Going beyond training: theory and practice in managing learning

The establishment of new bodies to replace the Central Council for Training and Education in Social Work (CCETSW) and to regulate the social work profession provides the opportunity to establish an improved progressive system of qualifications and continued professional development in the coming years. With the current pressure on social work agency budgets it is imperative that precious training resources—staff and money—are used to make the maximum impact on service delivery. Our involvement in the provision of a range of training programmes leads us to believe that much of the staff development and training effort invested by agencies in their staff often seem to have a limited impact on effectiveness. A change in approach is needed so that learning is placed at the heart of organisational processes to maximise the benefits of affirmation and growing professional confidence. This is essential if we are to continue to ‘nurture’ valuable professional staff and ensure that services remain flexible, creative and responsive in meeting ever‐rising public expectations.

This paper examines some of the challenges of evidence‐based practice and the demands for routine evaluation and objective‐setting. The advantages and disadvantages of a competence specification approach within the development of service and occupational standards as the basis for professional education are discussed. The paper argues that strategies for practice learning require the development of learning organisations and a better academic and agency partnership to support more effective professional education and continued professional development.     

A look behind the curtain at social work supervision in interprofessional practice settings: critical themes and pressing practical challenges

Supervision has been an integral aspect of social work practice since the early days of the profession. The literature suggests that ‘supervision is an essential and integral part of the training and continuing education required for the skillful development of professional social workers’ (p. 5). The literature does appear to support that all social workers ought to have some level of supervision; however, within interprofessional settings, where social work is one of many professions, that goal may not be easily attained. Although some interprofessional settings, like hospitals, have social work departments, other settings, like schools, may only have one social worker, resulting in a workplace environment devoid of social work supervision. This article presents findings from a national study of social workers employed in interprofessional organizations. It was hypothesized that this cohort could provide important insights about the nature of social work supervision in agencies characterized by an interdisciplinary workforce. Using both open-ended and specific categorical questions, respondents were asked to describe and convey information about the supervision process and experience in their agency. An Internet-based survey was used to reach a broad spectrum of social work practitioners and educators (975 deliverable and 426 completed) across the United States.     

Child welfare workers go to court: The impact of race, gender, and education on the comfort with legal issues

This study examines perceptions of 425 public and private agency child welfare workers from one state in terms of their level of comfort with the court work components of their jobs, at baseline, which is after their initial training but before beginning their child welfare work, and again after six months on the job. Bivariate and multivariate analyses were undertaken. Bivariate analyses reveal that being older and male were associated with higher court comfort levels at baseline and at six months. Being white was associated with higher comfort levels at six months. In addition, private agency workers were more comfortable with court at baseline and six months. Workers with a social work education had higher court comfort levels at baseline and six months, when compared to those with criminal justice or other education. In the multivariate analysis, there were no significant differences in level of comfort with court work based upon worker characteristics at baseline. However, at six months on the job, predictors of comfort with child welfare work were being white and being male; having a social work education approached statistical significance. When change in comfort level was examined, the only significant positive predictor of court comfort was having a social work education.     

公安院校刑事技术专业“体改生”关键能力培养的思考

为解决公安院校刑事技术专业“体改生”培养中出现的就业专业与培训专业不对口、学员层次结构复杂、年龄偏大、社会阅历丰富、学风不浓厚等问题,探讨了在刑事技术专业体改生教育中引入职业教育中较成熟的“关键能力”培养这一理念的必要性和可行性,并初步探讨了可以实施教学改革与探索的途径.     

W(h)ither the academy? An exploration of the role of university social work in shaping the future of social work in Europe

A controversial proposal to pilot the training of child protection social workers through an intensive work-based route in England is being supported and funded by the UK Government. Frontline, the brainchild of a former teacher, locates social work training within local authorities (‘the agency’) rather than university social work departments (‘the academy’) and has stimulated debate amongst social work academics about their role in shaping the direction of the profession. As a contribution to this debate, this paper explores the duality of social work education, which derives its knowledge from both the academic social sciences and the experience of practice within social work agencies. While social work education has traditionally been delivered by the academy, this paper also explores whether the delivery of training in the allied professions of probation and nursing by ‘the agency’ is equally effective. Finally, this paper explores the Helsinki model which achieves a synergy of ‘academy’ and ‘agency’. It suggests that there are alternative models of social work education, practice and research which avoid dichotomies between the ‘academy’ and the ‘agency’ and enable the profession to be shaped by both social work academics and practitioners.     

