Examination of Witnesses (Questions 69
- 79)
MONDAY 1 JUNE 2009
PROFESSOR LENA
DOMINELLI, PROFESSOR
STEPHEN SCOTT,
HILARY TOMPSETT
AND PROFESSOR
SUE WHITE
Q69 Chairman: Let me welcome
Professor Sue White, Hilary Tompsett, Professor Lena Dominelli
and Professor Stephen Scott. It is a pleasure to have you all
here. I apologise that the Committee is a little thinner than
usual because of the imminence of the European elections, but
that will be made up entirely by having such quality. There will
be a £50 fine for anyone else who speaks behind the Chair.
We usually keep that for people whose phones ring, so would everyone
turn their mobiles off, please. That reminds us all that we have
to do it too. This is an extremely important inquiry for us. As
you know, we are doing it in parallel with inquiring into the
training of teachers, and we have our special advisers—our
home team. As has been said, it is a small world, so you are going
to know most of the people behind you and to the side of you.
I am going to whiz through things quickly, so do you mind if we
do not use titles, and go to first-name terms early on? That cuts
down the cross-questioning. Is that all right? Jolly good. I shall
give everyone a chance to encapsulate where they think we are
on training social workers. We think that we can add value by
having a serious inquiry into this topic, but you might feel that
we are just wasting time and there is no added value in it. Do
you have a view?
Professor White: Obviously not
the latter; it is very important. Social work is particularly
under the spotlight at the moment—and about time. People
might know that I am sitting on the task force as well, which
is exercised with, at least in part, similar issues. This attention
to what we believe is an extremely difficult job that requires
complex analytical skills and particular personal qualities that
not everybody has is extremely welcome.
Hilary Tompsett: I just wanted
to say thank you very much for this opportunity to contribute
to the Select Committee's thinking. I am here in my role as chair
of JUC SWEC, which is a member organisation of 70-plus universities.
Chairman: Which means what? Hansard
suddenly looked panicky, so would you tell us what that means?
Hilary Tompsett: JUC SWEC is the
Joint Universities Council Social Work Education Committee—the
universities that offer social work education. I am also here
to speak from my experience as a registered social worker. I have
worked as a practitioner and manager across children's services
and adult services—including the elderly and mental health—and
with renal unit problems. Obviously, I am also a lecturer and
a researcher, so I am speaking as a product of a generic post-graduate
degree, but also showing that people who are committed to the
values and principles of social work can stay in engagement with
the social work profession, so it is a tribute to the profession,
I hope. I am grateful to be able to contribute to the development
of the profession at this critical time, because I think it is
a critical time.
Professor Dominelli: Thank you
for giving me this opportunity to address the Committee. I am
here on behalf of Universities UK. To deal directly with your
question about whether the inquiry can add value, I certainly
hope so because for far too long social work education and practice
in this country have been in the doldrums, and I see this as an
opportunity to give the profession some new vision, resources
and strength, building on a foundation that is already stronger
than it used to be but which still has to be rooted in universities
and research and evidence-based practice, and in understanding
where new developments come from. There has to be critical capacity
to think and innovate to provide the best possible services for
all services users, which could some day be any one of us in this
room.
Chairman: Thank you. Stephen, you are
very welcome. This is new territory for us and we had a session
last week in which we exemplified again our breadth of interest
in children, schools and families. We had the two Secretaries
of State talking to us about health and children, and schools
and families, and about how teams can work better together. So,
you are welcome indeed.
Professor Scott: Thank you. I
do come from health. I am a doctor, but wearing one hat I work
with social workers in an adoption and fostering team, and we
train social workers from a number of London boroughs in their
post-qualification degrees. So, I have views about the quality
of people who come into it. Wearing my other hat, I am director
of research and development at the National Academy for Parenting
Practitioners, which the Minister, Beverley Hughes, set up because
she was persuaded of the argument that the good news is that there
are things that social workers can do with parents and children
that work—for example, in stopping abuse and improving child
outcomes. The bad news is that those things are not yet well enough
taken up by a number of work force organisations and in training,
so we are there to be an independent academy pushing up standards.
