The Role of Higher Education in Continuing Professional Development for Social Workers in England

Wednesday 2 nd April

Summary report presented by Wendy Allen Learn to Care on behalf of employers

There is good feedback from employers who are engaged in active partnerships and where they work together to address challenges that arise.

Some employers now run in house programmes that are accredited by a local university; this keeps costs down and maintains QA through university involvement.

Others have maintained good collaborative working relationships where partnership is effective in addressing curriculum changes and amendments though regional meetings.

Funding continues to be an issue and more employers are looking for creative and innovative ways of supporting CPD. Some local arrangements have looked to resolve this for example though running local workshops that are more accessible or through offering twilight teaching sessions.

Moving forward there are going to be increasing numbers of challenges that employers and HEI’s are going to have to address together.

Finance; Budgets for decreasing and grants are reducing. Most employers have now spent all of their CWDC funding and only have limited opportunities for accessing additional funding. AYSE currently comes with £2,000 per candidate; there is some Skills for Care funding which supports partnership working as part of the ASYE employer transition funding. Skills for Care have worked with employers to support the development of resources for CPD.

There does not seem to be any match funding form the DfE which results in an inequitable offering in some areas and CPD is increasingly dependent on LA base budget allocation which is rapidly diminishing in some areas. The challenge here will be two fold, what can the HEI offer that is innovative and creative at low cost but is also viable to deliver and how can the LA’s release staff at a time of increasing demand on front line services and staffing reductions.

The College of Social Work membership is viewed as supportive with a number of employers committing to a corporate membership to allow social workers access to additional learning resources.

This is also the case for research sites such As Research In practice and Community Care inform, where membership allows access to research in a different arena other than a University

1

The financial picture is also inconsistent; some employers have been able to make the case for continued funding while others are now following a commissioning model. It does appear that most employers are continuing to invest in NQSW’s and some have established academies.

Most employers see CPD as a way of retaining and developing their experienced social workers and face the challenge of how to do this when there are so many competing demands. Those employers who do invest in a full CPD programmes for experienced social workers are more likely to retain them. However traditional programmes which take a lot of time away from the workplace over a long period are much less attractive.

Success in some areas is demonstrated when the CPD offer is modular and focused on practice and the skills required for example some partnerships have developed a modular PG cert in practice education that can be studied in its entirety or as single modules and in both cases has a direct benefit for both the employer and the social worker.

It may be beneficial to review the number of courses/programmes on offer. The most successful programmes seem to be the ones where they have been developed in partnership.

Digital by Design; most employers are focussing on the financial benefits of improved contact with service users through new web sites and digital contact methods. Learning and development will need to mirror this approach, utilising modernisation methods without routing everything down to an e learning programme. Webinars, Face time, and blended learning are proving successful additions to traditional teaching methods.

 Wendy Allen

Service ManagerThurrock Council

On behalf of Learn to Care

2