More high quality social workers needed, says government training review

Social care minister says he wants reassuring that social work education produces high quality practitioners.

The Department of Health (DH) has confirmed it will review social work education in England, to ensure the government’s £100m investment is producing high quality practitioners.

The review will look at the case for a generic qualifying course and the scope for increased specialisation within the degree.

It will also examine the scope and appetite for elite entry routes within adult services. At least two such programmes, Frontline and Step Up to Social Work, are being developed for or already exist in children’s services. More detail will be made available soon, the DH said.

“The government invests a large amount of money in social work education via the bursary and practice placement funding,” said care services minister Norman Lamb, announcing the review on World Social Work Day.

“We want to be reassured that this investment actually produces the high quality social workers that our society deserves and needs.”

The DH review will run alongside Martin Narey’s evaluation of the quality of education and training for children’s social workers.

Related articles

Social work association demands radical shake-up of training

More from Community Care

Comments are closed.