Community Care

MARCH 31, 2023

The union, which represents an estimated 40,000 social workers across the UK, is balloting members on an employer-by-employer basis meaning that council staff could walk out in some areas but not others, depending on the outcome of the votes. According to government rules, at least 50% of members must turn out for action to follow.

Government 254

Government Social Worker Consultation Schools 254

Community Care

AUGUST 1, 2023

A “tail of very bad employers in the social care sector” are exploiting overseas staff brought to the UK to fill gaps caused by endemic low pay, a government adviser has warned. Such a policy is in place in Scotland and Wales , where care staff in state-funded roles receive a minimum rate of £10.90

Government 171

Government Interviewing 171

Community Care

MAY 3, 2023

The designated safeguarding lead role Under statutory guidance , schools and colleges should appoint a senior member of staff as their DSL to take lead responsibility for child protection. This should include: Referring cases of suspected abuse and neglect to children’s social care as required and supporting other staff who make referrals.

Schools 130

Schools Interventional Social Worker School Social Work 130

Community Care

JANUARY 4, 2022

With staff absences within public services a mounting concern since the rapid rise of the Omicron variant, children’s minister Will Quince urged practitioners on Social Work England’s temporary register to contact their council’s children’s services department or sign up with a local agency.

Social Worker 314

Social Worker Government 314

Community Care

FEBRUARY 22, 2024

Staff and volunteers working with children will face a duty to report child sexual abuse they are aware of, the government announced yesterday. Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Criminal Justice 257

Criminal Justice Consultation Government Confidentiality 257

Community Care

APRIL 24, 2024

The main components of the MEAPP approach, known locally as IMPACTAgewell, are that: Older people and their families can contact the service direct or be referred in by health and social care professionals. This had worsened since the Covid-19 pandemic due to redeployment of staff and the move to online meetings.

Hospital Discharges 222

Hospital Discharges Social Worker Engagement Hospitals 222

Community Care

NOVEMBER 29, 2023

At the same time, councils in England have found it increasingly difficult to retain staff in children’s and adults’ services , with rising turnover and vacancy rates. Reflecting that, our research revealed that a falling proportion of practitioners – 20% in 2022 and 2023, down from 25% in 2021 – said they were highly unlikely to move jobs.

Social Worker 234

Social Worker Government 234

Community Care

FEBRUARY 15, 2022

By mid-July, staff at Orchard Blythe had determined that the home could not adequately meet Mr P’s increasing needs and that a specialist service should be sought. One such fall in late August caused an elbow injury requiring stitches, which Mrs D said was not picked up quickly enough by care staff.

Social Worker 221

Social Worker Hospitals Communication Anxiety 221

Community Care

NOVEMBER 8, 2023

It’s about how we develop social work so that we’re working in strengths-based ways with our staff as well. But there is a wider message too – that organisations need to work in a strengths-based way in respect of how they support staff. I am hopeful this practice and value base permeates to service users whom staff work with.

Social Worker 264

Social Worker 264

Community Care

MAY 11, 2022

Ofsted noted that “an increase in staff turnover means that a small number of families experience too many changes of social workers”, but highlighted leaders’ efforts to recruit social workers and keep caseloads manageable amid fast-rising child protection demand. Leaders ‘listening to staff’. over the same period.

Social Worker 254

Social Worker Diversity Mental Health Government 254

Community Care

JUNE 8, 2022

At a time of mounting vacancies and turnover across both statutory children’s and adults’ services in England, a drop in the number of adults’ practitioners employed, and the need to recruit more to implement the forthcoming social care funding reforms , the union said the situation risked exacerbating staff shortages.

Social Worker 257

Social Worker Government 257

Community Care

SEPTEMBER 9, 2022

A significant number of children experienced repeated contacts and referrals before receiving the help they needed, said Ofsted. Inspectors also criticised management oversight, which was not effective in applying thresholds, providing social workers with direction or overseeing the timeliness of contacts.

Social Worker 286

Social Worker Adoption Interventional Foster Care 286

Community Care

DECEMBER 1, 2022

The CQC said that, in some older people’s wards, staff were applying for a DoLS authorisation after the expiry of a patient’s stay for admission under section 2 of the Mental Health Act 1983, in cases where the person needed ongoing hospital care.

