The 4th National Continuing Professional Development Conference for Social Workers on the theme of ‘Integrated   Practice’ will be held at the Institute of Psychiatry on 14th September 2010.

 The conference features prominent keynote speakers, engaging workshops and a unique opportunity to network with professional colleagues from across the country.

Camila Batmanghelidjh from Kids Company http://www.kidsco.org.uk will be talking about the need for new paradigms of care.

Keynote papers will be given by:

Professor Peter Huxley ( Swansea University ) – Integration of health and social care in mental health services

Professor Nick Frost ( Leeds Metropolitan University ) – Integrated working in frontline children’s services: research, policy and practice

Professor Marian Barnes ( University of Brighton ) – Ethics of care in promoting effective dialogue between workers, service users and carers.

The conference will also feature an interactive plenary session on the theme: “Are families becoming more dangerous?”

Professor Colin Pritchard ( Bournemouth University ) will address the issue of ‘Who kills children?’, based on data presented in his recent British Journal of Social Work paper that hit the headlines.

Attendance at the conference will count towards your GSCC post registration training and learning requirements.

Further information and the online booking form can be found at www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/annualsocialworkconference. Early bird bookings are available until 31^st July. All Making Research Count bookings should be made by Learning and Development Managers to janet.noble@kcl.ac.uk.

Abstracts for parallel workshops throughout the day are still being received . If you or a colleague are interested in leading a workshop of relevance to the conference theme, please submit your abstract by 25^th June. Full information and an online abstract submission form are available from: www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/annualsocialworkconference.

Any questions? Contact Julie Smith, the conference organiser julie.smith@iop.kcl.ac.uk

Tags: advanced social work practice, be inspired, institute of psychiatry, integrated working, professional practice, Social Work

http://harvardmagazine.com/commencement/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination

Somehow, we have developed a culture that is gripped by the fear of failure. Now is the time to change and to make things happen differently.

http://shirleyayresconsulting.co.uk/advanced-practice-social-work-network/50000-social-workers-join-the-advanced-social-work-practice-network-on-linkedin-in-2010

I also recommend Romancing Your Soul Absolutely Brilliant! a powerful must view youtube video ~ watch it to the end for maximum impact http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hds3jvjZY-Y

Tags: advanced social work practice, culture of fear, Harvard, JK Rowling, linkedin, managing change, Romancing Your Soul, the benefits of failure, the importance of imagination, YouTube video

“Do not wait for leaders. do it alone, person to person.”  ~ Mother Teresa

Help to make it happen
It is free to join LinkedIn. Promote the group by encouraging your friends and colleagues to join the Advanced Social Work Practice Network on LinkedIn. Start discussions and contribute your thoughts and ideas, share your research and examples of good practice, post interesting events locally, nationally and internationally. Suggest sub groups for special interests.

LinkedIn is a professional networking tool whose purpose is to provide its members with a a way to search and connect with other people. Unlike the social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo, LinkedIn is primarily focused on professional communities of interest.

“The insurmountable difficulties of today are the solved problems of tomorrow.”  Cardinal Heenan

The Social Work Task Force called for a a new programme of action on public understanding of social work. The phenomenal growth of social media and LinkedIn over the last few months offers us unprecedented opportunities to engage with the public debate today. Over 15 million people worldwide log on to LinkedIn every day! If you are new to LinkedIn this brief guide provides a useful overview . LinkedIn for beginners I look forward to connecting with you on LinkedIn!  http://uk.linkedin.com/in/shirleyayres

If you work with children and young people in care you may wish to join this group on LinkedIn

Interesting Resources
Managing on the front-line
Social Work Focus 
Supporting and Promoting Advanced Social Work
Social Work Task Force

Tags: a new voice for social work, advanced social work practice, be inspired, leadership, linkedin, Social Work

ASWPN aims to:
• Facilitate employers to become learning organisations which recognise the value of advanced practice for promoting excellence in social work.
• Encourage employers to support Continuing Professional Development opportunities at advanced level
• Engage employers and other stakeholders in the training needs of their advanced social work practitioners and the development of advanced level PQ programmes
• Advocate for improved funding structures for Post Qualifying (PQ) education in general, and the higher level awards in particular, to support the professional development of advanced practitioners
• Support the development of advanced practice positions such as Consultant Social Workers, particularly in the new Children’s Trusts and health and social care partnerships.
• Develop the research capacity of advanced social work practitioners through partnerships with the Social Care Institute for Excellence, Research in Practice and Making Research Count to embed research and advanced practice in social work
• Promote the recommendations of the Social Work Task Force, the children and adults workforce development agenda, the Social Work Reform Board. and innovative policy initiatives including Every Child Matters and Transforming Adult Social Care.

