Pivoting in the Pandemic: Reflections of Graduates of a UK Fast Track Social Work Programme

Abstract

This paper presents and discusses the findings of a small-scale longitudinal survey of trainees who embarked on one 14-month Step Up to Social Work (SUSW) qualifying programme in January 2020, just prior to the start of the COVID-19 pandemic’s restrictions in the United Kingdom (UK). It explores their responses to changes made to their placements during their training and the impact on their subsequent employment. Three surveys were administered to this cohort (n = 30; 25 of whom agreed to participate): just before trainees completed their training in May 2021 (n = 23), halfway through their Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) in January 2022 (n = 19) and at the end of this in September 2022 (n = 15). Respondents felt at least adequately prepared for social work, despite having missed much direct work with children and families during placements. Online learning and consultations through lectures and supervision were acceptable modifications but face-to-face interactions and colleagues’ guidance were missed in placements and initial employment. The implications of this are discussed for this specific route to qualification and initial employment as social workers.

Keywords:

• step up to social work
• COVID-19
• placements
• social work training
• early career practice
• newly qualified social worker

Introduction and Background

Step Up to Social Work (SUSW) is a fast-track social work training programme in England for graduates intending to work in local authority (LA) children’s social care (CSC). As one of three English fast-track qualifying routes into social work - SUSW and Frontline (for children’s social work) and Think Ahead (for adult mental health social work) - it runs parallel to larger under-graduate and post-graduate programmes in higher education (hereafter termed mainstream programmes) and the small, rapidly expanding, apprenticeship routes to qualification. Fast-track trainees all receive a bursary of nearly £20,000 during their 14 months’ training and their university fees are paid. In England UK students on mainstream post-graduate social work programmes must pay university fees in the region of £18-22,000 and fund their studies through a loan, part-time work or other resources.

As Hanley (2021) observes, numerous reports from 2002 onwards shaped policymakers’ views that the academic quality of those entering social work left much to be desired. SUSW was the initial fast-track route designed to address this perception. A first cohort started in 2010 funded by the Department for Education (DfE), the government department responsible for CSC. SUSW candidates must have a good first degree and at least six months’ paid or voluntary full-time experience of working with vulnerable children, young people and/or families, carers or vulnerable adults. Unsurprisingly, they are generally an older cohort than those on mainstream programmes, with many living locally to their sponsoring employer (Scourfield et al. 2021), and so have family and local connections.

SUSW was intended to bring social work educators and employers together to design a course to produce social workers who were ‘practice ready’ on qualification (Scourfield et al. 2021) and, in so doing, address the criticisms that training lagged behind contemporary practice (Baginsky et al. 2010). SUSW completion rates are higher than other fast-track routes (Preston 2022), perhaps because of trainees’ generally extensive experience (Baginsky and Teague 2013). By 2020, the DfE were funding 700 trainees on the national sixth SUSW cohort.

Presently (July 2023), there are 22 Regional Partnerships working with 142 of England’s 151 local authorities (LAs). The (Health and Social Care Research Unit, King's College London) Regional Partnership where this study took place consists of six LAs and the University of (name). Their training started in January 2020, just before the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared COVID-19 a public health emergency (30 January 2020). Following the UK Prime Minister’s lockdown announcement on 23 March, as with other social work training programmes (see Social Work England (SWE) 2020) there were concerns about how to maintain current programmes in the (Health and Social Care Research Unit, King's College London) SUSW Partnership, with immediate attention to trainees’ imminent first practice placement. As the pandemic continued, the implications for the whole programme were discussed. The nature of such concerns and adjustments has been collated internationally (McFadden et al. 2020), but this paper focuses on the specific context of SUSW as a locally organised collaborative training programme with a generally older and more experienced cohort than other mainstream qualifying routes as well as on these trainees’ views on the lasting impact of this time.

