What do you think should be the main priorities for the national social work college?
CareSpace support
The full consultation is available from the College of Social Work's website. http://www.collegeofsocialwork.org/
The National College Development Group has asked Community Care to let it know what CareSpace users think, so this is your chance to have your say.
The consultation launched at a drinks reception at Community Care Live this evening.
Questions from the consultation include:What should be the priorities of the national college?• Raising the profession's status • Defining the reserved functions of social workers• Improve public understanding• Facilitating peer support groups • Partnerships with trade unions • Becoming the source and guardian of standards How much would you pay for annual college membership?£50 £100£200£245
Ruth Smith Editor at Community Care
Twitter: @ComCareRuth
Email: ruth.smith@rbi.co.uk
We've talked to a lot of people who visited our stand at Community Care Live. It was really helpful to get a feel for the issues that the College must address.
Most people are enthusiastic about having a College to speak up for the profession. People also want the College to address issues that worry them, for example:
Other emerging issues include:
So it is really important that as many social workers as possible join the debate and take part in the consultation so that you do shape your College. Have your say at http://www.collegeofsocialwork.org/consultation.asp
Ania Rainbird
on behalf of The College of Social Work
At Community Care Live in May 2010 we asked social workers for their views on what they would like the college to achieve for them and and how much they would pay to join.Sam Gadd, second year BSc student, Open University, said she wanted to feel proud to be a social worker, but it would need the college to improve public understanding of social work first.
"I would pay to join a college, but no more than £50 a year," she said. "That's affordable and enough to give a sense that it means something. But if it flies up to £100 or more, people might start gasping at the cost."
Kartik Shah, 23, qualified social worker from India, currently employed as a support worker with Camden Council in London, said: "I would want the college to make the role of social workers clearer...There is too much paperwork, and there needs to be more emphasis on working with people. I would pay £50-100 to join it, depending on what it does."Read more responses from delegates at Community Care Live 2010.
Simple-improve the quality of the education. Many students are forced to take on modules that are poorly presented by wooly pompous tutors- their social work theories and methods some outdated as newer research comes on line would take years and years for the full subtle meaning to be bedded in.
This is not (in my view a way to teach) and misses the point to prepare students to qualify in a field requring high levels of self awareness and strong resileince skills. There is a lack of consistency in the quality of training and with this comes risks of cohort years being ill equiped because exisiting universties have provded poor quality modules which dont match the skills in real life.
In a economic climate where the purses are tight, students need battlefield initiation -equiped with life saving skills of how to wade thru the minefield of paper work eg FACs assesments-self directed assements, applying for direct payments or to the ILf or to mangement funding panels authorising care packages of care. I saw no application of maths to the social work field and am bemused that this is ommited from a program that (supposedly) deals with peoples benefits on a day to day basis- or to understanding the permutation benefit frameworks that are the staple diet of many of our day to day jobs . You qualify with little or no understanding of something that is fundamental to many peoples lives. instead you are advised you will pick this up as you go along!!
The response to my probing questions appear to be that Universities can't respond to regional procedures (what rubbish) but have to respond to national drivers given by the skills for care council or General social care coucil etc.
Perhaps this national social work college main proirty would consider the inclusion of a "mutual scheme" whereby it takes working practices from all regions and include regional paper work then desiminate this within modules-not just as examples but have students complete and build care packages exploring funding streams while ensuring these newer students understand the benefit entitlements open to families and individuals as a way to ensure students are fully equiped with basic social work skills.
There is a need for a universal multidisciplinary conceptual framework that is taught from the outset and also supports PDP and lifelong learning.
I would like to please suggest the Health Career - Care Domains - Model as a candidate:
Developed in the UK during the early 1980s, Hodges’ model (h2cm) is a conceptual framework that is person-centred and situation based. In structure it combines two axes to create four care (knowledge) domains (as per figures 1 and 2). Academics and practitioners in many fields create models that help support theory and practice (Wilber, 2000). Models act as a memory jogger and guide. Whereas in health education theoretical frameworks are discipline related with specific and generic uses, community informatics emerged from university, corporate and governmental environments without a model (Clement, et al., 2004). In health care generic models can encourage holistic practice directing the user to consider the patient as a whole person and not merely as a diagnosis derived from physical investigations? Exposure of h2cm is limited to a small (yet growing) cadre of practitioners; several published articles (Hinchcliffe, 1989; Adams, 1987; Jones 2004a, b). In addition to a website (Jones, 1998) there is a blog and an audio presentation both first published in 2006.The best way to explain h2cm is to review the questions Hodges originally posed. To begin, who are the recipients of care? Well, first and foremost individuals of all ages, races and creed, but also groups of people, families, communities and populations. Then Hodges asked: what types of activities - tasks, duties, and treatments - do nurses carry out? They must always act professionally, but frequently according to strict rules and policies, their actions often dictated by specific treatments including drugs, investigations, and minor surgery. Nurses do many things by routine according to precise