Patricia has been working as a practice educator in a secondment role in a safeguarding team in South Gloucestershire Council’s children’s services since July 2023. This is her fourth promotion since starting her social work career at the council in 2016.

“I like the sense of belonging that I get in South Gloucestershire,” she says. “The work environment is very friendly, open, you feel like you can be yourself – and there is always someone you can talk to.”

In June, South Gloucestershire was rated good overall by Ofsted with the report saying: ‘Staff share a culture of high support balanced with an appropriate degree of challenge and a strong sense of being cared for by managers and leaders alike.’

Feeling safe, supported and part of a ‘family’ are some of the reasons why Patricia enjoys working for South Gloucestershire Council. Another key reason is how managers have helped her to develop in her career.

Having worked across a variety of teams, including access and response, disability  and, most recently, on secondment in a safeguarding team, her confidence has grown – thanks to supportive managers.

“I had a very ambitious manager who would encourage us to learn as much as possible – and I have embraced that,” she says.

“I would go to supervision after having a bad day and would finish feeling like I can change the world.

Patricia adds that when she didn’t feel confident taking on a promotion or felt frustrated about a situation with a family, her manager would listen, she would empathise and she would even be open about times she’d made mistakes or felt scared, which helped to make her relatable to Patricia and build trust.

When Patricia was supporting a child who had particularly complex physical and cognitive needs, her manager supported her to be able to separate her emotions about the child from the work she needed to do to help the child and family.

Being reminded that she was capable and had “management material” were boosts to her confidence that she now passes on to the five students she is supporting through their placements.

“I would not be able to do what I am doing now if I hadn’t had those managers,” she says.

Nurturing manager

Chloe agrees.  Working in the central locality team with a nurturing manager has allowed her to progress from social work assistant to a senior social worker in five years.

“I’ve had a stable one-to-one leadership experience, which means I feel more comfortable to share how I feel about a situation and there’s a lot of individual trust between me and my manager,” she says.

“I really like the nature of the work we do in locality. I love building long-term relationships with families, I like going into family’s homes, I love being able to see the change from the beginning when we worked with a family to the end to when the family has made the changes. I feel happy and proud to be a part of that. It is super rewarding.”

So, when opportunities for Chloe to progress came along, she felt prepared to take them because she had been taking on more and more responsibilities already in the course of her career.

She has supported students on their 100-day placements, trained under a leadership programme and worked on a Department for Education practice working group designed to improve the experiences of children and social workers within the council.

She has also grown professionally by supporting children and families in more complex cases.

“I’ve had lots of instances where I’ve felt: ‘I’m going to lose a parent because we are going through care proceedings – and I’m finding this difficult, [so] I can’t imagine how difficult they are finding this.’

“And I think the satisfaction in being able to hold these parents through that and still have a relationship with them afterwards – that is probably one of the most motivating things in staying in this role.”

Supporting the next generation

She has been able to pass on these skills in developing confidence, trust and self-assurance to the students and social workers in their assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) year whom she is supporting and is keen for them to understand that they are supported.

“I work with social workers that are really passionate and dedicated to the young people they are working with,” she adds. “We’ve all got the same vision and value of what we want to achieve for the families. If we had worries, needed advice, needed a pick me up – there’s always someone there to support you if you were on a visit or to unpick a dilemma that you had with a family.”

South Gloucestershire Council’s 0-25 service receiving a VIP (Values in Practice) Award

Young ambassadors

Shaping how social workers support children and families through the input of care experienced individuals is a key commitment South Gloucestershire Council has embraced.

Ofsted’s inspection in June found that the recruitment of three young ambassadors, and a proactive youth board, are “helping lay the foundations for children and young people to play an increased role in the coproduction and shaping of services.”

David is one of these young ambassadors. Inspired by his own challenging journey through the care system, he is passionate about making the experience the best it can be for others.

Ensuring that the voice of the child is recorded in the best possible way is how David is helping to share practice.

He believes that being able to listen to young people and capture thoughts are key attributes of being a good social worker.

“It proves that you’ve listened to that young person and understood them,” he says.

These records are written by social workers from the young person’s perspective. They are informative and detailed and can include direct quotes from the young person, which David says are vital for giving young people an insight into their journey in care.

What he hopes his work will do is ensure that these examples of good practice, which include adding more context to information shared, are the benchmark for all written records produced by social workers.

Although only six months into his ambassadorial role, David has had years of experience being a member the South Gloucestershire’s Teen Care Council (TCC) and Experienced Panel in Care (EPIC). He has been involved in recruiting social workers and has been able to channel concerns from young people to senior managers. One of those was minimising the impact that an abrupt departure of a social worker has on a young person.

“They feel upset when someone has to leave and they have to re explain their story to the new social worker all over again,” he says.

South Gloucestershire has listened. Now, if a social worker has to leave abruptly, the young person is informed in person within 24 hours by either the manager or someone else on the team whom they already know.

David adds: “I am where I am because of those things that have happened to me, but I wouldn’t change it for anything. Now I’m having a direct impact on how social workers do their jobs and this is incredible.”

Zafer Yilkan, interim service director for children’s social care and preventative services, said: “Here in South Gloucestershire Council we are committed to creating supportive and nurturing work culture for our social workers to grow and develop their career progression.  Our inclusive and collaborative leadership style is at the heart of supporting our social workers to use high degree of autonomy and trust in their professional decision making with support and guidance from their line managers.”

