Notes-Of-The-ASYE-Best-Practice-Forum-25-2-15

Notes of the ASYE best practice forum 25.2.15

The following people / organisations attended the forum

No. / Name / Organisation / Name / Organisation
1 / Alix Walton / RHUL / 26 / Livia Horsham / Sutton
2 / Ann Davis / Tower Hamlets / 27 / Lorna Fitzpatrick / Haringey
3 / Colette Ham / Havering / 28 / Maria Ahmed / Bexley
4 / Darlene Lamont / London South Bank uni / 29 / Marianne Ecker / Haringey
5 / Dawn Green / Haringey / 30 / Michael Clark / Achieving for Children
6 / Debbie Blackshaw / CAFCASS / 31 / Mitzi Rampersad / Barnardos
7 / Dee Tracey / Lambeth / 32 / Moira Donovan / independent
8 / Donna Kaufman / Hestia / 33 / Morag Currie / Hampshire
9 / Douglas Maitland Jones / Enfield / 34 / Nancy Platt / Medway
10 / Erica O'Rourke / PACT / 35 / Nasreen Hammond / Hackney
11 / Glynis Marsh / Southampton / 36 / Nimal Jude / Southwark
12 / Heidi Rossetter / Islington / 37 / Pat Awcock / West Sussex
13 / Ingrid Perkins / Enfield / 38 / Paul Lawrence / Merton
14 / Jacqueline Sale / Hampshire / 39 / Peter Morales / West Berkshire
15 / Jan Nayeem / DfE / 40 / Sally Cairns / Berkshire NHS
16 / Jane Matthew Byrne / Sutton / 41 / Sarah LeMay / Norwood
17 / Jane Royes / Tri borough / 42 / Shamli Clare / Ealing
18 / Jennifer Orgill / Lambeth / 43 / Sharon Atherton / independent
19 / Jo Standley / East Sussex / 44 / Sharon Scott / Lewisham
20 / Jonathan Buckeridge / Lewisham / 45 / Sue Conn / Harrow
21 / Karen Baird / East Sussex / 46 / Teresa Reid / Newham
22 / Katherine Sims / Hampshire / 47 / Tina Baker / Wandsworth
23 / Khadijah Frischauer / Waltham Forest / 48 / Tineke March / Oxfordshire
24 / KirenKhuttan / Reading / 49 / Toni Mitchell / NSPCC
25 / Laura Humes / DfE / 50 / Vivien Bush / Care UK

The following Skills for Care staff were also in attendance: Mary Keating, Ali Rusbridge, Rachel Reid, Caroline Munro, Linda MacEachen, Margaret Sharpeand Laura Anthony

Update from DfE

Laura Humesgave a DfE update on Children’s ASYE:

Cohort 3 - 2473 NQSWs registered so far
Cohort 2 completed - closes on 4th March
Announcement expected soon on the successful tender applicant who will offer support to employers around assessment against KSS
Tender for developing an assessment and accreditation framework will also be announced by the end of March
Deadline for teaching partnerships early adopters is next Monday
Cohort 4 – decision with ministers at present re: funding
The Children’s workforce report has just been published

For any questions e-mail

Updates from Skills for Care

a)Update on NQSW registration numbers – Mary Keating gave the following update – see detail in slides

1208 actually registered out of 1700 predicted
2nd milestone amounts being calculated now – some LAs haven’t submitted signed grant letters - this is needed before the final allocations can be calculated – request to return signed grant letter asap if not already done.
Number of NQSWs in PVI sector increasing
Lon and SE has about ¼ of all NQSWs in England
Funding to support NQSWs for the next financial year is not yet confirmed by DH
Anybody starting after the end of January and before April can be claimed for next year and registered on the portal after 1st April and do the old framework
After the 1 April all NQSWs must do the KSS in addition to PCF

b)Update on the development of the Adults Knowledge and Skills Statement (KSS) – Mary Keating explained:

It is currently with ministers for agreement and it is hoped that it will be published by mid-March.
The review of the PCF will report in the summer and will involve working groups of social workers from different levels and sectors. It aims to align the PCF with the KSS statements and other things included like adoption and fostering, substance misuse and Care Act
The adults KSS will be a statement to be used for all social workers at the end of ASYE regardless of where they are working. Skills for Care will be writing guidance on this.
There will be greater emphasis on the Care Act & skills and knowledge needed for the Mental Capacity Act and DoL.
The KSS includes recommendations for the assessment of ASYE to include: 3 direct observations, 3 pieces of feedback from people in receit of care and support, 3 pieces of feedback from other professionals and 1 piece of reflective feedback.
The KSS will also include guidance on moderation to ensure greater consistency.
Holistic assessment criteria and guidance will map to the PCF and KSS.
Validation will be done by the College of Social Work TCSW – through an endorsement scheme. Employers or partnerships can show they are meeting the requirements if they use the suggested paperwork and have internal and external partnership moderation which follows the guidance given. TCSW will do annual monitoring. No charge planned for the validation process. None of this is mandatory – but is highly recommended

c)Feedback from work being done to ensure national consistency of ASYE.

