Transcript Slide 1

Spring 2012
we’re helping you
make social work
reform a reality
NOPT conference July ‘12
NOPT Conference
Practice Educator Professional
Standards (PEPS)
and
Holistic Assessment
Background and Update
 PEPS developed with the social work sector over the
last 4/5 years; endorsed by the Social Work Reform
Board (July 2011)
 Stewardship passed to the TCSW in November 2011
 FAQs developed through queries and engagement
 Final guidance statement presented to TCSW
Education Advisory Implementation Group (end of
April) published in June.
 Links to other practice learning resources on TCSW
website
Status and ownership
 Health Professions Council will register social workers
who meet their ‘Standards of Proficiency for Social
Work’. These are threshold standards for safe and
effective practice.
 TCSW will own these more extensive expectations for
practice learning and they will become part of the
criteria for TCSW’s endorsement of initial social work
courses.
 Endorsement will support and supplement the
regulatory function of accreditation, carried out by the
HPC. It will not be a formal requirement, but as the
HPC expects programmes to reflect the requirements of
their professional body, the easiest way of
demonstrating this will be through endorsement.
Common queries - the last placement
Does the practice supervisor need to be a RSW?
 Placement criteria for statutory interventions: where
the practice educator is not on-site, the student will
work alongside a social worker who must be in a post
requiring registration.
 Normally the placement supervisor (RSW),
 In exceptional circumstances, where this cannot be
provided, the student must have the additional
support of working alongside a social worker in a post
requiring social work registration in order to
undertake the required statutory tasks
 Students should not be the sole social work
representative in a setting
Maintaining currency
PEs can maintain currency through:
 taking full responsibility for a SW student at least
every two years; in line with HPC’s re-registration
requirements, record role within ‘scope of practice’
 taking responsibility for one student and one other
professional social work learner (e.g. NQSWs or
trainee AMHPs) assessed against the PCF during a
three year period.
 Taking an active, ongoing role in practice education
 Partnerships of employers and HEIs need to be
satisfied that the PE is capable of meeting the
standards and ‘keeping up to date’.
Assessment and direct observation
 PEs should be directly observed teaching,
assessing and supervising student social
workers.
 Provide additional evidence by September
2015, if required, to meet the revised
guidance
 The final assessment of the PE needs to be
made jointly by employer and HEI
representatives
Implementing the Practice Educator
Professional Standards
Equivalent existing qualifications
 Practice Teacher Award
 Higher Specialist Awards in practice education (that meet PEPS
assessment requirements)
Developing pathways for Stage 1 and Stage 2





Refresher programmes
Top Up programmes
In house or HEI routes
Options for academic accreditation
Links to developing assessors and supervisors for NQSWs in
preparation for ASYE
Requirements for on and off site practice educators
2012/13
2013/14
2014/15
2015/16
Placement 1/2
Normally Practice
Educator and/or working
towards Stage 1.
First Placement:
Practice Educator
(ideally RSW*)
Stage 1 or 2
Non-RSWs may continue
to practice
First Placement:
Practice Educator (ideally
RSW*)
Stage 1 or 2
Non-RSWs may continue
to practice
First Placement:
Practice Educator (RSW)
Stage 1 or 2
Non-RSWs no longer able
to assess students but
may able to be placement
supervisors ( see section
8)
Final Placement
Normally Practice
Educator (RSW) and/or
working towards Stage 2
Last Placement:
Practice Educator (RSW)
Stage 2
Last Placement:
Practice Educator (RSW)
Stage 2
Last Placement:
Practice Educator (RSW)
Stage 2
Off-site Practice
Educators (working
with Practice
Supervisors)
Normally Practice
Educator (RSW) and/or
working towards Stage 2
Any Placement:
Practice Educator (RSW)
Stage 2
Any Placement:
Practice Educator (RSW)
Stage 2
Any Placement:
Practice Educator (RSW)
Stage 2
Current social work
degree requirements[1]
(and working towards
new standards)
New PEPS
(& transitional
arrangements for nonRSWs at Stage 1)
New PEPS
(& transitional
arrangements for nonRSWs at Stage 1)
Practice Educator
Professional Standards
Consistency and pragmatism
‘high quality placements are supervised and
assessed by practice educators who meet
nationally agreed benchmark standards. …
these will achieve greater consistency in the
content, quality and outcomes of courses so
that everyone can have confidence that social
workers are the best prepared they can be to
start work.’
Building a safe and confident future: Maintaining momentum Progress report from the Social Work Reform Board (p 30 )
The Professional Capabilities Framework
• Will be the sole framework for professional development
in SW, owned by TCSW
• Provides comprehensive framework for professional
development across all areas of SW practice regardless
of setting/user focus
• Shows and enables progression through career levels
(e.g. risk, complexity, efficacy)
• Based on capability rather than competence
• Moves focus in practice learning from collection of
evidence to assessment of professional capability
• Role of practice educator more important
in terms of making professional decisions
about capability
Competence-based assessment may:
• Fragment knowledge
• Provide partial evidence across competencies that is
often descriptive
• Not give a sense of the work with the service user
• Not give a sense of progress
• Mean that a disproportionate amount of time is spent
on gathering pieces of evidence
• Impede analytical understanding of professional
roles, responsibilities and the process
McNay M, Clarke J, Lovelock R, The Journey towards Professionalism in Social Work: Conference paper JSWEC 2010
Assessment using the PCF
 PCF articulates and exemplifies complexity and
interdependency of skills, knowledge and values
 ‘the nine capabilities should be seen as interdependent, not
separate: they interact in professional practice, so there are
overlaps between the capabilities, and many issues will be
relevant to more than one capability. Moreover, understanding
what a social worker does can only be complete by taking into
account all nine capabilities.’
TCSW May 2012
Holistic Assessment
1.
Assessment is progressive over a period of time (e.g.
initial qualifying placement, ASYE), leading to
effective summative assessment.
2.
Assessment must be consistent with the appropriate
PCF level descriptor, and include sufficiency, range
and depth of evidence across all nine domains.
3.
Individual capability statements will be important in
terms of providing detail of expectations for each
domain, and particularly significant to identify gaps,
areas of development or concerns.
Holistic Assessment
4.
The assessment process and judgement must be
trustworthy, reliable and transparent (e.g. include clear
guidance in handbooks, be undertaken by
professionals with appropriate knowledge and skills,
include triangulated evidence, audit trails)
5.
Evidence must include the ability to reflect critically,
including reference to different sources of knowledge
and research.
6.
The learner will contribute evidence for assessment but
the professional judgement of sufficiency must be
made by a registered social worker (at initial qualifying
level assessors must meet the PEPS).
Minimum basis for robust judgements
– not new but refreshed!
 observations of a range of examples of
practice
 in different settings
 by different observers
 over the period of ASYE
 recommendation by registered social worker
informed by Knight (2006)
Guidance materials to support holistic
assessment (TCSW and Skills for
Care)
 understanding what is meant by holistic assessment
http://www.collegeofsocialwork.org/uploadedFiles/Th
eCollege/_CollegeLibrary/Reform_resources/holisticassessmentASYE1.pdf
 principles for critical reflection
 principles for involvement of people who use services
and carers
Guidance materials to support holistic
assessment at ASYE (TCSW and Skills
for Care in partnership)




assessment report template
examples of completed assessment reports
direct observation template
case studies across Adults and Children’s
demonstrating holistic assessment, process and
standard to be reached.
www.skillsforcare.org.uk
www.skillsforcare.org.uk