holistic reform of social
work.
As such, social work education and training
has been one of the themes which has been central to our early
discussions with a range of stakeholders and in our own Task Force
meetings. We have been gathering and will continue to gather evidence
from a variety of sources. We have established a key partners'
forum composed of representatives from 50 delivery bodies,
employer organisations in the statutory and PVI sector, HEI providers
of social work education and training, unions, and other professional
bodies. We have held seven out of 11 planned regional events
hearing the views of over 1,000 front line social workers
and other stakeholders; we have undertaken visits to local authorities,
where we have talked to social work practitioners, managers, supervisors,
practice assessors, people who use services, staff from HEIs,
directors, lead members and other professions who work with social
workers in both children's and adult services. I have also welcomed
the opportunity to meet with key social work academics and researchers
to explore with them what may need to change to improve the quality
and effectiveness of social work education and training.
I am pleased to attach a copy of my letter sent
to the Secretaries of State for Children, Schools and Families
and Health on 5 May which outlines the initial advice of
the Task Force to Government about the issues which currently
present barriers to consistently high quality social work practice.[1]
The letter sets out our emerging view of the challenges we will
need to address and opens our Call for Evidence. It describes
how we will work over the next few months, including actions we
will take to ensure that we are hearing the views of front line
practitioners, service users and members of the public as our
recommendations develop. We are due to make our full recommendations
in October. However, it is already clear to us that reform for
the social work profession must be driven by a range of stakeholders
as well as the Government. Employers, Local Government, educational
institutions, inspectorates and regulators, other professions,
members of the public, service users and carers, and social workers
themselves all have important roles to play.
Our letter has played back some of the messages
we are hearing. These fall into six key themes as follows:
— Theme one: We have been told that social
workers feel they do not have enough time to devote directly to
the people they want to help. They feel overstretched by staff
shortages and tied up in bureaucracy.
— Theme two: We have been told that social
workers feel very frustrated by some of the tools and support
they are given to do their jobs.
— Theme three: We have been told that new
social workers are often not properly prepared for the demands
of the job. There are also limited opportunities and support for
post-qualifying education and the current post qualifying framework
does not effectively support ongoing development and specialisation.
— Theme four: We have been told that social
workers do not feel that their profession speaks with a strong
national voice or is well supported at national level.
— Theme five: We have been told that systems
for managing the performance of social workers are not driving
quality first and foremost.
— Theme six: We have been told that social
workers feel that their profession is under-valued, poorly understood
and under continuous media attack. This is making it hard for
them to do their jobs and hard to attract people into the profession.
We are pleased that the Government has welcomed
our early advice and recommendations.
We have more people to listen to and much more
evidence to collect and analyse, including from our Call for Evidence
launched on 6 May. However, from our work to date we have
begun to understand some of the difficult issues to be addressed,
in responding to the concerns about social work education. These
include the need for clarity about what roles and tasks we are
preparing social work graduates to undertake; the reality that
the delivery of social work education and training currently depends
on a partnership between employers and HEIs which is not working
as well as it should, and that reforms need to be part of a whole
system approach to supporting social work education and continuing
professional development so that all social workers are able to
develop and reflect on their specialist skills and practice throughout
their careers.
As you will see the Task Force letter summarises
the early messages we are hearing about social work education
and training and our responses to Lord Laming's recommendations
about social work education.
There is an increasingly forceful message that
some newly qualified social workers are working in situations
so difficult that no initial training programme could prepare
them for, and that we would not expect other professionals to
take on such complex work after only three years of training.
This is why it is so important to ensure that the frameworks to
support social work practitioners to develop through post qualifying
learning and practice development are in place and effective.
In presenting these messages it is important
to recognise the potential destabilising impact on current and
potential social work students and ensure that they are supported
to complete their training and move into the workforce appropriately.
Our work to date has also led me to conclude
that an important next step will be to bring together social work
educators and employers so that we can begin to establish a shared
understanding of, and solutions to, the demands and challenges
to which the social work education system needs to be able to
respond.
The Committee may be interested in more detail
about the messages which we are hearing from all our sources which
highlight some of the key areas to be addressed about social work
education as follows:
— Entry standards and selection.
We have heard from employers and practitioners
that entrance criteria and selection processes for applicants
to social work initial training should be reviewed. Although 25%
of students achieve their social work qualification through master
level programmes, the DCSF 2020 Workforce Strategy identified
that academic entry standards to undergraduate programmes are
lower than for other relevant professions. We have consistently
heard from a range of stakeholders that students need to have
both the intellectual capacity to develop into analytical and
reflective practitioners and the interpersonal skills, personal
qualities and resilience to manage the complex relationships and
systems of their current role. Selection processes should reflect
these important criteria and include an individual interview and
the involvement of employers.
The content and delivery of the academic and
practice curriculum may need to be reviewed to ensure that it
meets the changing roles of social work and new policy agendas,
such as personalisation. This may include specifying in more detail
key areas of knowledge and skills which some employers and students
have said are not consistently delivered by initial training.
Examples of this might include strengthening input and experience
child development, communication and report writing skills.
We are hearing different messages about when
specialism should be introduced into initial training, but a majority
view from Task Force members, academics and students that we must
be cautious about early specialisation which may prevent social
workers from gaining the full range of skills they need to work
with adults, children and families. The Government's commitment
to funding the NQSW year and postgraduate qualifications for social
workers mean that there is scope for specialisation to happen
later than in the second year of the initial social work degree.
The Task Force intends to consider, carefully, the case for specialisation
at different stages, to inform its recommendations about the shape
of a reformed approach to social work education.
There are particular and almost universal concerns
about the availability and quality of practice placements which
are essential to developing a competent and confident practitioner.
Not enough NQSW have a good statutory placement before they begin
high intensity frontline work. Many people have told us that students
on placements should be supervised and assessed by appropriately
trained and experienced social work practitioners. Mechanisms
should be in place to support employers in providing placements
at a time when they are already dealing with capacity issues.
We have been told by social work academics that
the shortage of high quality social workers is mirrored by a difficulty
in recruiting high quality social work academics and this needs
to be addressed. There are also concerns from employers and students
that those who become academics can lose touch with practice and
should have opportunities to regularly refresh their own knowledge
and skills in practice.
— Post-qualifying education and training.
We are hearing that there is support from many
stakeholders for the Government initiatives to support NQSW and
ongoing professional development. There are concerns about the
extent to which post-qualifying training is supported by employers
and by funding arrangements which need to be further explored.
The Task Force welcomes Lord Laming's recommendation that children
and families social work should become a postgraduate level profession.
We also welcome Ministers' commitment to developing and funding
a masters level qualification.
This should form a key part of the reform approach
to social work education. It will be important that it is available
to those working with adults as well as those working with children
and families.
I am confident that your Inquiry will make an
important contribution to developing a comprehensive understanding
of the problems and possible solutions for improving social work
education and training. Its work will assist the Task Force in
proposing changes to develop a consistently high standard of education
and training in order to prepare social workers more appropriately
for practice in the future.
The Task Force will be pleased to support the
work of the Committee in any way and await your recommendations
with interest.
May 2009
1 Not printed. Back
|