There are things there that work and perhaps academics like me
have not been good enough in getting the story out in the past
20 years. There is lots there that works.
Chairman: Thank you. Should we get straight
into the questioning? I will ask John to set us off because we
are going to start with quality assurance in social work education.
Q70 Mr Heppell: There now
seems to be a gap that has developed between the academic view
and the employers' view of competence. I think that there is a
fair amount of criticism from employers in terms of the degree
not delivering what it is expected to deliver: social workers
who are highly competent when they have finished their degree.
The consultation with newly qualified social workers showed that
one in seven newly qualified social workers said that they thought
the degree had not prepared them at all for the roles they were
going to have as social workers. Why has this gap developed? The
Association of Directors of Children's Services—ADCS—has
come up with a list of things that it says are missing from the
current training. What are your views on that?
Chairman: Who wants to start? Sue?
Professor White: I can start.
It is a very complicated picture. I am sure that you do not want
me to say that, but it is. I do not think that we can separate
out the issues about the different perceptions—for a start
I am not sure that there are different perceptions. I think that
we probably agree with employers that it would be very difficult
to prepare newly qualified social workers for some of the tasks
that they are tasked with as soon as they qualify, unless they
were coming into qualifying training with perhaps many years of
working within statutory social work and knew a lot about it.
There is an endemic shortage of practice learning opportunities
and a pressing need for employers and higher education institutions
to work together. It sounds very social worky and wishy-washy,
but there is a need for some real involvement of employers with
HEIs, which paradoxically did exist in a much stronger form in
the diploma in social work days, when directors would often sit
on programme boards, for example. There has been a significant
change in the demands on newly qualified social workers in child
care. You will know all this already. There are high vacancy rates
in some areas. There are issues about support. It is not something
that lends itself to a simple answer. It is part of the general
problems that had arisen systemically over a number of years in
children and families work. There are also some challenges for
higher education. There are some very contradictory imperatives
around, all of which have their own logic. One might be widening
access, creating more diversity in the social work work force—we
can see the arguments for that—but if we are going to widen
access there must be robust assessment processes. If we have a
low barrier, we have to have tight criteria to make sure that
only the people who can do the job get through. At the moment,
because of the target regimes in HEIs, there are targets for widening
access and targets for retention. Clearly, if you are trying to
educate a professional work force there could be some issues there,
particularly for institutions that may be taking people with lower
entrance requirements. People are caught in a bit of a double
bind as a result of that particular target. There are the pressures
in the employing agencies themselves and also for some employers
in children's services: people at high levels do not necessarily
understand what social work tasks are. So, maybe expectations
are very high. We know that social workers are very unhappy with
the levels of supervision that they are getting in some employing
agencies. I do not think that we get very far and it has gone
on a little bit. "It is the HEI's fault." "It is
the employer's fault." It is very difficult to attribute
blame and it is very complicated, but it is much easier to see
what we might do to try to make a more productive working relationship
between employers and educating institutions.
Chairman: Anyone else?
Hilary Tompsett: I just want to
add to that because Sue has given a really good overview of the
complexity. Sometimes it seems as though we spend a lot of time
thinking about the difficulties and how we find a way through.
I do not think that HEIs are complacent about the fact that some
qualifying social workers feel under-equipped. We would always
be seeking to improve that. One of the big questions is whether
there is a bit of a mismatch. Sue touched on the mismatch of what
we expect people to be able to do as a beginning professional.
Some of the developments that have been happening in relation
to thinking about what kind of preparation people such as newly
qualified social workers are getting when they get into the workplace
might be a key to helping bridge this gap between our expectations.
We want people to be out there who are competent. We do not want
anyone who is not able to do the job. It does not help the service
users, families or carers. It certainly does not do the universities
proud. It does not do the individual workers any service because
they do not stay. If they feel out of their depth, they are likely
to move, not stay and commit to the social work profession. It
is in all our interests to work together to solve this. We have
some joint work going on with agencies and employers and with
HEIs, which is very productive, but it could be that we need to
strengthen some of those relationships between employers and HEIs.
