Many of us who work in the social work profession have spent years studying for either a Bachelor of Social Work and/or a Master of Social Work degree. You may find new plans by the UK and Canadian governments to challenge the traditional requirements to become a social worker, rather frightening. Both governments have decided that a degree in social work may not be required to work within the field. For those who are not aware, a degree in social work is never taken on lightly and for good reason.
Many prospective social work students have to pass an interview, and/or submit a letter of intent with references, in order to be considered for the program. Volunteer or previous work within the community is usually expected. This not only demonstrates the seriousness and dedication of a prospective applicant, but establishes that they have had some experience working with individuals and/or groups, and have a general grasp of conflict resolution and team work.
Once in the program, students are expected to complete many hours of placement in more than one area in conjunction with their academic studies. The student is exposed to more than one field within the profession and gains a variety of skills with the guidance of a supervisor. This allows for growth in a relatively safe “space” with ongoing and relevant feedback. Direct access to clients is imperative as it allows the intern to apply theory into practice.
Keeping all this in mind, both Canada and the UK have now introduced new social work schemes that would see graduates in other disciplines receive little to no training in social work, but would allow them to practice in this capacity. According to the UK initiative, a program called Frontline would be set up to encourage” top graduates” in other fields to train as social workers. According to an article in The Guardian, (Nov 16, 2012) the basis for Frontline would be to provide
“A shorter and more focused training programme…one of the biggest barriers to entry for gifted graduates contemplating social work has been cleared”
This program prides itself on offering a shorter route to becoming a social worker which would no doubt bypass the above needed training and exposure offered at a BSW or MSW level. Furthermore, it does not require top graduates to have a degree in any related field. Just that they be “top graduates” in whatever field they happen to have graduated in.
It would probably be helpful to mention that this new initiative is based on a similar program that was devised to combat the teacher shortages in the UK called “Teach First” which trains university graduates to work as teachers, bypassing teacher’s college. Teachers are not social workers, and one has to wonder how a similar programs devised to work with the most vulnerable, will impact society.
The Canadian initiative is similar, albeit with a few differences. According to the Ontario Children’s Aid society, which governs the entire child protection agencies in Ontario, they have now posted in their career section that they “broadened” their hiring criteria and no longer require workers to have a social work degree. Applicants can now apply for a child protection position if they have a degree in the following disciplines;
Applied psychology
Pastoral counseling
Community medicine
Community nursing
Child and youth work
Child studies
Criminology
Though some credit should be given to Children’s Aid for demanding future child protection workers have a degree in a somewhat related field, unlike the criteria for Frontline– it is still worrisome. When glancing at the above degrees, one has to wonder how a future applicant will be trained. None of the degrees posted above includes specific courses in child protection, nor seem to require field placements in safeguarding children.
Social work agencies are stretched beyond the max and are restricted by funding, so how will either of these initiatives offer proper long-term training in the field of social work to improve services? What both these initiatives in the UK and Canada are basically saying is, “We are desperate to fill in the quota for much needed social workers, and I am sure if we choose the brightest and top graduates in other fields, they can swim without a paddle. We’ll just give them the boat and hope for the best.”
What does this say for the future of social work, which has on a global scale recently been under the microscope and scrutinized for a catalogue of failures? Failures, largely due to lack of funding and proper training opportunities. An irony not lost on most social workers, I am sure. This appears to be a very frightening future for social work, especially when critical training is minimized even further. The victims in all this won’t be those of us who have spent years training as social workers, it will be the vulnerable population we serve who will no doubt feel the brunt. I shudder to think what future headlines in the media will read.
** Written By Jamie Poirier, BSW – SJS Guest Blogger**
Our authors want to hear from you! Click to leave a comment
Related Posts
As one with an MSW degree, I have some difficulty in how those from another profession can be ‘fast tracked’ as social workers. While it is important to choose applicants for their personality, characteristics and grades not everyone has the skills to make a switch to children’s social work. Why the focus only on children’s social work? Social work is so much more than that-seniors/older adults, adults with mental health issues, war veteran’s, community social work, school social work, assistance for those with learning disabilities, developmental disabilities are just a few. Also, the continuous 2 year placement in a single local authority-why? Diverse field placement experiences are a good thing and allow one who has never been part of the field of social work at any level to ‘try out’ the population they want to work with, to have 2 supervisors, different experiences of working with various colleagues with different levels of experience. One learning experience could be focused on case management with the next focusing on counselling or child protection. After reading: the IPPR Report detailing the changes,
“Children’s social work is under enormous strain. Chronic funding pressures, a ballooning workload and a poorly trained and supported workforce have all combined to put vulnerable children’s lives at risk.”
I would imagine that all social service agencies and programs are underfunded, most workers have ballooning case loads and to me it makes sense to offer additional training to the existing social worker’s instead of recruiting new workers from different fields and providing them with free education, wages for their placements and then NOT requiring them to work in the field after graduation.
It will be interesting to see how Frontline is received by current BSW’s and MSW’s and by those who have worked in the field of social work for years
I hope folks can see the writing on the wall … It is frequently stated that social work is a growing industry expected to grow and grow … I did a search of jobs in the field of social work (as I do often) for example on June 12, 2013 on the Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC) job bank – In Ontario 3 jobs results appeared, and across Canada 24 job results appeared … various salaries from abysmally low wages to a few decent salaried jobs. This is a growing industry? Don’t fall for it, they are trying to do the same thing to social work that has successfully been done to teaching – flood the industry with workers and then drive down the cost of labour. Once you do this it is easy to divide and conquer any problematic unions, or labour rights advocates as ‘labour has lost its bargaining power’.
Why don’t they create a program to fast social workers into the profession of medicine and turn them into socio docs? That way we can kills two birds with one stone we can create empathetic doctors who listen to their patients and then we don’t have to worry about teaching doctors how to talk to their patients and listen ! Isn’t there supposed to be doctor shortage in Canada? isn’t that why the government brought in so many foreign trained doctors and teachers?
Or we could create social worker /lawyers that way we could have human rights lawyers who actually stick to human rights law and don’t jump to real estate law once they get into law school on false pretenses?
Of course flooding any field of work with workers from another field is outrageous. The new fast tracked workers will likely not be exposed to the ‘theories’ of social work that are such a huge problem for the right wing. It is the theories of social work such as foucault, and freire and others that they want to see crushed and so they will win … as ‘they’ always do because the people are too busy believing the crap the mainstream media is feeding them.
MSW,BSW, SSW, and .. guess what I am unemployed … sounds like there is a real demand for social workers …
Couldn’t agree more with the poster immediately above. I also have triple qualifications in social work… SSW, BSW and MSW and am unemployed. When I took my MSW, I was shocked at the number of classmates who transferred into the program from useless undergrads in History, Sociology, International Relations and Psychology. Some already had a masters degree and others had their teacher’s certification. In Canada, the MSW is fast becoming the latest “quicky professional degree”. It used to be teaching. Now everybody with a worthless undergrad and poor job prospects, and believe me, there is no shortage… are signing up for an MSW. By 2015 the market will be completely saturated… just like teaching. Do nursing instead.
If this is the case Elsa, then it will be very important for social workers to have specializations. I live in Canada and do not notice the same trend you mention of ‘everyone getting their MSW.’ What I have noticed is those with a BSW have a very difficult time finding employment as employers want the MSW and experience. I see jobs advertised all the time for social workers, case managers, etc. Perhaps in the area you reside you are noticing this trend? Which province?