Memorandum submitted by the British Association
of Social Workers
The British Association of Social Workers is
the professional body for social workers in the UK. We represent
social workers across the workforce. We are a member of the International
Federation of Social Workers.
SUMMARY
1. Government, employers and universities
need to work together to address the needs of mature students
and re-entry programmes.
2. We want a two stage process for education
of social workers.
— Stage 1 is a generic degree with
a final statutory placement in a quality assured setting. This
should be linked to specific university based teaching.
— Community based practice learning has
made a significant contribution to student learning on social
work programmes, but we would like reconsideration as to whether
there are better ways of evaluating these learning experiences
outside the current assessment framework. This could result in
fewer assessed practice learning days being appropriate in the
degree programme.
— The graduate route to this level of qualification
should stop being called a Masters Degree as this confuses the
Continuing Professional Development routes.
— Stage 2 is the Newly Qualified Social
Work programmes which should be for all social workers. We would
like to see these only in the same places as the final year statutory
placements as this creates the close link between universities
and employers for quality assured learning environments.
— We would like to see employers expecting
to interview students for their final placements with the intention
of keeping them for the two years. This will help to address the
"shortage" of statutory placements.
3. University social work programmes should
have 50% of their lecturing staff as registered social workers,
whose workload should include a minimum of two weeks a year in
a partner agency to update themselves on front line practice in
their area of teaching.
4. Consideration should be given to a national
benchmark for A level entry to the profession.
5. The key agenda for all involved in social
work education now has to be to drive up the consistency of the
quality of teaching and learning in universities and in agencies.
This should be part of a "contract" or "service
level agreement" between universities and agencies to replace
the current ideas of partnership.
6. We would like further consideration on
the number of social workers which are needed. We want to find
a way whereby the popular content of social work programmes can
be available to large numbers of students, while not putting inappropriate
burdens on agencies across the adult and childrens services to
provide placements for people who will not be going on to work
as social workers. We believe that the statutory placement and
NQSW requirement for registration can be the lever to control
entry to the profession, while leaving universities freer to develop
parallel opportunities for non-professional routes.
7. We would like to see a major programme
of increasing the skills of all existing staff that do not have
the new degree in social work. This can be linked to a qualification
or specifically written standards. This will address the lack
of take up over many years of continuing professional development
programmes and could lead into any proposed new Masters Degree
programmes.
8. We would like to see the development
of a range of Masters Degree programmes for social workers, and
that those who achieve the degrees then become eligible to be
appointed as advanced practitioners or front line managers. We
strongly hold to the view that front line social work managers
need to be expert practitioners and maintain their practice expertise.
9. Local authorities and other organisations
which provide a social work service need to employ registered
social workers in their top management structures and maintain
a clear dialogue with their front line social work staff.
10. Each organisation should identify one
of these senior social workers as the lead social worker to be
responsible for working with the universities and other education
providers concerning social work education issues and CPD for
all social workers.
To respond to the specific issues identified
by the Select Committee in more detail:
1. Entry routes to the profession
1.1 Social work has traditionally attracted
mature students. These were primarily existing staff in social
care who wanted to get the professional qualification, people
wanting a career change, and women who had raised their families
and wanted to become social workers. While local authorites have
been funded to provide schemes to support entrants to social work
and there are bursaries for people on social work degrees, we
know that many of the above groups still find it difficult to
fund themselves on a degree programme and there has been a drop
off in local authority secondments.
We get regular contact from people wanting to
re-enter the profession, particularly after career breaks undertaking
caring responsibilities. The only nationally available programme
has been recently established by the Open University. This is
a gap in the market.
2. Structure of training
The format we want to see is:
2.1 Stage 1
Route 1: Honours batchelor's degree for initial
education for those for whom this is their first degree.
Route 2: For graduates in other disciplines—a
24 month intensive initial programme leading to a graduate
diploma. Our experience is that it is unhelpful to call these
awards "Masters degrees" as this confuses Continuing
Professional Development for these students and for employers.
This is done in other professions (eg law).
In routes 1 and 2 there should be
a "statutory" final placement in a quality assured location,
with associated specific teaching and practice educator support.
2.2 Stage 2
We strongly believe that all new social workers
must complete a Newly Qualified Social Worker Programme in specified
"statutory" work locations that are quality assured
and meet specified standards. These work locations should be the
same as the final placement locations for the degree—and
we would encourage employers and students to normally expect that
the student/employee should stay in the same place over these
two years.
