September 2011 Archives

Most of those to officially respond to the College of Social Work's announcement that it will launch in January without the British Association of Social Workers have tiptoed around the actual dispute between the organisations, preferring instead to simply welcome the news that the College will open its doors on 3 January 2012. But, reading between the lines, it seems the sector has largely welcomed the College's decision to go it alone. Here are a selection of comments:

Peter Hay, president of the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services, and Matt Dunkley, president of Association of Directors of Children's Services, issued the following joint statement:

"Social workers need strong professional leadership and the College of Social Work is perfectly placed to give it. The College of Social Work will have an essential role in raising and maintaining standards across the profession, and we welcome its decision to forge ahead with plans to open its doors formally to members on 3 January 2012. We fully support the College as it sets out to lead social work into a better future."

In statement to Community Care, Unison said:

"Unison welcomes the news that the College of Social Work will be open with services up and running for members in England by January 2012. Unison is currently working to finalise arrangements for a formal agreement with the College which will offer social workers membership of the College alongside membership of Unison. Joining forces in this way will build on the strengths of Unison, the recognised trade union for social workers, and the College's plans for a range of services to support social workers in their professional practice and career development."

Moira Gibb, chair of the Social Work Reform Board, said:

"An official launch of a college of social work represents a landmark moment in the strengthening of social work as a profession. A college will help achieve the same respect and authority given to those in related professions like nursing, teaching and medicine. All members of the Social Work Task Force supported the need for a college in 2009 and, as changes to the regulation of social work come into force, its importance is even greater. I look forward to the College and the profession growing in strength together."

Photo by Image Source/Rex Features

Community Care and the College of Social Work are trying to find out how social workers are coping with increasing financial pressures and whether they are having to resort to taking on other jobs to maintain their standard of living.

Please take a few minutes to complete our survey so we can build a picture of how the economy is impacting those working in the social care sector.

Photo by Martin Lee/Rex Features

The College of Social Work's announcement today that it will go ahead and launch without the British Association of Social Workers comes as no huge surprise.

The two organisations have been wrangling over how a single college should be set up and run since the beginning of this year. Negotiations all but broke down over the summer and, as we reported, they entered into mediation. Yet it still seemed unlikely that either side would budge over the crucial sticking points, namely the College's tie-up with Unison and the governance and leadership of a single college.

At the same time, ministers must have been piling on the pressure. After all the College, which everyone agrees is needed urgently, is being started up with government funding

The question is, what happens next? The College says it is open to merging with BASW at a later date. In the meantime, will BASW re-launch as a rival college?

PHEW.

We have just published our annual investigation into social worker vacancy rates in local authorities throughout the UK. It takes a lot of work behind the scenes to gather and analyse data for more than 200 local authorities and health and social care trusts - but I think it's worth it, because we now have a series of interactive maps where you can find out the vacancy rates in your organisation and where the biggest improvements have been made.

The results this year were surprising. We suspected, in the office, that the average number of posts per council might have fallen as employers are forced to make job cuts. But they haven't; in fact, they are exactly the same as last year. So it appears vacancy rates really have gone down.

In our Freedom of Information requests to local authorities, we defined vacant posts as "unfilled", i.e. not filled by any member of staff, agency or otherwise. We also asked for data on the use of agency staff - check back next week for the findings.

NB: For the web tech savvy among you, we used batchgeo.com to create the maps because you can paste in a list of local authorities and the corresponding data and it maps it to the UK (with no need for geocodes)

Social workers at South Lanarkshire Council are furious over changes to its car allowance scheme, according to local Unison and British Association of Social Workers reps.

Gone is the annual £500 car allowance and 40p mileage, to be replaced with a pool car system that requires 48 hours' notice to book a car.

The move is part of efforts to cut costs across the council. One worker at the council who wishes to remain anonymous told BASW: "We are working with people who have life and limb crises and they don't work to 48 hours' notice. It's really stressful. The inference is that we're going to save the money problems of the country just because we're not using our cars."

She added that she has had to cancel meetings with clients "because I can't get a car".

The social workers' fury continues over the type of pool car, which sadly do not resemble the car above, but rather come dressed in South Lanarkshire Council stickers.

The social worker said: "If you visit a service user their neighbours will know and people don't always want that."

Unison has also waded in to the debate. Stephen Smellie, one of the union's branch secretaries, says the pool car system is being abused, with some staff booking the car for a week at a time just in case they need it.

A council spokesperson told BASW the council is reviewing the pool car system.

Photo by Eddie Mulholland/Rex Features

The Children's Workforce and Development Council is offering 1,200 funded training places to improve social workers' supervision skills.

The training is aimed at experienced and new managers and is in response to the Munro review of child protection, which called for better support and supervision for frontline social workers.

It turns out that Judith Tebbutt, the British woman kidnapped while on holiday in Kenya, is a social worker. She has been working with patients with psychiatric difficulties for the last seven years.

