Download emerging roles for social workers and others Mary Keating

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social workers
Transforming services, transforming
workforce, chicken or egg ? Access and Care
Management redesign: emerging roles for
social workers and others
Mary Keating
Purpose
• Coherent map of current and planned regional development of
Access and Care Management service delivery mechanisms
• Identify the current and future workforce planning and
development needs across professional and other social care
practitioner roles.
• Identify models establishing links between workforce planning,
CPD and Career Frameworks.
• Support and encourage shared learning from the project
Reception
• Interviews conducted with 12 of the 14 Local
Authorities, between August and Oct 2010
• A great deal of interest in the project and desire to
know what is happening
• Huge variation in how far Local Authorities had
progressed
• First glance much similarity in service redesign - but
the devil is in the detail
Assumption
Erroneous or accurate?
Widespread use of corporate contact centres for Adult
Social Care
Erroneous- All of the Authorities were
using dedicated social care contact
centres
Reduction in front line social work numbers
Erroneous- no reductions planned
Changes to the Social Work role
Accurate– big changes to the role
some of which remained aspirational
rather than reality
Workforce development needs exist for Managers,
Social Work staff and other Social Care staff
Accurate- Considerable synergy
across the region in relation to
manager and social worker
development needs.
Conformity in Social Care Practitioner roles
Erroneous - Lack of any commonality
and huge diversity apparent across
the region in title, role and learning
and development requirement
Key Findings: Service Redesign

The progress and process of service redesign was at very different
stages across the region and there was no standard pattern on the
shape and function of services.
•
Once the initial assessment had been completed the delivery of “back
office” services was diverse.

The great majority of authorities were designing services and teams
with a locality, neighbourhood focus. In making an impact on
community development this delivery model appeared to be more
aspirational than real at this stage.
Key Findings: Contact Centres

All of the local authorities interviewed were using or planning to use
dedicated Adult Social Care contact centres as an initial point of
contact. For those authorities that had previously used only corporate
contact centres, the move to Adult Social Care contact centres had
been prompted by quality concerns.

In every case social workers had a presence in contact centres, but
how far social workers were involved in supporting initial assessment
differed.

There was a link between the numbers of social workers supporting the
initial assessment and the level of responsibility delegated to contact
centre staff.
Key Findings: Re-ablement
• Where services were recently introduced or still in the design
phase re-ablement was seen as an integral element of the
customer journey.
• Where re-ablement is fully integrated and delivered by directly
employed staff, the skills mix team generally included social
workers.
• The skills mix team was most evident in re-ablement services,
and there was considerable consensus and emphasis on the
need to have social care staff in this service more highly trained
Key Findings: Social Workers
• There were no plans to reduce front line social work posts.
• There was consensus on the workforce development deficits
identified for social work staff. Overall the feeling expressed was
a sense of frustration that social workers at every level had lost
professional confidence and identity
Social Work Roles
•
•
•
•
•
•
Access/ contact centres *
Re – ablement
Locality teams *
Brokerage
Review
???? Community development/Marker
shaping
* Universally only to be found in Access and Locality teams
Identified social work workforce
development needs
• Understanding and delivering outcomes
- based assessment
• Cost effective /creative solutions
• Risk assessment / balance/ averse
• Knowledge of community /community
development
Key Findings: Middle and First line
managers
• The focus for middle and first line management was found to be
increasingly strategic.
• A hybrid management/case work social work role had
developed or was proposed in half of the agencies.
Key Findings: Social Care Workers
• There were a variety of other social care roles identified within
Access and Care Management but there was little consensus on
the titles, the level of responsibility and the minimum learning
and development levels that were desirable
Key Findings: Culture change

The changes required and the deficits expressed across all levels of
social care role, managerial, professional or otherwise, indicate how far
removed emerging expectations are from traditional social care roles
and how big the task is in assisting staff to understand and make this
transition.

The majority of agencies were employing considered strategies to
manage the culture change process.
•
Where agencies had begun the process of service transformation they
were providing action learning or other forms of developmental support,
but this was generally only available for middle and first line managers.
Recommendations:
• Social workers and managers
• Social care workers
• Service redesign and workforce
planning
Next steps
• Report back to regional Joint
Improvement Partnership
• Presentation at ADASS workforce
group 4th March
• Workshop for Social Workers at
Regional conference 1st March
www.skillsforcare.org.uk