That may be one of the ways in which we could make suggestions
about future change. The other important thing to remember is
the activities in the social work degree. It might sound as though
we have gained much more time, because until 2003 it was a two-year
qualification—a DipHE. With the introduction of the new
degree came an increase in the practice learning days. All students
have to complete 200 days in a practice environment, which leaves
you with much tighter constraints on what you can achieve in the
academy. That is where it is really important to see this as a
shared responsibility to make the practice learning experiences
really good and testing, and to help people to understand the
job, but also to make sure that the HEI meets their intellectual
and conceptual needs.
Chairman: John?
Mr Heppell: Lena wanted to add something.
Chairman: You are not all going to get
a go at each question, but never mind. I will be generous in the
first round.
Professor Dominelli: There is
an issue about different expectations. They are variable across
the country, depending on universities and employers and their
partnerships, but, by and large, employers are expecting specialist
skills as a result of a qualifying programme.[20]
That is a crucial difference between HEIs and employers. I would
also like to add to what Sue and Hilary said about the partnership.
A number of employers have not understood the degree of support
that is needed in practice teaching and they need to take that
much more seriously than has been the case to date. There is a
huge shortage of placements across the country and the ones that
exist are also under-resourced. I am happy to answer more questions
about that. A partnership is only as good as the people in it
and the resources that come along with it. I think those are the
two crucial points.
Q71 Mr Heppell: I find that to be
a very worrying response, to be quite honest. Effectively, what
you seem to be saying to me—I am sure they would say exactly
the same—is that the directors do not really understand
what social work is about. We were saying that employers do not
have a real grasp of what social workers actually need to do.
I would have thought that most directors would have come through
social work and would have a fair degree.
Professor White: It certainly
was not meant as a generalised statement; it is something I have
been hearing as part of my research and partly through engagement
with the taskforce. Some social workers say that they are not
supervised directly by somebody with a social work qualification.
It is probably the exception, but there are then issues about
decision-making very high up in children's services departments
where, perhaps, directors do not have a social work background.
It is, again, possibly a minority, but it is something that social
workers on the ground talk about.
Q72 Mr Heppell: How do you
ensure that social work educators have a good knowledge of current
front-line practice? How do you keep track of that to make sure
that it is not you that is out of touch with what is happening
at the coal face, and not the employers?
Professor White: I can tell you
how I do it. I do it by doing detailed research, which involves
spending large amounts of time observing front-line practice.
I feel that that enables me to speak quite authoritatively about
what is going on in those organisations, but obviously the different
experiences of different social work academics will reflect a
variety. In both the submissions we have suggested that, along
with improving the relationships between HEIs and children's services,
we look for building-in opportunities for people from both practice
and management to contribute more to programmes—they do
contribute to programmes—and for academics to be seconded
to undertake research relationships. There are ways of doing it
that do not necessarily mean going in and having a joint post,
but it would be really good if we could build in systems that
actually ensured that people were, in whatever way, knowledgeable
about what was happening in organisations.
Q73 Mr Heppell: When you say
you can tell us how you would do it, that seems to suggest that
there is not a standard and that people do it differently.
Professor White: There is a requirement
for people in higher education institutions to undertake research
that is related to practice, but obviously that might be about
a particular intervention in relation to children where they spend
most of the time talking to the children or researching that intervention.
I think I had better hand over.
Hilary Tompsett: I was going to
say that I was not sure about your question, because you were
asking about practice educators and, in our terminology, "practice
educator" has a particular meaning. I just wanted to clarify
that. When we talked about partnership and the different people
who are involved in training for social work students, we thought
of the academic team in the university as being part of that practice
education team, but each of them, when they are out on placement,
would be attached to someone who would either be a practice educator
or a practice assessor. So, your question was very interesting
in thinking about how we both keep in touch with those joint and
shared responsibilities. I think that I would come at it from
a slightly different way, which is to say that the engagement
with employers obviously takes place in a number of different
ways. It takes place in the planning and the arrangements for
the provision of social worker training, but it also takes place
in terms of joint teaching—bringing practitioners in to
teach the students and then perhaps working jointly with an academic
member of staff. We are obviously also engaged in the training
and development of those people who become the practice educators
in the workplace. That is particularly interesting, because I
think that we are in a good "win-win" situation. If
we are working together to develop the practice educators in the
workplace, they then become, if you like, the interface between
the academy and the practice environment. Actually, it sometimes
means that we can facilitate research; it facilitates access to
understanding of how people learn, as well as understanding of
what is going on in the service environment. So, the engagement
with those practice educators in the workplace is really important.