Mental Health 263

Mental Health Hospitals Patient Safety Government 263

Community Care

MAY 12, 2023

On locum staff, the Department for Education (DfE) has proposed rules to restrict their use in council children’s services to curb rising costs and practices such as agencies only supplying social workers through project teams.

Social Worker 201

Social Worker Government University Consultation 201

Community Care

APRIL 14, 2022

The new DfE funding will also extend the separate project to provide DSLs – senior school staff with responsibility for child protection – with supervision from an experienced social worker. Findings from the evaluation, led by WWCSC’s research partner, CASCADE at Cardiff University, are due in January 2023.

School Social Work 243

School Social Work Schools Social Worker Anxiety 243

Community Care

OCTOBER 27, 2022

Social workers’ wellbeing at work is lower than that of other health and social care staff groups, in the wake of Covid, research has found. Researchers found that social workers had been particularly affected by the reduction in contacts with colleagues, in the context of remote working during the pandemic.

Social Worker 268

Social Worker Mental Health Engagement 268

Community Care

AUGUST 8, 2023

AMHPs lack time for ‘extremely important’ work Almost nine in 10 said pre-assessment contact was ‘extremely important’ (45%) or ‘somewhat important (43%) in building rapport with people due to be assessed under the MHA, while 70% said a pre-assessment interview was likely to help improve outcomes.

Interviewing 205

Interviewing Mental Health University Welfare 205

Community Care

APRIL 17, 2024

From the age of seven, up until his adoption, he had the same social worker, with whom he remained in contact into his 20s. Agency social work: the introduction of national rules limiting councils’ use of locum staff , including regional caps on what authorities pay agencies, to save money and reduce staff turnover.

Social Worker 260

Social Worker Diversity Government Adoption 260

Community Care

JANUARY 23, 2023

We’re looking to amplify social workers’ voices on our site, so if you have an experience or opinion you’d like to write about, have a story to share, or would just like to be considered in the future, please contact our community journalist, Anastasia Koutsounia, at anastasia.koutsounia@markallengroup.com. No writing experience is required.

Social Worker 248

Social Worker 248

Community Care

FEBRUARY 23, 2023

However, directors of children’s services have warned that these risk coming too late to tackle the workforce pressures they are currently facing, while the vast majority of Community Care readers polled on the proposals said they were likely to lead to an exodus of agency staff, worsening current shortages.

Social Worker 282

Social Worker Consultation Government 282

Community Care

MARCH 28, 2024

Covid impact and concerns over lack of management support Shortly afterwards the country went into the first Covid lockdown, significantly curtailing face-to-face contact by all agencies with the family. Another worker raised concerns with the author about the lack of management support for inexperienced staff in Derbyshire at the time.

Rehabilitation 273

Rehabilitation Social Worker Self-harm Engagement 273

Community Care

JANUARY 13, 2022

The survey, carried out from 24 December 2021 to 5 January 2022, reflects the impact of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 – particularly in relation to severe levels of staff absence across the provider sector. an hour, aided by the so-called ‘health and care visa’, which removes barriers to entry.

Hospital Discharges 251

Hospital Discharges Hospitals Disability Home Care 251

Community Care

NOVEMBER 9, 2023

Reducing staff turnover and improving retention. Achieving this will involve minimising the use of experts, keeping the number of hearings per case to three and limiting the scope of the court’s decision making to whether the care or supervision order threshold is met, permanence provisions, contact arrangements and final orders.

Social Worker 269

Social Worker Interviewing Consultation Government 269

Community Care

SEPTEMBER 7, 2022

Leaders had adopted a grow your own approach to the workforce including through a social work academy – whose training was valued by staff. Ofsted praised the council’s practice of allocating personal advisers to children in care when they were 15 or 16, enabling PAs to get to know them before they left care.

Social Worker 221

Social Worker Adoption Foster Care Disability 221

Community Care

APRIL 22, 2022

” Ofsted added that contacts with the front door were rapidly directed to early help of family support services for assessment, with child protection strategy discussions swiftly commenced where children were at immediate risk of harm. .