More children are at risk of extra-familial harm or living in families using food banks or accessing benefits, children’s social workers have reported.

However, in the face of this rising need, most practitioners believe that key support services for families, including those offering financial assistance or counselling, are “poor”.

Those were among the findings of an online survey of 570 children’s social workers working for councils or children’s trusts in England, carried out by Frontline in June 2024.

The charity, which delivers the fast-track Approach Social Work qualifying training programme, also found practitioners were battling high caseloads and a lack of resources, with most feeling that they did not see children on their caseloads often enough.

As in previous surveys of social workers, a large majority of respondents also reported feeling that the profession was viewed negatively by the public.

Rising levels of extra-familial harm

Almost four in five social workers (79%) said they had seen a rise in the number of young people at risk of extra-familial harm. Of this group, 70% had seen rising levels of criminal exploitation, 60% sexual exploitation and 58% online harm.

The finding chimes with an analysis of official data on factors identified following child in need assessments from 2014-21, which identified a disproportionate rise in the number of cases involving risks outside the home during this period.

In relation to poverty, 85% of social workers reported a rise in the number of families they worked with who were using food banks, while 70% said more of these families were accessing benefits.

The proportion of children living in absolute poverty* in the UK – after taking into account of housing costs – rose from 23% to 25% between 2021-22 and 2022-23, official figures show.

Support services for families ‘poor’

However, despite this rising level of reported need, most social workers believed key services that they could refer families to were “poor”.

Almost three-quarters (73%) gave this rating to housing assistance programmes, with 66% doing so for counselling and mental health support, 59% for financial assistance schemes and 57% for specialist educational resources.

Practitioners were more positive about substance misuse, parenting support and domestic abuse programmes, but in each case, majorities rated provision as poor or fair.

High caseloads and underfunding

In an echo of multiple previous surveys of social workers, respondents said workloads and underfunding were undermining practice.

When asked for the three biggest barriers to their abilities to do their jobs well, 65% cited high caseloads, 57% a lack of resources and 54% funding constraints.

Reflecting this, three out of five respondents said they did not think they saw each child who they were responsible for often enough.

Social work shortages ‘set to increase’

The finding comes against the backdrop of longstanding pressures on local authority budgets and the social work workforce, both of which have been labelled as “critical risks” by the Department for Education (DfE).

Latest DfE figures show a vacancy rate of 18.9% among statutory children’s social workers in England and, in its 2023-24 annual report, the department said it expected the shortage of practitioners to increase over the coming decade.

Practitioners surveyed by Frontline were relatively satisfied with their supervision, with a majority saying they say their supervisor often enough and more than 85% saying that supervision was helpful for their work.

Social workers downbeat about public perceptions of profession

However, 91% felt that social workers were perceived negatively by the public and 94% said public perceptions and media portrayals of the profession affected their ability to work with children and families.

This echoes the findings of research last year commissioned by Social Work England, which found that 11% of social workers felt the profession was well-respected within society.

Analysis by linguistics academic Dr Maria Leedham found that, in a three-month period in 2019, there were four times as many negative stories about social work than positive ones, though the majority were neutral.

Separate research by Leedham identified that social workers rarely featured in TV programmes and, when they did, they almost always worked in child protection and were described as either judgmental bureaucrats or child snatchers.

However, more positively, the Social Work England-commissioned research found that 74% of adults in England felt that social workers wanted the best for people they worked with and 62% thought they made a big difference to improving people’s lives.

‘Not nearly enough has changed’ in social work

Mary Jackson, chief executive officer, Frontline (credit: Frontline)

Reflecting on Frontline’s findings, the charity’s chief executive, Mary Jackson, said: “Not nearly enough has changed in terms of improving support for children, families and social workers and now the challenges are compounded by worsening poverty and the rise of extra-familial harms.”

On the back of the research, Frontline called on the government and councils to:

1. Take action to tackle child poverty and extra-familial harm, in order to improve child safety.
2. Improve support for families, including by enabling social workers to spend more time with them.
3. Launch a national campaign to change public perceptions of social work, to increase its appeal as a career, help existing social workers feel appreciated and help challenge the stigma families sometimes face when they have a social worker.

*Under the government’s definition, absolute poverty means living in a household whose income is less than 60% of the median income in 2010-11, adjusted for inflation and household size.

Frontline has rebranded its fast-track social work training programme as Approach Social Work.

The rebrand comes a decade after the charity started delivering the scheme, under which trainees qualify in a year and are prepared for a career in child protection social work.

The organisation itself will retain the name Frontline.

Rationale for Frontline rebrand

Explaining the decision, Frontline’s external relations director, Jackie Sanders, said: “This rebrand comes alongside several changes for the 2024 cohort as part of the new contract for the programme, which also includes the extension to a three-year programme.

“Our main priority for the rebrand was to ensure the new name and visual identity both support the purpose of our programme to attract new people into the profession. We received highly positive responses from the testing audience – made up of some of our local authority partners, current and former participants and jobseekers interested in social work.”

