Recently in Training Category

By Helen Bonnick

The notion of social work as vocation is an old one; the idea of an occupation to which someone feels called and to which they are suited by skills or personality. The pioneers of social work often made great personal sacrifices in their service to the community, whether from a church or political background. Most of the social work codes of ethics or conduct speak of protecting the dignity and rights and interests of service users, as well as personal integrity and honesty. Student applications often refer to a sense of debt to society, or a deep, long held determination to serve others. The old reasons that individuals were drawn to social work hold good today.

And yet here social work stands, not with a sense of a lifetime calling, but with an average retention rate of eight years.

It often seems remarkable that people continue to stream to social work in the face of the much-publicised frustrations of those already in the field. What started out as a noble profession all-too-soon starts to feel like a technical task: driving a computer, the setting and measurement of targets, swamped by paperwork so that there is no time for face to face contact with service users. Within social care, we are familiar with the great pendulum swings: care or control, generic work or specialist teams, the alignment of children's services with adults or with education.

But while there are, sadly, plenty of unhappy social workers, as I travel around the country I also meet those whose teams are fully staffed and well-managed, where the work is calm and fulfilling and where a sense of purpose - and even of vocation - prevails. We need to be honest with those coming into the profession about what they face. But I am heartened, as I read the placement applications of prospective students, to see that the notion of calling and vocation remains.

Helen Bonnick is a social worker and practice educator

by Nigel Leaney, manager of a mental health residential service

Now that our local university has closed its doors on social work training, in its wisdom deciding it's no longer important to continue with some form of social investment for the communities of the future, services such as ours need to cast our net wider in order to look out for social work students.

But that's the easy bit. Even in residential mental health there seems to be no shortage of applicants in need of a placement.

Future social workers are being faced with no money in the public purse and Cameron's ridiculous Big Society. This ideological white elephant serves to pretend that no other society currently exists. So what will happen to the Big Society everyone else knows we already have: Our teachers, social workers, doctors and nurses?

Knowledge is critical

I've worked with social work students and nurses for many years. Most have been of a high calibre. As the course has moved to a degree it has become more academic. Clearly the academic side of the course is essential. A sound knowledge of social policy is critical to becoming a good social worker.

One of the teaching chestnuts has always been about the challenges of putting the theory into practice. Most social workers work in the streets and in homes rather than gathering dust as research fellows. And to get the cigar you have to keep it real, live it, and hope all that necessary talk of social policy doesn't show too much.

Natural and true?

When students come to me the most important thing is their communication skills. And that's not about delivering faultless received pronunciation over a PowerPoint presentation.

Are they able to interact with the service users in a way that is natural, true and has the potential for developing a therapeutic alliance? This skill doesn't come from education or training (although some good training may help to develop it). I have known qualified staff who are awful; I have known support staff with little formal training who are excellent.

Shut up and listen

Communication in this profession is just as much about humility. To be of any use to service users it is sometimes necessary to shut up and listen, and turn off any diagnostic understanding that is forming in the student's head, and follow the service user's lead rather than their own. This is the best form of practice that will enrich both the student and the service user.

Although the next stable of newly qualified students will have mountains of regulations and policies to navigate through and assessments to complete, they must also remember the best tool is what they have as a person to offer to someone else.

by Mark Drinkwater

A recent article about the benefits of social workers using tablet computers such as Apple iPads in their jobs sparked a discussion among colleagues about advances in technology and the impact on the workplace.

I recalled that in the late 1990s a friend of mine joined a social work team that was piloting innovative handheld devices. Their aspiration was to have a system where records could be updated on the move - in the client's home or in the car in between visits - and that this data would be synchronised with the central council database. Technology would free social workers from the bureaucracy of the office and they would be able to spend more time with clients. At the time, it seemed as though the future had arrived.

But colleagues now tell me that the promise of a technological transformation of the workplace has failed to materialise. Of course, technology has changed the way that social work is conducted - just not in the way that many of us envisaged.

The biggest impact has been the introduction of computerised databases for client records, which are, for the most part, still updated in the office. But far from having one unified system, the reality is that most of us are working with several disparate and separate computerised systems that don't communicate with each other.

The biggest gripe among co-workers is the dissatisfaction with the usability of systems. One grumbled about a recent request for a copy of a client's care plan that resulted in a huge computer-generated report, which seemed to include every revision of the plan along with numerous other parts of the case file. With all the extraneous data, it took her far longer than it would otherwise to work out what was the most recent care plan.

Instead of being an aid to social work, there is still the feeling that digital systems are a distraction from what ought to be, essentially, a social task.

Mark Drinkwater is a community worker in south London

by Sofie Franklin, a newly qualified social worker

Graduation day finally comes and the ability to practise as a qualified social worker is in sight, right? Think again.

I graduated in 2009 and, like many newly qualified social workers (NQSWs), have been unable to find employment as a qualified social worker, despite scouring the internet for jobs almost every day.

The main reason given for not being successful at interview is a 'lack of experience'.

