“3.36 The General Social Care Council is an Executive Non-Departmental Public Body responsible for the regulation of social workers and social work students in England. It is anomalous as the only professional regulator answerable directly to the Secretary of State for Health.

3.37 We see no compelling reason why the General Social Care Council should remain as an Executive Non-Departmental Public Body in the arm’s-length bodies sector, and we see potentially significant benefits from putting the regulation of social workers on a similar footing to the regulation of health professions. This involves the regulator being funded through registration fees charged to those registered, set at a level to cover the regulatory functions. In this way members of a regulated profession buy into their professional standards, which are set independently of government, and have an incentive to ensure these are upheld throughout the profession.

Therefore, we intend to abolish the General Social Care Council and move the regulation of social workers out of the arm’s-length bodies sector to make it financially independent of government. We believe that in future, the most appropriate model for the ongoing regulation of the social care workforce is to transfer responsibility for these functions to the Health Professions Council, a well established and efficient regulatory body currently regulating over 200,000 registrants from fifteen professions. The Health Professions Council – which will be renamed to reflect its new remit – operates a full cost recovery scheme and currently charges an annual fee of £76 per year, which is considerably less than the likely registration fee if the General Social Care Council were to operate alone on a full-cost recovery basis.

3.39 The Health Professions Council has an existing comprehensive and cohesive system of professional regulation which would apply to social care workers. This differs from the General Social Care Council model in several ways:

• the Health Professions Council is solely responsible for setting standards of education and training for its registrants, whereas it is the Secretary of State’s function to ascertain what training is required to become a social worker;

• unlike the General Social Care Council, the Health Professions Council do not register students, though as part of the approval process the Health Professions Council requires all Higher Education Institutes delivering pre-registration courses to operate a fitness for practice system for students;

• unlike the General Social Care Council, the Health Profession Council does not in practice approve post-registration courses apart from those related to prescribing drugs, although it has the power to do so.

We anticipate that the differences would be explored through a review of social care regulation. The abolition of the General Social Care Council, the transfer of functions in relation to the regulation of the social worker workforce and related changes will require primary legislation. The timing of these changes is dependent on discussion with the Health Professions Council and the General Social Care Council to ensure an orderly transition.

Finally, the General Social Care Council is also responsible for the payment of Education Support Grants, and we propose that if this function is to continue it should transfer to another body.” 

There are a number of unanswered questions about what will  happen to the other functions of the GSCC including post-registration training and learning. The HPC only approves a “small number” of post-registration qualifications. The GSCC approves all courses offering a formal post-qualifying award and reviews them every five years.

 The HPC does not register students, suggesting there is “insufficient evidence” that it is necessary to protect the public. This is an important part of the GSCC’s remit, because social work students can be placed in frontline teams within weeks of beginning a course.

How does this fit with the recommendations of the Social Work Reform Board and the establishment of the new National College of Social Work? As always it is the details, which have not yet been published, which will clarify the government intentions and vision for the future role, remit and regulation of social work.  

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2010/07/26/114983/GSCC-to-be-scrapped.htm

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2010/07/26/114986/sector-leaders-shocked-and-surprised-by-abolition-of-gscc.htm

Tags: gscc, professional leadership in social work, regulation of social work, Social Work

ClickNow the organisation that helps charities and schools raise money from internet searches was delighted to announce its latest collaboration with Blastbeat Education UK at their ‘Social Enterprise’ and ‘Battle of the Bands’ competition final which featured six new bands playing alongside famous acts like The Saturdays, rapper Tinchy Stryder and X Factor’s Stacey Solomon, on13th July at the O2 Arena, London. 

Recently Nick Hurd, government minister for civil society called for the public to increase their financial support to charities, to help them manage the tough times ahead as a result of cuts in public spending.  Hurd suggests that the public should donate one per cent of their income to charities. Fundraisers that use ClickNow’s innovative search tool could see an increase in donations without increasing the financial burden for their supporters.

ClickNow’s founder, Professor Kevin Morley, is a successful entrepreneur who in 2009 featured in The Secret Millionaire on Channel 4 when he visited Haringey one of the most deprived areas of London and gave away £250,000.