procedures, the stereotypical matron - machine-like efficiency? If these are classed as mechanistic, they contrast with times when healthcare workers give of themselves to reassure, comfort, develop rapport and engage therapeutically. This is opposite to mechanistic tasks and is described as humanistic; what the public usually think of as the caring nurse. In use this framework prompts the user to consider four major subject headings or care domains of knowledge. Namely, what knowledge is needed to care for individuals - groups and undertake humanistic - mechanistic activities? Through these questions Hodges’ derived the model.Initial study of h2cm on the website has related Hodges’ model to the multicontextual nature of health, informatics, consilience (Wilson, 1998), interdisciplinarity, and visualization. H2cm says nothing about the study of knowledge, but a great deal about the nature of knowledge is implied in the model's structure. This prompted two web pages devoted to the structural and theoretical assumptions of h2cm (Jones, 2000a, b.). Although the axes of h2cm are dichotomous, they also represent continua. This duality is important as an individual’s mental health status is situated on a continuum spanning excellent to extremely unwell. There are various states in-between affected by an individual’s beliefs, response to stress, coping strategies, epigenetic and other influences. H2cm was created to meet four educational objectives:
Since h2cm’s formulation these objectives have grown in relevance. The 1980s may seem remote, but these problems are far from archaic as expansion of points 1-4 reveals. Education is now preparation for life-long learning. Curricula are under constant pressure. Despite decades of policy declarations, truly holistic care (combining physical, mental and pastoral care) remains elusive. The concept and practice of reflection swings like a metronome, one second seemingly de rigour, the next moment the subject of web based polls. H2cm can be used in interviews, outlining discussion and actions to pursue, an agenda - agreed and shared at the end of a session. The model is equally at home on paper, blackboard, flipchart and interactive whiteboard. Finally, technology is often seen as a way to make knowledge available to all; the means to bridge theory-practice gap through activities such as e-learning, governance and knowledge management. The digital divide cannot be bridged by idealism alone.The axes within h2cm create a cognitive space; a third axis projecting through the page can represent history; be that an educational, health or other ‘career’. It is ironic, that an act of partition can simultaneously represent reductionism and holism. Reductionism has a pivotal role to play, which h2cm acknowledges in the sciences domain. What h2cm can do is prompt the user that there are three other pages to reflect and write upon.REFERENCES:Adams, T. (1987). Dementia is a Family Affair. Community Outlook, Feb, pp. 7-8.Hinchcliffe, S.M. (Ed.) (1989). Nursing Practice and Health Care, [1st Edition only], London, Edward Arnold.Jones, P. (1998). Hodges' Health Career Care Domains Model.Retrieved May 12, 2007, from http://www.p-jones.demon.co.ukJones, P. (2000a). Hodges' Health Career Care Domains Model, Structural Assumptions. Retrieved May 12, 2007, from http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/theory.htmlJones, P. (2000b). Hodges' Health Career Care Domains Model, Theoretical Assumptions. Retrieved May 12, 2007, from http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/struct.htmlJones, P. (2004a). Viewpoint: Can Informatics And Holistic Multidisciplinary Care Be Harmonised? British Journal of Healthcare Computing & Information Management, 21, 6, 17-18.Jones, P. (2004b). The Four Care Domains: Situations Worthy of Research. Conference: Building & Bridging Community Networks: Knowledge, Innovation & Diversity through Communication, Brighton, UK. Wilber, K. (2000). Integral Psychology: Consciousness, Spirit, Psychology, Therapy. Shambhala Publications.Wilson, E.O. (1998). Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge, Abacus.Resources: Hodges’ model website -htpp://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk“Welcome to the QUAD” Blog – which includes an up to date bibliography:http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/Knowledge Domain Links Pages –INTRAPERSONAL:htpp://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/links.htmSCIENCES:htpp://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/linksTwo.htmSOCIOLOGY:htpp://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/links3.htm
POLITICAL:htpp://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/linksIV.htm10 Summary slides from 2006 introductory audio podcast:http://www.slideshare.net/h2cm/hodges-model-podcast-part-1-summary-slides-2006-presentation/See the website for references and the blog labels (tags) for additional resources.
Website: Hodges' Health Career - Care Domains - Model http://www.p-jones.demon.co.uk/ Blog: Welcome to the QUAD http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/ h2cm: help 2C more - help 2 listen - help 2 care http://twitter.com/h2cm
I think the biggest problem in social care is government intervention. Social workers are agents of the state guided by targets. The college should focus on a way of breaking away from this, untill we break away from the government piggybacking on our good work and blaming unsupported managers when things go wrong, we cannot function as the social workers we all wanted to be. Sounds like a fluffy idea but at some point someone needs to take the lead in breaking away or nothing will ever change, this needs to be done as a collective using research and evidence to prove our worth.
I know this is more of a response to how the college should run rather than the aims, It annoys me how many tokenistic gestures are extended to social care professionals but the government has its fingers in everything and this is wrong, social workers are scared and spineless, this is a result of the system. Comments like this do nothing to help because it is what 99% of the social care work force think but nothing ever changes because we fail to take advantage of our opportunities, lets not do it again.
Sorry for the rant. ooops
The newly-appointed joint interim chairs of the College of Social Work set out their priorities today in an exclusive interview with Community Care. Meanwhile BASW has warned that the College could become "dominated by trade union interests" if it forms a joint membership arrangement with Unison. What do people think about this?
