Adult Social Work Summit
Key players gathered in central London on 3 February at an invitation-only summit to launch The College of Social Work’s (TCSW) campaign to champion social work’s key role in adult social care services.
The summit drew its programme from the findings of a series of TCSW consultation events designed to define the special role of social workers in supporting vulnerable adults.
Social care sector leaders, including senior government officials and prominent social work professionals, contributed presentations which emphasised social work’s vital role and which will feed into the government’s White Paper on the future of social care, expected in the spring.
Documents from the summit
Sector leaders gave a ringing endorsement to adult social work at a College summit in London, reports Joy Ogden
Jo Cleary, executive director of adults and community services in Lambeth and TCSW transition board member, who chaired the morning session, reminded participants that social care minister Paul Burstow had promised that social work would be at the heart what the White Paper has to say about workforce issues.
In his keynote speech Glen Mason, director for people, communities and local government at the Department of Health, told the audience: ‘I do think we are in an important and exciting time for social work.’
Demand and expectations were rising among people who use services and there were real opportunities for social workers under the new vision of adult social care with personalisation at its heart. He said care management had ‘really constrained social workers – we need to let them out of the box again.’
It was important, he said, to be creative, more focused on partnership. He added that social work skills would be needed more than ever to deal with the consequences of the economic downturn.
Sharon Allen, chief executive of Skills for Care (SfC), spoke about work on Integrated Local Area Workforce Strategies (InLAWS), which aim to develop effective ways of supporting directors and their teams in workforce commissioning. They operate by linking up joint strategic needs assessments and the effective deployment of social workers to develop personalised and safe services.
Vic Citarella, director of CPEA, also took up the theme of the effective deployment of social workers in the context of possible changes in social work ownership. He said: ‘We are perhaps planning for a world where it is not all practised in local authorities, but based in agencies or businesses privately owned.’
Professor Richard Barker, TCSW Policy Development Group chair, said The College aspired to be a major force on policy making in social work and that its new Policy Development Group would be a focal point. Its members are drawn from the whole spectrum of social work settings.
The College Board had already agreed that the future of social work with adults was a key policy priority, he said, and the next steps must be to examine the evidence about social work’s value in adults’ services and promote more research about when a social worker’s involvement yields the best outcomes.
Peter Beresford, chair of Shaping our Lives, said: ‘I think today’s event is a powerful reminder about getting the culture and the resources right for adult social work.
‘Policy makers should refer to the evidence that shows the qualities and skills of social workers that service users particularly value: respect, credibility, courtesy and empathy, confidentiality, reliability, practical help, time to listen and their understanding of the creative relationship between user and carer.’
He highlighted the importance of valuing the role of social work in adult services and ensuring they had a secure and central place in supporting people for many years to come. ‘We hear that Paul Burstow is seeking feedback from today’s event for the White Paper. We have to hope that the minister receives this message.’
The afternoon session was chaired by Maurice Bates, TCSW interim co-chair, who first introduced Robert Templeton, head of transforming adult social care at the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE).
Mr Templeton set out the background to the independent social work practice pilot projects with adults, funded by the government and managed by SCIE. He introduced two sessions describing the pilots in Surrey and the London Borough of Lambeth.
The social work practices are non-profit making organisations led by social workers but independent of the local authority. Seven pilots across the country are focusing on different aspects and aim to test the benefits and value for money for service users, social workers and other staff, and to test the effectiveness of professionally led social enterprise as a means of delivery.
Graham Wilkin, assistant to Surrey County Council’s strategic director, introduced Surrey’s social work practice pilot and his work with Naomi Mungroo from First Point, Hard of Hearing, deaf and interpreting services.
Ms Mungroo said the new pilot’s team had agreed its mission statement, focused on ‘a fresh specialist approach to access for deaf and hard of hearing people.’
The pilot’s key components are social work, commissioned by Surrey for statutory duties, plus interpreting and equipment services. She said the pilot was more inclusive of service users and carers than previous arrangements, giving greater accountability and more flexible working practices.
TOPAZ: a Team Offering Advice and Support, the only London-based pilot, was next. The multi-disciplinary team in Lambeth consists of three qualified social workers, a community worker and an occupational therapist. Practitioner manager Dee Kemp said TOPAZ’s core aims were to promote people’s independence and wellbeing in the community by preventative work and early intervention.
Other speakers stressed the importance of social work in any setting. Focusing on safeguarding adults, Dr Adi Cooper, adult social services director in Sutton, said her topic was: ‘How you can do something about social work with adults in an ordinary local authority setting – not as a specialist pilot – because I think it’s important that innovation comes wherever we can find it.’
Dr Cooper said: ‘The quality of your service is only as good as the quality of the front-line staff delivering those services.’
As director she needed to make a business plan to justify employing social workers, who cost more to employ than unqualified staff. ‘And there is a good business case for social work in adult services,’ she said
Gatekeeping must be accepted in a period of austerity, she said. But local authorities must still be prepared to take risks and find better ways of working. Sutton has its own mini-pilot community social work scheme, where one worker is supporting nearly 40 very vulnerable people with personal budgets.
Cathie Williams, adult safeguarding lead for the Local Government Association, talked about the national picture, pointing out that ‘much safeguarding work results from a failure to have basic standards that safeguard people’s dignity and rights’.
There must be more research about effective practice, said Ms Williams, who outlined her hypotheses about making safeguarding personal:
- social work skills and practice must be developed for people in complex personal relationships
- care management, good contracts management and quality assurance in safeguarding are important but social work skills are vital to improve people’s circumstances and outcomes
- safeguarding and personalisation are two sides of the same coin, but to make both real requires good judgement and the contribution of social workers.
Peter Hay, ADASS president and Strategic Director, Birmingham City Council, described the state of social care and social work today and talked about forthcoming changes.
The profession was trying to transform itself in four ways simultaneously, he said: to implement direct payments, transform to new models that support personalised care, to meet needs with a third fewer resources – and to do it all in an integrated way.
The impact of having personal budgets is having ‘incredibly positive results’, said Mr Hay. But the impact of caring for others on the well being of the carers can be devastating. There are 6 million unpaid carers at any one time; they save the economy £67-£87 billion per year but 80 per cent say that caring has damaged their health.
Mr Hay concluded that ADASS wanted reform that was centred on three outcomes:
- to bring together the work of Dilnot, the Law Commission and all the work on quality into a single personalised care system
- to create a social care system that was understandable at the time of crisis – people go into care when they have dementia or mental breakdown, so clarity is important
- to ensure that potential users are free from fears about its affordability.