Alix Walton, Jane Lindsay and Tineke March have represented LSE on the national working group. Drafts of all the proposals have been circulated widely and comments fed back. The new arrangements will be launched at the national events (London is March 17th) Alix reported that:

Everything has been agreed and final editing is currently being done
Finished documents are based on a consensus but there is not total agreement, but hopefully it is not significantly different from what people are currently doing in Lon and SE (it is very similar to what many London sub areas are currently doing)
Requirements are a minimum – you can do more
The Record of Support and Progressive Assessment flows much better and joins up what were separate documents before – people have fed back that they like it better.
The critical reflection log allows for progressive reflection on both feedback given and case work
For moderation it is expected that all organisations must have an internal moderation process with all decisions scrutinised by a second person – who is a registered social worker and with the involvement of the PSW / senior manager.
External moderation – the model favoured to date is to have a national representative panel – this model relies on everyone being involved in partnership level moderation which will randomly sample a 10-15% sample of all NQSWs

Record of table discussionson implementing the changes

Tables were asked to discuss how they would prepare for the implementation of the changes and whether changes would be needed. Points raised are summarised below under headings:

a)How / when will assessment changes be made – what needs doing

The changes will require an action plan to include:
Update paperwork and handbook
Update the policy
meet with senior management to sign off changes
Partnership meetings to agree minimum standards
Organise launch event and briefing sessions for managers and assessors

What are the implications of not using the Skills for Care paperwork - if it’s just a benchmark and not mandatory how will not using the paperwork affect college validation? – It will not affect college validation but the criteria for endorsement will still need to be met.
Current variation in number of direct observations required for those only asking for 1 currently - this is a big increase. Others ask for 4 and want to keep to that
Is the paperwork fit for purpose?

b)Will changes be needed to strengthen internal moderation?

Are all decisions scrutinised /evidence reviewed by a 2nd person?
Who are the reviewers – registered social workers?
How are the PSW / senior manager involved?

Some internal moderation panels meet 3 times per year others twice.
For some not all involved in internal moderation are social workers – is scrutinisation by registered social worker professional snobbery?
Many feel internal moderation is working very well and won’t need to be changed – involvement of e.g. the PSW has raised their understanding of the work involved in ASYE and enabled issues such as poor assessment practice to be seen and dealt with
Some LAs have developed QA tools for internal moderation – could some of the existing good practice be made available to all?
There may need to be more assessment of the capabilities of the reviewers

c)What may be needed to ensure consistency of partnership moderation?

10-15% sample? (what is looked at now?)
Random sampling (is this used now?)
Should there be limits to partnership size?
How to get everyone involved in a partnership?

Those who’ve been actively involved in partnership moderation are very keen on it as it creates a useful dialogue – many felt that the current systems were working very well and wouldn’t need much change.
Currently not all involved in external partnership moderation are social workers – does that matter?
Independent assessors - some are currently making up their own paperwork in the PVI (using a similar model to what they use for students)
Not all PVI organisations are part of a partnership with very few involved in external moderation at the moment - not all PVIs may want to link to a partnership – who funds their involvement? What about nationals which partnership do they join? – would a standalone 3rd sector group be worth considering?
Sampling of 15% is a lot for those with large numbers and probably not achievable without a great deal of extra time given to moderation – 10% considered more realistic. A range of between 10-15% may work better as you can’t have 15% if a small cohort (e.g. 1 NQSW) or a very big cohort. Partnerships should be able to decide for themselves what is manageable
Should it be random or a selection of e.g. 2 or 3 from each agency – both have benefits but random sampling doesn’t allow for assessing the extremes – very good / very poor – it’s really useful to look at weaker candidates in comparison to stronger.
Most thought that all failing or failed should go to external moderation
Currently partnership moderation operates differently e.g. in terms of: what is looked at – some look at everything each time, some choose to focus on different elements e.g. direct observations, some create exemplars of good / not so good, some have an independent chair, some involve PSWs in partnership moderation as well as internal. As there are so many models – could some be shared / best practice identified?
What might the implication of teaching partnerships be on ASYE partnerships? Could it lead to two different levels of partnership?
Some LAs are not currently in a partnership for moderation and this will be a challenge – they may need to join two partnerships together for a new moderation partnership.
Suggested minimum for partnership is 2 employers who have significant number of NQSWs – expectation is NOT one employer and one university
Need clarification about what is a partnership – how does the best practice forum fit in?
Some felt strongly that everyone should join a partnership – others wondered how this could be made mandatory?
Number of NQSWs in an organisation determines the type of programme run and partnership arrangements.

d)Will children’s use this as well as adults?