Opening the Blastbeat social enterprise fair and judging the student’s business skills. Kevin said “I’m delighted that Blastbeat has joined with ClickNow. In this current climate where there are many economic pressures, Blastbeat supporters now have a free and easy way of raising much needed funds through Blastbeat’s own search engine. In linking-up with ClickNow, Blastbeat joins over 500 other charities and schools who are now raising money for free through their own search engine.”  www.clicknow.org.uk/Blastbeat

Robert Stephenson, Blastbeat founder and chief executive commented “ Like many small charities we are always looking for innovative and sustainable ways of funding the Blastbeat charity. ClickNow is a free and easy useful tool which will help our efforts to empower young people as social entrepreneurs and music artists.”

Blastbeat Education UK has developed a fun and exciting Music and Multimedia Business / social enterprise progamme offered to young people and schools around the world. This innovative and dynamic schools-based programme teaches teenagers how to set up and run music and performance-based social enterprises. Blastbeat has engaged otherwise disaffected teenagers in the learning process and supported their transition from school to work.  www.uk.blastbeat.org 

In addition to Blastbeat, ClickNow has helped charities raise over £200,000 of income  simply by switching to ClickNow at no cost to the charity or their supporters. ClickNow has developed an internet search facility that provides search results from several of the major search engines in a clear and simple format. Whenever someone searches the internet using the ClickNow search facility, ClickNow receives money from the search engines and donates 50 per cent of this gross revenue to the participating charity. www.clicknow.org.uk

Does your charity have a search engine which allows you to turn your internet searches into charitable donations - if not, why not?

Tags: be inspired, charity fundraising, power of the internet

Patients will get more choice and control, backed by an information revolution. Services will be more responsive to patients and designed around them, rather than patients having to fit around services.  The principle will be “no decisions about me without me”. 

Under the new plans, patients will be able to choose which GP practice they register with, regardless of where they live, and choose between consultant-led teams.  More comprehensive and transparent information, such as patients’ own ratings, will help them make these choices together with healthcare professionals.

Local authorities will be given statutory responsibility for bringing health and social care together under the radical NHS reforms announced by health secretary Andrew Lansley. It is planned that primary care trusts and strategic health authorities will be abolished by 2013.

The health White Paper aims to create the largest social enterprise sector in the world by increasing the freedoms of foundation trusts and giving NHS staff the opportunity to have a greater say in the future of their organisations, including as employee-led social enterprises.

Consortia of GP practices will take on responsibility for commissioning most health services from PCTs while councils will take on PCTs’ public health functions and be charged with leading the integration of health and social care locally. GP consortia will commission most health services with a few exceptions, including dentistry, community pharmacy and large-scale specialist services.

The government also announced a wide-ranging review of health and social care regulation with a view towards significantly reducing the burdens on commissioners and providers.

The health White Paper will mean a change in the role of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), with some of its functions in promoting and disseminating good practice in social care being transferred to a strengthened National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice). The White Paper states that  ”The Health Bill will put NICE on a firmer statutory footing, securing its independence and core functions and extending its remit to social care”.

Closer integration of social care and health has been on every government agenda for many years. Putting People First and the Children’s Trusts have actively encouraged collaboration and partnerships. I hope that these radical proposals will build upon the many excellent examples of integrated working already in place which include the private and third sector. I am particularly concerned that the invaluable and innovative elearning developed by SCIE for the care sector over a number of years is maintained and further developed.  

The health White Paper is the start of an extensive consultation that will take place over the coming weeks.  The Department of Health will shortly be publishing a number of consultation documents to seek views on the more detailed proposals.

Connect on LinkedIn http://uk.linkedin.com/in/shirleyayres

http://twitter.com/shirleyayres

Tags: choice and control, commissioning services, elearning, health and social care, integrated working, regulation of social care and health, scie

An innovative and groundbreaking development in leadership learning has just been launched by the Leaders Café 2020 which allows you to share the best ‘leadership thoughts’ across the world.

Leaders Cafe is a social enterprise that helps to reduce inequalities in leadership learning in the economy and society. This doesn’t mean reducing the quality of the learning. Their mission is to enable 20 million people at all levels of society to use their leadership potential to lead themselves and others by 2020. This will be achieved by providing access to compelling, world class and low cost learning through the innovative online Leaders Café. Experiential learning is conveyed via webcast technology. These webinars (web seminars) typically last no longer than 60 minutes and provide compelling learning through insightful storytelling rather than through models and methodology.