It is one of the changes that took place with the introduction
of the new degree. To solve the problem of there not being enough
practice placements, some of the criteria and requirements for
practice educators in the workplace were changed to make it more
like everybody's business to be involved in the education of the
future professionals. However, what it meant was that the expectations,
if you like, of those people were lowered, so that there would
be a single module of five days.[21]
That is one of the things that we would look to the task force
or this Select Committee to seek to challenge. Have we lost something
that was really strong, which was about people who understood
the interconnection between the knowledge and understanding, and
the practice requirements?
Chairman: Lena is nodding there. Do you
agree?
Professor Dominelli: I agree with
that. I would also add another element. A lot of practitioners
are coming to the university to teach and a lot of academics also
teach and practise, and we have service users coming in as well.
So, if we are giving the impression that we are not in touch with
what is happening on the ground, that would not be correct; there
are many models whereby we keep in touch.
Hilary Tompsett: One of the things
that obviously changed with the 2003 new degree was that the General
Social Care Council required the engagement and involvement of
service users and carers in every programme that was approved.
I speak as a member of the GSCC, so I am particularly proud of
that kind of achievement. I think that it has brought about a
sea change in HEIs and the delivery of social work education.
Q74 Mr Heppell: Hilary, you were
quite proud at the beginning when you were telling us that you
are a product of the generic degree. In all the evidence that
we have had from people so far, everyone defends the idea of the
generic degree. Lena said that that is part of the reason why
there is a difference involved. What you said was that sometimes
people expect—I cannot remember what the words were.
Professor Dominelli: A specialist
worker at qualifying level.
Mr Heppell: Why not? Why cannot we talk
about that, instead of a generic degree? There is a certain amount
of criticism from local authorities about the fact that the generic
degree does not prepare social workers for dealing with children's
services or multi-agency work. So, why cannot we have a degree
that is not generic and that is more of a specialist degree?
Professor Dominelli: May I reply
to that? I think that the reason why we cannot have it is that
there is an awful lot that social workers have to learn and three
years is a very short time, although it sounds like a huge amount
of time, to learn what I would argue is one of the most difficult
professional tasks in the world. I think that I can back that
up in terms of the complexity of the work that has to be done
and because there is a wide range of knowledge that social workers
have to grasp hold of, which the best social workers learn. That
varies from social policy right through to skills around communication,
interviewing and so on. I think that if we had longer, maybe we
could specialise. Now, there are different models where we are
trying to do a little specialisation in the final year of a degree.
However, I think that if we look at some of the models of our
competitors in the broader world—the US, for example—their
specialisation occurs at masters level, after students have had
three years of generic training and time out in the field. Then
they are brought in to specialise at MA level. If we are asking,
as we should, that social workers should practise at the highest
level when dealing with the most complex, contradictory personal
and human relationships, that is a much better model than saying
that we need to rush the training and that we expect social workers
to cover economics, management, communication skills and all sorts
of other areas of knowledge. We would do better by having a longer
period in training, then arguing for specialisation. Otherwise,
I would like to see some kind of ladder where our expectations
of qualified social workers are that they would be able to involve
themselves in holistic interventions, supporting families and
individuals, doing analysis and assessment, but that the specialism
around the highest, hardest end, which is child protection, mental
health work and a range of other things, should require a higher-level
qualification, post qualifying. I would argue that it should be
at masters level.
Professor Scott: Yes, if you take
a medical or psychology model, which are kind of analogous, they
have to do basic training first and then specialise. You cannot
become a child psychologist straight off the course.
