Post-qualifying Social Work Research Articles

‘Nothing about Us without Us’: the Voices of People with Lived Experience in Practice Education and Post-Qualifying Social Work

‘Nothing about Us without Us’: the Voices of People with Lived Experience in Practice Education and Post-Qualifying Social Work

Experiences of a service user advisor to a post-qualifying social work course: a personal account

ABSTRACT In this co-produced paper, we write about a collaboration that developed over more than a decade between a service user advisor and a social work educator within a higher education context. Starting with how we came to work together, the paper outlines early apprehensions about service user involvement, both as we experienced them and as expressed by colleagues, students, and managers. The paper discusses such themes as confidentiality, professional boundaries, and power imbalance. As authors w identify principles that have underpinned our relationship as well as obstacles faced and understandings reached. We emphasise possibilities discovered from this project which may have application for other courses and settings for the service user advisor role. As we write, we are confronting a new challenge as one of us continues in the work and one of us retires from it.

Testing partnership and preparedness in Northern Ireland during COVID-19

ABSTRACT Northern Ireland has partnership arrangements for qualifying and post-qualifying social work education that joins the regulator, universities and employers in equipping social workers to practice safely to a high-quality standard. Covid-19 highlighted the need for social workers to manage its impact on individuals, families and communities. Government restrictions meant prioritisation of service delivery and early graduation for student social workers with rapid recruitment into frontline practice. This article considers the role of the regulator in governance of education and training whilst working collaboratively with government, employers and academics, supporting students entering the workforce and ensuring professional development for existing workers. In telling the story we explore the dovetailing of functions that tested flexibility and rigor of existing systems and partnerships.

Innovating adult social work practice—learning from the Named Social Worker for adults with learning disabilities pilots

ABSTRACTIn 2016, following the publication of the vision for adult social work in England, the Chief Social Worker for Adults at the Department of Health in England announced the intention to pilot a new social work role—that being a Named Social Worker supporting people with learning disabilities. Phase 1 of the pilot has tested a reframing of the social work role as a relational practitioner with an expertise in human rights, freed from transacting the management of care. Phase 2 is now underway testing key knowledge and skills requirements for post-qualifying practice in the field of social work supporting adults with learning disabilities. Heuristic approaches are capturing outcomes from generative learning processes throughout the pilot. The insight emerging from this national pilot is that at its heart, named social work is about qualifying and on-going post-qualifying social work education which promotes and maintains practitioner reflexivity and connection to their social work values. We are finding that self-advocates may be a critical influencing factor, positively affecting the sources of resistance through making explicit the connection between social work values and lived experience of practice from the people social workers are there to serve.

Evaluation of the involvement of service users in post-qualifying social work education: Expected and unexpected results

There is a long policy and tradition of service users being involved in the education of social work students and post-qualifying candidates, and they are recognised as educators in their own right, however there appears to have been limited measurement of the impact of service user educator involvement in post-qualifying education on practice, and ultimately on outcomes for end service users. A collaborative partnership between service user educators, practitioners and academics carried out research in this area in four local authorities in the English East Midlands (Equally Experienced Research Group, 2011); whilst it was found that direct service user educator input had a positive impact on candidates’ practice, some unexpected and somewhat surprising responses arose. Interviews with candidates’ line managers identified that there appeared to be significantly less active evaluation of outcomes for service users than we had assumed would be the case.This paper initially sets the context for considering these responses by outlining the research undertaken, and considering how post-qualifying education as a whole might be evaluated as making a difference to practice. The second part of the paper looks at wider issues of evaluating practice and organisational service delivery. Methods used for measuring service user outcomes will be considered, alongside consideration of the active participation of service users in developing individual practice and agency service provision.

Delivering Social Work Education on Case Reviews and Inquiry Reports: An Exploratory Study of Students’ Perspectives in Northern Ireland

It is self-evident that we live in the age of inquiry where the negative impact of risk has been examined through numerous formal processes. In the wake of such scrutiny, there have been repeated recommendations for better training of the professionals charged with safeguarding the welfare of vulnerable individuals. Yet there has been very little examination of how student social workers, in particular, evaluate this training. This exploratory study responded to this gap through a mixed-methods design centring on the views of qualifying and post-qualifying social work students attending courses within two regional universities in Northern Ireland. The study found that, in the main, the cohorts responded favourably to certain aspects of the curriculum and how they were delivered. That said, the emotive nature of the case review and inquiry reports was inadequately addressed in the classroom and was not processed afterwards through a psycho-social framework. In effect, students were often left with residual anxieties that potentially hampered learning. On the basis of the findings, the study calls for further research into this highly significant area of professional competence.

