Knowledge and skills
Continuous professional development in safeguarding practice is essential if we are to serve individuals, families, and communities well. The recently published Revisiting safeguarding practice will support local authority social workers to refresh their knowledge and understanding of their roles and responsibilities in responding to enquiries and concerns.
It’s been ten years since BBC Panorama exposed the Winterbourne View scandal. At the British Association of Social Workers (BASW England), Liz Howard explains how they are taking action to make sure human rights abuses suffered by people with learning disabilities and autistic people are never forgotten. Homes not hospitals is a central part of their campaign.
Lyn Romeo has just returned to her role as Chief Social Worker for Adults, alongside Fran Leddra, following time out to care for her elderly mother who sadly died recently following a long illness. On returning to the role, Lyn finds it highly fitting for her first blog, to be posted during Carers Week.
Meet Carmen Colomina, social worker and Practice Development Manager at the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). In this guest blog, Carmen reflects upon the pandemic's effect on her life and work, the wider profession's adaptability, including the technological adjustments many of us have had to make to keep delivering for those who need our help.
Over the last year 18 months, Mark Trewin, our mental health social work lead, has enjoyed the privilege of chairing of the Health Education England (HEE) new roles mental health programme group for social work. HEE set up the new roles in the mental health (MH) programme to support the delivery and expansion of innovative roles, identified as having the greatest impact in mental health services. A final webinar at 10.30am this morning completes the journey of discovery.
Jo Barnicoat works for a small charity, Oxfordshire Family Support Network (OXFSN), supporting families with learning disabilities. Like everyone else, she and her colleagues have had to develop a totally new way of working. However, this enforced change has actually enabled professionals and families to communicate much more efficiently and speedily.
Over the last few months, we have seen social workers and social work students coming together to support one another.
Not only that, they are also coming up with ways to develop and shape new ideas in social work and broaden the resources they use to enhance their practice thinking.
In this context, the Student Social Work Hub has exploded onto our social media and into the rich discussion about social work and the future of the profession.
Understanding what is important to adults with learning disabilities and/or autism helps practitioners and organisations make meaningful contributions to their lives and those around them. BASW's Liz Howard explains how new capabilities statement resources provide social workers with the means to capture the voices and experiences of people and families to shape our learning, development and growth as a profession.
It's Learning Disability Week. BASW (the British Association of Social Workers) and SCIE (the Social Care Institute for Excellence) have launched new resources to support the capabilities of social workers in their work with autistic adults and adults with learning disabilities. These resources are freely available on the BASW website and will support individuals and organisations to implement the capabilities statements and CPD pathways.
An issue frequently raised by mental health social workers and their managers is the desire to better understand the range, scope and access to roles, professional support and development opportunities available within local partnerships. Our fine colleague, Mental Health Social Work (MHSW) Lead here at DHSC, Mark Trewin and Health Education England (HEE) have been working on plans to help social work colleagues do exactly that, as he explains in his latest guest blog.
