Continuing Professional Development in Social Work

Halton, Carmel, Powell, Fred, Carmel Halton, Fred Powell, Margaret Scanlon

• Publisher: Policy Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781447307372
• eBook ISBN: 9781447320678
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

Continuing professional development (CPD) has become a defining issue in twenty-first century social work. There is widespread consensus in favour of CPD. But what is it? Are there discernible international trends? What are the barriers to participating in CPD? What do social workers think about and want from CPD? This book seeks to answer these questions.

Based on a survey and interviews with social work practitioners, CPD in social work offers a unique insight into the possibilities and challenges of CPD and the issues it presents for newly qualified and experienced social workers in practice. Combining the perspectives of social workers and their managers with international research, assures its global appeal. It offers possible directions for the future of post qualifying social work education, making it essential reading for practitioners, educators, managers and policy-makers.

THREE

Continuing professional development: a national study

In Ireland, for much of the 20th century, getting a job was synonymous with the end of formal education for most people, including those working in social services. Employers and other organisations provided some in-service training, though courses were generally short-term, participation was optional and there was no overall strategy for continuing education. Over the last two decades, however, continuing professional development (CPD) has assumed far greater significance within the social work profession in Ireland.The vital role of supervision and ongoing training in child protection has been emphasised in child abuse inquiries (McGuinness, 1993; Joint Committee on the Family, 1996; Gibbons, 2010) and policy documents (OMCYA,2009: 42;HSE, 2010a; Department of Children and Youth Affairs, 2011).The recent Children first:national guidance for the protection and welfare of children report (Department of Children and Youth Affairs, 2011: 62–4) identifies the objectives of child protection and welfare training and calls for the development of a training strategy in the Health Service Executive (HSE). Like the Munro (2011) and Laming (2009) reports, Children first emphasises the importance of multidisciplinary and inter-agency training in equipping practitioners for their role.As the number of social work managers expands, the need for specialist training in management has also been acknowledged in policy and inquiry reports (Gibbons, 2010; HSE, 2010a; Department of Children and Youth Affairs, 2011) and in the academic literature (Leinster, 2009, 2010).

The Irish Association of Social Workers (IASW) and the former National Social Work Qualifications Board (NSWQB) have for a number of years promoted and supported CPD. However, the setting up of the regulatory body, CORU,¹ in 2010 is particularly significant as social workers will henceforth be required to undertake CPD in order to renew their registration.While the recognition of CPD as an important part of professional life is to be welcomed, it also raises a number of important questions:‘What constitutes CPD?’;‘How is it to be provided?’; and ‘Who should finance and support its development in the current climate of austerity?’.

Despite growing interest in the potential of CPD for the social work profession in Ireland, very little research has been carried out in this area. It is against this background that researchers at University College Cork initiated a two-year project that aimed to map the current provision and uptake of CPD opportunities among social workers, assess its contribution to professional life, and identify the barriers to participation.The project was based on an online survey and interviews with members of the professional association, the IASW.The findings of the research will be reported in Chapters Three to Five.

While the focus of our research is on Ireland, the issues raised are significant in an international context.There are, for example, a number of parallels between the barriers to participation experienced by social workers in Ireland and those in other countries (see Chapter Four).The research reported here may be of particular interest to countries that, like Ireland, are in the process of introducing regulatory systems that require professionals to undertake CPD. In the course of the project, we explored social workers’ reactions to the establishment of the new regulatory system, and how they thought it would impact on the status and provision of CPD within the social work profession.

In this chapter, we provide an overview of: the different forms of CPD identified in the research; social workers’ motives for undertaking CPD; and the perceived outcomes and impact on practice.This is followed by a discussion of social workers’ preferred forms of CPD, and how it might be developed in the future.We will begin by setting the issue of CPD within the wider context of the development of the social work profession in Ireland.