Involving Service Users in Social Work Management Education: What Makes it Meaningful According to the ‘Experts’?

Course leaders have adopted a relatively cautious approach to involving service users and carers in Post-Qualifying (PQ) social work management education programmes in the UK, looking for opportunities in which it ‘makes sense’ for them to be included. Whilst there is, to a certain extent, the belief that involving service users and carers in PQ social work education is ‘a good thing’, it has proved challenging to implement. This research study sought to explore, through interviews with ‘experts’ in the field, why this process had proved so challenging. A term which emerged during the research was the importance of ‘meaningful involvement’. The research explored what ‘meaningful involvement’ might mean for managers, for academics and also for service users and carers; what it looks like and how might it take forward the understanding of and the preparation for PQ social work management education.

Post-Qualifying Education for Social Workers: A Continuing Problem or a New Opportunity?

Between 1990 and 2012 there was a national system for regulating post-qualifying social work education in England. Since then social work has been expected to take a more flexible approach to continuing professional development (CPD) which recognises the contribution played by work-based and self-directed learning alongside higher education awards. While universities can continue to offer post-qualifying courses, it is envisaged that they will work more closely with employers in deciding what should be taught and how. This article is based on a scoping review of post-qualifying social work education in England which highlights the paucity of knowledge about the topic. Although achieving a post-qualifying award is associated with improved knowledge and confidence, little is known about the long-term effects on individuals, organisations and service users. There appears to be a complete absence of evidence on cost effectiveness. As yet, we know very little about the extent of self-directed CPD among social workers and current funding constraints are likely to limit the resources that organisations invest in CPD for their workforce. In a rapidly changing context, the article seeks to provide a baseline from which an agenda for future research into CPD among social workers can be shaped.

Models and Effectiveness of Service User and Carer Involvement in Social Work Education: A Literature Review

Service users and carers are required to be involved in all qualifying and post-qualifying social work programmes (PQ) in the UK. However, there is a wide spectrum of opinion amongst stakeholders about what constitutes meaningful involvement in advanced-level PQ programmes ( Webber and Robinson, 2011). We reviewed the literature on service user and carer involvement in social work education to identify models and methods that have been used, and the evidence for their effectiveness. Through mapping twenty-nine studies included in the review against a modified version of Kirkpatrick's (1967) framework for the evaluation of training, we found widespread support amongst service users, carers, students and lecturers for involvement initiatives but little empirical evidence that it improves outcomes for students. Also, no studies evaluated its effect on social work practice or on outcomes for future service users and carers. It is vital that involvement, and indeed every other aspect of training, is evidence-based, particularly in the context of the current reform of UK social work training. Research is urgently required on the effect of service user and carer involvement on outcomes for social workers and the service users and carers they work with.

The Meaningful Involvement of Service Users and Carers in Advanced-Level Post-Qualifying Social Work Education: A Qualitative Study

Martin Webber, BA (Hons), MSc, DipSW, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in Social Work, a registered social worker and programme leader of the MSc in Mental Health Social Work with Children & Adults at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London. His research interests are in social inclusion, social capital and mental health social work, with a particular interest in the development and evaluation of interventions that improve social, as well as health, outcomes. He is co-editor of Reflective Practice in Mental Health: Advanced Psychosocial Practice with Children, Adolescents and Adults (Jessica Kingsley, 2010, with Jack Nathan) and author of Evidence-Based Policy and Practice in Mental Health Social Work (2nd edn, Learning Matters, 2011), both aimed at supporting the professional development of advanced social work practitioners. Karen Robinson worked for nearly a decade in adult education. She had obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) for over thirty years, but delayed twenty-four years before seeking help from the mental health service. She subsequently trained, and has worked, as a service user researcher. She has also worked to support the involvement of service users and carers in a social work programme. Drawing on her personal experience of OCD and cognitive behavioural therapy, she contributes to the training of mental health professionals. She is currently working on a three-year research project: ‘Seeking help and receiving appropriate treatment for obsessive compulsive disorder’.

