STATEMENT OF KEY PRIORITIES IN RESPECT OF THE SKILLS AND PERSONAL QUALITIES OF NEW SOCIALWORK GRADUATES

[1] Assessment / An ability to identify and assess the strengths of, and risks to, children
An understanding of how strengths and protective factors may be maximised and risks managed appropriately
Based upon both a theoretical and practical understanding of child development and how families function ecologically
[2]
Analysis / An ability to analyse as well as collect relevant information and ensure that analysis is evidence based
This includes collecting information from a range of sources and a critical analysis which highlights strengths and protective factors as well as risks.
[3]
Manage
Interventions / An capacity to assess, plan and review social work interventions effectively:
This includes knowledge, skills and experience of preventive and child centred intervention
An ability to engage in direct work with children and be able to work with families who may resist social work intervention
Graduates need to be able to develop quickly, where they have not already done so, an understanding of how to use the authority and legal powers and duties afforded to social workers
[4]
Critical and Professional
Challenge / Experience of critical and professional challenge
Graduates need to be able to build upon this experience and develop a strong sense of professional worth
In addition to challenge from others, and from service users, graduates need to be self-reflective and self-challenging as well as able to challenge others appropriately
Graduates should understand the need for continued learning and development throughout their career and have a personal responsibility for their continued development
Graduates need to know how to maximise the benefits of supervision, preparing and bringing something to supervision as well as receiving the comments, advice and reflective challenge from the supervisor
[5]
Communication / Strong interpersonal skills are required
Good communication including an ability to start and end the social work relationship
Good interviewing skills
Effective communication with children and young people
Good presentation skills that enable them formally to present complex information and argument
[6]
Confidence and
Resilience / Graduates must be confident and personally resilient: social workers will inevitably face very challenging situations that will test them personally and their ability to think clearly in difficult circumstances
Graduates need to know how to maintain and nurture these personal qualities
[7]
Working
Professionally / Graduates need to be able to operate effectively within professional organisations and understand professional systems, including the range of meetings in which they will be involved
They need to demonstrate good professional behaviours including reliability and good personal organisational skills, including an ability to manage competing priorities, to cope with the “volume and velocity” of the work.
[8]
Inter-agency working / Graduates need to understand the inter-agency nature of much of the work and be able to work effectively across professional boundaries and different organisational structures.
[9]
Written and
recording skills / Good written and recording skills
An ability to express themselves competently and an understanding of what is required in formal reports
A capacity to write, to a good standard by the end of the NQSW year, formal reports for CP, LAC and court proceedings
[10]
IT skills / Strong IT skills, beyond the current ECDL standard, across a range of office and database programmes,
including using the ICS frameworks to undertake assessment and recording tasks.