Social Work with Clients Contemplating Suicide: Complexity and Ambiguity in the Clinical, Ethical, and Legal Considerations

Social workers in agency and private practice settings often work with clients grappling with suicide, either as an acute or chronic situation. Probably more than any other clinical condition, suicide forces the practitioner to confront complex ethical, legal, and psychological questions while managing an urgent circumstance. This article attempts to illuminate the ethical and legal considerations that may arise when a client contemplates suicide. Rather than advancing one answer, we stress that in training and the workplace social workers must fully consider the complexities and ambiguities of a client's experiences as well as their own clinical, ethical, and legal obligations.     

‘I should at least be given a chance to try’: the experience of media workers with disabilities in the United States during postsecondary education and early career

This qualitative study described the lived experience of media workers with disabilities in the United States during postsecondary education and their transition to the professional media workplace. While there is ample literature about disability narratives in media products, there is a significant gap in the research about media workers and students with disabilities. Three participants provided face-to-face interviews and submitted media artifacts that they felt provided abstract representations of their experience. Invariant structural themes that emerged were that participants possessed a high level of self-efficacy, and while their colleges provided supportive environments, they faced discrimination in the media workplace. Additionally, they received few or unhelpful educational accommodations and little guidance from faculty as they transitioned from education to work. Findings suggest a need for faculty training in inclusive pedagogies, review of media curricula that considers students with disabilities, and assistance for students as they progress from postsecondary education to the media workplace.     

中职德育工作应突出职业素质的培养

中职学校德育工作要适应社会经济发展对人才素质的需求,培养高素质的职业技术人才。剖析现在中职德育工作存在的问题和现状,切实转变德育工作方法,从传统升学行为教育方式转变到加强培养学生职业素质培养上来,从职业道德、职业意识、职业行为、职业心理、职业能力等职业素质入手,突出职业素质培养在德育工作中的主体地位。     

Navigating norms and structures: young mothers’ pathways to economic independence

Understanding the complex relationships between childcare, education and work is crucial to acknowledging how young mothers express agency in their pathways to economic independence. Instead of considering them as a policy target group at risk for multiple reasons, this research reverses the perspective by focusing on young mothers’ agency in school and paid employment. The study is set in the Netherlands, where economic independence has become a focal point of social policy and practice, especially for young people. It explores how young mothers navigate norms and structures of education and employment, drawing on 18 months of participant observation and 41 semi-structured interviews with young mothers. Notions of ‘everyday’ and ‘bounded’ agency are used in analysing structural limitations (e.g. irregular working hours in ‘women’s jobs’, a lack of maternity leave at school) and norms (e.g. completing higher education and finding a good job versus being primary caretakers, enjoying children and being role models). School and workplace structures reinforce contradictory discourses of motherhood and economic independence. Young mothers exhibit agency in considering their options around job security, work experience, wages, student loans and spending time with children. In doing so, they navigate structural and normative collisions of economic independence and mothering.     

Transitioning from ‘outside observer’ to ‘inside player’ in social work: practitioner and student perspectives on developing expertise in decision-making

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on a six-year qualitative study of social workers’ perspectives on factors influencing decision-making in children and families social work in England. Data collected between 2010 and 2016 reflect frontline practice during a period of substantial change and reform in UK social work. This paper builds on an earlier analysis with data from all three stages of the study capturing the lived experiences of practitioners ranging from student social workers to qualified advanced practitioners in management roles. Data from 9 focus groups comprising 51 participants were analysed using grounded theory. Data analysis generated four representative categories: developing agency in the social work role; troubling emotions; transitions in the development of expertise and the impact of organisational cultures in children and families social work services. An emerging theoretical framework is presented. This identifies the significance of transitions and threshold concepts in the development of the social work professional from the role of students as ‘outside players looking in’ through to the expertise of qualified practitioners as ‘inside players’ within organisations. Recognising periods of liminality, transitional learning and uncertainties in developing decision-making expertise may be of significant benefit to social work education and the profession.     

