Children's workforce guide to training and qualifications
Charlotte Goddard
Monday, September 28, 2015
Qualification requirements and training provision for working with children and young people is continuously adapting in line with changes in policy and practice. Charlotte Goddard provides a comprehensive overview.
Providing the right qualifications and training is vital across the children's workforce to protect and support young people. This is true of initial training for those embarking on careers working with children, young people and families, and ongoing professional development to ensure practitioners and managers have the skills they need to cope with shifting demand and increased complexity.
Most professions are facing their own challenges. In social work, where efforts to reform education and training continue, a £400m investment in professional development comes against the backdrop of the closure of the College of Social Work. Youth work professionals are increasingly taking on roles outside traditional youth work settings such as in housing schemes, health services and youth justice programmes, while the family courts sector has seen an increase in the provision of family mediation services in recent years.
The childcare and early years sector has been grappling with qualification requirements for entry-level courses, while the number of playwork jobs has reduced with more zero-hours contracts in use. In education support, training has had to keep pace with changes to special educational needs policy.
The field of mental health is set to benefit from new investment in training, while other parts of the health sector warn a lack of staff will soon make it impossible to run some services.
At the top, senior managers and directors are also being asked to take on new challenges and responsibilities. It is hoped the development of new children's workforce apprenticeships, with their focus on flexible career paths across the sector, will go towards helping professionals navigate the changing landscape in which children's professionals now operate.
Social work
Qualifications and training for social workers, particularly those working with children, are under an intense spotlight. Last year saw the publication of two major reviews from Professor David Croisdale-Appleby and Martin Narey, the government's adoption adviser. Both documents put forward a number of recommendations to improve social worker education, with concerns including the lack of practical experience offered by many social work degree courses and the dearth of opportunities for specialism in children's social work.
The British Association of Social Workers (BASW), however, is strongly against the development of early specialisation in children's social work. "We are firmly committed to a generic social work qualification and don't support any attempts to undermine that," says chief executive Bridget Robb. "However, we do need a proper structure of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) that enables people to specialise in children's work or specific environments where they are working with families."
The government has invested £400m in social work education over the past few years, with reforms including the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment for newly qualified social workers, the fast-track training programmes Frontline and Step Up to Social Work, and social work bursaries.
The closure of professional body The College of Social Work (TCSW) may slow things down, while the sector sorts out ownership of the college's various functions. The college ran an endorsement programme for social work degrees, which has been temporarily taken on by the Greater Lancashire Social Work Education and Training Network, a regional partnership of employers and higher education institutions.
The Health Care and Professions Council (HCPC) already approves all pre-registration social work courses and is currently carrying out a review that will report back in the new year.
BASW is set to take on many of the college's functions, including its CPD endorsement framework. This lists providers and courses that have met agreed standards of teaching and assessment. Social workers must commit to regular professional development to remain registered with the HCPC.
Robb says BASW plans to go further than endorsement and will work with partners to build a stronger framework for CPD, using the social work Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF), which it has taken over from the college.
This framework sets out what social workers should be able to do at every stage in their career, and is used to underpin training from pre-qualifying courses up to advanced strategic roles. However, it is not the only such document.
Isabelle Trowler, the chief social worker for children and families, published a Knowledge and Skills Statement in July, setting out everything practice supervisors and leaders need to know and be able to do. A sister document, setting out standards for social work practitioners, was published last summer. Both statements are intended to inform the education of those training to become social workers, as well as CPD, and are a key part of the government's social work reforms. "There are some tensions between the PCF, which goes right across people's careers and job roles, and the knowledge and skills statements, which are quite narrow," says Robb.
The statements are already being used to assess newly-qualified social workers on their Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE). Sector skills council Skills for Care is supporting employers through this transition to the new standards with workshops, briefings and sharing best practice.
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. Certification for social workers who have successfully completed the year was previously provided by TCSW, but that responsibility is now being tendered out to other organisations.
