Once you have started on the path to a career in social work, your studying days are not over, however. Every local authority and the General Social Care Council, plus its equivalent bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, insist that social workers continue their training by regularly attending conferences and seminars. Sometimes these events will introduce new topics or research findings and on other occasions, it might just be going over old ground in an area that the social worker has not dealt with for a long time. After all, a social worker that has spent ten years working with children and then decides to switch to working with the elderly might have forgotten all the important information and advice they picked up at university, unless they attended regular ongoing training.

GSCC Requirements

As part of your registration with the General Social Care Council, all qualified social workers are required to take 15 days of training every three years. At the moment, the decision about what kind of training this involves is taken jointly by the social worker and their boss. Continued development in the workplace is also a good idea if you want to make a career out of social work, perhaps take on a more senior or even a management position. Maybe you would like to go into training yourself, in which case keeping up to date with the latest research and techniques is essential. As well as attending the required training courses, may social workers keep abreast of news in their industry by reading magazines such as Community Care or The New Social Worker which both feature articles written by experts on the new developments in the profession.

Social Work Career Path

From your initial role as a probationary social worker, it is possible to progress up the career path relatively quickly. This may seem like a frightening prospect; taking on more responsibility when you have only just graduated, but there are always more senior social workers in your department who can support you and help answer any questions. Social workers may choose to go into management. This would mean that they no longer deal with their own cases, but manage the workload of the office and supervise the activities of the social workers under them. This might not be for you, if your reason for getting involved in the profession was to get your hands dirty helping people! There are senior social workers in every department and those who act as mentors to new graduates, all of which requires patience and understanding, as social work can be a very demanding career to someone just starting out.
 

Welcome to Social Service Work

SocialServiceWork.com is dedicated to providing you with the latest news and information for the Social Care Sector.

The Social Care Sector covers all the occupations whose aim is to help people overcome difficulties related to physical, mental, environmental or lifestyle problems at any stage in their lives. It includes staff in both professional and non-professional roles who support vulnerable people living in the community and in residential care.

For an overview, see the Care Quality Commission (CQC) website. Social care is high on the Government’s agenda, with a focus on the integration of health, social care and education to reflect the overlap between these areas of life.

The sector has previously suffered from a negative image, with high vacancy and staff turnover rates in some areas and high profile child abuse cases bringing it under public scrutiny.

Coupled with this was a lack of recognition for what social workers do. The Care Standards Act 2000 changed this with the introduction of a social work degree and social workers’ register. This act and other relevant legislation, such as the Children Act 2004 and the Mental Health Act 2007, can be found on the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) website.

Please watch the video below as this gives you a better understanding and advantages of being a Social Worker.

 
SocialServiceWork.com offers the latest news and career information about social care jobs, social work jobs, and care jobs. Social care jobs span a very broad section of the jobs industry, from social services jobs, mental health jobs, learning disabilities jobs, nursing jobs in the community and social worker jobs.

Further, we hope that SocialServiceWork.com acts as a spring-board from which further career information and social work courses details can be found. In our social work careers area we offer career advice, jobseeking help and tips.

We want SocialServiceWork.com to offer all of our users an easy to use website experience and a one stop shop for all your needs to help you either find work or develop your knowledge within the social care sector.

We endeavour to keep SocialServiceWork.com up to date with all the latest news and information. If you think something should be added to the site or you have any other query, please Contact Us as we would love to hear from you.

Thanks for visiting and hope you enjoy SocialServiceWork.com
 

 
You can choose whether or not to specialise in a particular area of social work by completing a post-graduate qualification. For anyone considering a career in social work, check out the Student area to understand how you can qualify as one in the first place.

A social worker may find themselves working in the community with people who have a wide range of problems that affect their lives. The primary role of the social worker is to help people overcome their difficulties and to live a better quality of life. It can be any one of a wide range of difficulties that reduce an individual’s quality if life from mental health problems to learning disabilities or old age, or a combination of all three.

When you get your first social worker job, you could be working with clients suffering with any kind of condition and at any stage in their life. If you’re more interested in children and young adults you might end up working for youth services helping teenagers who have had a difficult childhood to mature into fully functioning adults. If you’re interested in care of the elderly you could work with people living in the community who want to stay at home as long as possible by using additional services, which are arranged by you their social worker.

Whichever area you find yourself drawn to, there are postgraduate professional development courses that can enhance your knowledge and understanding of a particular specialism in social work. Below we look at few of the advanced social worker specialisms you can pursue.

Advanced Social Worker with Young Children and their Families and Carers

The most common professional development qualification is an MA / MSc in Advanced Social Work, and in this case the specialism would be children, young people and their families and carers. You will usually study full or part time for 1 or 2 days a week as you continue in your social work job. It’s essential that your employer supports you in your professional development because you will be required to produce evidence of certain competencies from your work, and be able to attend your course during the week

The course will expand your skill base and develop best practice working procedures to ensure better outcomes for vulnerable children and their families. As a social work practitioner during this course you will be able to strengthen your social work knowledge, gain further experience working with children and families and critically evaluate that experience. Once qualified as an advanced social work practitioner you will be able to draw on your recently gained knowledge of case studies and best practice policies in order to provide a better service for the children and adults you will be working with.

Most universities run this course, or one similar that is focussed around children and their families. Wherever you chose to study, you can be assured that your skills as a social worker to affect the lives of children and young people for the better will become more advanced and effective.

Advanced Social Worker Specialising in Rehabilitation

As with many postgraduate social work qualifications, this course also allows successful candidates to register for GSCC higher level registration. Full time attendance is available, which is 2 days per week and means you could complete the course in just one year. Part time attendance is also available at 1 day per week and you can take up to 5 years to complete it.

As with most advanced social worker courses, assessment is based on case study reporting and presentations. On this course the core modules of study include competence in higher specialist social work, critical practice in rehabilitation and research methods. There a total of 6 core modules and one optional module to complete. Optional modules consist of substance misuse, domestic violence and abuse, adulthood development, legal and ethical policy framework, issues facing the ageing population and participation & choice.

As with all professional development courses, but particularly as a social worker, you will also develop your leadership skills, your ability to critically evaluate and the implications of your own practice on the delivery of person-centered rehabilitation.

Advanced Social Worker Specialising in Social Work Practice Education

This particular pathway is offered by the University of Greenwich, and can either result in a PGDip qualification if you complete 120 credits, or you could go on to achieve the MA by completing an additional 60 credits. The pathway specialising in social work practice education combines core modules that every advanced social work practitioner will study, and specific modules that relate to this specialism.

You will study part time for up to 4 years if you’re going for the MA or up to 3 if you’re doing the PGDip, and the course will be assessed through coursework and professional practice. The course specific modules include learning, teaching and assessing, course design and evaluation, and practice teacher. They are designed to ensure that once completed you are a more advanced social work practitioner able to support, mentor and manage other qualified social workers in your team.

The Benefits of Becoming a Higher Level Social Work Practitioner

Most, if not all, advanced social worker courses will give you the chance to register as a higher level practitioner with the GSCC and apply for more senior social worker jobs. Senior social workers can earn around £33,000 – £36,000 per year, but as you progress further in your career you could become a lead practitioner and earn upwards of £45,000 per year.

There are opportunities for senior social workers in both private and public sector organisations. Private sector companies tend to be recruitment agencies that are recruiting for senior social workers to be placed within local authority or healthcare settings.