Branding for Frontline’s fast-track scheme, now called Approach Social Work

The organisation now trains up to 500 participants in each cohort, with trainees placed in local authorities or children’s trusts in England. There, they work in groups of five under a consultant social worker – an experienced practitioner who serves as both manager and practice educator.

Bursary levels

In this qualifying year, trainees receive bursaries worth £18,000 outside the capital and £20,000 in London, a similar level to fellow fast-track schemes Think Ahead and Step Up to Social Work but more generous than funding for students on traditional university courses.

After qualifying – while employed by the same council or trust – participants receive further support from Frontline in year two and then are expected to complete a master’s in advanced relationship-based social work practice in their third year.

Sue Williams, the mind behind the family safeguarding model, has been recognised for her outstanding contribution to children and families in the second annual Frontline Awards.

Her award was presented by chief social worker for children Isabelle Trowler, who described Sue as “a leading light in bringing change and innovation to children’s social care across England”.

“Her incredible tenacity, intellectual clout, creativity and commitment to the sector has made a huge and lasting contribution, not just to every practitioner she’s influenced, but to every child and family that they in turn have supported,” she added.

Sue, now programme director of the Centre for Family Safeguarding Practice, conceived the model in 2015 when assistant director of children’s services in Hertfordshire council. She secured funding from the Department for Education’s (DfE) innovation programme to test it in the county.

Family safeguarding involves teams of children’s social workers and specialist adults’ practitioners using techniques such as motivational interviewing to tackle the root causes of adult behaviours that increase concerns about children, particularly domestic abuse, substance misuse and mental health difficulties.

It reduced the number of children going into care and onto child protection plans and was seen by parents as “participatory, supportive and empowering”, found a 2020 evaluation for the DfE, which has subsequently supported its rollout across the country. It has so far been adopted by 23 areas in England.

‘Challenge your biases’

Helena Oatts (photo by Frontline)

The outstanding contribution gong was one of two new additions to the Frontline awards line-up, the other being participant of the year, which recognises a trainee on the charity’s fast-track social work course.

This award went to Helena Oatts, who was praised for being a “fierce advocate for children and families and practising with empathy and passion”.

“I love every moment of [being a social worker] and to be recognised for doing something you enjoy is absolutely amazing,” she said of her win.

“I’ve always been someone who has loved people, I think there’s something in everyone that we can all resonate with.”

Helena’s piece of advice for future social work students was to always believe in themselves but also challenge their biases.

“We all have biases, but you have to be open to challenging the views that you have about the world and about yourself. Keep an open mind. When you’re meeting families, you might have a slight idea of what could be going on, but keep challenging yourself, there could be multiple truths and possibilities.”

‘It’s important for young people to feel seen, loved and wanted’

Addy Siwko, Annie Whitley, and Artur were selected as winners of the award for young people.

Addy Siwko (photo by Frontline)

Addy, who lives with cerebral palsy, set up his own car wash business to raise money for a charity raising awareness for the condition and, more recently, wrote a song, ‘I Can Do Anything’, about his disability not holding him back in life.

Annie has led a consultation on making care experience a protected characteristic, secured a household living fund for care leavers and helped review, reshape and relaunch children’s residential care in her area.

Artur is the chair of a children’s active involvement service and, for the past five years, has worked to improve support for care leavers. He has set up a food and toiletry bank, lobbied for suitable housing for care leavers and managed to increase care leaver allowances from £1,500 to £3.000 in his area.

Speaking to Community Care, he called for better funding towards allowances and housing placements for care leavers and said he would continue to advocate for a “better service so that young people have the best and easiest experience”.

He advised practitioners working with children to do everything “with their hearts and mean it”.

“A young person can always tell when a social worker means what they say,” Artur added. “Social workers do kind of take on the role of a parent so it’s really important for the young people [they support] to feel seen, loved and wanted by them.”

Big night for Islington

Kenneth Atigah (photo by Frontline)

The London Borough of Islington saw two of its practitioners go home with an award – Celia, who won the leadership award for her commitment to improving social work practice, and Kenneth Atigah, who won the award for practice.

Celia has helped deliver multiple initiatives, including the edge of care service, which provides prevention support for children and young people at potential risk of needing to become looked after.

Kenneth left Ghana for England in 2008 and has spent years caring for his autistic cousin, whose social worker inspired him to join the sector.

Other winners included Kasey Thompson, who won the fellowship award for being “an integral part of Frontline’s racial diversity and inclusion steering group”, and Darlington council’s Staying Close team, which won team of the year for their work supporting 22 young people transitioning from children’s homes or supported accommodation to independent living.

‘When we respond to sexual exploitation, we need creative approaches’

The final award, for innovation, went to Jo Ritchie for her decade-long work on sexual exploitation, including setting up ‘Night Light’ with Avon and Somerset Police, which sees professionals partnering with sex workers to support and identify children at risk.

“This award is very much shared with the women. They’ve been so instrumental and we couldn’t do Night Light without them,” she said.

“I think so often sex workers are criminalised, demonised and totally misunderstood. The women I know and love have the biggest hearts, are the bravest people – they keep on surviving. And the fact that they’ve got the strength to safeguard children, it’s phenomenal.”

She said that in the last few months, her team has responded to 12 children and gathered “lots of information on other children at risk and customers that can be dangerous”.