This is best practice for those in both children’s and adults
Concern about how to continue to share paperwork etc across both when there are now differences – don’t have the resource to run 2 separate programmes.
Confusion between children’s and adults and what is expected for children’s – but felt whilst in transition can’t see why wouldn’t use the adult framework
Some LAs children’s don’t want the additional expectations and so will stay with the current system which is different from adults – driven more by internal managers
Consistency isn’t helped by things like the portals operating differently / opening and closing at different times – could they be aligned?

e)General discussions on improving assessment

To improve quality line managers should be assessors - best practice but issues with them leaving, sickness & managers may not be social workers.
Many felt that everyone who is an assessor should meet the practice development educator standards and there should be more training needs analysis for assessors – including self-assessment tools. TCSW endorsement process will look at how the organisation checks assessor competency.
Action learning sets for NQSWs and assessors can really help to build in resilience and support reflective practice
Developing a learning culture in organisations is essential
Creating systems for assessors like a spreadsheet of all deadlines really helps as does sending out good practice assessment examples for them to see

Ideally assessors should be observed in supervision and you could use something like for PEPs to give feedback
Some LAs pay assessors £500

Feedback from groups and general discussion:

How to ensure 3rd sector organisations are in partnerships either with each other or in local partnerships – this needs further discussion
Change is overwhelming for managers and support would be appreciated to communicate it.Mary suggested Skills for Care produce an infographic to show to managers – this idea was welcomed
Managers find it very difficult to address challenging areas of the NQSWs practice and this is an area where ongoing training is needed
There is a lot of anxiety about what happens when they fail. For Children’s 7 out of over 1000 for cohort 1 failed (does not include drop outs). Adults cohort 2 – 2 fails and 216 left jobs out of 1056 –request to find out where they went and why they left and if any of the fails went on to legal challenge. Agreed to discuss this at next forum along with further discussion on assessing and developing assessor competence.

Record of table discussions on how children’s are assessing the KSS / how its linked to ASYE and whether this can be applied to adults

The KSS assessment should be transferred onto the PDP and kept simple
Need further clarify about how the KSS maps to the PCF and the reflective account – that’ll make it easier for employers to see what changes they need to make – is this being done with the children’s KSS?
NQSWs need to be able to better evaluate how training impacts in their practice – assessors need to be able to evaluate this too.
Need to test the assessor’s ability to make the assessment (being PEP qualified isn’t always sufficient) assessors will need to get trained on the KSS – more support needed for assessors / managers
Suggested mapping learning needs through the PDP to the KSS and PCF and identifying how the developing knowledge and skills can be assessed through e.g. direct observations, feedback etc.
Develop handbook for induction applicable to both adults and children’s including the KSS for each.
Check training programmes to ensure they are mapped to KSS
Some asking NQSW to do self-assessment on their own and some asking them to do it with their assessor
Useful to do self-assessment at start when assessor doesn’t know NQSW as it’s an opportunity to share knowledge and skills – can then be reviewed at the key ASYE review stages.

Could self-evaluation tools be shared / developed – good to have some to avoid people having to recreate the wheel – but concern if move to one size fits all. They can also be used to skill up social workers.
To keep social workers and stop them leaving can’t make all this assessment too difficult – should be proportionate and sufficient
It is possible to do it using the same methods across adults and children’s and link clearly to ASYE assessment (link PCF and KSS) without too much difficulty
Request for current models / exemplars to be made available and develop templates and exemplars ready for adults – combining the best of the current examples / develop case studies for best practice.

Models currently being used were shared:

a)Islington model – Rating by NQSW (self-assessment)at start of programme and learning needs identified and put in professional development plan. Assessment at 6 and 12 months

b)NE London - Adjusted Islington model by introducing the line manager into the assessment process.

c)Southampton – rolling programme includes

KSS in induction and handbook
Induction session for managers includes KSS
Learning programme checked to ensure it reflects KSS
3 critical assessment assignments template adjusted.
Support needed for practice assessors and managers

d)Oxfordshire–based on form developed by Enfield. KSS each listed and NQSW rag rates each, citing evidence. Self-Assessment brought to supervision. RAG ratings then change as develop

e)Wandsworth - Scenario based exercise used as part of recruitment process amended to ensure in written responses applicant can demonstrate evidence of KSS. Idea is to apply across all social work recruitment in future for C F approved practitioner.

Questions about the proposed assessment of KSS for children’s

Questions were raised about the assessment including:

How employer led has this been?
How does any test fit with reflective practice?
What will be in it?
What support will there be for people with dyslexia?
What is in the contract about the requirements of the organisation contracted – will they understand social work?
What skills and knowledge will assessors need in order to be able to prepare NQSWs for the test?
What are the core theories that the test will cover?
How will specialisms be addressed in the test? Will this be a different arrangement for the pilot as opposed to implementation after the pilot?
What happens if an NQSW fails the test?
What format will the test be?

Laura said that no decisions about what the test would look like have been made as the contractor is not appointed yet. The contract specification around the requirements was quite detailed and is available. There was a request that the contractor be invited to the next Best Practice Forum or that DfE report back.

Some said they wanted to protest about the test proposals and were asked to e-mail concernsto

Third sector organisations asked for clarification about which KSS they should use if working with both children and families. It was clarified that they can choose –although if it is a children’s focused service (like NSPCC) they may use children’s but also include an expectation that social workers are familiar with adults legislation. There will be an FAQ on this.