Placements

Social Work England (SWE), the social work regulator in England, requires students on social work qualifying programmes to spend at least 200 days in practice settings, including 30 days devoted to skills development. These placements must be in at least two contrasting practice settings; one ‘providing experience of sufficient numbers of statutory social work tasks involving high risk decision making and legal interventions’ (Social Work England (SWE) 2021, p6) and a final placement of 100 days is to support the transition to qualified practitioner.

The Pandemic’s Impact on Children’s Social Care and on Placements

Within a week of the declaration of a national lockdown around 80% of social workers in England were home working (Baginsky and Manthorpe 2021) and focused on prioritising contact with their most at-risk populations. Perhaps rather dramatically, Archer-Kuhn et al. (2020) described the pandemic as ‘a tsunami that hit social work education’ in Canada, while others have commented on the disruptive impact on practice in their own countries (see, for example, Avancini et al. 2022; Davis and Mirick 2021; Mishra et al. 2022; O’Keeffe et al. 2023). In some sectors the continuation of training programmes was the imperative, in others, students were deployed into frontline or support services of ‘equivalence’ to placements opportunities. This was the case with student nurses working in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) who worked during the pandemic as Aspirant Nurses (Snee 2020). Initially Social Work England (SWE) (2020) stated that student wellbeing, safety and the need for adequate support and supervision should be the primary concern when considering continuing placements. It noted that social work students were recognised by the government as key workers supporting the national response to COVID-19, entitling their children, for instance, to attend nurseries and schools that were generally closed. There was a variety of local practice among universities, with some suspending all social work placements to relieve pressure on those who would have been supporting them on their placements. As the pandemic worsened, SWE worked with social work educators and government departments, as well as the Principal Social Workers’ Network, to implement placement models to minimise virus transmission but enable programmes to continue in a modified form with consequent local variations (see, for example, Gordon et al. 2021).

One SUSW Partnership’s Response to COVID-19

Trainees starting on the SUSW programme in (named) Partnership in January 2020 were due to qualify in Spring 2021. Following a 20-day placement designed to introduce them to social work in LA settings, their 50-day placement had been scheduled to start in April 2020. Members of the (named) Partnership did not want to delay this placement, fearing the impact on trainees, but LAs were unable to offer traditional placements under COVID-19 restrictions and general move to home working. As the SUSW trainees would have been set to work in CSC services on qualification their first placement would normally have offered a contrasting practice experience, usually in the not-for-profit sector. The SUSW programme staff had two options, either to suspend the programme as some other courses did, perhaps enabling trainees to take on pandemic-related work or to provide care for their family or modify placements.

The university managers moved general teaching online, offering more frequent supervision. A series of additional masterclasses, input from guest speakers, and trainee-led activities continued alongside online seminars and lectures to replace the first placement. Trainees were asked to take on more responsibility for their own learning and encouraged to work together to develop aspects of the curriculum that enabled them to evidence learning equivalence to the 50-day placement.

As lockdown restrictions decreased, on-site contact was gradually reintroduced, and the 100-day placement in statutory settings was planned. Trainees started their placements working from home, usually attending the office one day a week. Rather than being temporary, this continued because further restrictions came into force as the second, then third wave of COVID-19 took hold in the UK. Table 1 summarises the programme’s timeline.

Table 1. Timeline for programme.

Dates	Placements	Academic learning	Nation restrictions
Jan. 2020		Introductory modules	None
Feb	20-day introduction
March.			Restrictions start. First lockdown 26^th March
April.	50-day placement	Remote learning and resources for taught modules	Lockdown extended
May.			Lifting of restrictions
June.			Period of local lockdowns
July.		Student led research
August.
Sep.	100-day placement	Remote learning continues	Rule of 6 comes into force
October
Nov.			New three-tier system then Second lockdown
Dec.			Second lockdown ends. Tier 4 comes into force
Jan. 2021			Third lockdown started 6^th Jan.
Feb.
March.		Limited on-site teaching resumes
April			Easing of restrictions
May		Programme finishes

Table 2. Response rates for the three surveys.

