Children's Workforce Guide to Qualifications and Training: Social work

Transformation continues apace in the children's social work sector. The government's latest vision for children's social care, Putting Children First, sets out a raft of planned reforms including the establishment of a new system of assessment and accreditation for all child and family social workers, practice supervisors and leaders by 2020.

The system will be underpinned by Knowledge and Skills statements that have been published over the last few years by Isabelle Trowler, the chief social worker for children and families, which set out everything practice supervisors, leaders and social work practitioners need to know and be able to do.

The assessment system will involve testing social workers' knowledge and observing their simulated practice in role-play scenarios with actors. After assessment, social workers will earn the status of Approved Child and Family Practitioner, Practice Supervisor or Practice Leader.

Almost 1,000 social workers helped to test the new system between April 2015 and March 2016. Later this year the government will consult on aspects such as whether accreditation should be compulsory and what will happen if social workers fail to achieve accreditation. Selected local authorities will start to roll out the system from 2017 to September 2018.

A planned new social work regulator, to be created subject to the passing of the Children and Social Work Bill, will eventually take responsibility for the assessment and accreditation system. The regulator, which will cover all areas of social work, will have a wider remit than current regulatory body the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). As well as maintaining a register of social workers, it will lead the development of professional standards, and standards for pre-registration education and training and continuous professional development (CPD). Training providers will have to be re-accredited against the new standards by 2020.

The British Association for Social Workers (BASW) opposes the introduction of the new regulator, believing the sector itself should lead in setting standards and developing self-governance. The Commons' education select committee, which has published a report into the planned social work reforms, also opposes the new body and has called on the government to rethink its plans.

The committee also calls for the development of a professional body to replace the defunct College of Social Work. Financial difficulties forced the college to close last year after just three years in existence. BASW has taken on many of the college's functions such as its Professional Capabilities Framework, and the organisation believes it is well placed to act as a successor body to the college.

The role of practice leader has come under the spotlight, with plans to launch a training programme to develop new practice leaders and establish an accredited practice leader in every local authority by 2020. Practice leaders are qualified social workers with operational responsibility for a local authority's child and family social work practice and are usually called assistant director of social care or director of family services. There has been some confusion over the differences and similarities between the role of practice leader and that of principal social worker, a role which has been adopted by most local authorities, and there have been calls for the government to define the two roles and how they relate to each other.

The training programme is being developed by Westminster City Council, the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, with the support of other high-performing local authorities. The first group of practice leaders will be accredited in 2017.

There are also plans to launch a training programme to develop those moving from frontline practice to practice supervisor. The first cohort will take part in 2017.

The main route for people to enter child and family social work is through a generic three-year social work degree or a two-year Masters. The number of approved social work courses fell from 276 to 256 over the course of 2014/15 according to the HCPC, with eight courses opening during the year but 28 closing. There has been a significant shift in the split between undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, from 46 per cent postgraduate programmes in 2012, to 56 per cent in September 2015.

Past reviews have found that while some courses are very strong, others have low entrance standards, too narrow a focus on the skills and knowledge needed to be a social worker, and lack high-quality practice placements. To combat this, the government has introduced reforms including the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) for newly qualified social workers. Introduced in 2012, the ASYE provides new social workers with access to training and development during their first year of work, with regular reviews leading to a final assessment. Employers can currently choose whether they offer the scheme but the education committee has called for it to be made mandatory.

Social workers must commit to CPD to stay registered and be able to practice. The HCPC currently selects 2.5 per cent of the children and families social care workforce to undergo a CPD audit. Requirements for CPD may be overhauled when the new regulator is launched. The government aims to make CPD more accessible with the creation of a What Works Centre for children's social workers, set to launch at the end of this year, which will be a source of best practice information.

The government is also creating an optional training programme as part of a potentially wider CPD project. The trial programme will focus on the knowledge and skills required to achieve permanence for children within and outside the social care system. The content of the training will be based on a specialist statement of knowledge and skills that the government intends to consult on shortly.

In 2015 the Department for Education (DfE) and the Department of Health launched four teaching partnerships, bringing together a range of local authorities, other social care and health organisations and universities. The government is hoping to expand the programme and has had 23 applications involving 98 local authorities, 43 universities and a range of other organisations.

The government is continuing to support Step up to Social Work, an employer-based fast-track 14-month programme for graduates with a good degree aiming to qualify as a children's social worker. Students receive a bursary of more than £19,000 and can train in one of 18 regional partnerships involving more than 100 local authorities in England.

The DfE has approved standards for two new apprenticeships for those wanting to work with children and young people. The apprenticeships aim to give practitioners and managers a clearer career path and equip them with the flexibility they need to move from one role to another in a changing sector.