A spokeswoman for Tebbutt's employer, Partnerships in Care's Kneesworth House Hospital in Bassingbourn, Cambridgeshire, told a local newspaper: "Jude is a dedicated team member known to many of the patients and staff at the hospital.

"Our thoughts are with Jude and her family at this time and we are hoping to shortly hear of her safe return."

I noted the other day that, in the first eight months of this year, there were almost 100 recorded physical or verbal attacks against social work staff on duty at Scottish Borders Council. But I didn't think much more of it - after all, we already know there is a disproportionately high rate of violent incidents against social care professionals; an issue that is ongoing and needs to be addressed.

But then I looked at some of the data we've been collating recently in the office, which, coincidentally, includes the number of qualified social worker posts in Scots Borders. Of which there are around 41. And some of those are vacant. Presumably the number of attacks recorded relates to other staff as well as qualified social workers, but still, in the context of such small teams, that level of violence is incredibly worrying.

A former senior Scots Borders councillor is now calling for staff to receive formal training on how to keep safe at work. That should be mandatory for all social workers and care staff. We can't keep ignoring, and therefore accepting, violence towards the care workforce.

There's been a lot of debate on CareSpace and a recent blog post about the difficulties facing newly qualified social workers in the jobs market and discussion about the role of recruitment agencies. Here, Lee Lovekin (below), team manager at Liquid Personnel gives his take on the difficulties facing NQSWs and the role of agencies:

In recent months, we've spoken to many newly qualified social workers, and read some interesting posts from them on sites such as Community Care.  In those posts NQSWs have explained the challenges they face in trying to secure their first job, and some important issues have been raised about recruitment agencies. We fully understand the concerns of NQSWs and would like to help by providing insight into some of the key questions...

Already filled?

One issue raised has been that when applying for a role with an agency, many social workers are told it "has already been filled", leading some people to believe that the role didn't actually exist in the first place.  All of the roles we advertise are genuine, but they may not be vacant for long. When managers come to us requesting an agency social worker, they usually require a very quick turnaround; most interview slots are filled within hours and, assuming the agency has done a good job in finding the right people, the roles are filled within a couple of days. In order to be put forward for a role, you would need to be registered with us, fully vetted, with a CRB and references in place.  We always call our existing candidates when a suitable role comes up, so you would never miss out on a job this way.

Lack of experience

The question of experience is a crucial one, and lots of NQSWs are finding that they are turned down based on a lack of experience. It's important to explain that agencies do not determine the recruitment criteria for a role; these are determined by our client (a local authority, charity, fostering agency, etc.) who will specify exactly what they are looking for.  Our task is to supply the best candidates to fit the requirements of the organisation, and if that means an experienced, skilled social worker who can come in to a team and make an immediate impact, then that is what we provide. If we were asked to fill a role with an experienced practitioner and we were to then put forward a newly qualified social worker without post-qualifying experience, however skilled they are, we would be wasting the social worker's time, and the employer's time. 

Hitting the ground running

Generally speaking, our clients expect us to supply practitioners who have around 2 years post-qualifying experience working in a similar setting, as they will be able to join the team and "hit the ground running" without the need for extensive training and mentoring.  This means that experience gained during statutory placements as a student social worker would rarely be deemed sufficient.

We would recommend that newly qualified social workers pursue permanent roles whenever possible.  Although agency roles are great for experiencing work in a wide variety of settings, permanent roles would allow NQSWs to be properly supported and given the opportunity for professional development. They will offer you the support and appropriate training you need in order to develop your skills and knowledge effectively, which is essential at this formative stage in your career. Also, it's important to guard against gaps in your employment, so finding a job as a support worker or social work assistant while you look for qualified work would be beneficial.

If you haven't seen it already, Fighting Monsters' blog post on why she finally decided to quit the British Association of Social Workers is well worth a read (including the comments below).

Just as interesting is BASW's response, which the association published on its website and asked FM to post on her blog. FM complied but, probably quite wisely, declined to comment further. However, it has kicked off an interesting debate below.

Basically, it takes around 10 minutes to read through it all, but if you're interested in the ongoing BASW/college of social work/union debate, it's very entertaining. Please do join in the debate on FM's blog, here or on CareSpace

Since 2007, the Social Care Workforce Research Unit has been carrying out research into everything from recruitment and retention to international care workers, agency workers, social work graduates' readiness to practice, diversity and the roles and tasks of support workers. The unit has just published a summary report of these projects, which identifies seven areas for further research (well, they say six areas, but I've split it into seven for ease). These are:

1. The relationship between training and/or qualifications and service quality/outcomes.
2. The impact of pay and conditions on quality of care and outcomes.
3. The effectiveness of social work supervision.
4. Routine information about personal assistants' pay, as well as how the workforce is characterised and deployed. This should include information on those working for self-funders.
5. How personal assistants deal with issues such as the management of risk, abusive customers, becoming over-involved, how, when and whether they can access support, learning and/or training, and how they schedule their work if they have a number of customers.
6. How to encourage or enable service users using personal budgets to work together to develop ideas of services they would like to purchase collectively.
7. Ongoing monitoring and evaluation of the roll out of personal budgets to determine the best arrangements for different user groups, the impacts on collaboration with health, and how work scheduling operates at a system level as the number of people working as personal assistants increases.

