The eight West London authorities have worked together to attract social workers to the area, using shared recruitment materials. They worked with partner universities to increase the placements they offer social work students, and on Step Up to Social Work, the new employment-based training programme. Senior social workers benefited from a "career pathways" training programme.
Jackie Nicholls, principal social worker, said: "The careers pathways programme is helping me to consolidate all the knowledge and skills that I have into creating an approach to working with children that is clear, consistent and evidence-based."
In the West Midlands, the key issue is retaining experienced staff. With this in mind, the 14 local authorities delivered action learning sets for first line managers and mapped the career pathways social workers take within a number of local authorities.
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