Join ASWPN to share information about advanced social work policy initiatives, reports, practice guidance, practitioner research and interesting events. We look forward to hearing your thoughts and comments about the policies, research and practice which are really making a difference to the promotion of excellence in social work practice.

If you are new to LinkedIn the following post will be helpful – Is social work ready for the social media revolution? How to become LinkedIn

If you work with children and young people in care you may also like to join this group on LinkedIn

Tags: advanced social work practice, Leadership and Management, Learning and Development, linkedin, post qualifying awards, research, Social Work

A brief roundup of some of  the topics we will be featuring in 2010 

The Advanced Practitioner – managing your career

“Find It Here” – the launch of the first comprehensive Directory of online resources for people supporting children and young people in care

The Big Ideas survey – share your thoughts about how we can improve social work and social care 

Integrated Working – what stops care and health working together?

The e-Learning revolution and social media – a new approach to improve the skills and knowledge of staff in the care sector?

What makes a good employer? A simple audit tool which reveals whether your employer demonstrates that staff really are the most important resource in the organisation.

New Partnerships – Shirley Ayres Consulting will be joining up with a number of organisations who are committed to driving up standards in social work and social care.

Leadership and Management in Social Care – has the investment paid off?

An undervalued and unrecognised resource? - the launch of an exciting new website for grandparents.

Introducing Blastbeat Education UK a not for profit company that has developed a fun & exciting Music & Multimedia Business progamme offered to young people and schools around the world. Blastbeat promotes and encourages young original songwriters & musicians, supporting youth communities on a local & global level, empowering young people to create social enterprises creating community and social capital to help bring about change for the good of society.

Quality Assuring Training  – do the increasing number of quality marks and standards really make a difference to the unregulated training in the care sector?

Stress busters – See life from a different angle.

BASW and the new National College for Social Work

“The insurmountable difficulties of today are the solved problems of tomorrow.” ~ Cardinal Heenan

Tags: advanced social work practice, be inspired, care sector, elearning, encouraging innovation, integrated working, Leadership and Management, Learning and Development, quality assurance, Social Work, Stress busters, training

 Advanced practitioners in social work are research-literate, reflective and professional leaders in their field. They are able to draw on a range of empirical, theoretical and professional sources of knowledge and take the lead on social work policy and practice innovations.

Run by Dr Martin Webber this two-day course will provide participants with hands-on experience of the making of the advanced practitioner in social work. The first day will provide an overview of the research methods that provide evidence for social work practice and will equip participants with some basic critical appraisal skills. The second day will give detailed consideration to the definition of an advanced practitioner and will include a case consultation group focusing on enhancing social work practice skills and knowledge. Participants are encouraged to bring a case example with them to discuss within this group.
 
Places are very limited and registration will close on 21st August 2009.
 
For further information on  this and all courses please see the website
http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/departments/?locator=4&context=1239
or email the administrator: imh@iop.kcl.ac.uk

Supporting and Promoting Advanced Social Work: a guide for employers and practitioners published by the Institute of Psychiatry is available to read here http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/sites/mhsw/?id=168

Tags: advanced social work practice, institute of psychiatry, mental health, post qualifyng training, research, Social Work

Are there lessons for social work in this recent posting on the HR website? As the debate rages about how to improve social work services on the front line the big question for me is how we empower and motivate staff to deliver consistently high quality services. What needs to change to encourage innovation and creativity amongst such a diverse workforce?

The lack of leadership is constantly quoted as a major problem for care services but what sort of leadership is required?  Is leadership different from management? For me an emphatic YES. Leaders use passion and ideas to lead people. Leadership is about creating change.

We have known what the problems are in social work for many years so what is stopping change from happening? There is a consistency in the key messages and recommendations contained in the plethora of government reports following major failures in the care system.

Five ways to make a difference in your organisation:

Step One

Listen, communicate and engage with your workforce.

