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Expectations of leaders

Standard 7: Professional registration

Professional registration

Strategic leaders for social work services must be familiar with the specific regulatory standards and codes of conduct established by Social Work England. 

These include:

  • ensuring all social workers meet professional registration criteria
  • making sure everyone using the title ‘social worker’ maintains their registration
  • understanding ‘fitness to practise’ as defined by Social Work England
  • notifying the regulator about conduct concerns (Social Work England provides a guide on this)

Employers should distinguish between disciplinary issues and fitness to practise investigations, giving social workers time for training and development to maintain their registration. See Employer standard 6: Continuing professional development (CPD) for tools to support this process.

Understanding the support needed for documenting CPD and promoting reflective learning is crucial. Building a culture of psychological safety (see Employer standard 4: Wellbeing and Employer standard: 5 Supervision) and defining effective practice within the organisation are important steps that help to:

  • distinguish between disciplinary issues and fitness to practice investigations
  • provide time for training and development to maintain registration
  • support social workers in documenting their CPD
  • promote and implement reflective learning
  • build a culture of psychological safety for raising concerns and learning from errors

Why meeting this standard is important

Meeting this standard is essential for complying with Social Work England’s professional requirements. These 6 standards ensure safe and effective practice for all registered social workers:


  1. promote the rights, strengths and wellbeing of people, families and communities
  2. establish and maintain the trust and confidence of people
  3. be accountable for the quality of practice and the decisions taken
  4. maintain my continuing professional development
  5. act safely, respectfully and with professional integrity
  6. promote ethical practice and report concerns

Providing a clear social work framework (Employer standard 1: Strong and clear social work framework), regular supervision (Employer standard 6: Continuing Professional Development), and ongoing CPD helps social workers maintain their registration and standards.

Encouraging ethical practice, CPD, and supervision improves service quality and promotes practitioner wellbeing and growth. 


Employers can use these resources to address health check results about professional registration.

References

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

Safer care for All. (2022). Professional Standards Authority. Retrieved from Safer care for all: solutions from professional regulation and beyond.  

 
Social Work England. (n.d.). what we mean by fitness to practise.
 
YouGov. (2021). Social Work and Continuing Professional Development, for Social Work England.

Next page: Benefits of achieving the standard

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The resources have been developed by Research in Practice in collaboration with DfE.
Published: 30 October 2024
Last updated: 30 October 2024