Her advice to professionals working to safeguard young people from sexual exploitation is to be creative in their approaches.

“We need to think about where the gaps are and how we can intervene in a way that will meet people where they’re at and make a difference. I think sometimes the more traditional responses don’t work, so it’s about being creative.”

‘Making space to ‘celebrate social workers’ brilliant work’

Introducing the awards, Lord Tony Hall, Frontline’s chair of trustees, said: “At a time when children and families are experiencing more complex issues and worsening living conditions, it is so important that we make space to celebrate the brilliant work that social workers do day in and day out.

“The endless commitment and support that they give to children and their families can help to provide both the essential tools and hope for a brighter future.”

You can read more about the other nominations and winners on the Frontline website.

The Department for Education has axed a social work leadership training programme in what has been described as a “kick in the teeth” for the profession.

The DfE will not renew funding for the Pathways programme when its initial two-year period comes to an end in July, revealed Frontline yesterday.

‘Budget-related’ decision

The charity, which delivers the training to practice supervisors, middle managers, heads of service and assistant directors in council children’s services, said the news was “unexpected” news and the DfE had explained it was budget-related, rather than to do with the programme’s quality.

Frontline said Pathways was “highly valued” and that local authority leaders had expressed their disappointment about the decision to scrap it. The charity, which delivers the programme in partnership with what works body Foundations and North Yorkshire council, with the support of Hertfordshire council, said it was informed about earlier this month.

Since they were awarded a £7m contract to deliver Pathways for an initial two years in 2022, 1,787 people have started courses, with a further 213 due to do so before the scheme finishes in July.

During that time, the programme had been used by all but 10 local authorities with children’s services responsibility in England, Frontline chief executive Mary Jackson told the House of Commons’ education select committee this week.

Mary Jackson, chief executive officer, Frontline (credit: Frontline)

The contract allowed for an extension of a further two years, and Jackson told MPs that Frontline “had been given all of the signals that the extension would come through”.

“We had been waiting for signing since December…[and then] found out a week and a half ago that funding was pulled.”

‘A kick in the teeth’ for profession 

Sitting alongside her, Matt Clayton, strategic lead for children in care and care leavers at Coventry council, said the programme had led to practice improvements for colleagues who had been through it and losing it was “a bit of a kick in the teeth” for the profession.

“I’ve had several managers and practitioners go on the course,” he said. “The sessions have been really helpful: they’ve had mentoring from senior leaders, they’ve gone to visit other local authorities. I’ve seen improvements in practice, people were really excited about doing the programme.”

He added: “It feels like nothing is really given time to happen. You have a two-year programme and it’s just starting to embed and then you try something else.”

Programme’s impact

Frontline said that 98% of Pathway participants reported that their time on the programme had improved their ability to deliver service improvements while 99% said it had enhanced their ability to lead change.

It added that 14% of practice supervisors who undertook Pathway 1 had been promoted within 12 months of completing the programme, while 25% of aspiring leaders on Pathways 2 to 4 – those undertaking the programme with a view to moving up – had also advanced to a more senior role.

The DfE’s decision means that, for the first time since 2015, there will be no government-funded training scheme for children’s services managers and leaders who are not new or aspiring directors, programmes for which are run by the Staff College.

In a statement to Community Care, the DfE pointed to its plans for a five-year early career framework for new social workers and to impose rules to restrict agency work, as part of its children’s social care reforms.

No indication of replacement scheme

However, it did not mention any replacement scheme for managers.

“We are incredibly grateful to Frontline for their work delivering the social work leadership Pathways programme,” said a DfE spokesperson.

“We will continue to support the social work workforce, including through our fast-track initial education routes, and introducing new national rules on the use of agency social workers.”

However, in her evidence to the select committee’s children’s social care inquiry, Jackson said these DfE policies left a gap in support for more experienced practitioners whom the sector was struggling to hold on to.

Decision leaves a gap in development opportunities

This point was echoed by the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, in its response to the news.

The chair of its workforce policy committee, Nicola Curley, said: “This short-notice ending of funding for the Frontline Pathways programme leaves a gap in the support and development opportunities available to future leaders, and so it will be important that the department works with the sector on what comes next to minimise any short term disruption to the workforce development offer.”

Frontline said it had an upcoming meeting with children’s minister David Johnston “to understand his plans for the gap this leaves for social workers and their leadership development, and to explore possible options going forward”.

Nominations have opened for the second Frontline Awards, which seek to champion the achievements of children’s social workers  in England.

As with last year’s inaugural gongs, the charity is offering awards recognising high-quality practice, leadership, innovation and teams, as well as one for the achievements of young people with lived experience.

There is also an award for Frontline ‘fellows’ – those who have been through its programmes – and a new category for current participants on the charity’s fast-track training programme.

Comparison with Social Worker of the Year Awards

The scheme is distinct from the more longstanding Social Worker of the Year Awards by covering only children’s social work, being focused on statutory services and having a lived experience award.

Alongside category-specific criteria (see below), entrants should demonstrate a commitment to anti-oppressive and relationship-based practice, improving outcomes for children and families and putting the child at the centre.

Nominations are open until 23 February 2024 and can be made by anyone who knows the nominees. Shortlisting will take place in March, followed by an awards ceremony on 22 May 2024.

