Social care qualification update nears completion

The two-year updating of social work post-qualifying training is
on the verge of being completed following the publication by the
General Social Care Council of the proposed new framework,
writes Derren Hayes. 

If adopted – the proposals are to be consulted on for six
weeks – the new three-tier post-qualifying framework, which the
GSCC has developed with employers, universities, service users and
carers, will be introduced in early 2006.

The three new awards are in specialist social work, which will
help professionals manage the transition from general social work
to the appropriate specialism; higher specialist social work; and
advanced social work, both of which focus on meeting service
targets and recognise career pathways in education, management and
advanced practice.

However, the England Post-qualifying Consortia, while welcoming
the framework, said it had concerns around the abolition of a
certificate awarded to people under the current system about a
third of the way through their courses.

Shirley Ayres, chief officer at the Consortia, said the
proposals for the new system did not contain any equivalent
mid-course awards. She said that if people are unable to complete
their course then the certificate provided a “small
recognition” of where they had got to and provided employers
with proof of a minimum standard of competence.

Under the new system individual universities could award people
with their own version of the certificate but Ayres said this could
lead to inconsistency because different certificates could mean
different things.