Trowler's standards will also underpin a new national assessment and accreditation system for three levels of professional practice for child and family social workers in England. Announced by Education Secretary Nicky Morgan last October, the system will involve theory exams, extensive observation of practice, and feedback from children and families themselves. After assessment, social workers will earn the status of Approved Child and Family Practitioner, Practice Supervisor or Practice Leader. The aim is to close the gap between study and practice for newly-qualified social workers.
The Department for Education is still considering issues such as whether the system should be voluntary or compulsory, which social workers it should apply to and how quickly it should be rolled out. "We want a coherent integrated system, which fits together with all the other things happening," says BASW's Robb. A DfE spokesman says the scheme is being developed in partnership with organisations including 24 local authorities, Cafcass (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) and the University of Leeds.
Social work degrees are supposed to contain two lengthy placements, but these are increasingly difficult to find within hard-pressed local authority teams. The Education Support Grant, which aims to compensate employers for taking on students, has seen its budget reduced by £2m to £26m in 2014/15 and frozen this academic year at the same figure.
The new Teaching Partnerships, which bring employers together with training providers to design and deliver courses, are supposed to help improve placement quality as well as deliver many of the other training reforms. However, Robb warns that in a changing landscape, the partnerships need to involve employers other than local authorities, including the increasing number of self-employed social workers, if they are to work. The first Teaching Partnerships are set to launch this month in Greater Manchester, south east London, South Yorkshire and Staffordshire.
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 £19,833 bursary and can train in one of 18 regional partnerships involving more than 100 local authorities in England. The fourth cohort will start training in January next year.
Child protection
Last June, Prime Minister David Cameron launched the Child Protection Taskforce, a group of ministers charged with extending and accelerating reforms to the quality of children's social work practice and leadership. The work of the taskforce is designed to complement that of existing work around tackling child sexual exploitation (CSE).
Preventing CSE is a government priority, and local multi-agency teams including social workers are springing up around the country to tackle the issue. For example, Blackburn's CSE team, Engage, employs qualified social workers alongside police officers, health workers and others. The demand for CSE-focused training courses is increasing among social workers. Social work trainer Robin Watts, at Sanctuary Social Care, says there is a particular need for training around issues such as how to acquire the right evidence for an assessment, how to engage with a family, and multi-agency working.
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 with some of England's most vulnerable children. 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 Greater London or Greater Manchester. In their first year, successful participants qualify as a social worker, while their second leads to a Masters qualification.
Frontline has taken in two cohorts of 104 and 121, with more than 95 per cent of the first cohort going into the ASYE in local authorities. The scheme is currently recruiting for 180 places for the 2016 cohort and is set to launch a programme for existing social work managers, called Firstline.
"Firstline is an innovative new development programme that seeks to transform the lives of vulnerable children by developing existing first line social work managers," says Firstline director Mary Jackson. "The programme will start in October for our first cohort of around 40 Firstline Leaders." Future rollout of the scheme will depend on the findings of an evaluation programme.
CHILDREN'S SOCIAL WORKERS
26,810 were employed in English local authorities by the end of September 2014. That is equivalent to 24,620 full-time staff
4,320 full-time equivalent vacancies at this time. Local authorities estimate they need 4,570 social workers to fill these posts
4,630 started work during 2014
4,400 left their local authority during the year
Source: Children's Social Work Workforce during year ending 30 September 2014, Department for Education
Looked-after children
The fostering and adoption sector was recently shaken by the closure of the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF). It offered an extensive programme of training, which has now been taken on by the new body CoramBAAF Adoption & Fostering Academy. "All of BAAF's training and training materials have moved to CoramBAAF," says John Simmonds, director of policy, research and development. "We will continue to deliver all of our core subject areas and respond to specific training requests as they arise."
New developments in the fostering and adoption sector include the extension of young people's right to stay in foster care until the age of 21, under a scheme called Staying Put. Simmonds says training on the new arrangements around long-term foster care are a key issue for social workers, as are issues around assessment and support of special guardians.
The government's Education and Adoption Bill, currently going through parliament, will require groups of local authorities to combine their adoption services under one system or outsource to a single regional agency. "The regionalisation of adoption agencies will preoccupy the sector for the remaining four-and-a-half years of this government, and will result in the need for support and training for all those involved," says Simmonds.