Photos by OJO Images/Rex Features

Thanks to one of our eagle-eyed readers, who spotted something odd on the Linkedin profile of Marcia Lawrence-Russell, head of the British Association of Social Workers' advice and representation service:

This would seem to suggest Marcia is general secretary of the newly-launched Social Workers Union - not Hilton Dawson, as our news coverage states.

I have contacted BASW; Hilton is definitely the general sec. Nobody - including Marcia herself, apparently - is quite sure how the job title snuck onto her Linkedin page. Gremlins in the system? If it's a coup d'etat, the element of surprise is officially lost.

Residential and domiciliary care workers now have an ideal place to turn for news, practice tips and careers advice - You Care.

The latest section on the Community Care website aims to fulfil the career needs of a much needed, but under valued, part of the social care workforce.

To launch the site we have reports on how to improve fire safety as a care worker, a guide to reporting incidents to the Care Quality Commission and news of how care cuts are taking their toll on the sector.

First and foremost this is for you, the people working on the frontline domiciliary and residential care. Let us know what issues you're struggling with as a manager, a care worker or a service owner and we'll try to help you solve it.

Care staff at social care provider Quarriers will go on strike today at protest of pay cuts of up to 20%.

The strike isn't the first industrial action by care staff over cuts in the third sector, but it does reveal a growing trend. Industry leaders have warned there will be more problems like it in the months to come.

Certainly it represents a challenge for David Cameron's big society ideal because right now it appears voluntary sector providers are suffering just as badly as anyone else from reduced council budgets.

If you're working in the third sector and are being hit by pay cuts or company belt tightening due to the recession let us know.

We love a salacious story here at Community Care, so I'm a little disappointed this one slipped below the radar last week.

Kirsty Green, a care worker in Bristol, was jailed for nine months having stolen £46,000 from an elderly woman to buy sex toys so she could start another career as an Anne Summers party hostess.

Now, as much as we love to bring you a bit of smut on a Tuesday morning, I am rather irked at the reporting of this story.

Both the Daily Mail and the Mirror describe Green as a carer. This is not true, she was a care worker and those two things are very different. One is a job another is something you do, sacrificing your time, with little reward for your own reasons.

It's endemic of the confusion about the role of carers in society, and their low status, that they are confused with professional careers like this so readily. They don't even have their own status in the public mindset. I would not hold up Green as a model of professionalism given this conviction though.

Aberdeen Council has moved a step closer to setting up Scotland's first local authority trading company to deliver social work services to older people.

The LATC will have a turnover of around £25m and deliver services at the council's three care homes and two day centres for older people, as well as services for adults with learning disabilities.

It is hoped the company will save the council £3m over five years. The principle was agreed by the council in June, but the Social Care and Wellbeing Committee has now agreed to fund external support to develop a detailed business plan over the next year.

Councillor Jim Kiddie said: "This is an exciting alternative to outsourcing services. What we are doing instead is setting up an arm's-length company with control retained by the council, which can plough the resources it generates back into services.

"Those resources can be invested in new services, which will allow older people to remain as independent as possible for as long as possible."

Find out more about LATCs

The Health Professions Council has launched a campaign to recruit social worker "partners". They are looking for up to 90 social workers currently registered with the General Social Care Council to take on one of three partner roles:

• Panel member: Responsible for handling allegations about the fitness to practise of other social workers, and considering registration appeals.
• Visitor: Responsible for making recommendations about education and training delivered (or proposed to be delivered) by education providers.
• Registration assessor: Responsible for looking at registration applications

The deadline is 27 September.

The aspiring social worker who admitted looting during the England riots last month has escaped a jail sentence, Sky News reports.

Natasha Reid was handed a suspended four-month sentence and ordered to do 150 hours of unpaid work and pay a £100 fine at Westminster Magistrates Court.

Reid's solicitor said the 24-year-old's dream of becoming a social worker were now in ruins after she admitted charges of theft and entering with intent to steal.

Can playing a computer game improve child protection practice? The University of Kent has developed such a game, called Virtually Safe, as part of a suite of training tools. The first prototype scenario developed by the Centre - called Rosie - allows students and professionals to visit and revisit a child assessment scenario which initially appears below child protection thresholds for intervention. Download the game here

By the way, the lovely guy pictured above is Danny, the mother's boyfriend in this virtual scenario. He has a snake called Fred. The text above reads (rather disturbingly): "Go on, stroke him. Do you want to touch him? Wanna touch my big snake, eh? Yeh? Only be careful luv, cos he ain't eaten today and he might think you're his next meal!"