Introduction

Social work education and training provides a gateway to an extraordinary profession that can change lives. This chapter identifies seven questions that have shaped educational approaches since 1970 in the light of changing contexts and considers key challenges affecting social work education now, before suggesting some future directions, priorities and risks. While this chapter addresses the whole of the UK, developments in England are discussed more fully, with comparisons made wherever possible across the four nations.

Background and changing contexts

Views on how to prepare social work students and trainees appropriately have been subject to contention, change (Bamford, 2015) and political, regulatory and higher education influences. Societal expectations of social workers and public perceptions of the profession expressed in the media have also shifted over time, influenced by crises or tragedies, such as the death of Peter Connelly (‘Baby P’) reported in 2008, and consequent reports, recommendations and legal changes.

Changing governmental policy positions regarding the profession have influenced education decisions, such as the 1995 separation of probation from social work training for England and Wales, and organisational systems, such as employment arrangements for health service social workers; increased outsourcing of services to the private, voluntary and independent sectors; and divided responsibility for social work between different government departments – currently the Department for Education (DfE) and the Department of Health and Social Care. Preparing social workers for different role descriptions and multiple employers has required considerable adaptation by education providers. Devolution across the UK since 1998 has resulted in further, separate, and not uniform, development (Smith, 2008) and increased divergence in social work practice and education, particularly in England.

Significant regulatory changes have occurred since the 1970 establishment of the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW) as the UK-wide regulator (see Chapter 3). From 2001, Care Councils in England (General Social Care Council, GSCC), Scotland (Scottish Social Services Council, SSSC), Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Social Care Council, NISCC) and Wales (Care Council for Wales, CCW, later Social Care Wales, SCW) established separate qualification frameworks. After GSCC's closure in 2012, England's regulatory arrangements underwent further change, transferring first to the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC) and then in December 2019 to Social Work England (SWE).