Councils and universities must team up to improve social work education

Concerns about the availability and quality of local authority placements for social work students is nothing new.

In late 2009, a comprehensive review of social work practice by the Social Work Task Force called for new arrangements to be put in place to provide sufficient high-quality placements as one of its 15 recommendations.

More than four years on, Sir Martin Narey's report on social work training, published last month, has found that for too many students, the quality of placements can still prove more of a hindrance than a help at the beginning of their career.

His report calls for tough new measures to ensure the issue is addressed (see box out). Among other things, it recommends that an existing College of Social Work endorsement scheme be made compulsory for higher education institutions wishing to train social workers. The endorsement process would include an evaluation of the quality of practice placements. Universities that fail to provide every student with at least one statutory placement, or a comparable alternative, would not be endorsed, and would be barred from offering courses.