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Frontline will face tougher targets on qualifying and retaining social workers after winning the right to continue delivering fast-track training for aspiring children’s practitioners in England.

The organisation will also be paid by its results in retaining participants, in winning the Department for Education (DfE) contract to train three cohorts, each of up to 500 training social workers, from 2024 onwards.

It also said it will receive less funding under the new contract, which is worth £35m for Frontline, with up to £36m more provided in “pass-through costs”: bursary payments for participants and placement costs of £4,500 per local authority.

About Frontline’s new contract

Frontline, whose programme is designed to train people to work in child protection, will retain the core of the model it has operated, with DfE funding, since 2014.

Participants will still be based in small bespoke local authority teams, qualify after one year and then take a job in their host council to complete their assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE), while receiving further training from Frontline.

But against the backdrop of increased vacancy, turnover and agency worker rates across council children’s services, and based on participant, council and DfE feedback, the contract includes changes designed to train and retain more practitioners. These include:

• Boosting the cohort size from a target of 450 to a maximum of 500, enabled by increasing the standard size of the units that social workers train within from four to five, each headed by a case-holding consultant social worker (CSW). The units will be renamed ‘learning and practice hubs’.
• Increasing the number of programme starters expected to qualify as social workers and the percentage of qualifiers expected to complete their ASYE year (see table below).
• Introducing a payment by results element to the contract, with the DfE giving Frontline ‘output payments’ for each participant who meets a series of milestones. These are related to staying on the programme, qualifying, completing the ASYE and, should they wish, undertaking Frontline’s master’s in advanced relationship-based practice.
• Delivering the programme over three years, rather than two, with the master’s moved from the second to third years to avoid the pressure of participants completing it alongside their ASYE.
• Giving participants access to support in year two from the integrated learning and practice hub and CSW.
• Replacing the five-week summer institute, designed to provide participants with a grounding in social work prior to placement, with a readiness to practise stage, which will include a mix of online and in-person learning and has a much reduced residential component. This follows feedback from participants that the residential – currently three weeks, but previously five – was difficult to balance with family life.

Tougher targets

The new contract expects Frontline to have 450 social workers qualify per cohort, 90% of the maximum cohort size. This is above the 85% target it is currently measured against, but in line with its performance in recent years.

A cohort of 500 is above the record 463 it managed in 2020 and significantly higher than the just over 400 it placed in local authorities in 2022.

It has not confirmed the figures for the forthcoming 2023 cohort yet, but chief executive Mary Jackson told Community Care it had received record numbers of applications this year, about 6,200, or 13.8 per place, compared with 10 previously.

“A few things feed into that,” she said. “We’ve tried all sorts of digital marketing, we’ve done quite a lot of work on whom we approach but we’ve also been much more localised.”

This has meant that over 90% of successful applicants have got their first choice of local authority placement, she added.

Tackling under-representation

The DfE has also targeted Frontline with tackling the under-representation of participants with protected characteristics or from lower socio-economic groups in the 2025 and 2026 cohorts, against 2024 numbers.

The charity has sought to improve uptake from men and black and minority ethnic social workers in particular, including through its current ‘This is the Work’ campaign, which is designed to tackle myths about social work.

The proportion of black and minority ethnic participants has remained at about 20% in recent years, above population share (about 18%), but below representation in the children’s workforce (23%) and well below their share of the wider social work student body (35%).

Jackson said she was confident that the organisation would see an increase in representation from men and black and minority ethnic participants in the 2023 cohort.

Bursaries frozen

Recruitment to Frontline has been supported by the fact that participants’ tuition fees are paid, they are guaranteed a bursary – unlike university counterparts – and financial support is much more generous than for those qualifying through traditional routes.

University bursary recipients receive £4,862.50 a year (£5,262.50 in London) for undergraduate courses and £3,362.50 (£3,762.50 in the capital) for postgraduate training, with their annual value having declined by £1,000 to £1,500 due to a nine-year freeze.

By contrast, Frontline students receive £18,000 outside London and £20,000 within the capital during their qualifying year. However, the new contract freezes these levels – in place since 2019 – until 2026-27.

Retention target

On retention, the DfE has targeted the charity with ensuring 90% of those who qualify complete their ASYE year, above the current target of 85%.

Previous research has found that most Frontline-trained social workers left their host councils within three years, however, Jackson said its overall record on retaining practitioners within the profession was good.

She said around 80% remained in social work at four years post-qualification, with a further 10% in roles that were aligned to Frontline’s mission of “developing excellent social work practice and leadership, that can create social change for children without a safe or stable home”.

Previous research has shown that retention rates for Frontline are similar to those for fellow fast-track programme Step Up to Social Work, and no lower than university programmes, though there are not directly comparable figures.

Jackson said she was “proud and pleased” with the figures, adding: “100% [retention] is unrealistic but we’ll certainly be pushing as close to that as we possibly we can.”

Children’s social care reform

Despite its position as the incumbent provider, Jackson said that the process for winning the contract was “incredibly competitive”.

The contract award comes against the backdrop not only of significant workforce pressures but of the DfE’s planned reforms to children’s social care, themselves based on the recommendations of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, led by Frontline founder Josh MacAlister.

