Social work accreditation reforms ‘risk destabilising workforce'

Under government plans, all child and family social workers will have to be assessed against the children and families knowledge and skills statements by 2020 at the latest.

But the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) said there are a number of outstanding issues with the proposals, which, unless adequately addressed, could have a negative impact on the profession.

These include whether accreditation is voluntary or mandatory, whether the system is introduced “at pace” or is “phased in” over time, and the implications of social workers failing the assessment process.

“If even 15 per cent of social workers fail the assessment processes the implications for the sector, but more importantly the implications for vulnerable children, young people and their families, are profound,” a position statement drafted by the ADCS states.

“ADCS believes that the policy and implementation issues must be addressed together, otherwise there is a serious risk that this reform agenda will, unintentionally, destabilise and demoralise the workforce.”

The ADCS said the accreditation system for the child and family practitioner status and the practice supervisor status to be made mandatory.

"Voluntary implementation risks destabilising a fragile workforce," the statement says.

"Moreover, it would be inappropriate for Ofsted to be used as a means of driving voluntary adoption of assessment and accreditation for example by including any judgments in future inspection frameworks about the numbers of accredited social workers in a local authority or by making a judgment about local authority employers based on proportions of social workers who fail the accreditation."

It also raises concerns about the potential creation of a "second class social work profession" – with those that fail to become accredited in statutory child and family social work remaining registered and moving into non-statutory child and family social work, such as early help, or adult social work becoming perceived as "the Cinderella service for those who fail to become accredited".

"This is not only a concern about how the social work profession as a whole is perceived, but it is a concern that the link between adult and children’s social work is broken," the statement says.

"ADCS firmly believes that in order to address the needs of vulnerable children and young people in an holistic and sustainable way, a systemic approach is required that includes breaking the cycle of adult disadvantage, much of which is driven by the impacts of alcohol or drug dependency, or poor mental health on adults’ ability to parent their children."

Accreditation will involve a four-stage process. After a worker has received endorsement from their employer, they will take an online multiple choice knowledge test. Then there will be a simulated activity test – in which candidates are gradually given more information about a case and are asked questions along the way, followed by a role play, using actors, where practice is observed.

Last week, appearing before the education select committee, chief social worker for children Isabelle Trowler revealed that social workers who fail new accreditation tests will not lose their registration.

However, she did add that the type of work that social workers who fail the test are allowed to conduct is likely to be limited.

Concerns have previously been raised that the introduction of a national accreditation scheme for children's social workers could see practitioners leave the profession and destabilise the workforce.

A consultation on the implementation of the accreditation system is due to be launched in the coming months.