Should a common qualifications structure be set up for all those working in key roles with children? Sally Gillen reports on the debate over the flexibility of the children’s services workforce.

Since it was launched last month, much of the debate on the children’s green paper Every Child Matters has been on the structural changes it proposes for councils.

But what Tony Blair has described as "the most far-reaching reform of children’s services for 30 years" goes well beyond discussions on children’s trusts.

Despite occupying the back pages of the document, workforce reform is widely acknowledged as the most important part of the green paper.

Some of what is proposed to tackle the problems of recruitment and retention has a familiar ring. This includes plans for a high-profile media campaign, which would address shortages across the workforce in areas ranging from youth offending teams, which have a 7 per cent vacancy rate across England and Wales, to gaps in early years. But alongside the campaign and measures to address pay are plans that could transform the workforce by opening up access to more people via new training routes such as two-year foundation courses.

More importantly the document is consulting on whether a common qualifications structure should be set up for all those working in key roles with children. Such a structure, described as a "climbing frame" approach in the green paper, would allow professionals working with children to move from one job to another without having to retrain. Each area of work with children currently has its own occupational standards and training structure, making job changes difficult.

Simplifying the training structure would make work with children a more attractive career option, says chief executive of charity National Children’s Bureau Paul Ennals. "There are a lot of people who enter one bit of the children’s workforce not just because they are interested in that specific part but because they want to work with children," he says.

"The possibility of applying for a job in, say, early years and being able to move into different settings from there makes every individual job more attractive and that means people do not feel they are entering a dead-end career."

Liz Kendall, director of Maternity Alliance, says, however, that the workforce strategy must also prioritise pay if it is to make work with children - still considered by many to be "low-paid women’s work" - more attractive. Certainly it is not just the traditionally female-dominated areas such as early years that are still failing to attract men. In new services too it is a struggle to recruit men. Nearly three-quarters - 74 per cent - of the 7,200 Connexions personal advisers, for example, are female.

But Kendall agrees that a common qualifications structure that would allow people to move sideways into a new job, rather than start at the bottom, would make the work more appealing.

Freedom to move around the children’s workforce is already in evidence in some areas. A third of workers in youth offending teams are qualified social workers, a third were former youth workers and around 150 are on secondment from Connexions. Many Connexions personal advisers have come from social work, careers advice or youth work backgrounds.

Work has already begun to map the occupational standards of education social workers, learning mentors and Connexions personal advisers, which is showing that the three jobs have much in common.

Ennals says the way the occupational standards were set up for Connexions demonstrated a "breadth of thinking" about how a new service could connect with those already in existence. But, he says, despite the relative ease with which workers in some areas can move to other jobs moving between social services and education is "almost impossible".

And although Connexions may have welcomed recruits from a range of backgrounds they are still expected to undertake a diploma once they start the job.

Elsewhere, the Youth Justice Board has made steps towards introducing common training for all those who work in youth offending teams with the creation of a nine-month course leading to a professional certificate in effective practice.

Head of learning and development at the YJB, Maggie Blyth, says: "We created the new development framework as a portable qualification, which means that if a police officer is on secondment from youth justice that he can take back what he learned about children to the police. We didn’t want to create yet another set of qualifications operating in another separate training silo."

Last month the first crop of professionals completed the qualification, which is made up of three modules covering subjects such as parenting, planning intervention and supervision, and how to carry out assessments. Although the course is not mandatory, Blyth says around a third of people working in Yots have many years of experience working with children but no qualifications and are therefore encouraged to complete it.

Increasing the skills of the children’s workforce, as well as encouraging more people to enter it, is of course one of the key aims of the workforce strategy.

Jenny Rudge, chief executive of Connexions in Cornwall and Devon, says she is "very upbeat" about the proposed workforce reforms and is in favour of a common qualifications structure. She says aspects of the training should be covered by everyone from GPs to education welfare officers but adds that it is likely only to be a core qualification because professionals will also need to do extra training in specialist areas. She adds: "We need to recognise that professionals working with children do have things in common but those working with an alienated 16-year-old will need different skills from those working with a two-year-old."

Head of policy at charity Barnardo’s Liz Garrett agrees. "It is very confusing as to whether the green paper is suggesting the creation of a generic children’s workforce or it is saying professionals need to be able to move around more easily." She is concerned that the importance of specialist skills has not been recognised within the document. "Some children need very specialist help and no one person can incorporate those skills. This document may be implying that if you all work together you can do each other’s jobs."

Who and what the common training structure will cover will be decided and overseen by a new Workforce Development Unit once the consultation on the green paper is finished on 1 December.

There are also plans to develop a sector skills council dedicated to the children’s workforce. As yet it is unknown whether the unit will cover England or the UK or what prominence it will have within the DfES but head of policy at NCH Caroline Abrahams says it must be bigger than "three men and a dog" in order to deal with a diverse and complex workforce.

She adds that there will be "inevitable elements of resistance" by some groups of professionals to the proposals so it is difficult to say how long it will take for a common qualifications structure to emerge.

To prove her point, a debate is currently taking place as to whether teachers should be included in the workforce strategy and their work overseen by the unit. The outcome of that discussion will be significant because teachers have tended to see their work as quite separate from that of other children’s professionals.

But whatever their view it is clear that the government is keen to see common training for all staff.

And the idea is not new. Back in 1996, the Interdisciplinary Childhood and Youth Studies Network, made up of academics and professionals, was commissioned by John Major’s government to formulate a framework identifying the core skills and competences for those working with children.

The Children and Young People’s Unit has commissioned further work on this, which resulted in the identification of six areas that all people working with children should have in common. They were:

• The developmental nature of childhood.
• Parents, parenting and family life.
• Managing transitions.
• Understanding child protection.
• Understanding risk and protective factors.
• Listening to and involving children.

These knowledge areas could eventually form the basis for a foundation curriculum which as well as opening up new career opportunities in children’s services would ensure professionals could speak the same language.