Care review lead Josh MacAlister

Among the ideas of MacAlister’s that the DfE has picked up is replacing the ASYE with a five-year early career framework for social workers, to boost knowledge and skills and improve support for practitioners at the start of their careers.

It is due to start trialling the system later this year ahead of a planned rollout in 2026, with the programme likely to be delivered by an external body or consortium.

Jackson said the ECF was “definitely on my radar” but that Frontline was currently “very focused” on delivering its new contract.

Frontline’s place in sector

Frontline has faced criticism from some in social work for its relatively generous levels of funding, fast-track model and focus on recruiting high-achieving graduates – all shared with Step Up and mental health programme Think Ahead – as well as its access to charitable funding, of which it received £2m in 2021-22.

But ten years after MacAlister founded it, Frontline’s place in English social work appears secure. Its new contract has the option of a two-year extension, and the charity has also been commissioned by the DfE, as part of a consortium, to deliver leadership training to local authority senior practitioners and managers over the next two years, through the Pathways programme.

It also recently ran its first awards, for children’s social workers and leaders, and young people with lived experience of social care.

Jackson said: “I guess I feel that anything new is going cop a bit of flak. It felt that we were doing something quite different from what was being done. We’re not new anymore. The model’s not new. And there are certain areas where we’ve evidenced that we can have a positive impact on the system.”

The first Frontline Awards took place in London last night, celebrating the achievements of children and families social workers and young people with lived experience of services across England.

Winners were announced across six categories in the inaugural awards held by the social care charity. 

Portsmouth council restorative social worker Arthur Scott jointly won the practice award which recognised excellence in frontline social work. Of Arthur, the judges said: “This winner has some of the qualities that make a great social worker – being committed, a good listener and communicator and always being true to their word.”

Arthur shared the award with Josie, an advanced practitioner from Solihull. Josie, was nominated by a colleague, Sarah, who said: “Your passion and drive to work with families in a different way and to support them to have a voice on a daily basis can be seen so clearly in the feedback we receive from families.”

‘I love being a social worker’

Charmaine Malcolm, principal social worker for the London Borough of Bromley, won the leadership award, on the basis of her work in anti-racist practice, creativity as a leader and the way she supports her teams.

She said: “I was shocked, you’re just doing your day-to-day job. I love being a social worker, it’s the only job I can see myself doing. It was a nice surprise.”

Among two winners of the innovation award was Tooba Malik from Thrive Social Work, in recognition of a productivity and wellbeing app for social workers that she developed after becoming burnt out from her role in child protection.

“From a seed of an idea it became a fully fledged tool that social workers can use today,” she said.

Frontline funded the development of the Thrive app through its innovation programme, which supports ideas developed by its fellows – those who have been through any of its training programmes.

Tooba shared the award with Blackpool council children’s services for their Blackpool Families Rock practice model, a strengths-based approach that was co-designed with children and families in the town.

The team of the year award went to the family group conference team from Darlington council, which was recognised for its family-focused approach and success in returning children to their families from care.

Faith Hirst, advanced practitioner in the team, said: “We enable our families to understand that we genuinely and truthfully want to empower them with the decisions they make. We have to see families as experts in their own lives. We are really thrilled to win team of the year award.”

Care-experienced trio praised

Three care-experienced young people, Amir Arian, Cameron Draisey and Paris Grantham-Buchanan, were selected from the shortlist as winners of the award for young people.

Paris, 19, from Coventry, was recognised for her work developing hampers for care leavers when moving into their first homes.

She said going from being a child to an adult could be really difficult and she was happy to help others go through that process. When asked how she felt about winning, she said: “Nervous and excited, a mix of emotions.”

Paris

Cameron, 24, was praised for his work for Wiltshire children’s services in amplifying the voices of care-experienced young people. Accompanying him was his foster mum, who said, “pride is not a big enough word to describe how I feel”.

Cameron with his foster mum

Amir was not able to make the awards ceremony as he was studying for exams in medical genetics. He was nominated by the charity Become for the work he has done with them, including in training 30 personal advisers across five leaving care teams.

Addressing Amir, Become’s training and development manager, Katy Hudson, said: “You’re such a strong and willing advocate for young people in care, for care leavers and young asylum seekers. We’re absolutely thrilled that you’ve won this award.”

The fellowship award – open to social workers who have gone through any of Frontline’s training programmes – went to Oyeyinka Olaniran from the London Borough of Bexley, in recognition of his commitment to anti-racist and anti-oppressive practice.

‘A celebration of social workers’

Frontline set up the awards scheme – covering statutory practice with children and families in England – to mark its 10th anniversary this year. It is designed to complement the Social Worker of the Year Awards, which covers practice in all areas of social work and whose 2023 winners will be announced towards the end of the year.

Mary Jackson, CEO of Frontline, said: “Tonight’s event celebrates social workers, and it celebrates that power of social work. It celebrates the big changes – the children returned to their families, the lives that are turned around; but it also celebrates the small ones – being that trusted, friendly visitor in school, or building relationships with everyone in the family. Those small changes add up to make
the big ones.”

You can read more about the other nominations and winners on the Frontline website.

Social Work Recap is a weekly series where we present key news, events, conversations, tweets and campaigns around social work from the preceding week.