Fit for Purpose? Post-Qualifying Social Work Education in Child Protection in Scotland

Recommendations for post-qualifying training and education in child protection social work consistently form part of the political response to child abuse scandals. The influence of child abuse politics upon the push towards post-qualifying training and education has been consistent across the United Kingdom. Within Scotland educators have been quick to respond to the market demand for programme provision and there is now a growing number of academic programmes being offered by higher education institutions. Yet despite post-qualifying training and education achieving the status of ‘panacea’ there is little in the way of a national dialogue about what post-qualifying training and education in social work child protection should look like. The parameters of this have not been subject to any kind of national debate and the Scottish academic community has not entered into a professional dialogue on these issues. More crucially, educators have not engaged in any level of identifiable evaluation of their provision and there is an absence of engagement with the scholarship of teaching child protection at the post-qualifying level. This paper connects with these issues to question whether the post-qualifying training and education delivered by Scotland's universities can be considered fit for purpose.

Values and Ethics in Mental Health Practice

Daisy Bogg's Values and Ethics in Mental Health Practice sets out to consider ‘the development of the value base associated with mental health practice’ (Introduction) and discusses some of the dilemmas faced by professionals in practice, particularly in relation to approved mental health practice and best-interests assessment. The book is part of the Learning Matters' Post-Qualifying Social Work Practice series, aimed at social workers undertaking post-qualifying social work awards. The book is a very useful introductory text and well suited to social workers at the beginning of their professional careers or to students considering going into mental health work. Bogg demonstrates an excellent grasp of the policy and legal framework within which social workers and other mental health professionals have to practise. This is a strength of the book. Qualified social workers (and others) will find the book a helpful point from which to revisit and contextualise their professional practice and begin to consider their own reflections and reflexions about how and why they work in the way they do.

Evaluation of the involvement of service users in post-qualifying social work education

Evaluation of the involvement of service users in post-qualifying social work education

Innovative Approaches to Involving Service Users in Palliative Care Social Work Education

Service user involvement in social work education is now a firmly established concept in the United Kingdom. As a result, it is common practice for service users to occupy central roles in the education and training of social work students and staff in both qualifying and post-qualifying programmes. This paper describes an initiative, undertaken in Northern Ireland, which compares two methods of user involvement employed with undergraduate and post-qualifying social work students. In both situations the students firstly observed and discussed DVD excerpts of narratives from people affected by cancer and secondly observed a live facilitated interview with a 25-year-old male service user who shared his experiences of being diagnosed with cancer at a young age. Understanding the social work role in palliative care is crucial as all social workers, regardless of practice context, will have some degree of involvement in helping individuals and families to address end-of-life care issues. This paper compares the findings of evaluations from two student groups which may help to inform social work educators about the effectiveness of different teaching methods used to achieve meaningful and effective user involvement with seldom heard groups.

Professional Decision Making in Social Work Practice, Brian Taylor, Exeter, Learning Matters, 2010, pp. 185, ISBN 9781844453597 (pbk), 20.00

This book might be termed a framework of knowledge ‘relevant to judgement and decision making in social work with all client groups’ (p. 1). The text takes a practical approach and is aimed at post-qualifying social work practitioners undertaking further study. As might be expected by a book that describes itself as text pitched at that level, it presupposes knowledge of the roles and tasks of social work and an understanding of the connections between the chapter topics. It seeks to be a supportive resource in what is, of course, a difficult and complex arena. Drawing briefly on wider decision-making theory, including Janis and Mann's (1977) discussion of conflict theory and procrastination as relief from deciding, a range of issues are covered. These include roles and concepts, consent and human rights, collaborative and contested decision making, predicting harm and taking risks. As the author states, it is an overview of a ‘vast and exciting topic’ (p. 6).

‘Baptism of Fire’: The First Year in the Life of a Newly Qualified Social Worker

This paper describes research commissioned by Skills for Care South West to identify and track the learning and development needs of newly qualified social workers through their first year of employment. The perceptions of 22 newly qualified social workers based in statutory settings are reported concerning the effectiveness of the social work degree (England), their induction and probationary periods and their progress towards post-qualifying social work education as part of their continuing professional development. The perspectives of line managers, people who use services and carers are also discussed. Findings from the research suggest that the social work degree has been well received by most newly qualified social workers and highlights the perceived importance of a statutory placement for social work degree students. Key social work practice skills that require further development are identified and a rationale is presented for greater investment in the induction and probationary periods of newly qualified social workers.

