Recruitment, Retention and Role Slumping in Child Protection: The Evaluation of In-Service Training Initiatives

Take-home messages

To be sustainable, career progression programmes need to take account of organisational factors that may impact social work turnover in the specific local context and require full leadership support from more senior managers.

This study investigated the impact of a training initiative in West London across eight local authorities, a two-year project funded by the then Department for Children, Schools and Families. The aim of the project was to reduce turnover and promote recruitment through creating more wide-ranging career progression for advanced practitioner social workers and team managers. Researchers specifically sought to explore the existence of "role slumping" - a process in which critical tasks are inappropriately undertaken by staff at a higher level, and the extent to which the training initiative led to a decrease in micro-management and increased confidence among social workers.