This change would radically alter the relationship
between employers and education institutions:
Employers would have to be approved that they
met the standards to provide a "statutory" work environment.
Employers would want to select their students
as potential and then actual employees. This would replace the
"placement finding" industry which has developed for
these final placements and would help to spread demand and opportunities
round the country as students would be more willing to move if
they know they are to stay for two years.
3. Content of initial training
3.1 Our members are totally committed to
the principal of a generic first degree for all social workers.
This is because our children and families workers say that they
rely heavily on their learning about family functioning, mental
health and substance misuse knowledge. Increasingly they are also
drawing on knowledge of older people as issues like kinship care
and the role of grandparents in caring for children is developed.
All our members believe strongly in the prime focus being on the
individual, family and community functioning of all with whom
we work. This is true for social workers in childrens services,
adult services, mental health services, youth justice services—and
the myriad of other services where social workers now make an
important contribution to the workforce.
3.2 Thus we belive that there does need
to be a generic core of knowledge to the degree. This could be
in the form of a "foundation" or as a "spine"
of knowledge across the whole the degree.
3.3 The importance of placements with service
users and in wider community settings is significant to ensure
that social workers understand community and group dynamics and
to ensure that they can communicate with people across society,
regardless of age and other barriers to communication, outside
of a hierarchical and/or statutory relationship. However, the
systems which sometimes have to be created to make sure they are
assessed to meet the national occupational standards for the degree
have had to be creative, and we would like exploration as to whether
they have to be assessed in this way. We could see a value in
them being not formally assessed, but just reported on and not
counted within the formal placement days for the degree. We know
that the funding has been important in the development of these
learning opportunities for students, but we would like consideration
of reducing the number days in these placements, and that the
assessment regime is radically altered. For students straight
from school they are invaluable as an entry into the workplace.
For those supported by their employer they can be an opportunity
to experience a new way of working with a different group of service
users and carers. For everyone it can be an opportunity to reconnect
with people within a local community and understand the range
of formal and informal support networks which exist for people
in that community. This is invaluable learning and must be preserved—but
the current assessment regime is often manipulated to make the
learning experience fit into the NOS. This is unhelpful when students
then move to their final placements or work, and have to re-learn
what level of work is expected in those settings.
3.4 However, we do accept that there need
to be changes to the current arrangements for the final year of
initial degrees. We strongly believe that all students must have
a final, quality assured "statutory" placement where
they learn to exercise key statutory duties under good supervision
by a registered social worker who is competent in that area of
practice. This can then be supported from the university with
good teaching of the law and practice specific to that work environment,
and encourage reflective learning by students from their peers,
practice educators and university staff.
3.5 This is because we recognise that the
use of the legal framework, alongside their knowledge of sociology
and psychology, within families and local communities is a key
component of the contribution of social workers into the multi-professional
work environments—so we want all social workers to be clearly
grounded, confident and competent in these areas of work.
3.6 Creating the link between the final
placement and the NQSW programme is a key lever to ensure that
employers and universities work closely to ensure that the curriculum
in the university and on placement is working well together.
4. Quality
4.1 Like many regulators the GSCC was encouraged
to develop a "light touch" regulatory approach at the
point where universities were also experiencing a lighter touch
approach from the Quality Assurance Agency. This has left many
programmes quite isolated within their institutions and subject
to the whims of university and employer demands. More now needs
to be done.
4.2 Many social work departments are quite
small within their university. The GSCC has a system to approve
university institutions, but they have not refused approval to
anyone who has asked to run a social work programme. This needs
to be revisited, to look at the impact of a new programme in an
area as well as the institutional support for the specific demands
for social work programmes—for instance over employer and
service user engagement—and the expectations for research
on university staff.
4.3 We believe that the language of "partnership"
between universities and employers now needs to be replaced by
the more common language of "contracts" or "service
level agreements". This should focus specifically around
the statutory placements and NQSW requirements. It should include
the responsibility on employers and universities to enable a nationally
determined percentage of the lecturers on a social work degree
programme (we suggest 50%) to be qualified and registered social
workers, and to have as part of their university workload identified
time within a contracted partner agency to help them to stay up
to date with their teaching content and social work practice.
We suggest a minimum of two weeks a year for this.
4.4 We want the current requirements about
service user engagement with the degrees to continue as we know
this has given enormous added value to the students and many service
users. However, it is expensive in time and money and universities
must not penalise social work programmes on this basis.
