Registration and learning

Spot checks will ensure registered social workers keep up with
learning and development from April 2006, the General Social Care
Council promised.

Chief executive Lynne Berry told the delegates at LIVE that the
GSCC would ask selected social workers to prove they were recording
their learning.

Social workers in England have to keep their skills up to date
with 90 hours’ post-registration training and learning over
three years.

But in another session, Steve Trevillion, the GSCC’s head
of social work education and training, said guidance for social
workers on post-registration training was “slim” and
would be reviewed and refined.

Director of regulation Heather Wing said the GSCC was not
“prescriptive” about what constituted learning and
wanted to be “flexible” and “inclusive”.
Within that framework a range of learning was acceptable, she said,
from private reading and study to working for a post-qualifying
award. Other activities might include shadowing a colleague or
undertaking research.