Hilary Tompsett: May I say something
about the nature of social work with children and families? I
think it is really important. We recognise that we are in a difficult
situation: shortages can sometimes make us feel more anxious to
get people out into the workplace, and we need them to be taking
on very difficult cases at the first level. However, we also need
to be aware that in order to do a good job with children and families,
it is clear that we have to recognise that children live in families,
they live in communities. The needs of the adults around them
will be absolutely critical. The assessment framework obviously
took a particular angle on parenting capacity and also environmental
factors and considered that it was really important for social
workers to take account of them. I refer to two things that were
really interesting. When the impact of the assessment framework
was reviewed in 2003,[22]
it was identified that where initial assessments were taking place,
two thirds of them had identified that there were family environmental
factors, and three quarters identified factors affecting parenting
capacity such as mental health problems and domestic violence.
If social workers did not understand what the issues were for
the parents, and the law in relation to mental health and child
care, they would not be able to give such good service to children
and families. Two studies were produced in 2008.[23]
Marion Brandon et al[24]
looked at the 2003-05 serious case reviews, which obviously post-dated
the Victoria Climbié inquiry, and identified that parental
mental health problems were present in 55% of the intensive sample,
and domestic violence in 66% of the sample. So it is absolutely
critical that not only do social workers understand the environment,
the social science and the economic context in which families
are growing up, it is also really important that they have a strong
knowledge and understanding of the issues that might be relevant
to the parents.
Q75 Mr Timpson: That leads
quite nicely on to the issue that I want to discuss briefly, which
is to do with qualities that we are looking for when as HEIs we
are looking at the applications in front of us. The driving force
behind the whole degree is to try to ensure that we churn out
excellent social workers year after year. Unfortunately, we know
that although there are excellent social workers—there are
many very good social workers—we also, as we have heard,
have those social workers who find themselves out of their depth
and taking on cases that are too difficult for them, too early
in their career. I would like to ask about the qualities that
universities should be looking for. Sue touched on the particular
personal qualities as well as the intellectual and academic qualities—both
the intellectual and emotional intelligence that are needed. How
far are our universities able to judge whether prospective students
have those qualities right from the start? We are asking an awful
lot of someone to show all the exceptional qualities that are
needed to be an excellent social worker.
Professor Scott: There have been
several studies in general on interviewing, which look at whether
people can make predictions. They show that they are not particularly
good. They can weed out the bottom 10% or 20%—those who
are sort of autistic and not very social. Individuals privately
think, "I've got a rather special skill at interviewing,"
but that is not borne out by the evidence. You need to interview
people to weed out those who are not there because they want to
be and who do not have a realistic view. I return to the issue
of intellectual capacity, which is very low. I do not know whether
the Committee has the data on the GCSE, and I take the point about
widening things, but I think that it is a very difficult task.
Some local authorities now do aptitude tests before hiring social
workers because they are so worried about that ability. In medicine,
we have more or less given up interviewing; people are interviewed,
but it is not considered a big weight and some medical schools
take people just on A-levels, which I do not support, but it is
an example.
Professor White: There is some
work taking place at the Social Work and Social Policy Higher
Education Academy on innovative approaches to admissions procedures,
and I think that we need to share that kind of information. There
are, for example, simulations—we have actually made one
as part of a piece of our research—that can be used to create
complex case material, which people are asked to analyse and think
about. There are probably some more innovative ways in which we
could at least test the analytical skills. We are kind of stuck
with either psychometric tests or the interview for the personality
traits, but I think that there is an opportunity for higher education
institutions to think carefully about imaginative ways in which
we can try to assess more accurately the sort of people who might
be able to perform not only academically, conceptually and intellectually,
but also practically and emotionally.