Children's residential care is also undergoing changes. A report published by the DfE this January found the sector was hampered by insufficient levels of qualification and specialist knowledge and skills, inadequate career pathways and a lack of shared core professional standards. New regulations and standards for children's homes came into force in April this year, calling for managers to ensure they have a workforce plan detailing the training and qualifications held by all staff and timetables for future training.
A new, specific Level 3 and Level 5 diploma, introduced this year, replaced a more generic children's workforce qualification. Residential childcare workers are legally obliged to hold a Level 3 qualification, and managers a Level 5 or equivalent.
TRAINING LEVELS IN CHILDREN'S HOMES
80% of staff hold a Level 3 diploma or higher
12% of staff are working towards a Level 3 diploma
76% of managers hold a Level 5 diploma or equivalent
14% of managers are working towards a Level 5 diploma
54% of managers say that they find it difficult to recruit staff with the appropriate level of skills
Source: A Census of the Children's Homes Workforce, TNS BMRB/Department for Education, January 2015
Family courts
The family court landscape is in constant flux, and training needs to help practitioners keep up with legislative changes and topical issues such as radicalisation and child sexual exploitation. The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) is the largest employer of social workers in England. Its family court advisers (FCAs) work across both private and public law in 18 service areas across the country. When working on care cases, the Cafcass worker is known as a children's guardian, making sure the child's voice is heard. Enhanced practitioners within local teams provide additional support to managers through supervision and quality assurance of work.
FCAs must have a Health and Care Professions Council-recognised qualification in social work, and a minimum of three years post-qualifying experience. Once working for Cafcass, they receive ongoing training, including induction training days and e-learning, delivered by Cafcass' National Improvement Service.
E-learning courses on the organisation's online platform MySkills can be accessed at any time and are updated on a rolling basis to cover the latest issues. "A priority over the next six to 12 months is to provide advanced training to our FCAs on attachment, parenting capacity and mentalisation methods, a form of therapy, to ensure they stay current in these fields and to enhance their expertise in reporting to court," says Helen Abbots, enhanced national improvement manager for learning and development at Cafcass.
While most employees work in regional teams, Cafcass has introduced a new centralised team, which works to facilitate the initial processing of court applications. The team includes qualified social workers, who screen for initial risk, as well as data processors.
Other courses include Emerging Talent, a tailored programme of development and support for individuals who demonstrate high performance and have the potential to progress within Cafcass, and the Enhanced Practitioner Development Programme, which provides learning to support enhanced practitioners' role in raising quality and improving practice.
Most people who want to ask the court to decide a family issue now have to see an authorised family mediator to talk through the options before issuing an application. Legal aid cuts have affected family mediators to a certain extent. Solicitors tend to refer families to mediators. However, parents are increasingly representing themselves to save money.
Mediators need to have been qualified to degree level in the family law, social science, therapy or counselling sector, and must have spent at least half of their time working within family law or with families or couples. Mediators must also have successfully completed approved training courses, with specialised courses available for those who wish to practice directly with children. From the beginning of 2015, mediators have had to gain accreditation by the Family Mediation Council within three years of their initial family mediation training.
NEW APPRENTICESHIPS TO LAUNCH CHILDREN'S SERVICES CAREERS
What are the aims of the apprenticeships?
From next September, anyone working with children and families will be able to access a set of new apprenticeships developed by a "trailblazer" employers' group in consultation with the sector. The group hopes the apprenticeships will 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.
What do they cover?
The group is consulting on a children, young people and families' practitioner role and a manager role. There are specialisms available within the two apprenticeships, with a few requirements specific to residential care or working more intensively with families. Most core skills are transferable across settings including youth centres, early years settings, and work in the community.
What level of training will be involved?
The practitioner apprenticeships will be the equivalent of a Level 4 qualification, and the manager apprenticeships, the equivalent of Level 5, subject to consultation. "We feel work with children, young people and families is undervalued, and we want to emphasise the professionalism of those who work in this sector," explains group chair Clair Davies, principal at Appletree Treatment Centre.
