Improve how you meet the standard

Standard 1: Strong and clear social work framework

Strong and Clear Social Work Framework

As a strategic leader, your role is to clarify the organisation's purpose. You should communicate its vision and values to improve service outcomes. Achieving "good" means working towards a supportive, reflective learning culture.

Understand the difference between practice frameworks and practice models

This culture should push workers to achieve good, steady results. Understanding 'practice framework' versus 'practice model' is important. The first shows why an organisation uses a method. The second explains how social work is done.

Creating a practice framework helps employers. It lets them clearly state social work theories and principles. The framework acts as a guide for research-backed methods. This leads to good outcomes.

The framework should detail the organisation’s methodology and rationale. For example, in Aotearoa New Zealand, Connolly's framework shows that a clear practice framework should be:

child-centred
family-led 
culturally responsive
strengths and evidence-based

In the UK, the Chief Social Worker for Adults and the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) introduced a practice framework. It explains how a strengths-based approach will improve professional practice with adults. This standard expects organisations to clearly explain their approach. They should connect it to relevant theory and research. Also, employers should list the skills and methods for good social care outcomes.

Create a good practice model using research

The model should promote professional judgement, autonomy, and creativity. It echoes Barbee et al.’s child welfare views on method choice. The model should lay out the necessary casework skills as these skills ensure the safety and well-being of children in the system. 

No single model is considered to be superior by evidence. Ofsted, too, avoids endorsing any particular model. Various practice models are currently used by employers, most of which express a combination of empathy and collaboration with purpose and authority.

In adult social care, there’s a trend towards strengths-based approaches. This is in line with the Care Act 2014. 

Children's services models should: 

use people's strengths
set clear goals
involve families in solving problems

To be effective, these models need consistent understanding and application. 

Good leadership is crucial. Important aspects like workforce development management should align with the model. The model should be clearly communicated to the people accessing services and stakeholders. There are notable examples of local authorities successfully making this information accessible. 

Training is crucial for social workers to apply models effectively as they need a mix of supervision and management for real progress.

The Employer standard 6: Continuing Professional Development resources provide more help.

Some recent models are popular. These include: ‘Solution-Based Casework’, ‘Signs of Safety’, and ‘Reclaiming Social Work’. However, they lack solid evidence and research does not strongly support their effectiveness.

Create a statement that sets out the purpose and vision

A purpose and vision statement will help achieve commitment from all stakeholders. You should collaborate with:

people who use services
practitioners
other stakeholders

Working with teams alongside emotionally intelligent change management is critical to organisational success.

The value of co-design

Using co-design has several useful functions, it can: 

contribute to the improvement of social care
help determine future directions and enhance performance
use the knowledge, skills, abilities and experiences of people throughout the organisation

A fundamental principle is to respect all opinions and promote equality of ideas. This is valuable when designing a clear statement of purpose. When people contribute ideas they are more likely to feel invested. This will show in the resulting vision and strategy.

More information on co-design is in Employer standard 4: Wellbeing.

Learn from practice and safeguarding reviews

Learning from serious harm or death is crucial for improvement and change. Reviews, investigations, and inquests are important for this. These activities stress the need for continuous improvement. 

Leadership in these processes should encourage learning over blame. Mistakes, even near misses, should be learning opportunities. It involves recognising and replicating successful practices for better service. 

Serious case reviews have been criticised as adopting an accusatory and blaming tone and for not adequately identifying good practice. However, developing a learning culture is not solely about learning from errors. The knowledge gained from recognising what went well also contributes to better outcomes for people accessing services. Some local authorities explore learning from good practice through ’serious success reviews’.

Listening to employees and people that use social work services

Listening to people who access services is essential. It helps to assess the impact and outcomes of social work services. It’s crucial to reflect on this feedback and act on it, making necessary changes. Co-production is a way to ensure people accessing services contribute to their development.

Effective listening is crucial for positive outcomes. Many tools aim to gather feedback from children and adults. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) also stresses the importance of feedback.

Listening to employees and stakeholders is important, as is creating an open environment. An open environment helps to address issues and encourages discussion in a non-judgmental space. Working to reduce barriers, like discrimination, is vital for open dialogue.

Develop a strategy for workforce retention and recruitment

Employer standard 2: Effective workforce planning systems requires employers to formulate a strategy for workforce retention and recruitment. Employer standard 4: Wellbeing explores what makes social care workers stay or leave. It highlights the limited evidence on retention strategy cost-effectiveness. A review by Turley et al examined various strategies for retaining social workers (see References). It highlighted the limited evidence regarding the cost-effectiveness of workforce interventions.

Research across various local authorities by Skills for Care identifies factors in job retention. It shows that several factors influence whether individuals decide to stay or leave their job. These factors are in the table below, this could be useful for organisational initiatives to improve retention.