Who Really Drives the Development of Post‐Qualifying Social Work Education and What are the Implications of This?

This article seeks to stimulate debate around the relationship between Post‐Qualifying Social Work education and social work practice. Whilst initially welcomed as a positive development for the continuous professional development of qualified social workers, the author questions if in a work climate increasingly dominated by concerns about meeting global market forces PQSW education has the potential to support discriminatory and oppressive practice and undermine social work values?Higher education in England has been given the task by the General Social Care Council to develop Post‐Qualifying Social Work (PQSW) education that delivers both academic and vocational learning as national occupational standards, workforce planning and concerns around globalisation drive professional development. Indeed, a positive selling point for the PQSW framework is its apparent ability to bring together practitioners' career choices with professional development, employers' workforce planning strategies and the government's modernisation agenda for public service provision. However, could a system of education designed to meet such a variety of agendas undermine social work practice and reduce higher education to primarily providing programmes designed to meet regulatory requirements rather than professional social work that promotes an anti‐discriminatory and anti‐oppressive approach to practice? The article concludes that whilst evidence suggests PQSW education does make a positive difference to practitioners and their organisations, debate is still required to ensure it supports agreed social work values and a commitment to anti‐oppressive and anti‐discriminatory practice.

Supporting reflective, practice‐based learning and assessment for post‐qualifying social work

Students can find the academic requirements of performance‐style assessment hard to interpret and educators have been called on to provide explicit articulation for the support of academic, critically reflective assignments. This paper discusses the development of a flexible learning workbook for post‐qualifying social work (PQSW) students, undertaken in response to these issues. The development of the workbook began with the aim to provide such explicit articulation, focusing on two intended learning outcomes—applying theory to practice and being critically reflective—which can appear to students to be vague and unclear terms. Key activities were identified for each of these outcomes and aligned to relevant assessment criteria within frameworks to show the student exactly what is required in order to demonstrate their abilities in these areas. The main activities within the workbook allow students to interact with three examples of writing by analysing and applying assessment criteria to them, i.e. assessing the levels of critical reflection and application of theory to practice in each. Students are then encouraged to apply the learning gained to their own assignments and self or peer evaluate their work. This ongoing project has also been informed by focus group research as part of a commitment to the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Skills Support for Post‐Qualifying Education: Tailoring Programmes to Meet Student Needs

Even though social work is now placed within an arena of evidence‐based and reflective practice, it appears that post‐qualifying practitioners are rarely enabled or empowered to achieve this. This paper will investigate pragmatic issues surrounding the problem rather than the long‐running debates about the appropriateness of evidence‐based practice or the academic robustness of such evidence. It will focus on two main areas—firstly knowledge of, and access to, sources of information; and secondly skills to find and use the sources effectively. Some of these issues have been recognised nationally and are being addressed in several initiatives providing improved dissemination of evidence and research skills training. However, it is imperative that the scale of the problem is not underestimated. In order to meet the information needs of post‐qualification candidates, the provision of skills support should encompass a range of user‐focused and embedded services, fostering ideals of continuing professional development and lifelong‐learning. The Post Qualifying Social Work (PQSW) programme at Bournemouth University has identified the wider forums of information required for practice and the depth of information illiteracy prevalent within the profession. It has responded with an holistic and tailored package of information skills training and support, providing basic knowledge, access routes, and skills.

Researching reflective practice: an example from post-qualifying social work education⊃[1

Recent concern over the standard of social work practice, as evidenced by inquiries into child abuse cases, have led to something of a crisis in trust in the profession. As a result, there is now an emphasis on increasing practitioners' competency to practice in complex situations. Critical reflection is seen as key to achieving this increase in competence, and is stressed in both professional guidance and educational policy. National standards for continuing professional development encapsulated in post-qualifying social work awards formalise the processes of reflection on practice and learning through reflection. While most literature concentrates on reflection within the context of educational courses, the research presented in this article describes the extent to which practitioners use reflective and critical thinking skills in everyday practice. Analysis of qualitative interviews reveal that practitioners value the opportunity that post-qualifying awards provide to step back and reflect in-depth on a piece of practice, but that there is neither the time or often the support, to transfer these skills to everyday practice. Reflection emerges as an important tool for learning, but given the complex context of social work practice, it is important that it continues outside of formal education programmes. Barriers and enablers of this process are discussed.