Once the standards have been finalised, the group will work with colleges and universities on the form assessment will take. "Many providers are keen to get involved, as for every £1 an employer spends on an apprenticeship the government is giving £2," says Davies.
Who are they aimed at?
The apprenticeships aim to provide an attractive entry route to the sector, particularly for service users such as care leavers. The minimum starting age is likely to be 18. However, they are also aimed at older workers to help them progress in their career. "There are a lot of people in their 40s and 50s who have some qualifications and a lot of experience, who could benefit from getting a Level 4 qualification in a year, two-thirds funded by the government," says Davies.
How long will the training take?
Around 36 months for new entrants and 12 to 18 months for those with more experience.
Youth justice
The youth justice sector spans an array of areas that offer a wide range of career opportunities. As well as the Youth Justice Board (YJB), roles are available in youth offending teams, the police, courts, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the secure estate. There are a variety of routes into jobs. Some youth offending teams will take on unqualified workers who then work their way through into higher level grades, although teams and local authorities vary in their approach.
A qualification in social work is among the most sought-after background for youth justice workers in many councils. Graduates with a psychology or criminology background will often undertake youth work-related experience and apply for posts. Once employed within a youth offending team, they will get in-service training and are often offered the chance to complete the Effective Practice Certificate (EPC).
The EPC was commissioned by the YJB and is accredited by Skills for Justice Awards, but has no academic credits. Although the EPC can be taken by individuals, as well as those already in work, it costs £595 and requires work experience for the assignments and case studies. The YJB is in the process of submitting the EPC to the Education Standards Council, which sets the terms and conditions for the Joint Negotiating Committee for local authorities.
A range of qualifications developed by the YJB to promote and enhance effective youth justice practice is contained in the Youth Justice National Qualifications Framework (NQF). This enables practitioners, managers and volunteers to obtain qualifications that fit their role and experience. It provides recognised professional training for unqualified staff and volunteers, giving them the opportunity to advance their careers.
The Association of Youth Offending Team Managers runs a leadership development programme for "aspiring future leaders" in partnership with Solace Enterprises, with the first programme completed this June. The target group is operational managers within YOTs as well as newly appointed heads of service.
Like the rest of the public sector, youth justice is facing a challenging financial environment. YOT budgets are set to be cut from £85m to £73m, a move the YJB has warned will lead to an increase in offending.
Other changes in the sector have included the restructuring of the probation service. Since the service was split in June 2014, about 70 per cent of probation work has been outsourced to private companies and charities called community rehabilitation companies (CRCs). Supervision of the remaining offenders, who include the most serious, remains within the public sector.
A review of the Professional Qualifications Framework (PQF) for those working in probation is ongoing. According to the National Association of Probation Officers, pathways into the sector are likely to increase in number, although the VQ5 qualification for probation officers will remain the gold standard. The National Probation Service will continue to use the PQF to train and qualify staff, although CRCs are not bound by this requirement.
Early years
Research shows young children, particularly those in disadvantaged areas, benefit from the presence of graduate leaders in their early years setting. The introduction of Early Years Teacher Status (EYTS) in 2013 was an attempt to create a graduate-led workforce and builds on the similar role of Early Years Professional launched in 2007.
EYTS is considered the equivalent of Qualified Teacher Status, but does not bring equivalent pay or allow holders to work in maintained primary schools beyond reception class. There are four routes into EYTS, lasting from three months to three years, depending on participants' existing experience and qualifications. Some routes come with bursaries of up to £9,000 and grants of up to £7,000 to cover course fees from the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL). The NCTL also makes funding of £14,000 available to early years settings to train and support a graduate to become an early years teacher.
Last September, the NCTL introduced a School Direct programme for early years initial teacher training. Based on the existing School Direct scheme for schools, the programme brings together groups of employers and trainers to deliver EYTS training. In 2014/15, five such groups took on students and this academic year, the pool has been widened to eight groups.