Professor Dominelli: I would like
to add another thing to that. There are some innovative examples
of good practice that combine interviewing individuals with group
exercises looking at how social workers perform under the simulated
conditions of a case study. They are then asked to explore certain
questions and operate as a team when they have never met each
other before. Those who observe that interaction use particular
criteria to evaluate each individual's performance as an individual
and in the context of the group. In that sense, I think that you
are trying to assess people's capacity to think on their feet
when using evidence where decisions need to be made very quickly,
and their capacity to ask probing questions to get at what is
underlining some of the things, such as what people really mean.
I think that you can do a lot better than simply apply psychologistic
aptitude tests which may give you an idea about somebody under
fixed conditions, but do not actually simulate the dynamic way
in which social workers have to practise with people at the other
end who always respond differently from the way that they[25]
might think. For social workers, we have to aim at three different
levels of competences. First, their personal skills as individuals:
how do they relate to others and how do they understand how others
operate? Then there is what I call the emotional dimension: how
are they affected by really complicated and sometimes devastating
situations that people have to respond to? Finally, there are
the intellectual, knowledge and practical skills. I think that
those things have to be co-ordinated to produce a good social
worker. If you handle only one of them—either the intellectual
or emotional, for example—without the practical and without
bringing them all together, you are not going to make it as a
social worker. The only other comment I would add is that, for
many of us who have been in the profession for some time, as I
have—I have also seen places across the world in one of
my other guises—it is really important to ask ourselves
what kind of social workers we want to produce and who we are
producing them for. As a service user, would I want a particular
person to work with me if I could not trust them enough to give
me the best service? I would not want such a person to pass. I
am clear that the fitness-to-practise test has to meet the criteria
that I would set for myself if I was a service user wanting the
best that we[26]
can give.
Q76 Mr Timpson: How do we therefore
best measure whether a student is fit to practise? Some of the
skill areas you have mentioned are quite easy to measure, particularly
intellectual ability and performance. Other aspects of the skill
base required to be a social worker are much more difficult to
measure, such as personal and emotional skills. How can you be
confident that universities can guarantee that students who come
out of social work degrees are competent to practise?
Professor Dominelli: That is why
we observe them. They are observed at the very beginning during
the interview stage and we see how they act under simulated conditions.
We then spend 100 days each year observing people at qualifying
masters level and in the last two years of bachelor level. Additionally,
three formal assessed direct observations are required by a practice
teacher and a minimum of one is done by somebody else in the practice
team. Social work students have to demonstrate that they are competent
to practise by the way in which they work with people. Some people
have asked whether we fail enough students. Perhaps we could tighten
up there and fail more students than has been the case. We do
fail students on the programme that I head at Durham. If they
fail a placement, they have one more chance to resit it. Once
that happens, that is it. We do fail students, but more could
be failed. That relies on the observational capacity in observing
people practising.
Hilary Tompsett: This is not just
an assessment event with people saying, "You are the right
person (for the profession)," or "You are not."
There is a process. We hope that people who apply for social work
will have enthusiasm and commitment for the principles we think
are important to keep them going through some difficult times.
We try to find ways of assessing them that involve service users
and carers, for example in interviews. They give feedback on whether
the student comes across as respectful and conveys the qualities
that we are looking for. That is only to decide whether students
are eligible to come on the course. Students are not allowed to
go out into placements until they have met the Assessed Preparation
for Direct Practice.[27]
Thresholds are built in to every programme as part of the requirements
for approval. They cannot go out into a practice environment until
they have shown themselves to be academically fit and have been
assessed doing simulation activities. Those are done throughout
the first year of undergraduate social work courses and in a slightly
shorter time scale on masters programmes. They simulate activities
that are relevant to practice such as interviews, writing letters
to service users, analysing cases and being videoed and getting
feedback. There is a chance to evaluate and to be evaluated. There
is a threshold in that process. Before the final threshold at
the end of the programme, students have two or three practice
placements, during which certain aspects of their development
are identified as meeting or not meeting the requirements. Some
might be required to take a second go at their practice placements.
The assessments at each stage are organised with a practice assessment
panel, which combines people from the academic and practice environments.
All the time, we are not just checking whether we think the person
is okay, but asking whether they will be fit to carry out the
duties of a social worker when they get there.
