I have recently completed an audit and evaluation of the impact of the post qualifying (PQ) awards for social work practice across six London boroughs. The research was commissioned by Skills for Care London on behalf of the Social Work Development Partnership

Following consultation with a number of stakeholders we developed two online surveys. Staff with responsibility for post qualifying education and practice learning (PQ Leads) were asked for their views and the support they needed to promote the post qualifying framework. Social workers who had completed a post qualifying module or award were asked about their  motivations, the support offered by their employers,  the benefits and their experiences of studying for a post qualifying award.

Although it was small scale research project the findings are significant for employers, social workers, HR, Workforce Development and Learning and Development teams. There are key messages for  the Social Work Reform Board and the Munro Review of child protection: Better frontline services to protect children.

The PQ awards are highly valued by social workers who believe that they are more skilled, confident and reflective practitioners as a result of undertaking PQ study. Overall the majority of respondents felt that post qualifying training in their organisations was important or essential 47.5% of social workers believed that post qualifying training for social workers is very important and 18.7% stated that it is absolutely essential.

73.7% of social workers believe that there has been a direct impact upon their work with service users as a result of undertaking a post qualifying award. There was a particular focus on the importance of being able to reflect on practice and reaffirm the importance of social work values when working in multi-disciplinary settings.

Promoting, supporting and recognising the value of PQ learning is a valuable recruitment and retention strategy. Social workers in the survey placed a great deal of importance on their professional development and career advancement. Currently most local authorities do not have a career grade for advanced social work practitioners. The majority of responses indicated that the PQ framework is not embedded within a social work career pathway or linked with career development.  

Career progression and advancement is an area for development by local authorities to provide career pathways and develop a strategic approach to the recruitment and retention of social work staff. Local authorities who have developed a framework for career progression, which links with the post qualifying awards, could be promoted as exemplars of good practice.

There is an important link between the PQ awards and practice learning. 62% of those undertaking a PQ award had supervised a student. At a time when we need to ensure that high quality statutory placements are available the PQ awards have an important role to play in ensuring best practice standards are maintained.

Local authorities who have a dedicated lead for practice learning and the post qualifying awards are in a stronger position to contribute to the wider workforce agenda which includes the development of the InLaws framework and for children’s services implementing the One Children’s Workforce Tool.

Skills for Care London have developed a range of support materials and and resources. These include the Post Qualifying and Practice Learning Bulletin, the London Directory of Post Qualifying Programmes, the PQ Employers Guide to the PQ Framework and PQ case studies.

Sharing learning and knowledge is an important employer  benefit for  post qualifying education. The research indicated that PQ award holders have been involved in the development of policy within their organisation, writing for professional publications, running workshops, presenting at conferences and shared their learning with students to embed good practice within their organisations.  

Can employers afford to ignore the return on investment of improving social work practice through the post qualifying awards?

Download the report Evaluating the impact of the PQ awards and find out about the Key Messages for the Social Work Reform Board

Shirley Ayres Consulting specialise in impact audits and communication strategies linked to demonstrable outcomes. Contact info@shirleyayresconsulting.co.uk to discuss  how we can help you to evaluate and communicate the benefits of the services your organisation delivers.

Tags: advanced social work practice, improving social work practice, Leadership and Management, Learning and Development, post qualifying awards, research, researching the impact of post qualifying awards, ROI

TED started out as a conference bringing together people from the worlds of Technology, Entertainment and Design (hence TED). The first TED conference included demonstrations of the newly released Macintosh computer and Sony compact disc, while mathematician Benoit Mandelbrot demonstrated how to map coastlines with his newly discovered fractals and Artificial Intelligence guru Marvin Minsky outlined his powerful new model of the mind.

The TED Conferences are the heart of TED and the content has expanded to include science, business, the arts and the global issues facing our world. Over four days, 50 speakers each take an 18-minute slot, with many shorter presentations, including music, performance and comedy.