Social work in Ireland

The origins of social work in Ireland can be traced to the 19th century, when a wide range of charitable activities relating to education, health and welfare were undertaken by volunteers, usually women. During the first half of the 20th century, the social work profession gradually began to take shape, though the numbers employed remained relatively insignificant, due in part to a lack of state support. Irish social policy during this period was guided by the Catholic principle of subsidiarity, which held that the state should not be responsible for providing supports or services that individuals, families and other associations were in a position to provide for themselves. Where families were considered unable to meet the needs of their members, it was believed that Church-run institutions and voluntary agencies were in the best position to provide assistance. As a result, much of Irish social provision was under the control of the Catholic Church or voluntary organisations (many of which had Church connections), with the state having a much lesser role.While religious principles underlined various aspects of social services and social work up to the 1960s, there is also evidence to suggest that Church leaders regarded the profession with a degree of suspicion, on the grounds that it intervened in the ‘private’ sphere of family life (Gaughan and Garrett, 2012). As John Charles McQuaid, the formidable Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, stated in a letter to the Director of the Family Welfare Agency in 1951:‘Our people do not want lady-analysts of their lives and motives.Trouble is certain to develop if almoners [hospital social workers] undertake psychological investigations in our homes or in our hospitals’ (cited in Skehill, 1999: 132).

It was not until the 1970s, with the emergence of a comprehensive welfare state in Ireland alongside a lessening of the influence of the Catholic Church, that opportunities for professional social work began to develop, most notably, within the statutory services. In her history of social work in Ireland, Skehill (1999) notes that the expansion in employment of social workers reached a peak during the 1970s and early 1980s, but remained relatively stagnant for the following decade and a half. The one area that continued to grow ‘at an accelerated and extensive rate’ was that of child and family social work within community care (Skehill, 1999: 165).There are a number of possible reasons for this, including the ‘discovery’ of child abuse in the 1970s in most Western societies, followed by a series of scandals concerning child abuse (within families and Church-run institutions) in Ireland during the 1990s.With the publication of high-profile inquiry reports and increased media attention, child protection issues have become a major area of political and public concern in Ireland.

The social work profession in Ireland underwent a further period of expansion in the late 1990s and early years of the 21st century. Figures from the NSWQB (2006: 22) indicate that the number of posts grew from 1,390 in 1999 to 2,237 in 2005, representing a 61% increase over a six-year period. Despite recent cutbacks, the areas in which social workers practise are now more extensive than ever before. The profession has become ‘much more recognised and recognisable’ (Leinster, 2010: 74), particularly with the recent introduction of statutory registration for 12 health and social care professions, including social work.The term social worker has been designated a ‘protected’title, and since 2012, social workers have been required to register with the Social Work Registration Board in order to practise (Health & Social Care Professionals Council, 2012a).

According to the most recent NSWQB (2006: 22) survey, social work is still a predominantly female occupation, with women accounting for 83% of the workforce. It is predicted that this gender imbalance is unlikely to change in the short term as the number of male entrants to professional training courses continues to be low.The HSE is the main employer of social workers in Ireland, with over half of all social work posts located there (NSWQB, 2006: 15). Other major employers include voluntary, community and private agencies (14% of posts), the probation service (13%), and hospitals (10%).

The social work profession has made significant strides over the past 40 years in establishing itself as a profession and in gaining recognition (Skehill, 1999: 171). However, as Skehill (1999) argues, while the context and nature of professional social work today is significantly distinct from earlier practices of voluntary and religious-based social work, it has also inherited key features from its past, including an ‘individualistic’ approach to social problems. Social work practice continues to be constructed within a consensus view of society that takes little account of factors such as structural inequalities, racism, sexism and classism, which affect many clients’ lives.A wide range of individual and group-focused professional practices and therapies are increasingly occupying the space of social work – psychotherapy, solution-focused therapy and family therapy being some key examples (Skehill, 1999: 194). Discourses that are more radical have gained little space within Irish social work at any point in its history, and this remains the case to the present day (see also Gaugh...

Table of contents

• Coverpage
• Titlepage
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Preface
• One: Continuing professional development: the international context
• Two: Contemporary debates in social work education
• Three: Continuing professional development: a national study
• Four: Barriers to participation
• Five: Supervision
• Six: Learning and reflection
• Seven: Thinking and acting
• Eight: Conclusion: challenges and futurescapes
• References