The Leaders Cafe Promise:

1. You get remarkable interactive leadership webinar learning at a price sustainable to you and us.
2. Invest as little as one hour a week in our interactive webinars, and you will think and lead like a pioneer.
3. As a social enterprise with no owners, profits are reinvested in YOU; to continue to give you more for less.
4. Your membership contributes directly towards learning chances for all.
5. Your membership helps positively to reduce learning inequalities for 20 million people by 2020.

The central ethos of the Leaders Café learning portfolio is that of Pioneering Leadership. The outcomes from participating in Leaders Café’s learning are people who understand what it means to collaborate with others, have an ethos of knowledge sharing and are co-builders of a better world. The cost of membership is kept low to widen participation and is sustainable to both the learners and to Leaders Café. Strategic partnerships – including coffee bar chains and international organisations. – will support the delivery of leadership development for millions of leaders and change agents globally.

You can join for free as an Associate Learner. Premium membership is just £100 per year. Apply the code BEINSPIRED when you check out from joining and you will pay just £80.

Welcome to the Leaders Café 2020

Where is the professional leadership in social work?

The Really Big Question – what makes an effective manager?

Tags: be inspired, Leadership and Management, Learning and Development, Social Work

With government funding cuts expected to hit the public sector hard in the next couple of years, could public and not for profit organisations be more innovative and make significant cost savings by engaging with citizens through social media? Thanks to Stephen Sloss Strategic Director of Adult Social Care and Health Blackburn with Darwen Council for sharing his thoughts about the challenges for social work in developing new ways of communicating through social media.

Its amazing, is it not, that  the way people communicate is changing so quickly and public services and social work in particular, seem so slow to respond.  The link word between media and work in this context is “social”. Of all the professions that should grasp the possibilities of richer communication between people, social work should be at the forefront.

I can’t claim any crowning glory for making great strides for the profession as our teams in Blackburn with Darwen struggle like many to work with infrastructure and systems that don’t always meet expectations and despite trying to modernise our adult care services with new buildings and mobile technology, we are still a profession locked in behind the firewall.

In the public sector we have been used to communications in a noticeably one-way fashion for some years. When we consult we have been guilty of asking questions to get a particular answer.  When we do PR we have been guilty of chiselling press releases to perfection by Committee, then releasing them into the dead of night via our websites.  Even when we talk to our staff we’ve had criticism that public sector managers are hierarchical, top-down control freaks who don’t do interaction very well. Social media is giving us the opportunity to transform this for the better.

Yet the journey has begun in Blackburn with Darwen, even with my own fumbling attempts at Twitter and LinkedIn. Then there is the more superior regular intranet blog from our director of policy and communications, Tom Stannard.   We’ve also taken steps to help employees across the council understand the value of social media and to begin to use it with the help of policy guidance to keep things safe and enable social media to flourish.

In Blackburn with Darwen we’re interacting 2-way with our residents via social media every day.  We campaign on Facebook, – from new leisure centres to local neighbourhood issues, engage with the public and with opinion formers on Twitter and promote and engage with people in different ways via YouTube – most recently on electoral turnout for young people.

None of this is without risk. Culturally it is uncomfortable for organisations not used to genuine 2-way interaction via fast-moving channels. There is risk in allowing staff access and all the HR and legal/libel ramifications this presents.  And there is risk in turning over stones in the community that we may not have done for years. But there is also massive opportunity.

Social work should be in a good position to take advantage of these new communication channels but whilst it is generally culturally uncomfortable for organisations it’s also pretty uncomfortable for the individual social care professional.  Social media presents a big challenge to our professional boundaries with customers.  It also cuts across our personal lives and for many, given the very sensitive work we do, keeping work and private life apart is important.

Despite these discomforts, the world has changed and we need to debate more deeply the ways we need to change to get the best from social media to help us to safeguard and enable people even more than we do now.

No organisation or professional worth their salt would throw all their eggs into one basket but social media represents a big part of how the world works, and Councils without a proactive social media strategy, and a tolerant approach to staff usage, are really missing a trick.

About the author

Stephen Sloss is  Strategic Director of Adult Social Care & Health at Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council He has worked in local government social care since 1985. With director level experience since 2003 in social care for both children and adult services, Stephen has a strong focus on organisational transformation, continuous improvement and innovation in the delivery of public services.