Time and survey number	Number of respondents*	Percentages**
T1: Survey 1: May 2021	23	77%
T2: Survey 2: January 2022	19	63%
T3: Survey 3: September 2022	15	50%

*Total cohort was 30 but only 25 agreed to participate

**Percentages are provided on such small numbers to give the reader a useful reference point

Methodology

This longitudinal study was designed to capture and explore the experiences of trainees who had started on one SUSW programme in January 2020, graduated in late Spring 2021 and entered employment. While others have explored the experiences of those undertaking and organising mainstream programmes during COVID-19 (Morris et al. 2020), and those of Newly Qualified Social Workers (NQSWs) (Sen et al. 2023), the experiences of those undertaking a programme such as SUSW have not been addressed nor have their reflections on the impact of this time on their early careers been considered.

The researchers met with the trainees (n = 30) in June 2021, the point when they had qualified and were embarking on their Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE). They explained that the study would last about 18 months and that the trainees would be asked to complete a survey at three time points - in the next month or two (T1), halfway through their ASYE (T2), and 16-18 months after qualifying (T3). In England support for newly qualified social workers (NQSWs) is formalised through the ASYE, a 12-month, employment-based programme including case load protection and more frequent supervision, which starts at weekly, reduces to fortnightly and after six months is monthly (Skills for Care 2022a).

Trainees were asked if they would provide their contact email addresses to (ZZ) who would only use them for distributing the survey; 25 of the 30 did so. If they wished their names would also be entered into a draw for two £50 vouchers. The draw would be made at the end of the project based on the number of responses provided. If someone responded once they would be entered once, if they did twice their name would be entered twice, and similarly if they provided a third response. The survey used the Bristol Online Survey (BOS) platform but, if preferred, a Word version was supplied; respectively six and seven trainees did so for surveys one and two, and two for the third. At the end of surveys one and two respondents were asked to confirm their email or postal addresses and confirm they were content to receive a further survey.

Fourteen social workers completed all three surveys (see Table 1). To maintain confidentiality and protect their anonymity, only ZZ had access to the data, but all authors worked together to reflect on the findings.

Each survey consisted of either eight (T2) or nine questions (T1 and T3). Some asked for factual data such as their current employment status, others asked them to rate, for example, how well prepared they believed they had been on a scale of 1-5. However most required a qualitative response, for example about the elements, if any, they had found helpful. The surveys were adapted to reflect the time they were completed. The one at T1 concentrated on their experiences of a virtual placement while the surveys at T2 and T3 asked them to reflect on how, if at all, their experiences had the impacted on their professional practice. Quantitative data were imported into SPSS and analysed using the descriptive tool purely for convenience because the small numbers involved would not allow the use of statistical tests. Comments were extracted and analysed using inductive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006, 2019). Following familiarisation with the data and initial coding, subcategories were created and the dataset was re-examined and recoded. While it would, of course, have been preferable to have had more responses and so had a more representative sample the response is what probably could realistically be expected from early career professionals working in what is acknowledged to be a pressurised environment. More responses would have added to the richness of the findings but the data have been interpreted transparently, acknowledging the constraints, and so, it is argued, should be understood in relation to an exploratory context.

Ethical approval from the study was obtained from (Health and Social Care Research Unit, King's College London). No ethical dilemmas arose in the course of the study.

No funding was attached to the project other than from (Health and Social Care Research Unit, King's College London) to provide the two vouchers for the draw.