4.5 Entry to social work degree programmes
has been at the discretion of each HEI. The history of attracting
mature and career change entrants with non-traditional qualifications
has been seen as a major strength of social work programmes, which
developed in response to the demand from employers to take people
from the social care workforce who were under-qualified and yet
who employers wanted to train as social workers. The introduction
of the degree and the entry of school leavers required the setting
of entry grades as A level, a new experience for many programmes.
The grades are now out of kilter with other professional programmes
and so it is right that consideration be given to whether a national
benchmark should be established.
4.6 When the degree was established it ran
alongside the demise of the Diploma in Social Work. Thus the resources
for the diploma had to be maintained for those students, and were
released as the diploma students finished. There is a view that
this, with the entry of school leavers for the first time, led
to the first year of the degree becoming a "pre—diploma"
year, rather than boosting the quality of the output in the final
year. This is not clearcut—but we share concerns about the
quality of some of the degree programmes. We get involved through
our Advice and Representation service in supporting students who
are BASW members where they have concerns—and we know that
there are areas of poor practice in some university departments.
We would support the GSCC taking action against programmes which
are not delivering a good standard of education to their students.
4.7 Practice education—teaching and
learning. The Social Work Development Partnership between Skills
for Care and the Childrens Workforce Development Council have
been working with the General Social Care Council to produce and
launch this year a new Quality Assurance tool for Practice Learning
(QAPL). This is the first attempt to give a national quality assurance
standard for all placements.
4.8 The new degree set out to increase the
number of social work students, and with the approval of new programmes,
and the growth of existing programmes this growth in student numbers
has been achieved—but the impact on placements has been
detrimental. The Practice Learning Taskforce was set up to develop
new placements and was very successful—but the focus on
numbers was without any quality assurance. This now has to be
rectified. The QAPL tool is a start. The work currently being
undertaken by the GSCC and the Social Work Development Partnership
to redefine what is meant by "statutory" placements
is a second strand of this work. We also need to explore whether
we should now reduce the demand for assessed placements by reducing
the numbers of courses and/or students and changing the type of
"assessed" placements (as set out above).
5. Supply of initial training
5.1 There is evidence that social work courses
are popular with some universities. They tend to have a good track
record of diversity in the student population, are successful
in supporting to completion students from non-traditional educational
backgrounds, and it's a popular subject content. These are all
wins for universities and other colleges when looking to fill
their student numbers and meet government targets. There can therefore
be significant central university pressure for courses to take
more students.
5.2 The downside is that this increase in
university students is not linked to workforce demands—and
certainly not to placement opportunities—and this puts unacceptable
demand on employers at a time when social work teams are themselves
under pressure. This is why we have ended up with students having
too many placements in non-social work environments, and are not
adequately prepared for statutory social work roles.
5.3 We believe that the generic content
of social work degrees should be made widely available through
university programmes, but students should then be able to complete
university programmes which are not called "social work"
(names like "applied social studies" have existed for
some time for these non-professional programmes). The social work
degrees would build on this generic foundation or spine—to
provide the specialist social work content and placement experience—and
the numbers on these programmes should be limited to those who
can complete statutory placements and move into NQSW jobs. This
sort of structure would allow social work teams to contribute
to meeting the university targets, while not overburdening employers.
It would also enable students to be clearer about the "social
work" content of their programmes.
5.4 University staff have many pressures
on their time. They need to be qualified and competent university
lecturers, some need to be registered social workers and keep
up to date in practice, some also need to be active researchers.
They need to engage with employers, service users and practice
educators. They need to be active within their university schools
or faculties. This is a tall order, and evidence should be sorted
as to whether there is a minimum and optimum size of department
to make this tension of demands workable.
5.5 The demand of some universities for
all staff to be research active to international standard is difficult
for most universities running initial social work degree programmes.
These universities may be better placed to only run the post graduate
programmes and professional doctorate programmes—but demand
for these is not developed yet, so few exist.
5.6 The creation of the childrens workforce
is very new, and the remodelling of the workforce means that it
is very early days to know what the demand for social workers
will be. The current workforce figures and quoted shortages are
not based on any agreed workforce data or protections. It is therefore
difficult for DCSF, DIUS or CWDC to make meaningful predictions.