Read the Blackburn with Darwen Social Media Policy

A brief look at open government, UK style with Tom Stannard Director of Communications Blackburn and Darwen

Is social work ready for the social media revolution?

Join the Advanced Social Work Practice Network on LinkedIn

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

I first met Simon when he accepted an invitation to speak at the Social Workers Educational Trust conference. “Being Inspired by Social Work”. A big thank you to Simon for sharing his thoughts following the Personalisation Conference held in London on the 21^st May 2010.

“If we can each work together, accepting our weaknesses, we can make things happen.”

Thus spoke the social worker, reflecting on the tensions that can flare up between those who want to help other people and those they are trying to help. These words beautifully captured the spirit of Friday’s conference, at the Tavistock, on personalisation and social work. The conference organised by Skills for Care, in partnership with the Department of Health and the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust Foundation, focused on exploring changes in the role and responsibilities of the social work practitioner within transformed adult services. 

The event had “hope and purpose”, but it also revealed an array of challenges that face social workers who try to make sense of ‘personalisation’ – a word which is full of meaning and unmeaning. It is hard to remember the purpose of all these personalisation ‘technologies’ (direct payments, individual budgets, self-directed support, peer support etc.). It is very hard to recall, amidst the consultants, government milestones, and official guidance, that these ideas didn’t start in government. These new ways of working were developed by disabled people and by social workers. And they were developed in order to take forward the ambition of social work – to achieve social justice.

Keeping a focus on social justice is hard, but it is essential when it comes to making sense of all the new processes associated with personalisation. Many social workers described the insanity they face working in a system which asks them to keep running the old bureaucratic system, while also setting up and running the new system. Processes are becoming more confused and over elaborate, and they are damaging our ability to respond quickly and sensitively to people’s needs. Sometimes ‘personalisation’ is leading to less personalisation.

Senior managers need to protect their staff from this chaos; but they are struggling to make sense of the overall policy direction. How deep and serious is the government’s commitment to personalisation when these new systems are developed in ways which lack any legal, financial and policy coherence. It is easy to suspect that a system which is being developed without any clear and rational plan will, in time, fade away.

But progress is being made, despite the madness, and we must be optimistic – not because we can expect things to get better – but because we can each take responsibility for making the most of this opportunity to build a fairer world.

Simon Duffy Director of The Centre for Welfare Reform

There are a number of interesting publications which can be downloaded at www.centreforwelfarereform.org

About the author

Dr Simon Duffy is Director of the Centre for Welfare Reform. Simon created Individual Budgets, Self-Directed Support and the Citizenship Model and put these ideas into practice at Inclusion Glasgow and In Control. He was awarded the RSA’s 2008 Prince Albert Medal for his work on personalisation.

Tags: be inspired, empowerment, Learning and Development, personalisation, post qualifying awards, professional practice, simon duffy, Social Work

This publication aims to tell the story so far about the personalisation of adult social care services. It is intended to set out our current understanding of personalisation and its implementation, exploring what personalisation is, where the idea came from and placing the transformation of adult social care in the wider public service reform agenda.

The report contains the following key messages and recommendations:
By identifying and transferring knowledge about good practice, SCIE has a special role to play in transforming adult social care services.
Person-centred planning and self-directed support will need to become mainstream
It will ultimately mean universal services such as transport, housing and education are accessible to all citizens.
The personalised system will need to be cost-effective and sustainable in the long term.
Approaches to early intervention and prevention need to develop further so that people are encouraged to stay healthy and independent.
The social care workforce will need to acquire new skills.

This guide is aimed at frontline practitioners and first-line managers in statutory, voluntary and independent sector social care services, although it is an indispensable summary for all those interested in this important area.

Published: October 2008, Updated: April 2010

SCIE Personalisation: a rough guide By Sarah Carr Order your copy now

Tags: integrated working, personalisation, rough guide, scie

It is really refreshing to read about the contribution made by practitioners to the very challenging area of workload allocation and caseload management. Biri Yaya and Carolyn Cousins are qualified social workers, managers and published authors who take a keen interest in what really makes a difference to supporting front line social workers and practitioners.