In 2013, Teach First, a fast-track programme aiming to get high-calibre graduates into teaching, also introduced an early years training scheme. Applicants to the competitive programme must have a degree at 2:1 or above and undergo an intensive six-week summer school. They then start working at a school or nursery while studying for their PGCE after one year, and Qualified Teacher Status after two.
Early Years Educator (EYE) is another new role that was introduced in 2013. A Level 3 qualification, the role is intended to improve the quality of people working in early years below graduate level. There has been some confusion around entry requirements, after the government said EYE students would be required to hold GCSEs in English and maths at grade C or above before starting to study from this September. But after protests from the sector, the decision was overturned and students now have to gain the GCSEs as part of their training. The National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) welcomes the decision, saying the need to gain GCSEs before starting to study was holding back Level 2 workers from progressing - 52 per cent of Level 2 staff do not hold maths and English GCSEs at the required level.
"The big question now is how can training providers and employers help practitioners at Level 2 and 3 to get on the journey to achieving these GCSEs?" asks Stella Ziolkowski, director of quality and workforce development at NDNA. "Without their grade Cs, they cannot progress to Early Years Teacher Status via a degree, so there's no clear career pathway for progression without GCSEs. Historically, careers advisers have pushed school leavers without qualifications towards the childcare sector. As a result, the ability to progress from Level 2 to Level 3 is a challenge for those already in the sector."
Early years apprentices have been required to gain a minimum of grade C GCSEs in English and Maths before qualifying since September 2014. The take-up of apprenticeships has fallen by up to 60 per cent in some areas, according to the NDNA. "Employers are reluctant to take on candidates who don't already have GCSEs at a minimum of grade D because of the risk that they won't be able to achieve Cs," says Ziolkowski. "If they don't get their C grades, training providers cannot count the candidate as having passed the course, meaning they will not get their full funding for providing it, and their success and achievement rates suffer."
According to the NDNA's latest workforce survey, 43 per cent of nurseries are unable to find apprentices with the right level of qualifications. Employers are investing more in staff development, due to a decrease in local authority support. For example, the 238-strong Busy Bees chain runs a training academy that offers a variety of traineeships, apprenticeships and short courses.
Health
While the NHS remains the biggest employer of children's health professionals, many now work in multi-agency teams and might be located in children's centres, youth offending teams or schools. In fact, the sector skills councils for health and justice recently merged, having worked in close partnership on a number of projects. In the children's sector, roles cover a wide range of areas including nurses, midwives, health visitors, paediatricians, as well as specialist in mental health, substance abuse and sexual health, among others.
Local authorities now have responsibility for the commissioning of public health services, including for under-fives from this October. This has led to fears that cuts to local authority budgets - the government is reducing the public health grant for local authorities by £200m this year - will threaten services such as health visitors and school nurses.
The government committed to raising the number of health visitors by 4,200 by last March, a target it only narrowly missed, although recruitment has been geographically patchy. But a recent survey by the Community Practitioners' and Health Visitors' Association (CPHVA) found that despite the rise in numbers, health visitors are more pressurised than before, with 89 per cent claiming an increased workload. "This is due to the increasing number of children as the population rises and cuts to associated services, such as Sure Start," says Dave Munday, professional officer at Unite, CPHVA's parent organisation.
The latest workforce survey from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health revealed that 77 per cent of the workforce think their service is unsustainable, with not enough staff to plug current gaps. More than one in 10 hospital rotas for paediatricians in the UK have vacancies, with some hospitals seeing vacancies of almost a quarter in specialist units. Dr Simon Clark, workforce officer at the college, says part-time working is one factor. "Doctors choosing paediatrics as a career are likely to be family-focused, which is an important attribute for their professional role," he says. "We see many choosing to start their own families sooner within the postgraduate paediatric training programmes." The college is calling for more training in paediatrics for GPs and an expansion in the number of appropriately-qualified nurses.
One area that is set to grow is mental health services for children, with a government investment of £1.25bn over five years. Much of this money will go on workforce development - for example, training staff working with children under five and children with autism on different therapeutic approaches - and a joint training programme for education and Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) workers. A total of £30m is earmarked for work with children with eating disorders, and much of this funding will be used to employ and train more staff to meet waiting time targets.
