Does the supply of social work practice placements meet demand?

Research from the General Social Care Council investigates the provision of practice placements for social work students

Concern within the sector about the supply, quality and relevance of practice placements for social work students is something the General Social Care Council (GSCC) has been aware of for some time.

Practice placements, the 200 days of work-based education that students training to become qualified social workers must successfully complete, are a crucial component of training. They give students the chance to undertake social work tasks in a workplace environment and also provide an important opportunity to assess students’ performance in that setting.

However, the supply and quality of practice placements is heavily reliant on the willingness and capacity of employers to arrange them. Given that a large proportion of social work employers are in the public sector, concerns have recently focused on whether current restrictions on public spending may be placing additional pressure on the supply of placements.

In late 2011 the GSCC undertook research into the experience of employers who provide practice placements. A third of the employers we approached (466), agreed to take part. These employers were responsible for providing roughly a third of all practice placements in the 2010-11 academic year.

The GSCC’s report – The supply of social work practice placements: employers’ views – published on Wednesday, provides an analysis of the results of this research.

The results show that while the current situation is challenging, overall the employers responding to the survey have managed to keep the supply of practice placements stable during the period covered by the research (2009-10 to 2011-12).

However, this needs to be considered against a context of rising demand as the last two years have seen record enrolments to the social work degree.

Furthermore, the supply at the level of individual employers fluctuated considerably during the period covered by the research and in some regions, particularly the Midlands and Yorkshire, employers were more likely to report a decline in practice placements.

What also comes across from the research is that employers value the experience of having students on placement in their organisation. Many make considerable efforts to ensure that students continue to be involved in provision.

Employers identified a number of factors as important to their ability to maintain or increase the number of practice placements available.

These included funding (central government funding is distributed by the GSCC to employers as a contribution towards costs); the commitment of senior leadership; and the existence of a more general learning culture in their organisation.

The research also reveals that the relationship between higher education institutions and employers is crucial. Currently too much placement provision in certain regions is organised on an ad hoc, demand driven basis.

What is required is joint involvement in planning placements according to supply and demand, The capacity of employers to support students on placements must match the volume of students enrolling to social work programmes.

Reforms to the current system can provide important new resources. The introduction of principles for partnerships between higher education institutes and employers have been developed by the social work taskforce and are held up by the College of Social Work.

A supply and demand model for social workers has also been developed, and is available from the Centre for Workforce Intelligence’s website.

These resources, alongside the full integration of employers in placement planning, would considerably strengthen the model for training the next generation of social workers.

Kerrin Clapton is policy adviser at the General Social Care Council