The Pre-Training Characteristics of Frontline Participants and Mainstream Social Work Students

Abstract

Frontline is a fast-track training scheme for social workers in children's services in England, which aims to attract 'outstanding' graduates who may not previously have considered a career in social work. This implies that students recruited onto the Frontline programme will be of a higher academic quality than those on mainstream social work courses. This article presents findings from an independent evaluation of the Frontline pilot stage which compared the pre-training characteristics of Frontline participants with those of social work training enrolments in England for 2013-14, derived from Higher Education Statistics Agency data, the Frontline participant database and a questionnaire administered to postgraduate students in five 'high tariff' universities. Frontline participants have significantly better prior academic qualifications than students on mainstream programmes. They are significantly younger, more likely to have parents who are graduates and more likely to have attended private schools. The Frontline programme has fewer minority ethnic students than mainstream programmes. Frontline's objective of attracting those who may not have previously considered social work as a career has featured recruitment of a more socially advantaged and less diverse group of entrants. How likely Frontline trainees are to stay in the profession remains to be seen.

‘The best and the brightest’: widening participation and social justice in contemporary English social work education

“…Maxwell et al (2016) found that 59% of the first Frontline cohort had a parent with a degree, compared to 31% of the wider student cohort. These class disparities have been consistently maintained, and in a later evaluation of Frontline it was found that participants were more likely to have gone to private school and to have a parent who is a university graduate (Maxwell et al, 2018). Furthermore, there are concerns related to the condensed nature of these fast-track programmes, and the implications for diversity that this creates.…”

“…Concerns related to the lack of diversity on fast-track programmes were raised in early evaluations, and have continued to be a concerning feature as these programmes have expanded (Smith et al, 2013;Maxwell et al, 2016;Maxwell et al, 2018). For example, postgraduate social work education overall has 38% Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) students (Skills for Care, 2018), compared to recent cohorts of Think Ahead and Frontline who had 16% and 18% respectively (Think Ahead, 2017; Frontline, 2018b).…”

“…Smith et al (2013) and Baginsky and Teague (2013) recognised in early evaluations of Step Up that the demanding nature of the shorter programme meant it was important to have few external responsibilities. This has been borne out in fast-track programmes as they continued, with Maxwell et al (2018) finding that only 4% of Frontline participants had caring responsibilities, and all of those were as a secondary carer. These factors have a disproportionate impact on student populations who are more likely to have caring responsibilities, including working class students (Stevenson & Clegg, 2011), women (O'Shea, 2014) and mature students (Baglow & Gair, 2019).…”

“…This reconceptualization of previously recognised successes opened the door for the introduction and rapid expansion of new fast-track models of social work education, aimed at candidates with strong academic credentials. The individual's taking advantage of these routes are more likely to be white, middle class, male and not have caring responsibilities than students on other social work qualifying routes (Think Ahead, 2017;Smith, Stephanova, Venn, Carpenter & Patsios, 2018;Maxwell, Scourfield, de Villiers, Pithouse & Le Zhang, 2018). The path that social work education has taken from WP champion to a segregated model based on the promotion of selective programmes is highly concerning, and raises serious questions, not just about the values that underpin the social work education system in England, but also the national commitment to WP in higher education.…”

Are perceptions of disability changed by involving service users and carers in qualifying health and social work training?

“…SUAC involvement in the qualifying training of social workers became mandatory in 2002 (Department of Health 2002). However, the extent to which universities providing professional social work training have embraced the involvement of SUACs in meaningful ways is open to debate and recent 'fast track' field-based social work training initiatives such as 'Frontline' (Maxwell et al 2016) and 'Think Ahead' (Clifton and Thorley 2014) have paid scant attention to the SUAC voice. The potential to embed the SUAC voice from the beginning of professional training can underline to students that the people with whom they work are human beings first and foremost, and also provides opportunities for SUACs to flourish and develop skills in a learning and teaching environment not previously available to them.…”