Professional development is an essential part of being a social worker. Whether it is keeping your skills, knowledge and legal literacy up to date, learning new ways to work with clients, going through a change of local authority approach or just doing enough to keep your registration valid, it is something all social workers have to do.
Because of this, local authorities and other employers often cite their learning and development offers as key selling points for prospective social workers – but how good is the training they provide? Are you supported to go on training courses without having to think about the work you leave behind, or do you just not have the time to do so? And do you feel you get the right mix of face-to-face training, online learning or other types of development?
Likewise, from a local authority perspective, opportunities for social workers to develop their career has become an increasingly important aspect in workforce retention. Do social workers feel they have an employer that supports them to grow, and just how important are these opportunities to frontline practitioners’ decisions to stay in a job or move?
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Child care has always been the priority in social services departments, which is understandable. However, when I worked in a social services department for about 30 years, pay was low and hours were long. I was on call 24 hours a day, including weekends and bank holidays, and had an emergency phone at home, but was not paid for overtime or given time off in lieu. Then, in the late 1970s, the powers-that-be decided that the department would improve by employing newly qualified social workers direct from college or university. Their pay was much increased (substantially more than those already in the job) and their hours much reduced. Emergency after-hours teams were taken on at great expense, so the conditions of social workers was bettered, which was a great improvement. Among the first of these ‘dynamic social workers’ (the description coined by our then director) were two young ladies. Instead of visiting clients singly, as had been done before they started, they decided to visit together. Upon their return through the office doors they exclaimed: “Phew! We hate old people!” – Thought at first they were joking, but then realised thy were not.