New set of standards to be developed for children social work

The Education Secretary has announced plans for a new set of professional standards for all levels of the children’s social work profession in England.

Nicky Morgan said she had asked Isabelle Trowler, the Chief Social Worker for England, to develop new assessment and accreditation systems for three levels of professional practice.

She told the National Children and Adult services Conference in Manchester that these levels would be:

1. A new approved child and family practitioner status. This will be an essential requirement for any social worker holding cases of children in need, children at risk of harm and looked-after children. “This will set a stretching new standard for all those employed in the most demanding front-line social work roles.”
2. An assessed and accredited supervisor status. “It is imperative that front-line workers are managed and supervised by those with the knowledge and skills needed to shape that practice excellence.”
3. A new role of social work practice leader – “a senior leadership position focused 100% on the quality of front-line practice in a local area, accountable for the quality of that practice, alive to brilliant practice, alert when things are going wrong”. This role is intendeded to complement the corporate leadership role of the director of children’s services, “allowing a wider pool of leadership talent to be considered for those roles while the rigorous focus on social work practice sits with the new practice leader”.

The three standards will be based on a new statement of the knowledge and skills needed for children’s social work which Trowler is expected to publish in November.

The assessment and accreditation systems will be developed for all three levels over the coming months, the Education Secretary told delegates. A decision will be taking next year about how to roll out the new standards.

Morgana acknowledged that the introduction of new higher standards would be challenging.

“But it’s the right thing to do. There is not a child or family in the country who does not have the right to expect a high-quality practitioner to deal with their case,” she argued.

“Nor can we tolerate poor practice at local area level. Where Ofsted finds services to be inadequate, we will continue to intervene sharply.

“And I won’t shy away from more radical intervention where they find evidence of systematic failure.”

She promised that the Government would work with employers on the initiative “because this is an opportunity for the profession as a whole and for individuals within it”.

Morgan said she wanted social workers to be where the teaching profession is now: “respected and highly proficient; free from the burden of overprescriptive guidance and paperwork; free to use their professional judgement to make sensible decisions about the children in their care, with responsibility and accountability for their work”.

This would require nothing less than a wholesale change of culture, “both within and without”, she added.