Taylor, Imogen and Bogo, Marion (2013) Perfect opportunity~perfect storm? Raising the standards of social work education in England. British Journal of Social Work, 44 (6). pp. 1402-1418. ISSN 0045-3102

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Abstract

Government plans to reform social work in England, led by the Social Work Reform Board, have resulted in far-reaching changes to social work education. These include establishment of The College of Social Work and adoption of its Performance Capability Framework, and transfer of regulation to the Health Care Professions Council whose Standards of Proficiency competences gate-keep the threshold to practice. A critical scrutiny of the literature on competence and capability used by the architects of change provides a lens with which to explore findings from a content analysis of the new standards. Comparisons are made with the 2008 Educational Policy and Accreditation Standards (EPAS) competences approved by the American Council on Social Work Education. Fault lines are identified that might seriously jeopardise the future of social work education in England and ways forward are explored to address these. First, given the importance of making what's important assessable, the choice is presented between opting for ‘wicked competences’ or investing in the design of complex assessment models and their operation. Second, the priority of building robust partnerships to contain different stakeholder objectives is underlined. Both are essential to prevent fault lines developing into a perfect storm.

Item Type:	Article
Keywords:	Higher education, competence, capability, professional capability framework, Standards of Proficiency, EPAS, wicked competences
Schools and Departments:	School of Education and Social Work > Social Work and Social Care
Subjects:	H Social Sciences H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology > HV0040 Social service. Social work. Charity organization and practice Including social case work, private and public relief, institutional care, rural social work, work relief L Education > LC Special aspects of education > LC0980 Types of education > LC1051 Professional education
Related URLs:	Publisher
Depositing User:	Pascale Fanning-Tichborne
Date Deposited:	24 Jan 2013 14:21
Last Modified:	08 Mar 2017 07:18
URI:	http://srodev.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/43157

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