CWDC has therefore been funded to promote specific workforce initiatives—currently
about 12 different strands within social work. This has put
enormous pressure on local authorities when they are already overstretched
to deliver services to the public. The NQSW, while welcomed by
BASW and most social work professionals, has nevertheless put
real pressures on employers for proper supervision and reduction
of workload which have proved difficult to meet. How to develop
capacity in a sustainable way is a real challenge at this time
and not helped by an overload of competing short term initiatives
and pilots.
6. Post-qualifying training and career paths
6.1 The social work profession has benefited
from people who have moved to work with different service users,
and between different sorts of employers, including universities.
This flow of workers has enabled individuals, many of whom are
women, to maintain flexible working opportunities and to respond
to changes in the market demand for social workers. Thus the profession
encompasses people who work within local authorities, private
sector, and third sector organisations—as well as establish
their own business as independent practitioners and consultants.
One large local authority has recognised that it employs social
workers in three of its four departments and is exploring establishing
a Chief Social Worker post reporting to the Chief Executive as
the way of supporting its social work staff. This analysis is
crucial in any discussion of post qualifying opportunities for
social workers and career pathways.
6.2 There is a major staff development gap
which has not been addressed. This is the up-skilling of existing
staff. To establish a programme like Nursing 2000, to require
all existing social work staff to gain a degree level qualification
would be a major contribution to the enhancement of social work
services. This could be done in many ways—but could give
a real lift to existing staff—who can feel neglected in
the focus on new staff.
6.3 It would also give the platform for
developing the new master programmes for all front line staff.
We agree that these should be specific to the work being done—so
that people do become expert practitioners. Thus we can envisage
that social workers could gain a Masters in Childrens Social Work,
a Masters in Youth Justice Social Work, a Masters in Social Work
Practice Education, etc. These could then be linked to pay—and
maybe different registers with the GSCC. This does imply a major
change from the current GSCC post-qualifying framework.
6.4 Once people have achieved these qualifications,
they could then become eligible to apply to become managers or
advanced practitioners in specified posts. We believe that managers
should be expert practitioners, especially in child care teams
and required to maintain their practice skills as part of their
GSCC registration requirement.
6.5 Some social work students are very clear
about their preferred area of work during their course. This can
change through experience on placements or the experience of others
on the programme. However, how this links to employment depends
on what jobs are available when they are looking for work. This
is why we would like to see a close link between final placements
and NQSW.
6.6 Further development is very dependent
on the opportunities made available through the employer. Most
professional courses require the support of the employer and may
require access to information about work experience, often observed
practice, and can therefore only be undertaken with employer support.
At times of work pressure or funding problems this support may
not be forthcoming—or there is a long wait—so workers
may have to move employers or just not get the further training
they want.
6.7 This has fitted with a mindset of only
educating people for the job they are doing today—not for
the skills and knowledge they may need tomorrow. It should be
possible to devise professional modules and programmes which can
be taken by workers even if they are not in a job where they can
currently show competence. Universities do put on programmes like
this—and social workers do attend them, but they are not
recorded as professional development, as they are not competence
based programmes. This is a short sighted approach—but one
which is well embedded in agency thinking and planning.
6.8 Employers vary widely in the support
they give to new staff. This came through clearly from the CWDC
enquiries. However, we believe that all staff should receive a
minimum standard of support and development, which is why we support
an NQSW programme for everyone, linked to registration.
6.9 At times of shortage, staff are promoted
too quickly into management roles. Then where they have not received
good supervision, they are unable to give it to their staff. Many
front line managers give good supervision to their front line
staff, but for their career and credibility they also have to
deliver a good account of their work to their managers—who
may or may not be social workers and sympathetic to the job they
are doing. Thus for new managers the pressure to meet organisational
targets can become the key message they give to their front line
staff, even if it means poor social work practice and poor service
to the public. This can then be exacerbated by organisational
training for new supervisors by central training teams who reinforce
the corporate message. The only counterbalance is if there is
a strong social work voice in the corporate senior management
team.
6.10 We want to also argue for a strong
front line practitioner voice within organisations. We are concerned
that the alliance between employers and service users has too
often been at the expense of a real dialogue between employers
and their front line staff. Education staff have been represented
by trade unions in this discussion, but we have heard from DCSs
that their social work staff are not so unionised and therefore
they do not know how to talk to their front line social work staff.
This is a major problem of perception—and one where BASW
is able to help, but this should not replace the requirement on
directors to engage with their front line staff directly.
6.11 We want every local authority and other
organisations delivering a social work service to identify a lead
social worker to be responsible for social work education issues
and be responsible for the CPD of social workers in the organisation.
April 2009
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