TED is a unique phenomenon which gathers the best minds from around the world to share thoughts and ideas.  I would like to see a TED conference for social work and social care  to inspire and share best practice across the world. Who would you nominate? 

Some of my favourite TED Talks:

Sir Ken Robinson: Bring on the learning revolution! 2010
In this poignant, funny follow-up to his fabled 2006 talk, Sir Ken Robinson makes the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning — creating conditions where kids’ natural talents can flourish. Ken Robinson challenges the way we’re educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence

Derek Sivers: How to start a movement 2010
Lessons about leadership and the importance of the first follower with help from some surprising footage, Derek Sivers explains how movements really get started.

Nic Marks: The Happy Planet Index 2010
Statistician Nic Marks asks why we measure a nation’s success by its productivity instead of by the happiness and well-being of its people. He introduces the Happy Planet Index, which tracks national well-being against resource use (because a happy life doesn’t have to cost the earth). Which countries rank highest in the HPI? You might be surprised.

Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity 2009
The best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love. Elizabeth Gilbert muses on the impossible things we expect from artists and geniuses and shares the radical idea that, instead of the rare person “being” a genius, all of us “have” a genius. It’s a funny, personal and surprisingly moving talk.

Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks 2010
The controversial website WikiLeaks collects and posts highly classified documents and video. Founder Julian Assange, who’s reportedly being sought for questioning by US authorities, talks to TED’s Chris Anderson about how the site operates, what it has accomplished and what drives him. The interview includes graphic footage of a recent US airstrike in Baghdad.

Tony Robbins Why We Do What We Do 2006
Tony Robbins the pioneering life coach discusses the “invisible forces” that motivate everyone’s actions.

Barry Schwartz The Paradox of Choice 2006
Psychologist Barry Schwartz takes aim at a central tenet of western societies: freedom of choice. In Schwartz’s estimation, choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.

Enjoy, do contribute your own favourite TED Talks and your nominations for the inspiring leaders in social work and social care.

http://http://www.ted.com

Tags: empowerment, encouraging innovation, free online learning, Leadership and Management, Learning and Development, online education, TED, TED Talks

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

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

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

The formal launch of the final report of the Social Work Task Force will take place on Tuesday 1 December 2009 at Central Hall, Westminster.  This event will be the first opportunity to hear the contents of this report. Registration is required by Thursday 26 November.
This report will set out in detail the recommendations to Government for a programme of comprehensive reform of the social work system in England. Delegates at this event will be the first to hear the contents of the report, as well as a presentation by Moira Gibb, Chair of the Social Work Task Force, and to hear the Government’s response. Members of the Task Force will explore the contents of the report and answer questions. Register here

Indications about the final recommendations:
• The profession needs a stronger, more coherent voice
• A new organisation to support social work which could take the form of a National College for Social Work (interesting to contemplate the future roles of the GSCC, Skills for Care, Children’s Workforce Development Council, Social Care Institute for Excellence and the National Skills Academy for Social Care)
• Different progression routes and career pathways for social work – (management should be one of a number of routes)
• Development of the Advanced Professional Social Worker role
• The importance of high quality CPD (and presumably implications for the current GSCC PRTL)
• A post-qualifying framework which is linked to career progression 
• Support for social workers in improving their basic skills, where required (how basic?)
• Reforms to include guidance on supervision and caseloads
• Recommendations about the ICS and the need for development of IT systems which support social workers as well as providing management information
• A pre-qualifying year and a license to practice
• Closer collaboration between employers and educators (since these partnerships already exist at qualifying and post-qualifying level it will be interesting to see how the recommendations will promote more effective joint working).

