Scottish first-line managers' views of newly qualified social workers' preparedness for practice : findings from an online Delphi study

Social work is a broad profession with a number of different practice areas. The work performed by social workers is often highly complex, involving technical elements (knowledge of legal and other processes), relational elements (engaging with clients and their families) and elements requiring professional judgement and skill (such as assessing needs and delivering interventions). During 2013 a collaborative group was formed by researchers from the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) and CELCIS at the University of Strathclyde. This group wished to explore the preparedness for practice of newly qualified social workers (NQSWs) in Scotland and to consider the roles of qualifying training, and employer support during the first years of practice. A central aim was to provide timely information to contribute to the review of social work education, post-qualifying learning and to the development of a national learning strategy led by SSSC. However, the research outputs may also be of particular interest to higher education providers, employers of social workers and to the wider social work profession in Scotland. The group took forward two complementary studies; one a mixed methods study conducted by GCU, focused on identifying the perspectives of NQSWs. These were gathered through a survey and follow- up focus groups. The other study, conducted by CELCIS, complemented the first by conducting a three-round online Delphi study exploring the perspectives of first-line managers who held responsibility for supervision of NQSWs. In this report we outline the methods of the online Delphi study and the main findings obtained from it. Where possible the studies used consistent conceptual frameworks, for example, by asking participants to frame their responses against National Occupational Standards. Our intention was to facilitate a further comparative synthesis to identify areas of concordance and contrast. We hope to provide additional utility and impact by allowing concurrent consideration of the findings from both studies, therefore our dissemination activities will include joint activities and signposting to or co-hosting of reports. The GCU study also usefully incorporates a review of relevant literatures which was beyond the scope of this study. Our study used an online Delphi approach, involving iterative contacts with 26 individual managers who had current or recent responsibility for NQSWs. These people formed a virtual panel. They responded to initial questions and to further questions based on our emerging analyses of the data. This produced a rich data set containing information which was analyses qualitatively and quantitatively. We describe the methods used in this study in detail in Appendix 1; and discuss the strengths and limitations of the study