Consistent care matters: exploring the potential of social work practices

Following the publication of the Care Matters Green Paper, the Social Care Practices Working Group was established by the DfES and tasked with taking forward the commitment in Care Matters to explore the feasibility of piloting social work practices. Care Matters proposed the creation of Social Work Practices (SWPs) that would benefit both looked-after children and social workers if the latter were organised along the lines of professional partnerships, mirroring similar arrangements for legal and medical partnerships. There are a number of different forms that SWPs could take, but the preferred model is that of the professional partnership: a group of six to ten partners, the majority of whom would be social workers. The partnership would contract with the local authority to provide field social work for looked after children, and would commission services that its own staff could not provide. It would own its assets and pay the partners and any staff that it might employ.