Department halves number of knowledge and skills expectations that will be placed on children’s social workers after two years in practice, as it sets out early career standards that will come into force in 2027.
The Department for Education (DfE) has slimmed down proposed standards for newly qualified social workers (NQSWs) in children’s services after concerns they would be “overwhelming” for practitioners.
It has more than halved the number of expectations around the knowledge and skills that statutory children’s practitioners should have after two years in practice, after consultation respondents raised concerns about the volume and complexity of its initial proposals.
However, it said the changes to the early career standards (ECS) – previously known as the post-qualifying standards (PQS) – retained the substance of its original plans, published for consultation last year.
Early career standards and development programme
The ECS will come into force in April 2027, replacing the existing PQS for children’s social workers, which have been in force since 2015.
Social workers in statutory roles will be assessed against the standards as part of the early career development programme (ECDP), which will replace the assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) for those in children’s services from September of next year.
The DfE’s consultative proposals for the standards were drawn up by a writing group comprising five social work leaders, an expert by experience, a specialist in curriculum design and a representative from Social Work England.
The DfE’s original proposals
It proposed six overarching domains for the standards: anti-discriminatory practice, relationships and communication, assessment and planning, intervention, reflection and learning, and leadership and management.
These were broken down into 26 outcomes statements, describing what a social worker should be able to do after two years in practice.
Beneath these sat 199 ‘know statements’, setting out what the social worker should be able to understand to achieve the relevant outcome, and 171 ‘does’ statements, providing examples of what this might look like in practice.
Concerns proposed standards would be ‘overwhelming’
About three-quarters of respondents to the DfE’s consultation said the proposed six domains and 26 outcome statements set reasonable expectations of what should be expected of a social worker after two years in practice.
However, respondents raised concerns that the volume and complexity of the proposed requirements, particularly in relation to the know and does statements, would be “overwhelming” for NQSWs.
There were also warnings that the proposals were bureaucratic and duplicated elements of other frameworks, such as Social Work England’s professional standards, which all registered practitioners must abide by.
Slimmed down framework ‘designed to reduce burdens’
In response, the DfE has cut down the 26 outcome statements to 20 and more than halved the numbers of know statements, from 199 to 76, and does statements, from 171 to 83. These have been renamed ‘learn that’ and ‘learn how’ statements, respectively.
The 20 outcomes largely cover the same ground as the original 26, including through the merger of multiple statements into one.
The DfE said that the revised outcomes “still reflect the full scope of effective child and family social work”, adding: “The shorter format is designed to reduce burden, avoid duplication with Social Work England’s professional standards and improve clarity and usability for social workers.”
On the learn that and learn how statements, the DfE said these were now clearer than their predecessors.
“The reduction in length marks a shift in emphasis – from lists of illustrative behaviours to a clearer focus on what social workers need to learn and learn how to do in order to meet the outcomes.”
Changes to overarching standards
Five of the six domains from the original proposals are retained in the revised version – where they are referred to as standards – with minor changes of wording.
The exception is the domain on leadership and management, which has been replaced by a standard on working collaboratively and effectively with other professionals.
The four outcomes of the new standard have each been drawn from different domains of the original version:
- Work collaboratively and effectively with multi-agency practitioners, providing constructive challenge, where appropriate (from the relationships and communication domain of the original).
- Recognise boundaries of own professional scope and responsibility and seek support or escalate to others, where appropriate (from the original reflection and learning domain).
- Represent the social work perspective confidently within multi-agency partnerships (from the original leadership and management domain).
- Advocate for social justice and equity across multi-agency partners by promoting anti-racist and anti-discriminatory practices and behaviours (from the original anti-discriminatory practice domain).
Anti-discriminatory practice standard retained
While anti-discriminatory practice was the first domain in the original version, it is now the fourth of the standards.
This is despite members of the writing group having highlighted the significance of it being the opening domain in a webinar explaining the proposals held last year.
Group members said that this reflected the fact that the profession needed to be “pushed further” to embed anti-discriminatory practice within children’s services.
Despite its change of position, the four outcome statements from the original anti-discriminatory are all present in the revised standards. Aside from the statement above on advocating for social justice, the others, which are all within the new anti-discriminatory practice standard, are to be able to:
- gain insight into a child and family’s sense of self by consistently applying an intersectional understanding of identity;
- reflect on own identity and prejudices, valuing difference and using this to shape approaches with families;
- integrate professional knowledge of anti-discriminatory practice to effectively manage more complex situations.
Source: Community Care, Mithran Samuel