First, Children, Young People and Family Practitioner is a Level 4 qualification for those who want to work in residential care or do community-based work with vulnerable children and families. Along the way, participants will either be expected to gain a Level 3 qualification in residential child care or a Certificate of Higher Education in Working with Children, Young People and Families, a new qualification that will be developed within the next nine to 12 months in partnership with a group of higher education institutions. At the end of the course they will be assessed on their knowledge, skills and behaviour.

Second, the Children, Young People and Families Manager apprenticeship allows students to gain a Level 5 qualification in residential care leadership and management, or in leadership for health and social care. The employer group that is developing the apprenticeships hopes they will be ready from January 2017.

Meanwhile, the government has launched a campaign to bring former social workers back to the profession. Successful applicants to Come Back to Social Work will get 13 weeks' training to prepare them to re-register with the HCPC.

Child protection

The Child Protection Taskforce was created in June 2015 with a remit to extend and accelerate reforms to the quality of social work with children and families.

Preventing child sexual exploitation (CSE) remains a government priority. A government-funded service providing specialist advice and support to children's professionals tackling CSE launched in September 2016. The Child Sexual Exploitation Response Unit will provide a helpline, online knowledge portal, and training courses to ensure staff on the ground are equipped to deal with emerging issues. The University of Bedfordshire has launched a five-day Masters-level short course on CSE, which covers issues such as consent in abusive situations and peer-on-peer abuse. The course is offered twice a year or can be provided to local authorities or other organisations on demand.

The Frontline programme, launched by charity Ark in 2013, aims to ensure trainees get the experience they need while also bringing high-calibre graduates into social work. Inspired by the education leadership programme Teach First, students undergo an intensive five-week residential training programme followed by two years working and training in a local authority child protection team. In their first year, successful participants qualify as a social worker, while their second leads to a Masters qualification. The programme is set to expand from Greater London and Greater Manchester into the North East from September 2016 and the West Midlands from September 2017. The government wants all local authority areas to be able to access it by 2020.

Frontline has taken in three cohorts of 104, 121 and 160, with more than 95 per cent of the first cohort going into the ASYE in local authorities. The scheme is currently recruiting for 300 places for the 2017 cohort and has launched a programme for existing social work managers, called Firstline.

An independent evaluation published in March 2016 found Frontline participants were rated higher than students on mainstream programmes on every one of the 10 assessment criteria. However, some in the sector are concerned Frontline has too narrow a focus on child protection, to the detriment of other aspects of child and family social work. The education select committee has recommended the government increase generic elements in the Frontline curriculum, and has asked Frontline and the Joint University Council Social Work Education Committee to set out how they propose to work together.

Looked-after children

Since January 2015, staff working in children's homes in England have been required to obtain the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare, with managers required to hold the Level 5 diploma. A 2015 DfE census of the children's home workforce found more than nine in 10 staff either held a Level 3 qualification, or were working towards the diploma.

Scotland will require all staff in children's homes to be graduates from 2018. In a government-commissioned report published in July, Sir Martin Narey recommended this should not be a requirement in England, although he did call for newly appointed managers to be graduate social workers.

Narey's other recommendations included tightening up the standards of the online delivery of the Level 3 diploma, as the DfE research found students were less satisfied with this than with face-to-face teaching. He also said the DfE should ensure as many social work students as possible spend some of their 200 days placement experience in children's homes, a recommendation supported by BASW.

The National Implementation Service manages a portfolio of government-funded interventions for children in or on the edge of care and their families, including Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care and ReSULT, a programme for children's home staff. ReSULT was praised by Sir Martin Narey in his residential care review: "Staff liked the balance between its theoretical components of social learning theory, relational skill building, and neuroscience, which have practical application."

The government is developing training that will cover the knowledge and skills essential to social workers when making decisions to support children to achieve permanence, with the aim of rolling this out from 2017. The programme will include a focus on improving the quality of permanence assessments and building skills to ensure court material is well-prepared and clearly argued. A consultation on the knowledge and skills statement for child and family social workers involved in permanence planning, which will be used to shape the content of CPD courses, closed on 9 September.

CoramBAAF, the successor to the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, which closed last year, offers a range of workshops and bespoke training depending on particular agency or sector needs. Core workshops cover issues including making good assessments, life story work, roles and responsibilities of different panel members, dealing with allegations and planning for permanence.

CHILDREN'S SOCIAL WORKERS: THE NUMBERS

• 28,570 children's social workers employed in statutory settings in England at 30 September 2015. Equivalent to 26,500 full-time equivalents (FTEs)
• 5,470 FTE vacancies at 30 September 2015 - or 17% of the workforce - an increase of more than a quarter since 2014
• 4,440 FTE children's social workers joined their local authority during the year ending September 2015
• 4,200 FTE children's social workers left their local authority during the year ending September 2015

Source: Children's Social Work Workforce during year ending 30 September 2015, Department for Education