BASW Select Committee Response - Social Work Training

 

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 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 specifed "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 "statutuory" 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 sustance 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 belive 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 hierachical 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 componant of the contribution of social workers into the multi-professional work envirnments - 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 emplyers 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 identifed 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 qualifiations 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 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 redfine 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 therfore be significant central university presure 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 placemnt 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 eams 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 sort 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 intial 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 - current 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 is 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 course 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.