Meanwhile, England's first mental health champion, Natasha Devon, published a manifesto this September that calls for mandatory training in mental health issues for school nurses, a recommendation also put forward by the Royal College of Nursing. There are currently regional variations in the training of school nurses, with some areas ensuring that nurses are formally trained in mental health, while in other areas nurses have to learn on the job.
Nurses, including school nurses, and midwives are required to re-register every three years to carry on practising. Regulatory body the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) is developing a new re-validation process, which will require nurses and midwives to complete 40 hours of continuous professional development (CPD) rather than the 35 currently required. Under the new system, nurses and midwives will also have to reflect on feedback from colleagues and patients, and discuss this with a fellow nurse or midwife.
A recent review into education and training for nurses and care assistants recommended the development of a clear training pathway and qualification for care assistants, as well as the creation of innovative, work-based learning routes to allow them to move easily into nursing if they want to. The NMC is working with Health Education England on how to take these recommendations forward. The council is also currently evaluating its education standards and will report on this later in the year.
Another opportunity for nurses lies in the Family Nurse Partnership Programme, a home visiting programme for teenagers pregnant with their first child, launched in 2009. Nurses are employed by local delivering organisations and responsibility for commissioning the programme is set to pass to local authorities in October. The 900 nurses in 131 teams working for the programme undergo extensive training on appointment. The most common qualification held by a nurse in the programme is a health visitor qualification, followed by a general nurse qualification, a midwife qualification and a children's nurse qualification.
Play
The play sector has been hit by local authority budget cuts and is adapting to a new marketplace. While local authorities are cutting back on playwork roles - a CYP Now investigation last year found 62 per cent of councils employ fewer playworkers than in 2010 - other positions are becoming available in prisons, women's refuges, hospitals, schools and soft play centres. Terms and conditions are also changing. "Zero-hours contracts are more popular than they used to be in the sector," says Play England trustee Lesli Godfrey.
The qualifications available are relatively limited, as demand is not high. In the past, settings wishing to become Ofsted-registered have been required to ensure a certain percentage of their staff had relevant qualifications, depending on the target age group. However, that requirement was dropped last year, giving employers less of an incentive to fund training. Some specialised roles such as hospital playworkers require specific training. A hospital play specialist will usually need to take a qualification such as the Foundation Degree in Healthcare Play Specialism, for example, as well as holding a Level 3 professional childcare qualification.
Leeds Beckett University is currently the only provider offering a BA (Hons) in playwork and also offers a relevant post-graduate degree, while the University of Gloucestershire offers a Masters in Professional Studies in Children's Play. On a lower level, the awarding bodies Council for Awards in Care, Health and Education (CACHE) and City & Guilds offer qualifications from Levels 2 to 5 in playwork, while Pearson offers a number of qualifications in play. The CACHE awarding body was bought by educational charity NCFE in August. An employer-led group is set to start working on new playwork apprenticeship standards shortly, which will eventually replace the current apprenticeship frameworks.
Sector skills council SkillsActive is reviewing the National Occupational Standards for the sector. The standards will be available from February 2016 and will include a new section on values, behaviours and skills, such as a commitment to team work and taking positive action to challenge discrimination. The standards can be used to inform any new qualifications, but it is up to the awarding bodies to decide if they want to revise the qualifications or not, explains Godfrey. "They might decide not to because the uptake for those qualifications is quite small, so financially it is not viable," she says.
The playwork professional register, launched in 2013, was intended to improve training and support for playworkers through the professionalisation of the sector. SkillsActive, which runs the register, says sign-up numbers are confidential, but Godfrey believes this has been slow, due to a lack of promotion. The professionalisation of the sector has also been driven by SkillsActive's UK Play and Playwork Education and Skills Strategy 2011-2016, which aimed to reduce skills gaps and shortages. "If sector employers and stakeholders want a new strategy, they will get one," says SkillsActive chief executive Ian Taylor. "If they don't, the current one will continue past 2016."