From the soaring vacancies in the children’s social work sector and Community Care’s Festival of Learning to a campaign busting the myths around social work, here’s this week’s selection:

Children’s social work vacancies soar to highest-ever levels

Photo: nadia_snopek/Adobe Stock

The Department for Education’s (DfE) annual workforce census, released on Thursday, revealed that children’s social work’s recruitment and retention problems were getting worse.

The figures showed that, as of September 2022, the numbers of vacancies and posts held by agency staff had reached record levels, average caseloads had risen and the number of social workers in post had fallen for the first time since 2017.

The Association of Directors of Children’s Services urged the government to “move at pace” in tackling the issue, while the British Association of Social Workers England said the figures were “not a surprise” as practitioners’ working conditions had been “deteriorating year after year”.

You can find out more about the state of the workforce in our article.

Helping social care staff work with older LGBTQ+ people

Photo credit: Adobe Stock/ nadia_snopek

Skills for Care has published a new learning framework to help social care staff improve how they work with older LGBTQ+ adults.

Developed by Dr Trish Hafford-Letchfield, in collaboration with the LGBT Foundation, it will support social care services in considering LGBTQ+ issues when delivering care and support, and in staff recruitment, training, supervision and career progression.

Topics covered include inequalities faced by older LGBTQ+ people, sexuality and intimacy, ageing with HIV, use of language and challenging discrimination, oppression and violence.

You can access the framework here.

Councils urged to look beyond social work for future DCSs

Photo: Adobe Stock/ b11mdana

Councils in England have been warned that they risk missing out on talent by failing to look beyond social work for new directors of children’s services (DCSs)

Leadership development body the Staff College issued the warning after finding that, out of 116 current and recent directors surveyed for a study into reducing high DCS turnover, 64% had a social care background.

Directors interviewed for the study told the college, “you are seen as a risk if you are not from a social care background”.

You can learn more about what it takes to become a DCS in our article about the Staff College’s report.

Local authority social workers offered £1,925 pay rise

Photo: Adobe Stock/Nuthawut

Councils have offered social workers in England and Wales a £1,925 pay rise for 2023-24, similar to last year’s salary increase.

The proposed rise would apply to staff earning up to £49,950 in the majority of councils in England and Wales, while higher-paid staff would get a 3.88% boost, worth more than £1.925.

To learn more about the 2023-24 pay offer, check out our article.

Step Up to Social Work launched

Photo: adrian_ilie825/ AdobeStock

Applications are open for Step Up to Social Work, the DfE’s 14-month training programme for aspiring social workers, including career changers from other areas of children’s services.

Up to 700 successful applicants will train through a combination of study and practice experience in a local authority, and receive a bursary worth £19,833 to cover their living expenses. Most English councils will be delivering the scheme, which starts in January 2024.

To find out what the requirements are for applying, click here.

Social care learning – at a discount

Just one week to benefit from the Early Bird rate for #FoL23! Find out more and register at https://t.co/NJiv2ytHme pic.twitter.com/YJddjqfUg9

— Community Care (@CommunityCare) February 21, 2023

There are four days left to take advantage of our Festival of Learning’s early bird offer, which allows you to register for £28 (excluding VAT) per session.

Community Care’s annual virtual learning event, which takes place from 27-31 March , provides social workers and occupational therapists with the opportunity to improve their skills and knowledge through webinars delivered by sector experts.

This year’s sessions include, among others, building emotional resilience, understanding hoarding, anti-racist practice with social work students on placement, cultivating professional curiosity to identify children’s needs, and working with adults with executive functioning difficulties.

Find the full list of sessions here, and register by the 28 February to take advantage of our early bird discount!

BBC: 60,000 adults chased by councils over social care costs

Photo: AdobeStock/Prostock-studio

A BBC report has revealed that councils in England chased over 60,000 disabled adults for social care debts last year.

Claimants said they could no longer afford to meet charges for home care, which for some have risen by thousands of pounds a year, due to rising food and rent bills, and the additional costs of living with their impairments.

The BBC found that councils had taken legal action against 330 people in 2021-22, though the Local Government Association said this was done as a “last resort”.

You can read more about the impact of debts on people who need social care here.

Must watch: busting social work myths

Frontline’s new campaign, ‘This is the work’, attempts to tackle one of the causes of social work’s worsening recruitment and retention problems – public perception.

Following a survey that found nearly 60% of people  believed social workers had a negative reputation, the organisation aims to highlight “the positive power of social work” by tackling myths and misconceptions about the profession.

The first video of the series sees multiple social workers read and react to widespread opinions about social work, such as, ‘social workers are just pen pushers, they don’t care about people’.

Tweet of the Week

Shamima Begum is a British citizen who was a groomed and repeatedly sexually abused as a child. Every other single decision should flow from that premise. #ShamimaBegum

— Rob Mitchell (@RobMitch92) February 22, 2023

Social worker Rob Mitchell has weighed in on the controversy surrounding Shamima Begum’s battle to regain her UK citizenship, which suffered a setback this week when she lost an appeal against the decision.

He said that any decision about the now 23-year-old woman should take into consideration that she had been groomed and trafficked at the age of 15.

Did you know you can write for us? Check out our guidelines page for information on how to share your ideas.

Graduates of fast-track training schemes feel more prepared for social work but experience greater stress and less satisfaction once in practice, research for the Department for Education (DfE) has revealed.

