education, training and employment

Frontline. Improving the children’s social work profession

This paper investigates the nature and extent of the problems facing the children's social work profession. Last year, there were around 1,350 vacant jobs in this field, many of which were concentrated in certain areas. Despite a concerted effort to tackle this shortage of workers, there are widespread concerns about the skills, competencies and calibre of new recruits to the profession.

Employment key to social mobility

Research demonstrates a negative relationship between worklessness and outcomes for children over and above what would be expected due to other factors, such as material deprivation and low income. This underlines the importance of supporting parents to move into the labour market.

This briefing looks at the importance of employment to social mobility.

Educational equality for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children and young people in the UK

This article provides evidence that, in the field of education, Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities suffer manifestly unequal outcomes. Drawing particularly on the authors’ first hand experience of working to advance educational equality for these communities in one area of London, the article explores some of the reasons why this is the case, highlighting the day-to-day experiences of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller families.

Hidden talents: a statistical overview of the participation patterns of young people aged 16-24

Document that offers a start point for the LocalGovernment Association (LGA) commissioned researchto inform the Hidden Talents programme. It reviewsavailable statistics, data and commentary to establish what can be reasonably deduced to inform policy and work in response to young people aged 16–24 years who are not in employment, education or training (NEET).

Involvement of users and carers in social work education: a practice benchmarking study [SCIE report 54]

SCIE report 54. Workforce Development report 54. Since 2002 higher education institutions (HEIs) have been required to develop service user and carer involvement (SUCI) throughout the design and delivery of degree programmes. This small-scale study aims to provide a benchmark of how practice is progressing across the 83 HEIs in England which offer the social work degree, and to support the development of guidance for social work educators. Report published by Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE ) in February 2012.

Scottish social services sector report on 2010 workforce data

Key points from the report include: * the high level of workforce growth which was seen in the sector between the mid-90s and 2005/6 has slowed for the second year running with the social services workforce growing by around 1,000 people, representing 0.5% growth * the private sector employed an extra 2,000 staff increasing its overall share and making it the largest employer in the sector with 40% of the workforce * the public sector employs 34% of the total social care workforce * 69.5% of the private workforce is employed in care homes for adults.