Youth work
Youth workers are not only found in youth clubs. Increasingly, they are taking roles outside traditional youth work settings, such as housing programmes, within the NHS and in social care or youth justice-focused schemes. "Changes in those commissioning services, and increased delivery of youth work within multi-agency teams, has resulted in changing needs for learners," explains Maralyn Smith, workforce programme manager at the National Youth Agency (NYA).
About a third of youth work students - 32 per cent - go on to work in the voluntary sector, with only 17.5 per cent going into local authority youth work, according to NYA figures. While local authorities are increasingly cutting back on youth work, such roles can be found in initiatives such as the government-backed youth scheme the National Citizen Service, which is currently recruiting for jobs including programme leader, senior mentor and drama practitioner. Uniformed youth groups are also looking to expand with government funding, although many roles in organisations such as the Scouts are taken by volunteers.
Youth work degrees are meeting this need for flexibility with modules covering social care, health, social enterprise and business development, sometimes shared with students from other faculties such as theology and youth justice. At a lower level, the Level 2/3 qualifications in Youth Work Practice have recently been rewritten to include new units that are more relevant to the current expectations of practitioners working as a youth support worker. The qualifications now have 35 optional modules that can be used to support a diverse range of youth work practice, and students have the option of taking additional Level 4 units after qualification, if they do not want to undertake full professional youth work training at degree level.
Budget cuts have significantly affected access to training, particularly in local authority settings, and there has been a small fall in the number of students taking youth work qualifications. But Smith says there has not been a marked decrease in the number of youth work programmes available over the past year, and new courses are in preparation. "Conversations are currently under way to validate new programmes at Level 6 and 7," she says.
At entry level, there has been a reduction in training providers in some areas, and the NYA is working with providers to address this. According to the NYA's annual monitoring of training providers, there are now no degree courses offered in the east of England, while 77 per cent of courses are to be found in Yorkshire & Humberside, London and the North West.
The NYA is working with Leeds Beckett University to pilot a four-year part-time youth work qualification. The programme requires attendance at a higher education institution one day a week for four years, coupled with work-based learning. "Interest has been positive so far, particularly with unqualified workers who want to gain professional status but have not been able to secure support from employers to undertake the training," says Smith.
While it is possible to work with young people without a Joint Negotiating Committee (JNC)-recognised qualification, the recognised training for youth work is to a Level 2/3 qualification in Youth Work Practice and one of the 58 JNC-recognised professional youth work programmes available at BA (Hons) or post-graduate level. "Some universities and training providers have 'youth work' and 'working with young people' courses, but these do not ensure professional work-based practice and are not moderated by Education Training Standards England or recognised by the Joint Negotiating Committee, who endorse youth work training," says Smith. "Only JNC qualifications provide transferability across the UK and are fully recognised as youth work qualifications by employers."
The next few years will see broader pathways to youth work qualifications and links to different professional areas, as well as better promotion and information about youth work qualifications, says Smith. "We are raising awareness of both fulland part-time programmes, and reminding potential students that student finance is available for part-time study as well as full time," she says.
Education
The education sector has seen a rise in the number of teaching assistants over the past decade or so, but accessing training has become a challenge. The status of higher level teaching assistant (HLTA) was introduced in 2003 to allow teaching assistants to progress in their career, but budget cuts have put pressure on training funds. The government recommends HLTAs hold a nationally-recognised qualification at Level 2 or above in English and maths.
Union ATL is calling for teaching assistants to receive training during INSET days - term-time days set aside for training - either alongside teachers or at separate events, as well as being able to access external training. "With budget cuts, training tends to be squeezed and priority given to teachers," says Peter Morris, national official at ATL. "We offer a continuous professional development programme to fill some of the gaps".
There is no national pay structure for support staff, and titles can be confusing: some schools employ learning mentors who generally work one-to-one with pupils, alongside teaching assistants who have a wider brief. But in other areas, teaching assistants are known as learning support assistants.