Push factors (likely to leave)	Pull factors (likely to remain)
Poor workplace culture/communication	Positive working relationships and positive place to work (culture)
Burnout or stress	Supportive work community
Unrealistic workload	Work-life balance
Lack of opportunities to progress	Promoting staff wellbeing
Lack of flexibility	Inclusive and effective workforce strategies
Unequal pay	Appropriate rewards and recognition

Some social workers face negative assumptions about their skills due to their ethnicity. A survey showed that some social workers have considered leaving because of racism. This highlights a significant sector issue. For more information, go to Employer standard 5: Supervision.

Successful strategies focus on diversity and inclusion. These strategies aim to solve challenges faced by employees with protected characteristics. The goal is an inclusive workplace where everyone feels valued and supported. Skills for Care also have resources that are designed to support the retention of staff in adult social care.

Ensure quality assurance for your framework

Quality assurance is vital in using social work practice frameworks. It calls for timely and relevant questions to drive changes and test practice quality. The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) provides resources to help leaders make effective quality assurance frameworks. 

SCIE highlights the need for: 

knowing what ‘good’ looks like by defining good practice and desired outcomes
involving a diverse group of stakeholders in defining quality outcomes
equipping the workforce with the necessary skills to uphold and deliver quality practice
using diverse methods to capture and document the quality of practice approaches
encouraging a culture where practitioners feel confident discussing quality

Adopt a ‘no-blame’ learning culture

Supervision and support from colleagues and managers are vital for social workers. They create safe environments. These environments allow for meeting high expectations and overcoming challenges, boosting skills. Trust-based supervision is crucial for promoting open discussions. 

Team talks are also valuable for helping everyone reflect on work practices. A ‘no blame’ reflective learning culture is vital for the growth of social workers. Organisations can encourage this reflection with supervision that encourages open discussions about mistakes. These mistakes can become opportunities for growth. Create a culture that sees errors as growth opportunities.

References

This is the list of research and evidence sources used to produce this section. Publicly available links are included.

Barbee, A. P., Christensen, D., Antle, B., Wandersman, A., & Cahn, K. (2011). Successful adoption and implementation of a comprehensive casework practice model in a public child welfare agency: Application of the Getting to Outcomes (GTO) model. Children and Youth Services Review, 33(5), 622–633.

Bostock, L., Bairstow, S., Fish, S., and Macleod, F. (2005). Managing risk and minimising mistakes in services to children and families: SCIE report 6. London: SCIE.

Community Care (2016). Serious success reviews: how a council is using positive outcomes to reflect on social work practice

Connolly (2007). Practice Frameworks: Conceptual Maps to Guide Interventions in Child Welfare. British Journal of Social Work (2007) 37(5), 825-837

Department for Education (2022). Learning for the future: final analysis of Serious Case Reviews, 2017-19

Department for Health (2019). Strengths-based approach: Practice Framework and Practice Handbook 

Dillon, J., Evans, F., and Kippen, R. (2022). Research in Practice. Enabling and embedding creative participation in child and family social work: Practice Tool (2022)

Exeter University (2018). Recruitment And Retention Issues In The Adult Social Care Workforce In Devon

Grant, L. & Kinman, G. (2022). The Social Work Organisational Resilience Diagnostic. Research in Practice

Isokuortti, N., Aaltio, E., Laajasalo, T., & Barlow, J. (2020). Effectiveness of child protection practice models: a systematic review. In Child Abuse and Neglect (Vol. 108).

McNeish, D. (2017). What have we learned about good social work systems and practice? Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme Thematic Report 1 Department for Education

Schooling, E (2018). Ofsted blog: A preferred model of practice

Shier, M. L., Turpin, A., Nicholas, D. B. and Graham, J. R. (2019). Dynamics of a culture of workplace safety in human service organizations: A qualitative analysis. International Social Work, 62(6), pp. 1561–74.

Skills for Care (2023). Understanding the reasons care workers move on and their future intentions

Skills for Care (no date). Listening to and involving people available here

Skills for Care (no date). Retaining your workforce

Social Care Institute for Excellence (2022). Developing our understanding of the difference co-production makes in social care

Social Care Institute for Excellence (no date). Practical Approaches to Quality Assurance available here

Stanley, T. & Kelly, S. (2018). Practice Leadership ‘On Purpose’ — Extending the Reach of Practice Frameworks, Practice.

Stanley, Y. (2019). Social care commentary: using models of practice successfully

Teater, B. (2014). An introduction to applying social work theories and methods. Open University

Turley, R., Roberts, S., Foster, C., Warner, N., El-Banna, A., Evans, R., Nurmatov, U., Walpita, Y., & Scourfield, J. (2022). Staff Wellbeing and Retention in Children’s Social Work: Systematic Review of Interventions. Research on Social Work Practice, 32(3), 281-309.

Warrington, C. (2017). Young person-centred approaches in CSE - promoting participation and building self-efficacy: Frontline Tool (2017)

What Works for Children’s Social Care (2022). Anti-racism report

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