Step Two

Make a reality of the oft quoted phrase “Our people are our greatest asset” by developing, implementing and monitoring your workforce development strategy

Step Three

Encourage, nurture and grow your staff by offering a range of learning opportunities which take advantage of new technology.

Step Four

Get rid of the blame culture and encourage the senior management team to foster debate and encourage new ways of thinking and approaches to seemingly intractable problems. Do not be afraid of critical friends.

Step Five 

Recognise and develop the unique skills and talents of your workforce. Actively seek and encourage feedback and let everyone know how their thoughts and comments are making a difference to the delivery of services.

‘Talent’ may be HR’s buzz word du jour but a poll conducted for Human Resources finds that only 9% of workers think their business uses this word to describe its people.

Nearly 70% of respondents to the survey, by Harris Interactive, say talent is not an expression used. Asked if they think their employers see them as talented individuals, 42% of workers say no and a further 23% are not sure. Just 16% say yes, but only as a means to an end – so employers can get more work out of them.

A mere 11% say they are personally regarded as ‘the future’ of their organisation, with nearly half (48%) saying ‘no, not all’ to this question. Some 55% of the 1,187 employees polled say that, to their knowledge, their skills are not recorded on any talent management system.

Women are significantly more likely than men to say their organisation uses the word talent (75% vs 63%). They are also more likely to say they are not regarded as the future in their organisation (50% vs 47%).

View the comments at

http://www.hrmagazine.co.uk/news/bulletin/weeklyupdatebulletin/article/911942/?DCMP=EMC-Dailynewsalert

Tags: connecting with your staff, creativity, critical friend, empowerment, encouraging innovation, Leadership and Management, workforce engagement

Now in its third year the mental health social work CPD conference is definitely worth attending. Organised by the Institute of Psychiatry (King’s College London) and Making Research Count you will have the opportunity to hear about the latest research and practice and join in the debate about the future direction of mental health social work.

The secondment of adult mental health social workers into NHS trusts and the separation of children and adult social services has increased the gulf between children’s and adults’

practitioners. At a time of increased media attention on the profession, now is an opportune moment to reflect on an enduring strength of social work – its holistic approach to children, adults, families and communities.

Parallel workshops will explore research and practice in the following areas:

Early intervention in psychosis

Approved Mental Health Professional training

Effective social work practice with children & adults

Practitioner research

Stigma and discrimination

Assessments of children

Working with men sexually abused in childhood

Social capital and social work

Learning disabilities and self-harm

User involvement and inter-professional working

International social work

Case consultation – live!

Speakers include:

Prof Jill Manthorpe (Professor of Social Work, King’s College London): Personalisation and mental health services

Prof Michael Sheppard (Professor of Social Work, University of Plymouth): The significance of service user coping to practice

Dr Mike Slade (Reader in Health Services Research, Institute of Psychiatry): Recovery: A challenge for all mental health professionals

Booking information

Fees:

EARLY BIRD RATE £80 – for bookings received before 5th June

£120 – for bookings received after 5th June

£40 – social work students

A limited number of free places are available for service users and carers.

For further information and to book your place visit http://www.iop.kcl.ac.uk/events/?id=737

I look forward to meeting you there!

Tags: advanced social work practice, connecting children and adults, mental health conference, research papers, social work cpd

Alongside every other social worker in England, I received a joint letter from Ed Balls and Alan Johnson this morning echoing their support for the profession in the wake of Lord Laming’s report. In particular, I welcome the introduction of the Advanced Social Work Professional status and the encouragement for social workers to train towards a Masters level qualification. I believe that these initiatives will help to develop professional leaders who will help to drive up standards within social work and protect vulnerable children and adults within our society. However, in my role as programme leader of an advanced level post qualifying (PQ) programme, I am concerned about some considerable obstacles to the achievement of these objectives.

Firstly, the funding of post-qualifying (PQ) education urgently needs reviewing. Under the revised PQ framework employers are responsible for funding their practitioners to undertake PQ awards. However, as there is no performance indicator linked to PQ, there is no ring-fenced budget for practitioners to undertake these awards. Very few employers currently fund social workers to undertake advanced level awards. Most of the practitioners on our programme currently self-fund and there are only minimal bursaries to support them. Ironically, self-employed independent social workers are more able to undertake advanced level PQ awards as they have access to a Skills for Care bursary and can fit their work around their study.