Findings

Entering Employment (T1)

At T1 20 of the 23 who replied from the cohort of 30 were working as social workers in the LAs where they had undertaken their final placement, two in another LA and one was not working as a social worker but intended to do so. The survey asked respondents to record on a five-point scale, where 0 was ‘not at all’ and 5 was ‘very prepared’ how prepared they had been for their last placement and for social work practice. As far as the last 100-day placement was concerned, seven said they were ‘prepared’ (n = 6) or ‘very prepared (n = 1); eight that they had been ‘adequately’ prepared, while another eight had felt ‘not totally’ prepared. In terms of social work practice. nine considered they had been prepared (n = 8) or ‘very prepared’ (n = 1), eight replied they had been adequately prepared, and six that they had ‘not totally’ been prepared for social work practice. Several social workers attributed this to their pre-SUSW experience, recognising that this may not have been so for everyone:

I come from a background where I've worked with families in crisis and with social workers…. I felt confident transferring my skills however if I was less experienced and doing the Step Up course, I probably would have been quite worried or maybe ill-prepared to get started. (SUSW graduate 11)

I think drawing on my previous work experience and qualifications has been invaluable during the course. This enabled me to feel more confident and comfortable working with service users, professionals, and fellow students. (SUSW graduate 3)

Others, such as this social worker, articulated why they did not feel so prepared:

We have done less face-to-face work and not been able to ask people in the office for help. I did feel forgotten about at points by my manager and other social workers during my final placement. (SUSW graduate 13)

These SUSW graduates were asked to identify any particularly helpful elements of their final placement. The most frequently mentioned were the adaptations made so that they could undertake this virtually, an increased level of supervision from their practice educator, an increased number of online training sessions and the sharing of resources across their peer group.

They were also asked to say if, overall, they were positive about their experiences of completing SUSW during the pandemic. Only a minority (n = 7) were positive, referring to taking responsibility for their learning, by focusing on and researching areas of practice where they had a particular interest. This group believed that having to shift to practising virtually had enhanced their ability to be more adaptable and flexible in the ways in which they engaged and worked with families:

I valued the challenge of doing social work in a different context – it took me out of my confidence zone, but I believe it made me a better social worker. (SUSW graduate 8)

However, most (n = 16) did not identify any positive aspects. While they appreciated that it had been the best that could have been achieved, they focused on what they had missed. This included fewer opportunities to develop their skills in direct work, particularly in relation to conducting assessments and writing reports. They regretted the lack of opportunities to learn from experienced social workers by talking about cases and discussing concerns as they arose, as happens in an office environment, some drawing on pre-SUSW experience:

I have worked in children’s services and I know how social workers discuss cases with colleagues when they come back to the office – so we had none of those unloading and unpicking opportunities. (SUSW graduate 5)

The work I did with families had limitations – most of it virtual and, as a result, very limited. I missed the opportunity to just listen how social workers discuss cases, talk with families on the ‘phone, and just rub along. (SUSW graduate 2)

Just under half of respondents had also missed face-to-face lectures:

(I missed) not having the opportunity for free flow discussion, seeing people’s expressions during lectures instead of raising your yellow virtual hand and sometimes being missed. Virtual lectures were at times disjointed, cut short – because they were mindful that we were all staring at a screen, so a two hour lecture was often cut to one hour. (SUSW graduate 10)

Support during placements had come from three sources. There were many positive references to practice educators. The increased contact and enhanced supervision that some had received had been reassuring during this time, as had their university tutors who had adapted teaching and materials for online engagement and for a range of trainee needs:

I also felt that the uni (university) listened to our feedback and responded positively to this; they were never defensive but always willing to learn and make changes to better aid our learning. (SUSW graduate 19)

For some their peers were their most important source of support. As well as contact though online engagement in lectures or webinars, the trainees established a WhatsApp (internet) group to enable contact with each other outside the working day. One described this as having provided ‘moral, practical and wider support that strengthened a sense of solidarity and collaboration’.

