Growing Your Own: The Practice Outcomes of Employment‐based Social Work Training. An Evaluative Case Study of One Agency's Experience

Abstract

Evaluations of social work training in the UK by Marsh & Triselliotis (1996, Social Workers and Probation Officers, Their Training and First Year in Work, Ashgate, Aldershot) and Lyons & Manion (2004, Social Work Education, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 133–148) found a poor fit in terms of preparedness for agency context. This study of employment‐based social work training in one UK agency suggests that it has led to improved knowledge, better social work skills and the development of more reflective practice both by the individual worker and in the wider team and workplace. Underlying these developments is an emphasis on social work values as a key feature in the development of practice. Although a proportion of staff moved posts after qualification, 84% of this was within the agency and managers were happy that staff carried their new learning culture with them to the benefit of the agency as a whole. Readiness to practise was assessed through views of fitness for the key social work roles and there was a high level of agreement that the training contributed to this fitness. Links are made to the new social work training requirements in the UK which mean more expensive training for many agencies but the effectiveness of the training evaluated here offers signposts for the management of employment‐based training in the context of the new social work degree in the UK.