ne of Professor Eileen Munro’smain recommendations in herfinal report into the childprotection system in England isthat social workers should be

freed from bureaucracy in order to spend moretime with children and families. Her review,published in May following a year-long inquiry,calls for a ‘move away from a complianceculture to a learning culture’, allowingpractitioners to use their expertise in assessingneed and providing the right help.

Key to achieving a learning culture is a re-emphasis on continuing professionaldevelopment (CPD), an often sidelined yetessential component of a social worker’s careerprogression. The review outlines how frontlinesocial workers should be akin to junior doctors,who draw on the expertise of more experiencedcolleagues. It also proposes that those whodevelop skills in direct work with families

should be able to progress in their careerswithout moving into management. Moira Gibb,chair of the Social Work Reform Board(SWRB), recently told a Community Care Liveevent in London that social workers spend justseven years at the frontline compared with 25years among doctors.

CPD is also a theme of the Social WorkReform Board’s work, begun before Munrobegan her investigation and currently centredon the development of Professional Capabilitiesand CPD frameworks, which is backed in

Professor Munro’s review. The final frameworksare set to emerge shortly, according to theDepartment for Education.

Professor Munro says the capabilitiesframework should ‘explicitly inform social workqualification training, postgraduate professionaldevelopment and performance appraisal’.

In her report, Professor Munro adds: ‘If childand family social workers are to develop theircapabilities throughout their careers it isessential they engage productively incontinuing professional development. The

O

THERE IS A DANGER THAT THE THING THATGETS CUT MOST QUICKLY IS TRAININGBUDGETS, SO WORKFORCE MORALE DIPSAND ORGANISATIONS STAGNATE

Minding your

Clare Jerrom takes a look at whatMunro’s proposed reforms might

mean for post-qualificationtraining, especially in England,

considering the potential benefitsand the barriers to success in

raising the bar for social workers’professional development

PQs

July/August 2011 • Professional Social Work

training reforms 28

p028-029 – PSW July 11_PSW_templates 05/07/2011 15:12 Page 28

29

PSW

training reforms July/August 2011 • Professional Social Work

To comment on this article please email editor@basw.co.uk

its CPD recommendations, which complementmany of those being developed by the SWRB,doubts must remain about the likelihood ofseeing any immediate benefits for practitioners,however. As Professor Jones points out, in aclimate of spending cuts, training budgets couldbe more under threat than set for anysignificant investment or positive reform.“There is a danger that the thing that gets cutmost quickly is training budgets at a time offinancial difficulty. That is understandable, butif you don’t develop the workforce morale dipsand organisations are more likely to stagnate,”he warns.

Ms Robb believes that the most importantmessage from Professor Munro’s report is thatprofessional judgment must come beforeprocess. “Social work is about formingrelationships and making professionaljudgments, not tick-boxes,” she says. “Our CPDstrategies and systems must be focussed onhow to help people strengthen professionaljudgment rather than how to fill in a formbetter. It’s a real challenge but it’s absolutely the right challenge.”

Professor Munro made it clear that manyfrontline staff are inexperienced and their basictraining does not encompass essentialknowledge and skills. Managers need to provideguidance and oversight to “counter suchdeficiencies in their frontline staff”, she argued.

According to Professor Jones these skills aremissing because social work courses are “tooeclectic”. He continues: “It is one of the dangersof trying to squeeze a lot into a short time andwhich is why CPD is so important.

“Frontline managers are the most importantpeople. They determine more than anyone elsethe quality of frontline practice,” he adds,arguing that managers must have ongoingtraining to fulfil this role.

Professor Munro makes furtherrecommendations around the issue of linemanagement, which would allow practitionersto remain on the frontline longer, like doctors.She urges a more varied career path with astronger voice for practitioners in management,recommending the appointment of a principalchild and family social worker in each localauthority. The post-holder would do directwork but would also advise less experiencedcolleagues and relate the views of social workersto those who make decisions.

Though the report was widely welcomed for

review places a premium on CPD and it hopes,with the adoption of a stronger teaching andlearning culture within local systems, that localleaders and staff will share the review’s view onits importance.’

CPD had been emerging from the sidelinessince the Social Work Taskforce (SWTF)began its work. The SWTF produced its reportin December 2009 and the recommendations,which would become the focus of work by theSocial Work Reform Board, highlightedproblems with the current CPD system.

Professor Munro refers to problemshighlighted by the SWTF: a lack of valueplaced on CPD in some parts of theprofession, a varying degree of take-up and aframework that is not sufficiently coherent,effective or widely understood. A lack of timeand employer support prevents social workersundertaking courses, she found. A “majorshift” in the delivery of CPD wasrecommended.

Professor Munro has also emphasised theneed for social workers to keep up-to-datewith research and has suggested a mechanismfor providing summaries of research – andwhat it means in practice – for social workers.

Bridget Robb, development manager atBASW, says a mechanism for disseminatingresearch would be “enormously helpful” forpractitioners, although the challenge would befor research funders to make this expectationpart of the research brief. She adds that afuture College of Social Work could play acrucial role. “Part of the job of the College isto make knowledge useful and disseminate itto practitioners. It could provide a knowledgehub or centre where social workers can cometo access summarised research.”

She adds that there is currently a gulfbetween practitioners and researchers and thatmatching theory and practice would maximisethe value of research.

Munro also outlines a strengthened role forlocal safeguarding children boards (LSCBs) toimprove multi-agency training and learning.Ray Jones, professor of social work at KingstonUniversity and chair of Bristol LSCB, says thiscould work by learning lessons locally fromserious case reviews. “SCRs are a way ofreviewing what is working and what isn’t,” heargues. “Multi-agency training increasescompetencies but also, across the piece, it helpsglue them together.”

Ms Robb agrees: “The more people fromdifferent professions working together can learntogether and get to know each other and fosterrelationships the better for good collaborativeworking at times when things constantlychange.”

In her interim report, published in January,

The manager of the Northern Ireland Association of Social Workers (NIASW – part ofBASW) Carolyn Ewart says there is already a strong culture of PQ learning across thecountry, highlighting how the practice teachers course is well regarded and is now offeredat Masters level. PQ learning in Northern Ireland is regulated by the Northern IrelandSocial Care Council as part of its registration requirements. Completion of the first level islinked to completion of the Assessed Year in Employment and is mandatory for all newly-qualified social workers. Ms Ewart says the main problem is that agency staff are unable toaccess PQ training from their employers, yet they cannot register without the support oftheir employer. “There are a growing number of social workers who cannot accessaccredited programmes and this needs to be addressed,” she says. In Scotland, the Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) initiative, which aims to improve

outcomes for all children and young people, has seen an increase in investment in earlyintervention services from education, health and social services. Social workers arerequired to complete 15 days post-registration training and learning (PRTL) over threeyears as part of their re-registration and five of those days must be spent on CPD linked toprotection of children or adults, says Scottish Association of Social Work (SASW – part ofBASW) manager Ruth Stark.In Wales, BASW Cymru manager Robin Moulster says while social workers need to

complete 15 days PRTL in order to re-register, the reality is that workloads – the pressureto “cover the day-to-day stuff – and lack of money to cover their absence when training”,can act as obstacles to them developing their skills. He adds that the geography of Walesmeans accessing training providers may be difficult, especially for those in mid-Wales asmost people live in the north or south, although e-learning is increasingly popular. BASWCymru is in the process of developing professional social work groups where socialworkers will come together either by geographical or local authority area to meet anddiscuss key social work issues.

AWAY FROM MUNRO: CPD ACROSS THE UK

p028-029 – PSW July 11_PSW_templates 05/07/2011 15:12 Page 29