Inspectors have provided insight into the national standards for social workers
Good social work can transform people’s lives and protect them from harm.
To achieve consistently high-quality outcomes for service users and their carers, social workers must have and maintain the skills and knowledge to establish effective relationships with children, adults, families and professionals in a range of agencies and settings, and be the key connectors in communities.
In their turn, employers, including councils, should implement a ‘whole systems’ approach to supporting the social work profession.
‘The standards for employers of social workers in England’, developed by the sector and hosted by the LGA, set out the key components of whole systems approaches and the shared core expectations of employers.
They can also help to improve recruitment and retention by providing the right conditions for social workers to thrive.
The eight standards include effective workforce planning, safe workloads and case allocation, wellbeing, continuing professional development, and strategic partnerships.
Councils can use the standards to help develop a working environment where social work practice and social workers can flourish, in turn supporting recruitment and retention and enhancing their own reputation as a service provider and employer.
Each year, the LGA surveys thousands of social workers in an annual ‘health check’ to find out what they think about their working environment, what factors influence them to remain engaged with their work and to stay with their organisations, and how well employers are delivering the standards.
This year’s survey launches in October and is open until the end of the year, so please ensure your council emails us at [email protected] to sign up for it, and encourage your registered social workers, mental health practitioners and occupational therapists to take part.
We will provide you with an anonymised breakdown of your council’s results, providing invaluable local information that can inform your improvement work and help you plan and manage recruitment and retention, staff morale, training needs and other issues.
As well as providing a way for you to assess and review your council’s social work performance against the standards, the results also help support the LGA’s lobbying work.
We’re delighted to mark the launch of this year’s survey with some thoughts from Yvette Stanley, Ofsted’s National Director (Regulation and Social Care), in response to questions about children’s social care and the eight standards.
The employer role in creating great social work practice
Yvette Stanley is National Director (Regulation and Social Care) at Ofsted
Q What role do you think wider corporate leaders have in establishing an environment for great social work practice to thrive?
A In a nutshell, we are looking for a place where the shared ambition for children and for services for children and families is well articulated and owned across the organisation.
Leaders like the chief executive, the council leader and lead member will know the level of risk that is being carried in relation to child protection. Put simply, who gets early help and how much harm might children experience to become subject to child protection inquiries or a plan?
They will have access to a range of information to assure themselves that social workers and wider staff are being well-supported to carry out their roles. So they will have information on the caseloads being managed across different parts of social care and will have access to data on both timeliness and quality of their work, as well as information to assess the impact on the experiences and progress of children.
It is also important they have a strong grip on how the wider organisation is supporting children’s social care doing its best work: from supporting recruitment and retention of social workers through to having the right administrative support and timely legal advice.
Q How can we spot where caseloads and workloads are too high – and what are the consequences of this for staff and children?
A I am often asked for a magic number in terms of caseloads. It is not an exact science and it depends on the nature and complexity of the cases.
Heads of services, team managers, assistant directors and directors need to know which teams are under pressure and to take action quickly when intake volumes rise or staffing capacity falls.
The oversight we build into social care is not ‘inefficiency’. It is the capacity to oversee complex risk, to constantly re-prioritise and to support staff who are managing very high levels of actual as well as risk of harm to children.
What we do know is, when we get it wrong, social workers will not be able to do enough direct work and their record-keeping will suffer, leaving a poor trail for future workers and manager oversight.
Most importantly, for children it will mean they do not get the time to build a relationship with their social worker and our collective decision-making will be poor, impacting negatively on children’s progress and outcomes.
Q Is the need for employee wellbeing and a positive workplace culture understated?
A Whatever services we lead it makes absolute sense to recruit, develop and retain the workforce to do their very best work.
So, for social care, where we are asking staff to do difficult work with families, to hold very high levels of partner anxieties and to take difficult life-changing decisions about children’s lives, it is absolutely vital.
It makes absolute sense in terms of the positive impact on children and families and it makes economic sense in terms of the cost of agency and recruitment costs generally.
Employee wellbeing and a positive workplace culture must never be understated or underestimated in its importance. It is always good to see local leaders triangulating all the workforce information, and to respond to the annual health check with a clear action plan.