Other roles in education support include those supporting children with special educational needs, such as Sencos (special educational needs co-ordinators). The new Special Educational Needs (SEN) Code of Practice, which launched last year, and the legislation it provides guidance on has significantly changed the system of provision for children with SEN, replacing statements of special educational needs with the more joined-up education, health and care (EHC) plans. Schools and local authorities have had to ensure that Sencos are up to speed on the new system and their role within it.
Sencos must be qualified teachers and, since 2009, the law has stated that if a newly-appointed Senco has not had past experience of the role for more than a year, they must achieve a postgraduate National Award in Special Educational Needs Co-ordination within three years of appointment. The National College for Teaching and Leadership last year published guidance on what the qualification should cover, enabling Sencos to fulfil the role set out for them in the new Code of Practice - this includes overseeing the day-to-day operation of the school's SEN policy and co-ordinating provision for children with SEN.
The government is also funding the National Association for Special Educational Needs (Nasen) to develop online learning tools around SEN for practitioners, and the National College for Teaching and Leadership has produced a series of specialist online courses that focus on dyslexia, autism, behavioural difficulties, and speech and language needs.
Other roles in education support include education welfare officers and family liaison officers (also known as home-school liaison officers). There is not a nationally recognised qualification for either role, although a survey from the National Association of Social Workers in Education in 2010 found 26 per cent of education welfare officers were qualified social workers and that the Level 4 NVQ in Learning Development and Support Services was the most frequently cited qualification recognised by councils, apart from social work qualifications.
The landscape around education support roles is shifting rapidly. Whereas in the past, practitioners tended to be employed by the local authority or, in some cases, directly by the school, there are now a variety of delivery methods. Support staff such as education welfare officers are increasingly self-employed or work for independent companies or agencies, with their support bought in by academies, schools or groups of schools to tackle specific weaknesses.
SCHOOL SUPPORT STAFF
255,100 - number of full-time equivalent teaching assistants employed in England in 2014
4.7% - increase in the number of full-time equivalent teaching assistants from 2013 to 2014
232,000 - number of other full-time equivalent school support staff
10,000 - increase in the number of teaching assistants in primary schools between 2013 to 2014
500 - decrease in the number of teaching assistants in secondary schools over the same period
Source: School Workforce in England, November 2014, Department for Education
Directors
The delivery of public services increasingly requires children's services leaders to work across a number of sectors. In some cases, their role extends to having responsibility for different departments, such as adult social care as well as children's services, while in others, they are expected to exercise influence over different departments without being directly responsible for them.
The Leadership for Change Programme, developed by a number of bodies including the NHS Leadership Academy and the Virtual Staff College, launched last year to tackle this new challenge. It is open to those at director or assistant director level from a range of services including children's services, adult social care and the NHS. Designed for small teams from each council rather than individual directors, participants gain access to three two-day residentials, a series of masterclasses and a pool of experienced coaches. A Future Directors Programme runs alongside Leadership for Change and is open to "second-tier" management. Forty people have taken part in the programme, which is recruiting for its third cohort.
The Virtual Staff College also designs and delivers bespoke leadership development and training for directors of children's services, chief executives and lead members for children's services, among others. "Local authorities often ask for scenario planning sessions, looking at the potential role of public services 10 years into the future," says head of operations, Alix Morgan. Other topics include tackling child sexual exploitation, new business models and systems leadership. "Children's services are not delivered in a silo anymore, but across a system, so it's about what kind of leader do we need," she says.
Recently appointed directors are offered an induction session at the headquarters of the DfE, including a tour of the building and meetings with civil servants, to get an idea of how policy is determined. Directors can also access a mentoring and executive coaching network.
The Virtual Staff College's Leadership Academy Programme is open to directors and secondand third-tier officers. Seminars last for a day, with formal contributions from experts.
Lead members for children's services can access training from the Local Government Association to bring them up to speed. The residential Leadership Essentials Children's Services programme is an intensive introduction to the role of lead member, with session topics including political leadership in the current policy context and leadership of the education agenda.
The LGA offers lead members peer support though coaching programmes, and has developed bespoke learning and development support for individual councils and councillors.