Consultation opens on new knowledge and skills standards for children's social workers

New standards for what children and family social workers in England should know and be able to demonstrate two years after qualifying have been put out for consultation.

The proposed standards will be backed by a two-year ‘Social Work Induction Programme’ to replace the one-year Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) by September 2027.

The six new standards are:

• Anti-discriminatory practice – understanding the importance of identity and advocating for equality and social justice
• Relationships and communication – building impactful relationships through effective communication
• Assessment and planning – analysing information, applying understanding of hard to develop a purposeful plan
• Intervention – delivering and facilitating effective interventions, reviewing and adapting plans as needed
• Reflection and learning – reflecting on self and impact on practice; promoting self-learning and learning in others
• Leadership and management – leading and managing one’s self, resources and others

The proposed six new post-qualifying standards published by the Department for Education (DfE) will replace the current ten standards in the knowledge and skills statement created in 2015.

The new standards are significantly more detailed, with the draft document running to 43 pages compared to seven in the current standards.

They outline what social workers should know and be able to demonstrate against 26 outcomes.

The new standard specifically for anti-discriminatory practice was underlined by minister for children and families Janet Daby. In a foreword to the consultation document, she said: “Social workers play an important role in addressing inequality and discrimination experienced by the families they work with and have a unique opportunity to promote social justice.

“The new standards will reflect the importance of anti-discriminatory practice knowledge and skills which are fundamental to all areas of social work practice.”

Daby said the changes – designed to align with a national framework setting out the principles of children’s social care – aimed to improve the retention of social workers in their early careers.

“Too often, we see people choosing to leave the profession early, yet retaining social workers for longer, and helping them to build experience and expertise, will be vitally important as we reform the system so that our children and young people have the opportunity to succeed.

“The new standards and associated induction will support social workers through the steep learning curve at the beginning of their career and hence improve retention.”

England’s chief social worker for children’s and families Isabelle Trowler added: “This is a fantastic step forward in our mission to provide a well-equipped workforce so they in turn can provide the very best help to families in need and protect children from significant harm.”

She urged as many people as possible in the sector to respond to the consultation.

The two-year induction programme aims to bring consistency to post-qualifying support and training across the country. It will be local authority-led but backed by DfE resources, including learning materials and guidance. 

Newly qualified social workers will have protected caseloads and additional pathways will be available for continued specialist training and support in areas such as child protection after the initial two years.

Speaking at a Social Work England webinar for Social Work Week, Jim Magee Jim Magee, assistant director for social work workforce at the DfE, claimed the current standards needed a “refresh”.

He said: “They are quite high level and they tend to be ‘what's’ not ‘how’s’. There's been a feeling for quite a few years that we should set out in a bit more detail the things that we'd like to see and what social workers need to know and be able to do to achieve key outcomes.”

Magee also stressed the link to retention.

“It still remains the fact that quite a lot of social workers leave in the first three, four five years of their careers,” he said. 

“That's a shame, and we want to help people not make that choice if it was something that they felt they just had no choice but to leave.

“We want to keep people in the workforce, invest in them, see them progress in their careers.”

Magee added the standards were primarily focused on statutory social work with a “strong safeguarding flavour”.

The DfE said efforts will be made to “minimise” the administrative burden of the assessment process, something that newly qualified social workers have highlighted as an issue with the ASYE.

“Assessment activities could include an observation of direct practice, examples of high-quality case notes, feedback from families and peers and reflective activities," states the consultation document. "This feedback may be quantitative, qualitative or both.”

The 12-week consultation ends on 28 May, and the government intends to publish its plan in late summer or early autumn.