Social Worker 281

Social Worker Interviewing Disability Interventional 281

Community Care

AUGUST 23, 2022

Managers have worked with partner agencies to improve the quality of contacts and referrals into the MACH in line with the agreed threshold document,” said the report. In the MACH, Ofsted highlighted how strong relationships with partner agencies were helping to manage rising demand.

Interventional 204

Interventional Social Worker 204

Community Care

JANUARY 31, 2023

March 2021: She was detained by police under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA) after attempting to jump off a roof at school, and, while on the ward, repeatedly self-harmed, tried to abscond and threatened staff.

Self-harm 274

Self-harm Government Criminal Justice Welfare 274

Community Care

NOVEMBER 6, 2023

Regulated activities include all unsupervised work or volunteering with children or work for specific establishments that gives the person the opportunity to have contact with children. Professionally regulated staff, such as social workers, would also be subject to sanctions from their regulator body.

Government 262

Government Consultation Welfare Social Worker 262

Social Care

AUGUST 24, 2023

The NHS and Social Care Coronavirus Life Assurance Scheme provides financial support to families and dependents of health and social care staff who sadly died from COVID-19, contracted while delivering frontline care during the pandemic. The scheme runs to 30 September 2023, in respect of deaths which occurred on or before 31 March 2022.

Government 88

Government 88

Community Care

MAY 3, 2022

Ongoing support to navigate these relationships is desperately needed, yet kinship carers commonly find they are left to cope on their own with contact, which means a greater risk of families falling into crisis and ultimately breaking down. And all staff working in these services should receive a basic level of training on kinship care.

Adoption 305

Adoption Social Worker Foster Care Healthcare 305

Social Care

APRIL 21, 2023

"We knew care staff were facing unprecedented challenges and we wanted to make sure. residents could stay in contact with friends and family while visiting was restricted." We’ve heard many examples of staff using them to input electronic care plans and order medications online.

Adoption 93

Adoption Communication Consultation Government 93

Social Care

OCTOBER 11, 2023

They quickly understand the importance of, for example, using strong passwords and training staff. For example, we encourage providers to think about: What would you do if you could not access the data held in digital care records, or digital staff rostering systems? Access free Keep IT Confidential tools to use with staff.

Confidentiality 109

Confidentiality 109

Gateway Foundation

JANUARY 22, 2024

Treatment centers may use SUPR grants to expand their facilities, make their facilities more accessible, hire new staff, obtain quality equipment and supplies, or offer more services. SUPR staff may also perform on-site verification. Contract Adjustment SUPR may ask an organization to revise its Uniform Grant Budget (UGB).

Recovery 52

Recovery Sobriety Disorder Addiction 52

Community Care

FEBRUARY 10, 2023

At the same time, DfE research has found social workers reporting increasing stress and workloads, between 2018 and 2021, while Ofsted has warned that increasing staff shortages were making an already challenging job “unsustainable” for some.

Social Worker 247

Social Worker Case Management Government Communication 247

Community Care

NOVEMBER 15, 2023

Contributing to the lack of therapeutic benefit was the fact that autism or learning disability were seen as sufficient reasons for detention without staff interrogating why the person was in crisis. The DHSC’s position drew an angry response from campaign groups whose staff served on the panel.

Disability 300

Disability Hospitals Mental Health Rehabilitation 300

Community Care

MAY 13, 2022

Inspectors found that an “overreliance on agency staff at all levels” was contributing to delays and leading to children experiencing many changes in social worker and essential work not always being completed. The council said it had invested an extra £10m into children’s social care in 2021-22, including to recruit more staff.

Interventional 252

Interventional Social Worker Welfare Mental Health 252

Teaching & Learning in Social Work

JUNE 30, 2023

I can also envision social work faculty and staff applying these guidelines to the adoption of new accreditation standards and policies and sharing them with institutional leadership when asking for support and resources. Aside from these members, you should look for additional faculty and staff to join your team. Life happens.

Administration 130

Administration Consultation Adoption Anxiety 130