The Resilient Survivor—A Student Social Worker's Journey

This article is intended to bridge the gap between the literature on the service user perspective, essential to social work training, and the personal experiences student social workers bring to their training. It argues that there is a need to recognise the personal and sometimes painful experiences student social workers may bring to their training and the potential impact they have on their social work education and future practice. Sexually abused as a child, the author is in a unique position as a first year social work student to explore and share the impact of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) on her social work education and how this has been managed. This article will chart a parallel journey of personal and professional development by exploring the importance of reflective thought on one's own personal experiences and discussing how these experiences can inform the professional knowledge, skills and value base. This article concludes that during personal and professional development potential issues or themes may arise. These include the blurring of personal/professional boundaries, the need for heightened self-awareness skills, the ability to use supervision appropriately and the potential to misuse personal insights.     

Developing a Common Language in Children's Services through Research‐based Inter‐disciplinary Training

Two sources of inertia to improving services for children in need are the difficulties of getting evidence into practice and the complications of inter‐agency working. Current training arrangements in social work and disparities between children's services professions as regards training requirements are contributory factors. The Common Language project is a work in progress, adopting a research‐based, inter‐disciplinary approach to working with social workers and other children's services professionals. It comprises core ideas and methods to complement the more specialist knowledge and skills required in each profession. Underpinned by a child development perspective and a scientific development cycle, it rests on a conceptual framework including need, threshold, service and outcome. The approach has three components (each of which includes training): (1) the implementation of practice tools; (2) the planning and development of integrated services; and (3) supporting materials, including practitioner‐orientated modules and a curriculum for PhD students. Distinguishing features include research utilisation, notably a focus on inculcating research‐mindedness as opposed to imparting findings, and also collaborative professional working, in particular via practical connections between different agencies, stakeholders and countries. The project is being evaluated in terms of uptake, change in professional thinking and practice and effects on child well‐being. Next steps for the project relate to broader lessons for social work training emerging from research and development elsewhere.     

The Dawn is Too Distant: The Experience of 28 Social Work Graduates Entering the Social Work Field in China

Nurturing new, competent social work professionals requires multilevel preparation extending from school to the workplace. However, not much has been done to understand this school-to-work transition process in countries where the social work profession is still in an early stage of development. This paper reports the findings of an exploratory qualitative study of 28 new social workers in China, where social work is an emerging profession, on how they entered the field and what challenges they encountered. Their stories indicate that what they learned in school did form a foundation for the establishment of their professional identity in the workplace. However, due to workplace politics and to the lack of recognition of their professional status, they experienced an unsettling induction process. Coupled with the challenges of inadequate financial compensation, the careers of these new social workers may face an early end despite the great future for the profession promised by the government. Implications of this study for social work education in China are also discussed.     

Influence of the Past on Professional Lives: A Collective Commentary

This collective commentary is based on the narratives of the author-protagonists, three South African higher education developers who were involved in political activism during their youth. The commentary investigates the continuities between the author-protagonists’ youth and their later professional engagements. Drawing from social realism, the concepts of agency and reflexivity provide a helpful analytic lens. Together, the narratives suggest that these concepts may be more complex when viewed against individual narratives and that some of the differences between social realist Margaret Archer and her critics are worth bridging. Undertaking an investigation of one’s own past is beneficial for professionals engaged in higher education development.     

A Study of Work Participation by Graduate Female Social Workers: Some Implications for Professional Social Work Training

Work participation of graduate women social workers, 40 to 60 years old was studied. The average extent of work for the total group was 61 percent of the time since graduation. Extent of work was related to marital status and to the sequence of marriage and social work training. Teenage committment to work had no effect on the extent of work later in life. Higher work rates were associated with more advanced age, fewer children, and more work experience in the pregraduate period Remedial activities at the community, school, agency, and student levels that begin at the time of professional education and could help increase the extent of work activity are discussed in this paper.     