Secondly, employers are frequently reluctant to offer study leave for their practitioners to undertake advanced level PQ awards. Study leave is considered a luxury and rare commodity for advanced level PQ awards. None of our students have caseload relief and are expected to do their usual job in four days per week instead of five. In the worst cases, practitioners take annual leave or go part-time to have sufficient time to complete our programme. Employers need to be provided with appropriate support to release their staff for advanced level PQ training.

Thirdly, the withdrawal of funding for equivalent or lower qualifications (ELQ) by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has diminished the viability of advanced level PQ programmes in Higher Education Institutions (HEI). Students of advanced level PQ programmes at Masters level have frequently picked up another post-graduate qualification since qualifying as a social worker. Even if this is not a full Masters degree, it means that HEFCE will not provide the HEI with any funding for that place. The ELQ rules do not apply to graduate level PQ study or post-graduate qualifying programmes in social work. An exemption to the ELQ rules for post-graduate PQ programmes is required to stop this discrimination against advanced practitioners in social work.

Finally, there is a lack of a career structure for advanced social work practitioners in many local authorities. Some have adopted the Consultant Social Worker role and others have created Advanced Practitioner posts. However, there will need to be significant changes within local authority career structures to accommodate the Advanced Social Work Professional Status. Local authorities will need inducements to create these incentive structures to retain their most experienced staff.”

Tags: advanced social work practice, funding and support, the challenge for employers

The CWDC project runs until March 2011 with 11 local authorities from across the country developing a number of different delivery options. Each pilot will explore ways for social workers to look at new ways of organizing their working practices,  organize their staff teams more effectively; and look at how they can provide more ‘front line’ contact with children and young people.

Click here www.cwdcouncil.org.uk/social-work/remodelling for more information about the pilot projects

Interestingly a number of local authorities have decided to proceed with exploring this option outside of the pilot scheme.

The remodelling social work project forms one element of a broader programme of work supported by the Department for Children, Schools and Families and CWDC. This programme of work has been designed to improve the outcomes and experiences of children and young people in contact with social care and particularly with social workers. The overall programme will address three priority areas of quality of initial training, skills and qualifications; workforce capacity and remodelling; and recruitment and retention.

Social work models being developed in the delivery pilots

A number of developments and themes are being explored in the CWDC pilot projects.

Structures

o Creating a single entry point for children and families to receive integrated services across a broad range of needs.

o Improving the interface between children’s centres and social work services, forging closer links between universal and statutory services to ensure early intervention

o Addressing the difficulties in delivering children’s social care within a large rural community,

o Making more effective use of IT and mobile technology

o Developing models of multi-disciplinary working, by locating social workers in multi-disciplinary teams working with children in need.

o Physically locating social workers in schools, health centres, children’s centres

o Closer working between social workers and residential child care workers

o Creating practices which allow social workers to spend more time in direct contact with the children themselves and bringing a “whole” team approach to all work.

Models of Intervention

o Improving the speed and quality of assessment and decision-making about placing young people into care, avoiding placement in care where possible. If remaining in care is appropriate, ensuring that effective planning is in place to promote permanency and placement stability.

o Using social work models of practice such as BHLP and solution-focused interventions. (Interestingly CBT is not mentioned).

o Expanding the use of Family Group Conferences with children already in care.

o Multi-agency family support panels to consider children’s needs through the Common Assessment Framework and implement coordinated plans to meet those needs. Working across services through Youth Inclusion Support Panels,

Recruitment and Retention

o Reviewing and improving recruitment and induction practices. (This could be linked with the Newly Qualified Social  Workers pilots)

Creating social work consultant roles, which will have a responsibility for supporting social workers undertaking court proceedings, (especially those in their first year of practice or undertaking court proceedings for the first time).

o Developing new career pathways for practitioners

o Training in brief therapy social work interventions

o Improving skills and knowledge in assessment and risk management

Perceptions of Social Work

o Improving the communities understanding of the role of social workers

o improving both the visibility of social care, and access to it by the public,

Is this the start of a new era for social work? This is a very exciting development and we will keep you updated .

Tags: a different role for social workers, cwdc, recruitment and retention, remodelling social work project, social work practice