The ongoing longitudinal survey of local authority children’s practitioners has identified significant differences in the experiences of doing the assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) between those who qualified through university programmes and those trained through Frontline and Step Up to Social Work.

Data collected from 1,108 ASYE social workers, from 2018-21, found that while 75% felt well-prepared by their courses for a career in children’s social work, this was true of 95% of Frontline graduates and 83% of Step Up trainees, compared with 74% with a postgraduate degree and 71% who qualified through an undergraduate course.

Source: Longitudinal study of
local authority child
and family social
workers (Wave 4), Department for Education (2022)

Researchers said this was, in part, to be expected, as Frontline and Step Up were focused on children’s social work, whereas university courses were generic. However, 94% of Frontline graduates, and 83% Step Up trainees, said they felt well-prepared for a career in social work in general, compared with 78% of master’s graduates and 75% who qualified through an undergraduate degree.

Frontline graduates ‘more stressed’

However, the reverse was true in relation to practitioner wellbeing, with Frontline graduates significantly more likely to report stress at work (73%) workloads that were too high (55%) and being asked to fulfil too many roles in their job (54%) than those who qualified through other routes.

Seventy per cent of those who felt stressed at work cited paperwork as a reason, with no significant differences between qualifying routes. However, in relation to the next most common factor, having insufficient time for direct work, this was cited by 70% of Frontline graduates experiencing stress, compared with 53% of newly qualified social workers (NQSWs) who felt stressed overall.

Reflecting this, just 3% of Frontline graduates reported spending at least 16 hours a week on direct work with children and families, compared with 13% of NQSWs overall.

Researchers said this might reflect the fact that, while carrying out their assessed and supported year in employment, Frontline graduates also generally completed a master’s in advanced social work practice.

Just under three-quarters (74%) were satisfied, overall, with their role, with few differences between qualifying routes, except that Step Up graduates were significantly more likely to disagree that they were satisfied (17%) than university graduates (10%). There were also no significant differences in terms of how challenged NQSWs felt by their job (84% agreement) and the opportunities they had to develop their skills.

Differences in job satisfaction

However, other questions showed lower levels of satisfaction among fast-track graduates, compared with university counterparts:

• 11% of Step Up graduates were dissatisfied with the scope to use their initiative in their role and 17% with the sense of achievement they got from their job, compared with 5% and 8% overall, respectively.
• 21% of Frontline and 18% of Step Up graduates were dissatisfied with the influence they had over their job, compared with 12% overall.
• 38% of Frontline graduates were satisfied with their pay, compared with 47% overall.
• While 58% of NQSWs said they had the right resources to do their job, this dropped to 45% among Step Up graduates and 42% among those who trained through Frontline.

However, Step Up graduates were significantly more likely than average (87%, compared with 79%) to be intending to stay directly employed in local authority children’s social work 12 months on from when they were surveyed. Most of the rest of those polled – across all qualifying routes – intended to stay in the profession, either into the voluntary or private sector, an agency role for a local authority or into another area of social work, such as adults’ services.

The results chime with those from a separate study into the retention and progression of social workers trained through Step Up and Frontline, published last year.

This found that attrition rates from the profession were broadly similar between fast-track graduates and those trained through universities, but many trained through Frontline in particular experienced a “disconnect” between their training, particularly in systemic practice, and the realities of local authority practice.

Frontline ‘designed to prepare students for practice’

In response to the latest findings, from the longitudinal survey, Frontline’s chief social worker, Lisa Hackett, said: “We are delighted that Frontline programme participants felt well prepared for practice. Everything about the programme is designed to ensure this – not just what the participants learn but also the way they learn. Our approach means that participants learn on the job within a local authority, immersed in direct practice at the same time as learning about and applying theory to practice.

She added: “We know how hard the ASYE year can be for our participants, as they’re not only navigating their first year qualified but also without the support of their unit in the wider LA context, and as they study towards their master’s qualification at the same time.”

The DfE is due to tender for a new contract to deliver fast-track social work training from 2024 onwards after Frontline’s current contract expires, and Hackett said the department had proposed changes to relieve pressures on practitioners in their ASYE year.

“We welcome the DfE’s suggested changes to future iterations of this programme which will remove this additional pressure from the ASYE year,” she added. “While we currently have a strong support offer in place for all our participants, including dedicated coaching and mentoring, we are looking into how we, and our local authority partners, can further support participants during this time.”

‘No quick options for training social workers’

The longitudinal survey report was welcomed by the Joint University Council Social Work Education Committee (JUCSWEC), which represents university academics.

JUCSWEC chair Janet Melville-Wiseman said it was “encouraging” how well prepared those trained through undergraduate routes felt for children and families social work. She also suggested that a better comparator for assessing preparedness were university graduates whose final placements were with their subsequent employer, as this was typically the case for Frontline and Step Up students.

However, she raised concerns about the relatively negative responses around wellbeing reported by fast-track graduates.

“This resonates with our long-held view that it takes time to train and educate confident and resilient social workers,” she added. “It is time to ensure that we provide all students with the right balance between academic input and practice experience and with sufficient time to reflect on and prepare for the demands ahead.

“Just as there are very few quick fixes for children and families who need social work services, there are no quick options to prepare students for that increasingly complex task.”