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Kent Council 

Number of staff: 5,501.

Typical salaries: The starting salary for a newly qualified social worker is £20,612 rising to £36,760 for a senior practitioner. Team leader salary ranges from £30,342 to £38,767. Practice and development consultant and district manager salary is £35,957 to £43,053.

Number of clients: In excess of £48,000.

Among the perks of being a social worker at Kent Council is the possibility of going on a month-long exchange programme to the US. The council has links with the largest children and families social care provider in Boston and an older people's agency and has twice sent a group of 10 front-line workers to experience working practices in US voluntary services.

All front-line staff are eligible - all they need do is convince the authority of how participating in the programme would benefit them in their jobs. Oliver Mills, social services' director of operations, says the scheme has been highly popular since its introduction a couple of years ago. "Staff who have been on the programme have thoroughly enjoyed it," he says. "It poses questions for people about practices here and we have improved services as a result."

The US host organisation also sends staff to Kent for a month. Mills says this exchange of ideas, policies and procedures is invaluable and helps staff to take a fresh look at their work.

And it is money well spent, says Mills: "The whole cost is probably less than a national advert for social workers."

The programme has been such a hit with staff that Mills may extend it to include sabbaticals so that participants could take up longer-term placements. The only drawback with the scheme is that many staff with families feel they cannot leave their children for a month. If they could go for longer, Mills hopes their families could accompany them.

Rated by inspectors as "excellent", Kent Council places much importance on employee welfare and has a staff care package encompassing 10 areas. Mills says many of the initiatives started in the social services department. "For example, staff can have a half-hour free health check. This has occasionally picked up serious medical conditions and is very good for front-line staff working in care homes who might not otherwise have access to such services."

Vicki Nass, team leader in family support

"The opportunity to discuss practice issues and explore
theories was wonderful and really inspired me to self-reflect and consider my future plans," Nass says of her exchange experience last year. "It helped me to clarify what I do. I've been in family support for eight years and this was the first opportunity in a long time to reflect on policies, procedures and practices."

Nass appreciated talking to other managers facing similar challenges and finding out how they tackled them.
Initially based in a project on enhancing a school's community life, Nass visited other organisations while in Boston. Her placement host helped her to become involved in projects related to her work in the UK, adding to the value of her experiences there.

One such project was a training programme for social workers on working with vulnerable teenage girls who were being pulled into prostitution. "It is a big problem there and is starting to be an issue here so it sparked ideas about how we could adapt a programme for Kent."

As well as generating ideas she could bring back, Nass found that the exchange reconfirmed her belief in UK social services. "It made me proud of working in Kent."