Social work recruitment and retention

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Organisational self-assessment against the push-pull factors The two columns below organise the influences on staff retention identified in the previous pages into ‘scales’ against which a service may be rated. These scales might be incorporated into a staff survey as a means of assessing perceptions about the organisation. Using the scale annually may support benchmarking issues and progress over time, as well as the impact of organisational change. Organisational factors Negative indicators Positive indicators A strong and pervasive culture of blame. Roles very unclear. Micro-management. High workloads/caseloads. Highly bureaucratic/unnecessary form-filling. Poor resources and support. Low pay. Low perception of value by staff. Poor quality, infrequent supervision. Training and development opportunities few or cancelled. Little support from peers/professional isolation. Few development opportunities. Little attention paid to the well-being of staff. Little opportunity for direct work with families. A learning organisation: sense of collective responsibility. Clear Roles. Decisions taken at an appropriate level. Manageable workloads/caseloads. Proportionate and necessary level of administration. Resources provided to support the social work role. Competitive rewards, highly valued group of staff. High quality and frequent supervision. Training and development available and prioritised. Culture of peer support and teamworking. Good opportunities for career development. High level of commitment to physical and emotional well-being of staff. Adequate opportunity for direct work with families. Individual factors Negative indicators Positive indicators A low level of professional commitment to the role. Low levels of resilience. Very high level of commitment towards children and families. Emotionally resilient. 10 Research in Practice Social work recruitment and retention
Innovative social work programmes and pilots Since the Munro review of child protection (2011) there has been a growing focus on ‘systems thinking’ in children’s services - the redesign of organisational culture and structure in order to facilitate direct work with children and families; build social workers’ professional confidence and ownership of their practice and better manage bureaucratic and administrative pressures. Evaluation data on this work is not extensive; nevertheless, a measured analysis of UK and international research and evaluation identifies elements and principles (such as multidisciplinary units, shared decision-making, greater opportunity for reflection and stronger administrative support) that support improved local practice. There are a number of large scale projects funded by the DfE Innovations Programme which will be of interest as evaluation findings emerge. Some key themes relating to staff retention are outlined below. There is no formula, practice model or system that will provide a ‘magic bullet’ for social work and blindly following a trend in adopting new models with insufficient planning for implementation leads to significant difficulties. Baginsky records an informant in her 2013 research who had left her previous post: Staff had been overwhelmed by the pressures that resulted when a pod structure had been adopted too rapidly without due attention to the high volume of referrals they were receiving. In her opinion the transition process had not been thought through thoroughly, caseloads ‘went through the roof’ and the old structures had to be partly reassembled. She felt that social workers had been misled into thinking things could improve by distortion of facts and exaggerated promises which she described as ‘smoke and mirror tactics’. (Baginsky, 2013) Further reading Spring Consortium: Delivering the children’s social care innovation programme – www.springconsortium.com/ projects-being-funded Community Care: Stand up for social work - www.communitycare.co.uk/stand-social-work-2015 Social Work Practices (SWP) The imperative to build workers’ sense of ownership and professionalism underpins the social work practice model (Le Grand, 2007). A pilot of five SWPs in 2009-2010 moved statutory social work support for looked after children and young people from the public to the private or independent sector for the first time. Each SWP had a different status (private, community, etc) but all were small, autonomous organisations who were independent of (but had a contract with) a local authority. For the purposes of the evaluation, each pilot was ‘matched’ with a similar local authority-based service so that data and the experiences of staff/service users could be compared. The results of the pilots were mixed. SWP staff experienced many of the same stresses as social workers in local authority teams (frustrations of IT systems, form filling) as well as a greater sense of job insecurity in the context of relying on one contract. However, there were some interesting findings in relation to staff morale: The teams benefitted from ring-fenced caseloads (individual staff caseloads of fewer than 18 in most SWPs). This, along with good administrative support and an exclusive focus on looked after children/care leavers, increased capacity for direct work. Workers in SWPs were more likely to report spending the right amount of time with young people and families. This is obviously a positive for families but also gives staff a greater sense of accomplishment. Being part of a small team with a defined cohort of looked after children helped staff to feel recognised and valued. They reported greater peer and supervision support. Service-users also gave positive feedback about interacting with a small service where they were able to ‘know and be known’. What the report describes as ‘user-friendly spaces’ (local, accessible venues where families felt able to drop-in) had a positive impact on family engagement. www.rip.org.uk 11
Page 1 and 2: Strategic Briefing Social work recr
Page 3 and 4: Despite well-documented pressures,
Page 5 and 6: Push factors (factors that can resu
Page 7 and 8: The Mental Elf, a summary review of
Page 9: It’s important to look at the thi
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Page 15 and 16: Ensuring career pathways for worker
Page 17 and 18: Next steps By looking at research,
Page 19 and 20: Holmes E, Miscampbell G and Robin B

Social work recruitment and retention

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