Thrown in the deep end

As a student (with no real social work experience), I completed my third year placement at Cafcass. I was thrown into the deep end, completing section 7 and section 37 investigations and making recommendations which will affect those children and families for the rest of their lives.

Yet, since qualifying and gaining another year's experience of working with vulnerable families, no employer is willing to offer me a role involving similar work. Statistics obtained by Community Care in 2010 found one in 10 social work posts in England was vacant. I feel there needs to be more opportunities for NQSWs to gain employment and put their skills and abilities to good use.

Higher thresholds

Another Community Care survey of 170 front line child protection workers reported that, with government cuts hitting local authorities hard, time and money is sparse, leading to higher thresholds and ultimately leading to increased risk to children.

And an Association of Directors of Children's Services survey, conducted in 2010, found that councils have seen an average rise of 21% in safeguarding social work referrals and only a 10% increase of social work staff. 

It is disheartening to see so many agency social work jobs advertised only to be told that agencies won't consider placing NQSWs in them and the consequences of letting these posts go unfilled are undeniably far reaching, both for at-risk children and their families and the wider community.

High quality support

Newly qualified social workers do of course require high quality support, supervision and training in order to develop their confidence and skills in their first year of practice, and that comes down to budget and time implications.

However, well-placed investment in key areas such as child protection should always be a priority. This is why I feel that we need to stand together and call upon the government and councils to invest in NQSW programmes throughout the UK.

Time to campaign

After hearing similar accounts from many others in the same position, I have decided to start a campaign to urge local authorities to start investing in NQSWs. I passionately believe that employing NQSWs to deal with lower risk cases will free up time for the more experienced members of staff to deal with more complex cases.

The campaign is still in its early stages and I plan to speak directly with local authorities and with other newly qualified social workers in the hope of gaining a better understanding of the current issues.

The campaign won't take off overnight, nor will changes be achieved straight away. However I do believe that we must try to address the difficulties NQSWs are facing right now, in the hope that something may change.

You can register interest in the campaign via CareSpace

by a newly qualified social worker who wishes to remain anonymous

For an anxious, newly qualified social worker, it sounds like manna from heaven - reduced caseloads, increased supervision and time off for study to boot.

Sadly, my experience of the Newly Qualified Social Worker (NQSW) scheme did not live up to its promise.

By the time I finally completed the wretched thing, I never wanted to see a big red folder or hear the term "outcome statement" ever again.

Initially the rhetoric was all positive: reduced caseloads, £1,000 for training of my choice and six group sessions with other newly qualified social workers.

The premise of the groups was essentially good - a place to meet other new social workers and share, learn and reflect on different experiences.

Unfortunately, the facilitator was powerless to stop the sessions turning into group moaning sessions about the organisation and the very point of the scheme itself.

Bitter

Most bitter were those who had been working in social care for many years, but were now deemed newly qualified as they had only just passed their degrees. All they saw, with some reason, is more hoops to jump through and boxes to tick. Furthermore, the organisers changed their minds several times over the months about what was required from us.
Email after confusing email was sent out, each contradicting the last. We were told previous degree work was acceptable, and then later informed it wasn't.

At first, three pieces of evidence was necessary for each of the 12 "outcome statements"; this was then revised down to two.

Our group facilitator also said we could be flexible in evidencing the 12 outcome statements.
However, some time later we received one of many interminable emails that contradicted this.

Now "social work values and theory, evidence of reflection and law and local policies and guidance" must be evidenced. Reasonable, you may argue, but why were we told this some months into the scheme? It meant a whole lot more work.

Box ticking exercise

The whole process felt like a mass box-ticking exercise, duplicating the same bureaucratic minefield that we had only just negotiated on our degree courses. This feeling was compounded by the mind-boggling criteria in the red folders that proved impossible to follow. In the end the organisers had to produce an easier checklist for meeting the outcome statements.

Most frustratingly, having originally been told we had a year to complete the scheme, last summer we received an email out of the blue saying it was now due in November.
In fact, most participants seemed to miss the deadline, and were ready at that point to wash their hands of the scheme altogether.

I got mine done in the end, following an admittedly brazen attempt to get it past the censors somewhat incomplete, and having it sent back to redo.

Relief

Once it was complete I was just relieved to be rid of it: it felt like a whole lot of extra work and unnecessary stress, and not much extra learning.

Maybe that is unfair, and to damn the whole thing entirely would be wrong.

The £1,000 for a start was not to be sniffed at, and I was able to take part in training I would otherwise not have done.

Unfortunately, for me that's where the positives end.

One can only hope these were teething problems in the scheme's inaugural year, as while the premise is good, the implementation and organisation based on my experience must be a whole lot better.

writes Paul Lloyd

The need for social workers to dig deep and show courage should be recognised. But how can bravery be a part of training?

From my recollection of being a social work student and, from my experience as a practice assessor, I would argue that the importance of personal courage has never been recognised as a principle feature of professional practice as it is taught at colleges and in the field. However, in my role as a trade union officer I am confronted, on a daily basis, with courageous interventions carried out by social workers done so at considerable risk to their own professional and physical well-being.