Going beyond training: theory and practice in managing learning

Abstract

The establishment of new bodies to replace the Central Council for Training and Education in Social Work (CCETSW) and to regulate the social work profession provides the opportunity to establish an improved progressive system of qualifications and continued professional development in the coming years. With the current pressure on social work agency budgets it is imperative that precious training resources-staff and money-are used to make the maximum impact on service delivery. Our involvement in the provision of a range of training programmes leads us to believe that much of the staff development and training effort invested by agencies in their staff often seem to have a limited impact on effectiveness. A change in approach is needed so that learning is placed at the heart of organisational processes to maximise the benefits of affirmation and growing professional confidence. This is essential if we are to continue to 'nurture' valuable professional staff and ensure that services remain flexible, creative and responsive in meeting ever-rising public expectations.This paper examines some of the challenges of evidence-based practice and the demands for routine evaluation and objective-setting. The advantages and disadvantages of a competence specification approach within the development of service and occupational standards as the basis for professional education are discussed. The paper argues that strategies for practice learning require the development of learning organisations and a better academic and agency partnership to support more effective professional education and continued professional development.

Supervising mentors’ lived experience on supervision in teaching, nursing and social care education. A participation-oriented phenomenological study

“…Vocational education has also since long been fraught with the tension between theoretical and practical knowledge and the difference in between (Rafferty et al 1996). Generally ''learning by doing'' is seen as an important part of individual development in many professions and the advent of evidencebased practice provides demands for recurrent evaluations and objective-settings (Skinner and Whyte 2004). The experiential elements of a vocational education to become a teacher, a nurse or a social care worker are considered to have significance, in providing the students with opportunities to obtain professional knowledge and skills essential for their future professions (Chesser-Smyth 2005; Council on Social Work Education 2001 ;Daresh 1990).…”

‘An Active Conversation Each Week in Supervision’: Practice Educator Experiences of the Professional Capabilities Framework and Holistic Assessment: Table 1

“…This aspect of the complexity of practice assessment -the balance between the holistic and the 'partial' (Doel et al, 2002, p.35) -was also voiced as a particular concern by a PE within The issue of what social work professional education should develop and nurture, the primacy (or not) of skills and observable and tangible outcomes, and what is 'buried' within an holistic assessment framework such as the PCF, goes to the heart of longstanding debates about a competency based approach to assessment (Kelly and Horder, 2001;Skinner and Whyte, 2004;Evans, 1999). Such an approach to assessment, whilst dominant within social work education 20 from the DipSW (CCETSW, 1989) through to the Degree (DoH, 2002) has been subject to wellrehearsed criticisms of its deficiencies -that its focus on practice performance, often task specific, encourages a 'surface' approach to practice that is outcome focussed on a 'minimum' standard of competence/achievement and which can result in a 'cloak of competence' (Kelly and Horder, 2001, p.693) and that it promotes the gathering of 'evidence' ("I've done all my key roles…") above analysis and critical reflection on practice , thereby reducing or impeding learning (Evans, 1999;Mc Nay et al, 2009).…”

What Difference Does It Make?: Social Work Practice and Post-Qualifying Awards

“…These have included the nature of the partnership between employer, social worker and provider (Mitchell 2001, Skinner andWhyte 2004); the need for employers to take responsibility for the management of professional development, and the value of good support frameworks for candidates (Skinner and Whyte 2004). The vital role of these support frameworks in enabling pressurised social workers to successfully complete awards -for example by ensuring study time, mentoring support, and access to study facilities -has also been underlined by explorations of the 'candidates experience', including those who had not yet completed, or in some instances withdrawn altogether, (Taylor 1999, Cooper and Rixon 2002, Brown and Keen 2004, Doel et al 2008, Scottish Social Services Council 2009, Channer and Doel 2009).…”