Q77 Chairman: A more general intake
would allow you to refine, because students will all go into different
areas of social work with different pedagogues. Surely having
a foundation level would allow you to sort people in that way.
After all, every child in this country knows that if they aspire
to go into higher education but are not that clever, they should
apply for a social work degree because it is the easiest way to
get into a university.
Hilary Tompsett: No, it is not.
Chairman: Oh, it is. Come on, we have
had evidence in this Committee that said it is. It is much easier
than getting in for an education degree. We were told by your
colleagues that it is the easiest subject in most universities
to get into.
Hilary Tompsett: I don't think
I can accept that. When you look at the UCAS points for social
work, they vary enormously. For some universities, they are very
high and for others, they are not as high as they are for education.
Chairman: They vary between departments.
Hilary Tompsett: I have looked
at the studies.
Q78 Chairman: So you totally
disagree with the other evidence that we have had?
Hilary Tompsett: No, no, I am
just saying that there is a huge variety. What we are dealing
with is the fact that A-level points and UCAS points are not the
same thing. When universities look at entry requirements, it is
about not only those points but all the other requirements that
social workers have to meet. They have to meet the maths, English
and literacy requirements. They have to be checked by the Criminal
Records Bureau and have an occupational health clearance.
Q79 Chairman: Hilary, they
won't have five A*s at A-level, will they?
Hilary Tompsett: Some will.[28]
Chairman: Very rarely. Everybody who
goes for a medical degree has three, four or five A*s at A-level.
Let us live in the real world. You know that you have a very mixed
bunch coming into this. How do you sort out those who have the
appropriate skills and those who do not?
Professor White: I have to make
it clear that I am speaking as me now and not as chair of the
Association of Professors of Social Work. I agree and disagree.
I do not agree with the global statement that it is easier to
get into social work than any other course. There are issues about
that.
Chairman: I am trying to stir you up
a bit.
Professor White: Yes, I know.
If I had to nail my colours to the mast, I would say that I want
to raise the entry requirements for a number of reasons. First,
A-levels are a poor proxy, but they are something. Secondly, there
is this issue, to which you have alluded, of bringing people into
something that may result in them qualifying as a social worker,
but which they may exit before that, perhaps because of some aspect
of the role of social work as we probably mean it here—critical
work with people in vulnerable situations that is about not only
promoting and protecting but a whole range of other things to
do with improving people's ability to make choices for themselves
and so on. It is difficult work, so there needs to be some kind
of process. If we are going to have a low barrier, we absolutely
must have really rigorous and fiercely enforced assessments and
routes. You do not want to exclude people who would be very good
at certain caring roles from coming into the social work and social
care work force. However, it is not the same job. There are different
levels of intervention. I am in the fortunate position of being
at a university where we have quite high entrance requirements,
but there are universities that do not. It is not a straightforward
matter. That does not mean that universities with low minimum
entrance requirements are not producing some extremely good social
workers, but I agree that there is probably some sort of correlation.
It is, to invoke the much-used phrase, common sense.
Chairman: Sorry, I cut across Edward's
question. Back to you, Edward.
20 Note by Witness: Employers are expecting
specialist workers from a qualifying programme. Back
21
Note by Witness: "Enabling Learning"-now an
element of Specialist level post qualifying awards, replacing
the Practise Teachers Award, phased out by September 2008. Back
22
Note by Witness: Cleaver H, Walker S, Meadows P (2003)
Assessing children's needs and circumstances: the impact of
the Assessment Framework London: DH Publications, p11. Back
23
Note by Witness: Two studies in relation to serious case
reviews. Back
24
Note by Witness: Brandon M et al (2008) Review of Serious
Case Reviews 2003-05, London: The Stationary Office, p46,
Appendix 2. Back
25
Note by Witness: They meaning the experts. Back
26
Note by Witness: We meaning as a society. Back
27
Note by Witness: Part of the DH/GSCC Requirements 2002. Back
28
Note by Witness: 28% of students on social work training
entered in 2006-07 with a degree already (GSCC, 2009, Raising
Standards Full Report, para 28, p 6). Back
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