Social work apprenticeships: a 360 degree view
Published by Professional Social Work magazine, 8 June, 2023
Learning while earning
Stacy Procter, third year apprenticeship student and BASW Ambassador
I often find that apprenticeships are misunderstood, undervalued and considered an ‘easy way in’ to social work.
As a social work apprentice, I can only say that choosing an apprenticeship over a full-time degree has been a fantastic decision. The benefits are numerous and have given me a unique opportunity to gain invaluable knowledge, skills, and behaviours that underpin social work practice while still earning and avoiding costly tuition fees.
As a single parent, I would have been unable to fund myself through university as, like many, I couldn’t financially support my family without bringing in an income, which the apprenticeship still allows me to do.
The academic base is strong, with hard work and dedication required. I have worked in education for 16 years, supporting blind and vision impaired children throughout their education, working with families, schools and other agencies.
I currently work in this role full-time, attend university one day a week and shadowing social care teams during school holidays. It can be difficult to juggle two roles in different fields; both education and social work require significant time commitments and emotional investments. Trying to balance the responsibilities of the two can be hard.
I have found that the skills I have developed throughout my career have been interchangeable throughout my studies and have been able to build upon these skills during the social work apprenticeship.
Collaboration between my university and my workplace promotes a symbiotic relationship between academia and practice, and is key to the success of the apprenticeship. It ensures that the academic base remains a focus, while I am well prepared for the future role and my employers have access to skilled and competent social workers.
The workplace experiences and off-the-job opportunities - which ensure learning is undertaken outside of day-to-day work duties - have been invaluable and given me an insight and experience of different roles within social work. This gives a great advantage to our knowledge and understanding of the role once qualified.
Real world experiences
Roger Adrien, social work apprentice student
I find the apprenticeship flexible and engaging. The skills coaches are very helpful and keep me on track. They help me with the day-to-day practicalities of the course as well as ensuring I am supported by my employer to maximise my learning and experience.
It’s great that many of the lectures on the apprenticeship are conducted by practitioners who are still working in the field and are able to cite real world experiences. The mix of backgrounds of students also really supported my learning as many students in my cohort have great knowledge and experience in different social work areas.
My experience is mainly based around children and young people, but I have been able to learn from people who work in adult social work, education, probation, the NHS and many more.
The apprenticeship has been a good way to network and connect with future social workers throughout the region.
Diversity of ideas
Coral Leather, qualified social worker via the apprentice route
I am a social worker in an integrated neighbourhood team and I qualified in April 2022 via the apprenticeship route.
The social work apprenticeship has impacted my practice in a great many ways. The diversity of ideas and different ways of understanding social work has been invaluable. I really enjoyed the academic facets of the apprenticeship - it’s something I miss a lot now I’m working in practice full-time. I like thinking deeply about different topics and was able to do that on the apprenticeship.
The apprenticeship was definitely the right route for me. I'd been to university twice before so funding a third degree was not going to be possible. I feel at an advantage to mainstream social work students as I believe the apprenticeship gave me a strong sense of what social work would entail, the types of situations I might encounter, and the diversity of the work we do.
Positive approach to learning
Pauline Black, senior lecturer and social work degree apprenticeship programme lead at Manchester Metropolitan University
Our first cohort of social work apprentices started in March 2018 and our most recent started in March 2023. We take two intakes each year and they complete their degree over 30 months.
From the outset, the sense I have had from apprentices, their employers and my colleagues is that the apprenticeship offers a really positive route into qualified practice for people who have already demonstrated commitment to their employers, and the individuals and families that they work with.
All our apprentices come with considerable practice experience and are looking to the next stage in their careers. Those of us who teach them are struck by their motivation and positive approach to learning.
Apprentices work towards achieving the Social Work Apprenticeship Standard. These have been mapped against the Professional Capabilities Framework and regulator Social Work England’s professional standards and provide a rigorous framework structure around the knowledge, skills and behaviours that apprentices need to develop and evidence in practice and through their education.
The feedback that we get from employers is that the qualifying apprentices have high levels of practice skills and knowledge.
We know that there is growing interest in the apprenticeship as a route into social work – the Department for Education is currently looking to support employers to recruit an additional 500 apprentices in children’s services and employers increasingly understand that it is an important part of their recruitment and retention strategies.
I get incredibly irritated by those who devalue the apprenticeship route and question the validity of the qualification. Our apprentices are doing the same degree as our other undergraduate students, while working full-time and with all the additional responsibilities that mature students may have. They can stand as equals alongside those who have qualified through any other routes!
Putting staff on professional pathway
Catherine Davies, apprentice lead at Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council
In Tameside, we are committed to delivering an outstanding service to children and families and in order to do this we require a skilled and confident workforce. To develop our workforce we support a number of different routes into the social work profession and the social work degree apprenticeship programme forms a valuable and crucial part of this strategy.
The apprenticeship programme allows us to retain and develop our existing staff in ways which more traditional pathways into social work do not allow. It is an opportunity for staff who already work for us to be supported through a professional qualification pathway.
This is the uniqueness of the programme compared to other routes; it allows us to capitalise on the strengths, expertise, relationships and networks which already exist within our workforce and utilise them for the benefit of the workers’ own professional development as well as for the children, families and communities in which they already work.
The programme enables workers who already have a wealth of experience to apply a theoretical, reflective and legislative framework around their practice.
This combination results in apprentices entering their assessed and supported year in employment with increased resilience, experience and confidence meaning they are equipped to more effectively deal with the challenges and risks which the social work profession can bring.
The challenges which the apprenticeship programme can bring for us as a service is how we provide sufficient contrasted learning experience for our social work apprentices without leaving gaps in the service from which the apprentice has come from.
While the consensus is that the programme in the long term works well and all efforts are made to be creative to support our apprentices, in the context of limited funding the reality is that this is a difficult model to sustain.
Bridging the gap
Sally Kaye - advanced clinical practitioner and clinical lead, Pennine Care Rapid Response Team
NHS teams in child and adolescent mental health services often employ youth support workers to work alongside highly skilled mental health practitioners who have core qualifications in nursing or social work.
Youth support workers can have a great deal of experience working with young people with mental health problems and complex needs. However, when they look for career progression, and this can’t be offered within existing teams, they leave.
There are many challenges with recruitment and retention of staff across the NHS and we need new and creative ways of meeting these challenges. In 2021 two youth support workers started the social work apprenticeship degree course. With the support of the apprenticeship leads, the students continued to work within the rapid response team as well as attend university one day a week.
Having social work apprenticeship students in NHS teams can help bridge the gap between social care and health care. They bring new ideas, different perspectives and are up-to-date with the latest research and best practice which they can share with teams, contributing to better outcomes for the children and young people we support.
It was encouraging to see their development and as employers it was reassuring from a quality perspective to be invited on to the panel for final assessments. Both apprentices have now completed the course and are now employed as qualified mental health practitioners in the same teams.