Just over a quarter of those responding (n = 5) questioned the wisdom of having continued with the course, expressing uncertainty about what they had gained:

On the one hand I am grateful that course had not been cancelled/postponed with consequences for our careers as well as our ability to pay bills…. but I also feel a whole lot of practice was missed and just brushed over. I felt the university was so desperate to keep the course going they didn’t stop to ask if they should. (SUSW graduate 1)

I shall never feel confident when I say I did the Step Up training – it is a fast track course anyway and we missed out so much. I had to get through it to be qualified but did I know more about social work practice at the end than I did at the start? I don’t think so. (SUSW graduate 6)

The first Year in Practice (T2)

Nineteen of the 23 SUSW graduates who replied to the first survey also responded at T2, which was sent approximately six months into their ASYE year when all, but one, were employed as social workers in CSC. The exception was working as a social worker in another social care setting. Asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 (as above) their opinion of the relevance of their training to their current practice, 15 thought it was relevant or very relevant with four considering it to have been satisfactory. Asked to identify particularly relevant aspects, they most frequently mentioned inputs on child development and attachment; the ethical aspects of decision making; and learning from experienced practitioners in workshops and lectures. However, most (n = 17/23) believed that training and qualifying during COVID-19 had negatively affected their readiness for practice. They regretted not having the usual first placement experience, leaving many feeling they had missed out on opportunities to experience social work beyond CSC. Some felt they had lacked confidence initially because they did not think they had sufficient face-to-face placement experience, and linked this, in part, with the absence of what they regarded as a first real placement, as well as the prominence of virtual or telephone contact with children and families on their 100-day placement. Others made references to further opportunities which they would have had under ‘normal’ circumstances, such as shadowing and learning from experienced social workers. They also identified subjects or skills which they thought had received insufficient attention or where they felt underprepared. While these were linked with the disruptions caused by COVID-19, they recalled their SUSW training as feeling disjointed, with some areas not being covered in sufficient detail. The area most frequently mentioned was analysis linked with assessments and the extent to which topics had been covered theoretically rather than linked with practice:

There has been an assumption in my team that the University taught me how to write various assessments, including viability assessments, complete court paperwork, know which intervention I should be using – but it didn’t. I can only assume this was because of the conditions around COVID. (SUSW graduate 22)

The majority were still feeling less confident than they would have wished in other areas, especially in writing court reports and working with other agencies. They felt they had had fewer opportunities to get to grips with LA operational and technical systems which had left some feeling additionally disempowered early in their ASYE.

Nevertheless, approaching the end of their ASYE all were at least reasonably confident about making decisions, although many recognised that they would need to continue to develop this further. During this first year of practice they felt they had developed skills and increased their confidence about understanding thresholds for interventions, undertaking interventions, conducting assessments, and working directly with children and families. However, many linked these improvements with their pre-course experience, a pre-requisite for SUSW, and doubted that they would be feeling as confident without it.

Two-thirds (12) of respondents continued to believe they were being well supported through their ASYE by regular supervision, protected caseloads and a well-designed programme of support:

My practice manager has been great, really supportive and approachable. I am able to discuss families when I have worries or not sure about processes. I have been given cases with low complexity which has enabled me to understand how things work and gain confidence in being the decision maker. (SUSW graduate 17)

I feel well supported with regular supervision. My practice educator is by my side should I need her advice or support. I have good access to training and shadowing opportunities to extend my learning. (SUSW graduate 14)

The other third who, to varying degrees, felt unsupported referred to changes in the structure of the ASYE programme which either meant they were supervised by someone who was too busy to provide the mentoring they required and/or the ASYE protocol was not being followed in terms of protected caseloads or the complexity of cases they had been allocated. More generally, there were many calls for the ASYE programme to be reviewed, as it did not always appear to be interpreted in terms of career and skills development, but rather was viewed as a monitoring or ‘tick box’ exercise.

The 19 social workers who participated at T2 intended to continue to work as social workers at least for the next three years. While 16 were working in child protection teams, only six saw that as their future. Overall, 12 wanted to move into a different specialism or into the voluntary sector:

I don’t intend to leave Social Work but I want to be in a different role, as I do not believe child protection in a local authority is a healthy role due to the exception that you will work all hours to manage your caseload. (SUSW graduate 6)

Child protection is demanding and so important but support is not in place to make this work for me. I need some predictability around (my) childcare responsibilities and to know that if I need to access support and advice at short notice it will be there. The fact that neither is possible makes it an untenable career option and I shall be looking for a role in a less demanding area of social work – either in statutory or voluntary work. (SUSW graduate 8)

Eighteen Months Post Qualification (T3)

Fifteen social workers responded to the third survey by which time all had completed their ASYE. Thirteen were working with same employer, of whom one had moved to adult services in the same LA.

