Early Career Framework to replace ASYE in two-and-a-half years' time

A new framework for supporting and assessing new children and family social workers in England will be up and running by September 2026.

The Early Career Framework (ECF) will replace the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) and aims to deliver a two-year programme to develop “professional confidence and competence”.

After the initial two years, the framework will also provide a further optional three-year progression route to become an “expert practitioner”.

It is hoped the reform, outlined in the government’s 2023 Stable Homes, built on love response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, will improve retention of children’s social workers.

England’s chief social worker for children and families Isabelle Trowler made the announcement during Social Work Week. 

She highlighted the pressures currently faced within children’s social work, underlining the need for reform, describing how there has been a 77 per cent increase in Section 47s and a rise of 18 per cent in children on child protection plans.

The government has previously pointed to feedback suggesting social workers need stronger support in their early years. 

A spokesperson said: “The early career experience of social workers sets the groundwork of professional confidence and competence and can support social workers to stay in practice for longer.

“The Early Career Framework will give child and family social workers two years of
consistent, high-quality support and development.”

While the ECF is being developed the existing ASYE will continue.

James O'Donoghue, deputy director of social work training development at the DfE, said the new framework aimed to provide the support newly qualified workers needed: "We see that particularly in the early years of social workers' careers, more appear to be leaving than were previously. That's an indication of the challenges social workers face, and so through increased investment in induction support we believe by supporting people to improve their practice, which will have a knock-on benefit of people staying longer in the profession.”

The ECF is taken from an existing framework in teaching, but O'Donoghue added: "We are trying to make sure this is designed for the social work context and is not just a lift and shift.

"The first two years is an extended induction period, where the existing one year of support [under the ASYE] is extended to two, and we improve the consistency and quality of the support social workers get.

"The next three years is about the continual investment in developing expertise with practitioners. This will be optional – it won't be mandatory to do training and development in these years, but it will be a very significant offer from the DfE to social workers.

"The aim is to set out what the expectations are for social workers, the knowledge and skills children and family workers will need.

"The second task will be to support people to develop, through a high quality training programme.

"The third element will be assessment, so people can check on their learning and development and take it back to their supervisor."

According to the government, the latter will be a "rigorous, supportive and fair assessment process" to replace the scrapped and widely discredited National Asessment and Accreditation pilot.

A consultation on the early career framework will take place this summer. 

In terms of stemming the current exodus of qualified social workers from the profession, and particularly child protection, O'Donoghue admitted the effects would not be felt for some time.

"We hope that the first cohort will go through the early career framework from September 2026, completing it in September 2028," he said.

"We would hope to see impacts from that - it will take longer to evaluate those impacts."