Editorial Comment: Rejig staff development

Social care’s professional body has promised to declare one of its professional development systems “unfit for purpose” if the evidence from a new review is clear.

As the deadline for completing the first 90 hours of post-registration training and learning approaches, the General Social Care Council has rightly decided to find out whether professionals and service users think PRTL is working. Far be it from us to predict the outcome, but the answer will surely be “no”.

The GSCC is helping to restore social work’s credibility and self-respect. PRTL should be designed for the same objective and that would involve clear guidelines specifically tailored to the many challenges of modern social work. At present, the guidelines are just too vague.

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Mark Ivory