For me the priorities should be:
Raising the profession's status,
Harmonisation of salary scale across England, just like for teachers,
Reducing greatly the stress factor being experienced by majority of social workers: too much workload, paperwork, working more than stipulated hours, etc,
Finding a solution in order to prevent some unscrupulous unis from not giving statutory placements to their students; as a result, after graduation some NQs find it very difficult to find a job.
Hi, whilst i can understand the sentiments, is it accurate to accuse uni's of being unscrupulous in not giving statutory placements to their students? whilst i'm not a practice placement co-ordinator, my understanding as a practice teacher is that there is a lack of statutory placement availability all round. therefore is it fair to accuse uni's of somehow 'choosing' not to give statutory placements, as if there's choice in the matter? it might be a case of they simply don't have enough statutory placements to go round.
if you're asking a college of social work to address the lack of statutory placements pro-actively, that sounds reasonable. but finding a solution to "prevent" uni's from not giving statutory placements seems harsh and unrealistic. if there's evidence that an institution is somehow dishing out their statutory placements in an unfair manner, then that needs to be challenged through the uni's policies and procedures or the GSCC. however it's important to bear in mind offers of placements are *made* to the uni to then allocate to their students (in my experience at least, others might find differently???) you can't magic placements out of thin air and it has been me as a practice teacher who has said yes i'm in a position to take a student (or not), not the uni's making the decision.
might also be issues in demand outstripping supply. the LA i work for has announced redunancies and recruitment freezes. there's extra work being dished out to account for the recruitment freeze, making it difficult for hard-pressed s/w's to then take on students in addition to their own work. this may them impact on availability of statutory placements, vicious circle and all..
It seems to me that unless we can adequately a) define what social work is and b) what is it that social workers MUST be used for that the continuing erosion of the profession will continue.
The essential roles of a social worker need to be enshrined in legislation otherwise why employ them in the first place instead of Police Officers, Health Visitors, Psychologists etc.?
Even many Local Authorities are using unqualified staff to deal with 'Looked After' children & young people with 'nominal' allocation only to Qualified Social Workers (QSW's).
So what is the essential role of a QSW that no-one else can undertake?
Well said.
I meant to say "Well said Rupert."
(Although other people have made good points too).
Hello,
Great to see people responding to this forum. Just to let you all know that the College Development Team is currently working on a statement which we hope to publish on The College website shortly:
What is Social Work? – This document, produced by The College of Social Work Development Team, sets out the social work contribution to the well being and care of people and communities in the early part of the 21st century. It will outline exactly what is meant by ‘social work’ and will clarify the role of a social worker. This paper also outlines the ways in which The College proposes to lead the profession in the future.
We are currently doing some work on Reserved Functions and we hope to produce a document in the Autumn outlining our ideas.
If you are passionate about social work and want to have your say about how The College could support you in the future, then please think about attending one of our consultation events. These one day events are now taking place across the country and will run until the end of October 2010. During the day you will be introduced to The College, hear about its proposed purposes and functions and take part in a number of group discussions with other professionals in the sector. This is your opportunity to tell us exactly what it is that you want and need from The College once it is up and running.
Your input during this consultation phase is vital and will help us to gauge the views and opinions of the social work profession. We really do need your guidance in order to create an independent and powerful voice for social work and ultimately, a College which will lead the development of the profession and represent it in discussions with organisations that regulate, train, work with and are affected by social work.
If you can’t come along to the consultation events, please take part in our online consultation, by visiting www.collegeofsocialwork.org today.
If you have any more questions or concerns, please contact The College team today by emailing collegeadmin@scie.org.uk
Thanks,
Ania Rainbird, The College of Social Work
I'd have loved to go to a consultation day but it's hard to arrange days off work at short notice and there aren't any more in London! Is it possible to have consultation events at more flexible time and with more notice?
Good morning,
Thanks very much for your comments. We are aware of the pressures of demanding work schedules and the difficulties associated with being able to attend events at short notice. The next batch of consultation events about the purpose and function of The College will be starting in September, including a further event in London. We have picked the most accessible locations country wide and really hope that you will be able to join us. Dates and locations for upcoming events are below:
o Durham - 1 September
o Leeds - 2 Sept
o Manchester - 6 September
o Doncaster - 7 September
o Birmingham - 15 Sept
o Wolverhampton - 20 Sept
o Leicester - 21 Sept
o London - Date to be confirmed (likely to be last week in September)
To book your place at one of these events, please click here .
Another way to share your views with us is through the online consultation which closes on 10 September 2010. We would very much welcome your input, so please do think about taking part in our online consultation.
If you have any problems or would like to speak to one of the team, please call us on 020 7089 6840 or email collegeadmin@scie.org.uk
Thank you in advance for your involvement and interest in the development of The College of Social Work. We look forward to meeting you at one of the next consultation events!
Best wishes
The College Team
Thanks for the response! Can I make a bit of a cheeky/lazy request that you post again when the London date is confirmed because I would really really like to go... and want to make sure I get a place before it fills up :)
Sure, no problem at all!