Call for Teach First style graduate training for social work

The Insitute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), a leading UK think tank, has set out a proposal for a scheme called Frontline to recruit high quality graduates into social work careers.

The programme would be based on the Teach First model, which fast-tracks graduates from top universities into teaching positions in challenging schools around the UK. If it is introduced, it could potentially reduce the shortage of social workers in the UK and provide much-needed graduate employment.

How Frontline would work

The Frontline scheme would last two years and see graduates becoming certified to practise in social work at the end of the first year. Their practical and analytical skills, legal knowledge and child development skills would be developed on the job and supplemented by academic study while they work for a local authority ‘on the frontline’ in areas such as child protection.

The second year of the programme would involve graduates completing a master’s degree in Leadership in Social Work. At the end of the scheme they would be encouraged to develop their social work careers via established career progression routes but would also be free to leave social work to pursue other career paths if they wish using the leadership skills they have developed. Participants’ wages would be paid by Frontline in the first year and the employers in the second year.

Frontline’s similarities to the Teach First model

Teach First is also a two-year graduate scheme and was launched in 2002 in response to the shortage of teachers in the UK’s most challenging schools. At the end of the two-year Teach First programme, graduates can continue their teaching career or use the leadership skills they have developed to take on management positions in UK businesses.

Teach First has successfully raised the profile of teaching and it is hoped that Frontline could do the same for careers in social work. There are currently 1,700 Teach First participants working in primary and secondary schools across seven regions of England.

What this would mean for graduate careers in social work

Social work is a demanding profession, and there is currently a shortage of applicants and a low staff retention rate. Frontline would help raise the profile of graduate careers in social work by ensuring applicants with or predicted a 2.1 go through an intensive selection process to secure a place on the scheme. Josh MacAlister, an ambassador for Teach First, told BBC News that ‘a scheme like this could transform perceptions of social work and contribute to the huge task of tackling social disadvantage.’