Social Work Task Force Website

Tags: advanced social work practice, cwdc, DCSF, education, gscc, ICS, Leadership and Management, Learning and Development, post qualifying awards, professional practice, scie, skills for care, Social Work, social work skills

The Parent Know How Innovation Fund has created the three pilot projects, as recent research showed that 80 per cent of parents reported they were ‘satisfied’ or ‘very satisfied’ with the information or support provided by existing Parent Know How services. These latest additions to these services will launch in January and will join a range of other telephone helpline and innovative services available to mums, dads, carers and grandparents to ensure that wherever they look for information, they receive coherent advice from respected sources.

Dawn Primarolo said: “We are committed to finding innovative ways of getting information out to families including grandparents. Through Parent Know How, we fund a number of organisations to reach out to parents and carers and I am delighted that we are developing three new services. I am particularly pleased that we are supporting organisations that will provide online information for grandparents with childcare responsibilities.

“Parent Know How is about pulling together relevant information into one convenient place. Parents, carers and grandparents will now have access to advice and support where and when they need it to help them achieve the best for the children in their care.”

The Parent Know How Innovation Fund was designed to explore and expand the routes available to parents to access information, support and advice from parenting experts or from other parents. The three new pilots, which will run until March 2011, could reach almost 5 million people. They are:

beGrand.net – A new web-service to give grandparents a voice, support the development of grandparent communities, increase support for grandparents caring for children, increase contact between grandchildren and grandparents and improve grandparents’ parenting skills.

Parenting On Demand – Aims to develop and syndicate online videos designed to support parents/carers of children aged 5-19. The service will create a range of short video clips which will provide information and advice on a range of topics including learning, behaviour and wellbeing. The videos will also refer to other sources and services.

Relate for Parents – A new relationship support service from Relate. It will aim to develop online media tools to cater for parents needs by providing advice, support, and guidance to enable them to understand and improve their family relationships, manage conflict and make change happen.

The research, Parent Know How Telephone Helplines and Innovation Strands Evaluation, can be found at: http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/research

Tags: DCSF, Learning and Development, resources, Social Work

Friday 16th October
Wellcome Collection Conference Centre, 183 Euston Road, London NW 1 2BE
 
The Government Office for London are bringing together professionals within Local Authorities and Primary Care Trusts to share innovation, successes and learning to help improve health outcomes for London’s Children in Care. This event will focus on highlighting successful examples of transferable practise from across London. This wll be set within a context of national policy development and regional initiatives including the London Pledge for Children and Young People in Care.

Places are limited to 3 per each London Authority for this free conference. Register your interest by emailing Nigel.Barker@gol.gsi.gov.uk. The deadline for registration is Friday 9th October.
 
http://www.gos.gov.uk/gol

Young London Matters – Making Every London Child Matter is a very useful resource for sharing information about children and young people’s services in London.

The London Pledge for Children and Young People in Care sets ambitious goals to deliver the best possible outcomes for children in care. The Pledge aims to ensure that children and young people in care across London have equal access to the same range of key services and support wherever they live, go to school or access employment or training opportunities in London. The Pledge is supported by all of the Children’s Trusts in London .

http://younglondonmatters.org/home

Tags: advanced social work practice, encouraging innovation, Learning and Development

The Children’s Workforce Development Council (CWDC) are hosting a series of free events to introduce the new Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) and how this will benefit employers. These events will also be updating participants on the important developments around the new Level 3 Diploma for the Children and Young People’s Workforce.

Who should attend?
Employers and local authorities who work in the children and young people’s workforce

Conference objectives
provide a greater understanding of the QCF principles and structure
give more information on how changes in the qualifications framework will affect providers and learners
demonstrate how the QCF links to the Integrated Qualifications Framework (IQF)
demonstrate the accumulation of transferrable credits for learners
provide further information on the importance of the Level 3 Diploma for the Children and Young People’s Workforce

Three events are being held

Birmingham 5th November 2009
Leeds 20th November 2009
London  26th November 2009

Click here http://www.cwdcevents.org.uk/qcf/index.html for more information and to register for this event.

Tags: cwdc, Learning and Development, workforce engagement