Government announces new social worker standards

The standards will see the creation of three types of children’s social worker qualification, with separate assessment and accreditation systems for each and greater emphasis put on developing frontline skills and practice.

Announcing the plan at the National Children and Adult Services Conference in Manchester, Education Secretary Nicky Morgan said the new standards will “inspire and develop the next generation of leaders, ensuring the brightest and best lead rather than leave the profession”.

The three children’s social worker qualifications will be:

Of the senior social work practice leader role, Morgan said: “They will be 100 per cent focused on frontline practice locally and be alive to brilliant practice and alert to things that go wrong.

“It will be a role that will complement the corporate leadership role of the director of children’s services (DCS), allowing a wider pool of leadership talent to consider those roles, while the rigorous focus on social work practice sits with the new practice leader.”

All three standards will be based on a new statement of the knowledge and skills needed for children’s social work being developed by chief children’s social worker Isabelle Trowler and set for publication next month.

Of the thinking behind the new standards Morgan said: “Isabelle Trowler is convinced the authorities doing well are those that have an unwavering focus on the frontline, such as Cambridgeshire, Derbyshire, East Sussex, and the Tri-borough [Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham, and Kensington and Chelsea].

“It is an opportunity to have a system that invests less in people watching frontline practice with increasing layers of audit and governance, and more on people doing excellent frontline practice.”

She added that the assessment and accreditation systems for all three levels of qualification will be developed over the coming months, with rollout planned for next year.

Morgan also announced the government is to fund a third year of the frontline social worker graduate training scheme, covering the 2016 intake of students.

Reacting to the announcement, Andrew Webb, DCS at Stockport Council and past president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, said the move appeared to support the development of specialist skills for children’s social workers post-degree qualification.

However, he “remained to be convinced” that the social work practice leader role is “sufficiently different” to that of the principal social worker, a role recommended by professor Eileen Munro in her 2011 review of the profession and which has been widely implemented.