Thought leader

Some time ago, the Social Work Taskforce called for a strategy to support the development of frontline social work managers, in part as a response to the tragic death of Peter Connelly. More recently, I have been working with Learn to Care, which represents heads of social care learning, to look at the development of these managers using a variety of pilot sites.

The findings from these pilot projects suggest that much of the leadership and management development for social work managers has been undertaken via generalist management programmes at university-based business schools, with programmes such as the MBA (Masters in Business Administration) and DMS (Diploma in Management Studies). The other main area of support appears to have been via generalist leadership programmes usually run in-house by local authorities. It is notable that the General Social Care Council post-qualifying leadership and management pathway has had the least uptake of all post-qualifying pathways. Nevertheless, the attempt to bring all the various leadership and management standards together within a single qualification for social work managers is an admirable one.