Reflecting on their first 18 months as qualified practitioners, 14 of the 15 thought their training had been completely or mostly relevant to their current practice, with the one exception judging it as ‘adequate’. Some identified areas which they thought could have been covered more fully, such as direct work with families and opportunities to observe or work with a wider variety of teams, whereas at T1 and T2 their concerns had focused on tasks such as conducting assessments and writing court reports. Areas where they felt their professional practice had developed since qualification were all related to increased confidence in their ability to make and justify decisions and conduct assessments.

Unsurprisingly, many continued to comment on how their experiences had been limited by the pandemic and, while most appeared to have put this behind them, for some it seemed to have cast a shadow over their professional life:

I have found that there has been a significant disadvantage in learning during the pandemic - the impact of missing out on face-to-face learning…. This, I feel, is now coming to light with opportunities that were missed and compromised and being isolated and working virtually for most of the Step Up programme. (SUSW graduate 3)

All but one felt motivated to stay in social work beyond the next two years. However, of the 14 working in child protection only four were planning to remain, with three of these aspiring to be managers. The other ten hoped to move into different areas of social work including looked after children’s teams, adoption and fostering, multiagency safeguarding hubs, and adult social work.

All would recommend SUSW as it had enabled them to make a career change without having to meet training costs, but they stressed the importance of candidates being aware of the programme’s intensity:

I am grateful I was accepted on the programme. It was the support throughout that kept me motivated through the pandemic…. Because of the opportunity I feel loyal to (LA employer) for investing in my development…I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to retrain. (SUSW graduate 9)

It is a great foundation to social work, even if it is full on. It provides key links into local authority to allow practical application of learning and explore employment after the course. (SUSW graduate 17)

Strengths and Limitations

This small longitudinal study captures the experiences of trainees and then graduates of one SUSW programme who trained through the COVID-19 pandemic and as such it is not possible to generalise beyond the context in which it was conducted. The decision was taken to restrict the areas covered so as not to create additional burden during these pressurised times. The value of three surveys, despite the attrition, is that the data were contemporary rather than relying on hindsight. The perspectives of practice educators, ASYE supporters or managers, and quality assurance analysts would have made a useful contribution, as they did to the evaluation of the Advanced Skills Module on some Scottish courses (Gordon et al. 2021). However, the key strength of the study lies in its focus on SUSW trainees during the pandemic and thereafter.

Discussion

This study focussed on a group who differed from others following mainstream social work qualifying programmes. SUSW cohorts are overall older, financially better off or more secure, more experienced, and mostly locally based than mainstream social work students. While their length of placements is the same as mainstream students, they complete their training in just 14 months. Their age, experience and level of financial support may help explain some of the findings of our three surveys and their links with other studies. Díaz-Jiménez et al. (2020), for example, found high rates of anxiety among Spanish social work students in the pandemic, but commented that anxiety symptoms were lower for those who had stable family incomes and high social support from relatives.

While de Jonge, Kloppenburg, and Hendriks (2020) considered remote practice undermines the principles of preparation for practice, others see it as an opportunity to reinforce the role of social workers ‘as agents of change in times of great social and economic turmoil’ (Morris et al. 2020, p. 1129) or, more practically, to be creative in offering information during the pandemic (Zuchowski et al. 2022). Evidence from this SUSW cohort aligns with de Jonge and colleagues’ view. Revised placement arrangements at the start of the pandemic were tolerated as this was a time when services were being substantially disrupted and home working was a sudden necessity. While the compensation of increased supervisory contact was appreciated, respondents regretted having to undertake their longer second placement largely online. This not only curtailed opportunities to conduct direct work, but also to learn from experienced colleagues.