Unresolved struggles: Educating social workers in Aotearoa New Zealand

This article introduces key themes that arise throughout the history of social work education and are central to the education of social workers today. Curriculum and the goodness of fit between agency demands and professional standards, accreditation, provision of social work courses, and more recently, the competency movement, have constantly been significant, albeit in changing forms. In New Zealand, cultural awareness and knowledge of indigenous models for practice together with re-organisation of social service delivery systems have implications for social work education. Managerial devices such as the purchaser/provider split and risk/case management approaches to social work and their impact on social work education and practice are discussed. The role of the national accrediting body and the ensuing tensions around accreditation are discussed. A discussion of opportunities and concerns for the future considers relationships between those who teach social work, those who practice it, their employers and the role of Industry Training Organisations.     

Educating for social work in Poland—challenges of the transformation period

This article discusses the changing approach to social welfare staff education against a background of political and social transformation in Poland: new social processes, growth of social problems—especially crime and unemployment, a widening poverty sphere, but at the same time new possibilities created by the development of democratic structures, requiring new qualifications. The change in professional profile of social workers and an updated curriculum were natural consequences of that demand. Both internal reforms as well as an increase in international contacts have had a great impact on the curriculum, making it modern in regard to its content and the approach to the process of education. Important virtues of the curriculum are: due consideration for the international context of the material presented and teaching goals defined in such way that they meet the transformation period requirements without introducing only provisional solutions. Professional improvement training and post-diploma courses have also been mentioned as an important factor of successful welfare sector operations. This kind of education equips welfare staff with necessary qualifications and prevents burnout syndrome. The article briefly discusses new conditions for social education development and identifies the remaining stumbling blocks.     

Social Work Practice Placements in Aotearoa New Zealand: Agency Managers Perspectives

Agency managers are one of the key stakeholders in social work education, particularly in respect of practice placements. Managers play several roles within the placement context, acting as gatekeepers, supporters, mentors, potential employers and sometimes assessors of students. This study sought the perspectives of the managers of 13 social service organisations in New Zealand on practice placements. The findings of the study show that managers have preferences for specific attributes in social work students, including flexibility, humility, confidence and resilience. Challenges with placements are associated with student personal, interpersonal and cognitive capabilities, organisational factors and the tertiary institution. The findings also illustrate that the main benefits and motivations for supporting students are for the professional development of staff, completion of agency work, recruitment and workforce development. The article concludes that it is time for a new focus on understanding and supporting the development and assessment of student personal and interpersonal capabilities as well as skill and knowledge competencies. Furthermore, since managers are directly engaged with social work practice and are ultimately deciding which graduates to employ, greater consideration should be given to how institutions and employers can work together to determine which personal and interpersonal capabilities are relevant and necessary for the workplace.     

Practice Learning and the Development of Professional Practice

The development of professional practice is based on practice learning, yet there is no consensus about its definition. The currently evolving use of the term ‘practice learning’ provides us with an opportunity to consider the nature of learning for professional practice at initial entry through to post qualifying stages of development. A number of streams of thought are influencing the understanding of practice learning and we aim to consider some of these and how they inform those involved in supporting and guiding practice learners at different stages of their professional development.

In presenting our conceptualisation of practice learning we argue against oversimplified dualities of classroom‐based academic learning concerned with theory and workplace‐based practice learning concerned with practice. Additionally we make explicit the career‐long nature of practice learning which is as embedded in continuing professional development as it is in the requirements for qualifying programmes.

Having established what we mean by ‘practice learning’ we consider the impact of organisational learning theory on the management of practice learning. The consideration of the characteristics of organisations which learn leads to a brief examination of approaches to teaching and learning which promote knowledge creation in a way which is meaningful to practitioners. We will argue that the development of understandings of organisational learning and knowledge creation should become part of the knowledge base for those supporting and guiding practice learners, in addition to the traditional knowledge base of adult learning theory.

Before exploring the nature of practice learning it would be helpful to consider briefly what we mean by professional practice for which practice learning is preparing people.

Professional practice in social work is a complex set of activities which involve direct work with service users, and their families, as well as work with other professionals and agencies. A range of knowledge and skills are used with a firm value base which recognises diversity and oppression as key elements in UK society.

Such professional practice is learned and developed in a range of ways over time through training, practice, understanding, analysis and reflection. However, the nature of just what practice learning is and where it occurs has become a focus of debate in the UK as a result of recent developments in initial professional education and training for social work.