Social Work England sets out its vision for the next three years
Published by Professional Social Work magazine, 16 February 2023
Social Work England has set out its vision for the next three years, saying that building trust and confidence in the profession will be a key objective.
The regulator said it would do this by seeking out opportunities “to inform, educate and influence others on the varied role social work plays within society”.
Publishing its strategy for 2023 to 2026 today, Social Work England said: “We are clear that our objective is to build confidence in social work.
“The perception of social work matters in our work if we are to build and maintain public trust in the profession and ourselves as the regulator.”
Improving public trust could increase a “sense of professionalism and pride” and elevate the identity of social work, ensuring it is “visible and valued”.
The regulator’s ten-point plan also includes reviewing fitness to practise case management, handling more concerns locally and reforming qualifying social work education.
It promised to share data about the social work profession to help “leaders and policymakers to drive change”.
“Our insights will allow us to better understand the profession we regulate, identifying and understanding the challenges, risks and disproportionalities”, it said.
Social Work England said it wanted to focus on prevention and identifying risks to the public “at a more systemic level, as well as focusing on individual social workers”.
To do this, it said, it will need to “move more definitively into a broader leadership role”.
The regulator maintains it will be aided in this by position it holds as “a national organisation across social work in England”.
It also said it wants to strengthen relationships with employers, educators and local and national government to enhance public protection.
To do this, it will focus on:
• Improving and strengthening transition from education to employment
• Supporting and guiding early career development
• Continuing professional development (CPD) to improve professional practice
• The development and accountability of specialist roles
Social work education
The regulator says it wants to ensure all social work students receive “comprehensive, and consistent education and training”.
This includes its new readiness to practice guidance on the knowledge and skills it expects educators to equip students with.
Social Work England said: “We want to have a particular focus on transition to employment approaches and early career development, based on our professional standards.
“We will also look at specialisms and advanced practice. This includes the role of annotations to the register in providing public information about the capabilities of social workers to do specialist roles, which we consider to be of higher risk to the public.”
Regulation and protection
The regulator says it wants CPD to be “a continuous process of learning and reflection across the year” rather than a rush at the end to meet the submission deadline.
It said: “We will explore whether changes to our guidance, engagement and digital delivery are needed to support this ambition.”
Amid increasing and more complex referrals, fitness to practise case resolution will be reviewed.
Social Work England said: “The time taken to safely and effectively investigate the concerns which come to us risks being too long, with higher rates of cases going into hearings, and hearings often taking longer. We may need to review the fitness to practise process and the nature of investigation and decision making within it.”
Dealing with cases locally is often “the most appropriate, quickest and efficient way of resolving concerns or issues that arise,” the regulator added. It wants to encourage this whenever possible.
The regulator said it also wants to use digital technology to share and gather information, raise fitness to practise concerns and manage transactions.