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Loading …The Department for Education (DfE) is to give an update on its policy on early career support for children’s social workers next month.
DfE officials are delivering a session on the issue as part of Social Work Week, Social Work England’s annual programme of online learning for professionals.
James O’Donoghue and Jim Magee, respectively, deputy director and assistant director, social work workforce, will share the department’s plans to improve training and support for children’s practitioners early in their career, and beyond, in the context of wider children’s social care reform.
Clarity on future of early career framework
This will likely clarify the future of the early career framework (ECF), the system of learning and development for council children’s social workers in their first five years of practice proposed by the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, in its 2022 report.
The last Conservative government took up the idea in its 2023 Stable Homes, Built on Love strategy and selected eight local authorities or children’s trusts as “early adopters” to help develop and then test the idea.
What is the ECF?
According to Stable Homes, Built on Love, the ECF would provide newly qualified local authority children’s social workers with two years of “high-quality support and development” that would replace the existing 12-month assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) in children’s services.
In years three to five of the ECF, social workers would be supported to become “expert practitioners”, to create “a cohort of highly trained social workers capable of dealing with the most complex cases and spreading best practice”.
It also appointed an expert writing group to produce the knowledge and skills framework underlying the ECF.
End of ECF early adopters programme
In March 2024, the DfE issued a callout for a second group of early adopters, but did not report back on whether any had been selected.
East Sussex County Council, which was selected to test the model in 2023, said it finished doing so in September 2024, “when the early adopter funding ceased following the change in government”.
Despite the current Labour government having taken forward many of the policies in Stable Homes, Built on Love, and set out further reforms of its own to children’s services, it has not provided any update on the ECF since taking power in July 2024.
‘A very positive process’
A spokesperson for East Sussex said: “We understand that the work achieved through the early adopter initiative is being used to inform the DfE’s programme going forward.
“We found being part of the ECF early adopter programme to be a very positive process. In particular it enabled us to develop an emotional informed support framework, focused on working with newly qualified social workers about the emotional impact of their work with children and families. This has improved individual wellbeing and resilience and created safer practice.”
Social Work Week
Social Work Week, which runs from 17 to 21 March 2025, is a free programme of events on social work, with other sessions this year covering topics including the future of the profession, artificial intelligence, retention, fitness to practise and social work’s public image.
You can book tickets for individual sessions now.