This article shares the essence of two case allocation tools developed by the authors and implemented in a local authority. One of the most difficult aspects of front line management is knowing there is yet more work that has to be allocated to an over stretched team. The temptation can be to allocate to those who are willing, or will offer the least resistance. As all managers know, some staff will over commit and agree to take on more, while others will resist work – and these can sometimes be the very staff who the manager suspects are the least busy.

Many social work offices still rely either on a team meeting forum for allocation – where the overworked but committed social worker puts their hand up to take on more, much to the relief of the manager, while others rarely offer to take on anything new, or the alternative system usually relies on the individual manager allocating work based on their own judgment of capacity, gained from the self report of the social workers. Neither of these systems openly or transparently determines capacity.

The Weighted Case Limit sets a standard across all staff in a team or service, it requires a set case load limit and that case weighting be pre-determined. It allows for better informed judgment of worker capacity for allocation. It also helps define and distil the kind of caseload that can assist the worker’s professional development.

The Individual Capacity Planner is tailored to each worker and aims to assess spare capacity. Here work load capacity is determined using a quick case by case analysis, and rather than use case number ceilings the tool examines the amount of time required for each case. This model has been used both in safeguarding and family support contexts. This model relies on social worker report, but it does introduce some analysis and accountability, beyond a simple, ‘I’m too busy’ or ‘I can take another case’.

A systematic approach that takes optimum capacity in the notionally available time and impacting factors have proved to be effective methods of case allocation. Download the full report including an exemplar of caseload weighting here. Tried and Tested Workload Management Allocation Tools

The authors welcome feedback on these approaches and thoughts from practitioners who use them in different contexts.
About the authors

Carolyn Cousins (MSW, MEd (Adult), Dip. Mgt) is a social worker and adult educator who has worked across the statutory, voluntary and health sectors both in the UK and Australia. She is currently the Assistant Director of Education and Training at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Fountain Trust. ccousins@tavi-port.org

Biri Yaya, (PhD, M.S.W) is an experienced qualified social worker and team manager . He has published a number of peer-reviewed articles. biriy@aol.com

Tags: advanced social work practice, caseload management, encouraging innovation, professional leadership in social work, professional practice, Social Work, social work reform board

“Personalisation enables me to do the things that I took for granted for so long. My personal assistants help me to achieve my independence. Managing my own budget means that I can go to concerts, for instance at the English National Opera. I feel like I’m part of the world to which I once belonged.” Stephen Page, on Social Care TV.

It’s not always easy to explain what social care is, and Social Care TV, aims to stimulate debate about the big issues in the sector. Social Care TV programmes bring real world examples to social care staff, managers, commissioners and trainers.

This is the first time that social care has had its own TV service. Films are ‘on demand’ so they can be watched in the workplace, the training room or at home. But there aren’t just films; each web page also includes lots of guidance and advice, multimedia and e-learning resources. Social Care TV can be used as a training and learning tool; it aims to understand the needs of people who use services, by presenting real life stories and linking these to easy-to-use resources, giving staff a better understanding of good practice.

Ann Macfarlane is featured on Social Care TV. Ann now works as a social care consultant but she spent the first twenty-five years of her life in residential settings and hospitals. She says this about the film which shows how she has succeeded to change her life because of personalisation:

“It makes me proud about my achievements. I was brought up in a place where other children were dying in front of me. I didn’t have a childhood and so I feel like I’ve been making up for borrowed time. The film shows that I now live at home, run my own consultancy business and crucially, have choice, voice and control. I’m sure this film will help the workforce to do a better job and understand the role that they have to play.”

The project is run by The Social Care Institute for Excellence and has a number of innovative features. 

• You can watch the films, but you can also download them from the site into presentations for training
• You can watch segments of films. You can go to a specific point of a film to address a key issue in social care practice.
• You can email a film or just a segment of a film to a colleague, making the sharing of good practice very efficient
• Users won’t just see a film on a site. There are useful text and links to specialist areas. 

SCIE Chief Executive Julie Jones says:

“The films bring to life what we do every day in our work. The social care workforce is in for a treat. Along with the accompanying care and support information on the web pages, the films are thought-provoking, interesting and full of strong messages about delivering good quality, personalised social care.”

Watch Social Care TV now

Tags: education, elearning, personalisation, scie, social care, Social Care TV, Social Work