At the point of qualification only a minority thought they had been well prepared for practice, but this resembles general feelings of uncertainty at this time evidenced prior to the pandemic (Baginsky and Manthorpe 2020). They were positive about having been able to complete their training despite the pandemic. Most thought that their practice had developed during their first year of practice and in the six months following, although these developments were usually also attributed to their experiences prior to SUSW. However, Scourfield et al. (2021) caution that, while most of the fast-track students they surveyed who had been in social work practice during the pandemic said these experiences had not affected their intention to stay or leave social work, between five and 23 per cent of their sample (varying across cohorts and SUSW or Frontline) reported that these experiences had made it more likely they would leave (p113). SUSW trainees may seem more capable and resilient than others and, for employers, the speed of their qualifying period may have provided a welcome increase in staffing during the difficulties of recruiting during the pandemic. Like others, SUSW graduates will need support, and may be at risk of being seen more resilient than they feel.

While the majority believed that they were at least adequately prepared to start practice, their experiences over the following 18 months shifted that view of themselves to one of confident practitioners. This reflects both the findings of Joubert (2021) that some social work students thought they were less prepared for statutory social work, which is where this cohort would practice, as well as those of Scourfield et al. (2021) on the trajectory of many early career social workers. While most participants in this study had felt supported during their ASYE, a third had not felt so and far more expressed the view that the ASYE was no longer fulfilling the original intention of providing a protected route into practice. Skills for Care’s (2022b) has highlighted the challenges that employers are facing to protect caseloads of NQSWs or to provide the required development time. This is when demand on services is escalating while capacity to meet it is falling with declining retention rates and staff shortages. Using September 2021 data, the DfE (2022), estimated that the average caseload of a social worker in statutory CSC to be 16.3, although a 2022 Community Care survey found respondents average caseload was 25.6, compared with 23.9 in the previous year’s survey (Preston 2022). While it is important to point out that Community Care’s respondents are a self-selected group, they have reported increased complexity of cases, aggravated by reduced early help and support, as well as the severe consequences of the pandemic on mental health and trauma. McLaughlin et al. (2023) point out that complexity and risk may not always be experienced negatively, the interpretation is closely associated with the support available to practitioners and the culture of organisations.

The overall retention rate of this cohort of SUSW-trained social workers appears to be high but the original intention of SUSW to attract and retain social workers into frontline child protection does not appear to be fully realised. Less than a quarter of those currently in child protection frontline services intended to remain although the figure for the whole cohort on this partnership’s course is unknown as only half responded at T3. However, desires to move from child protection and into other areas of CSC mirror the findings of the longitudinal study of fast-track trainees conducted by Scourfield et al. (2021) as well as McFadden et al.’s (2018) study of conventional training routes where the stress of child protection work was the most frequently cited reason for a move. A survey of two earlier cohorts of SUSW graduates uncovered a similar drift away from child protection services (Baginsky and Manthorpe 2014) where, while the majority intended to stay within social work, those who had opted to change employer or to leave the profession cited high caseloads, as well as poor supervision and team management.

Conclusions

The pandemic introduced new ways of learning and working in social work training. Although most of the cohort surveyed felt disappointed that their placements had been disrupted, they recognised the need to make the most of a challenging situation in a situation of comparative privilege. While this study reflects the decentralisation of SUSW programmes and how one SUSW Partnership adapted to a challenging, unpredictable environment it highlights the value placed by SUSW trainees on face-to-face interactions with peers, lecturers, practice educators and the wider social work team in practice. This study also reveals concerns about elements of the ASYE programme, and for SUSW social workers the possible greater risk that they were seen as more ‘ready to practice’ than they felt comfortable with, so heightening stress and increasing desires to move from the pressures of child protection work. The study also suggests the need for a closer examination of any elements of remote and virtual training that were introduced during the pandemic but which have been adopted as ‘normal practice’ and the impact on trainees and graduates.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).