How do we strengthen our social work organisations? New Research in Practice resources explore effective recruitment, retention and resilience.
Recruiting and retaining experienced social workers is a key priority for children’s and adult social care.
An important factor in supporting social workers is organisational culture. A new briefing explores how organisations can retain social workers by strengthening peer relationships, creating opportunities for career progression and providing professional development. It contains practical information, ideas and examples.
A Practice Tool and video series explore how professional identity develops over time and how organisations can make best use of their accumulated skills and knowledge.
'For younger social workers... it only takes two or three cases to go over a cliff … without the right support people just become isolated..'
The resources have been released as part of a Research in Practice campaign exploring organisational resilience, retention and assurance.
These are all available on our dedicated campaign page and can be used to support organisations. It is important to consider how we can support social workers both personally and professionally to strengthen recruitment, retention and resilience.
Organisational culture and support have an important impact on retention within social work. This briefing explores how organisations can retain social workers by strengthening peer relationships and providing opportunities for career progression and ongoing professional development.
Retaining experienced social workers is a long-standing issue for the profession. This interactive tool explores what sustains experienced social workers to continue in role, how professional identity develops over time and how organisations can make best use of their skills and knowledge.
Dr Laura Cook presents findings from a recent research study capturing the voices of experienced social workers.
Social pedagogy encourages practitioners to see any daily life situation as a potential learning opportunity. However with increasing caseloads what can we do to prevent burnout? Chantahl Rodwell explores the literature around measuring social work caseloads.
Building organisational resilience, retention and assurance
Resilience is sometimes misinterpreted as meaning an individual’s ability to cope, instead of looking at the features and conditions of the system in which people can thrive.
The challenging landscape currently facing children’s and adults’ services requires a wide perspective that considers what it means to build a resilient system.
These resources consider how we can build resilience, retention and assurance within our organisations.
Claire Williams, a Research and Development Officer at Research in Practice delves into materials and resources on organisational resilience and wellbeing and how they can be used in practice.
This blog by Dyfrig Williams provides an introduction to videos and that consider building resilient systems.
These videos take a strategic lens to explore what a resilient system looks and feels like for the workforce and for people accessing support, and the role that inspection, regulation and marketisation can play on system resilience.
These resources have been designed for leaders across social care and others looking to understand more about Care Quality Commission (CQC) assurance.
