Options for Excellence is a joint DfES and DH-funded review of the social care workforce. Four task groups have been set up, each dealing with different aspects of social care. Task Group 3 is considering the roles and tasks of social workers. In order to inform the work of this group, the Thomas Coram Research Unit was asked to provide an overview of relevant research and data in three main areas: the effective deployment of social worker time and tasks, improving cross-professional working, and attitudes to take-up of post-qualifying qualifications

Cameron, C

Mooney, A

Statham, June

English

UCL Discovery

 Research Summary  March 2006   The tasks and roles of social workers: a focused  overview of research evidence  June Statham, Claire Cameron and Ann Mooney  Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London  Introduction  Options for Excellence is a joint DfES and DH-funded review of the social care workforce. Four task groups have been set up, each dealing with different aspects of social care. Task Group 3 is considering the roles and tasks of social workers. In order to inform the work of this group, the Thomas Coram Research Unit (TCRU) was asked to provide, within our responsive programme of work for DfES, an overview of relevant research and data in three main areas: the effective deployment of social worker time and tasks, improving cross-professional working, and attitudes to take-up of post-qualifying qualifications. The review is structured around the following five questions:  • How do social workers spend their time? • How should they spend their time?  • What sort of social work tasks add most value to service users? • What promotes cross-professional working from a social work perspective?  • What information is available on the take-up of post-qualifying training by social workers?  This review was carried out over a very short time scale in late February/early March 2006, and does not claim to be a comprehensive review of all available evidence. The aim was to draw together in one place relevant information from a variety of sources, including searches of bibliographic databases and key journals for selected topics, following up references provided by DfES, summarising findings from a recent comprehensive review of social work in Scotland, drawing on evidence gathered to inform the development of the children’s National Service Framework and studies undertaken by TCRU researchers, and personal contact with researchers working in relevant fields to identify unpublished material. Although the review aims to cover social work in different settings, there is a bias towards social work with children and families, since this is the area where TCRU researchers have particular knowledge and expertise.   This briefing paper summarises relevant findings under each of the five research questions. More detail of the material reviewed, sources of evidence and full references are provided in the accompanying 38 page report.   1. How do social workers spend their time?  Sources of information for this question included work undertaken by DfES to inform the Every Child Matters Green Paper; email contact with researchers known to have undertaken work in this field; findings from selected studies within the DfES ‘Costs and Effectiveness’ research initiative; and other material identified through desk research.   Social workers typically complain that their work has become more bureaucratic and less client focused in recent years. Most time use studies find that direct work with service users accounts for a relatively small proportion (between a quarter and a third) of  social workers’ time. However, the reliability of this information is affected by lack of consistency in how activities are defined (for example what counts as ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ work), differences in how data on time use is collected, and the typically small sample sizes. The national Children in Need survey, which adopts a broader definition of direct work that includes activities such as writing reports for courts, liaising with other professionals and evaluating assessment information, found that two thirds of social workers’ time was spent directly helping children, young people and their families.   There is very little evidence that addresses the issue of effective deployment of social workers’ time by considering outcomes for service users. A study in Sweden which reported better outcomes for users of specialist mental health services when social workers engaged in more indirect work, was methodologically flawed. In the UK, some insight into the factors that contribute to ineffective use of social workers’ time are provided by a study of social work processes with looked after children. This found that a significant proportion of social work time is taken up with tasks such as finding suitable placements, repeating assessments for residential placements and travelling to and from placements where children were placed outside the authority. All of these activities were closely related to shortages of suitable placements and/or resources to fund the more expensive ones. The level of administrative support that social workers received and the adequacy of IT systems also had a significant impact on the number of indirect client-related tasks they were required to complete.  2. How should social workers spend their time?  To further address how social workers should spend their time and the roles they might undertake, this overview drew on work commissioned to support the 21st Century Social Work Review for Scotland; relevant research carried out at TCRU; and other material found during desk research. Email contact was also used to obtain as yet unpublished information, for example early findings from an analysis of responses to a national consultation on the social work contribution to mental health services. A search of bibliographical databases using a range of search terms found very little of direct relevance to this area.   Evidence about the tasks that social workers alone should do is difficult to find.  The current evidence base is weak, which reflects a lack of research in social work practice and the difficulties of evaluating social work interventions. Most of the available information concerns the values and approaches that represent the distinctive contribution of social work, rather than evidence about the impact of different aspects of their role on outcomes for users. A consistent theme in this literature is the central importance of relationships, working in partnership with service users, a holistic and strengths-based approach, and anti-discriminatory and inclusive practice. The quality of the therapeutic relationship between social worker and service user is cited as crucial to achieving successful outcomes, although this is rarely based on ‘hard’ evidence.  A small number of studies have examined organizational arrangements where other workers take on some of the tasks that social workers do, such as data recording or early assessment of requests for support, but results are inconclusive. Social workers themselves are often motivated to enter this work by a desire to work directly with service users, and reductions in this direct therapeutic role are likely to be resisted. However, the common perception among social workers that they spend too much time on paperwork or data input and not enough on face to face work may depend on how the task of recording information is perceived and how well management information systems support social workers in their daily tasks. When data recording is an integral part of social work processes rather than a bureaucratic chore, and provides information that social workers need to do their job properly, it can be viewed quite differently.   A literature review for the Scottish Executive identified a number of current social worker roles including the social worker as advocate, counsellor, caseworker, partner, risk assessor, care manager and agent of social control, with the combination and priority of these roles varying depending on client needs and setting. The Scottish review proposes the creation of new roles to provide career progression for social workers, such as practice supervisor (without management responsibilities), consultant practitioner and lecturer practitioner. New paraprofessional and business/administrative support roles would also be created.  3. What sort of tasks add most value to service users?  An important starting point for considering what social workers should do is to explore which aspects of their current role and tasks are perceived as most helpful by users. A basic search of the SCIE database identified some relevant literature, and this was supplemented by information from other sources such as an overview of research studies involving users of social services and a user-led consultation exercise carried out to inform plans for adult social care services. Some of the studies identified cover the wider social care workforce, not just social workers, and most report users’ views about the way in which professionals interact with them and the values underpinning this interaction, rather than the specific tasks that service recipients find most helpful.  Across the research reviewed, it was evident that what service users value most (regardless of whether they are children in need, parents, older people, people with a disability or with mental health problems or care leavers) are social workers who are able to develop and maintain relationships, who listen and who respect them as individuals.  The nature of the relationship between service user and worker appears central to people’s perceptions of what constitutes quality.  Empowering relationships, being treated as individuals, inspiring confidence, demonstrating respect by recognising what is important to people, ensuring they understand their entitlements, and acknowledging that they have expertise in their own lives are all seen as important. So are personal qualities such as honesty and reliability, and organisational factors such as being able to see the same person over time. The skills needed by workers to achieve good relationships include listening and communicating, counselling, and understanding and knowledge about local services.  Service users believed that social care workers need the time to develop such relationships, which they often did not have due to the demands and pressures of their jobs.   4. What promotes cross-professional working from a social work perspective?  There are two types of multi-agency working which impact on the role and tasks of social workers: social workers operating in multi-agency settings (such as extended schools, children’s centres and multi-agency teams) and joint working around an individual child or family.  Both are key aspects of current government policy, and becoming increasingly commonplace.  The main sources of data for this question were reports from national evaluations commissioned by DfES of initiatives promoting partnership working (such as the Children’s Fund and children’s trusts); research funded within an ESRC initiative on multi-agency working; and overviews of relevant research previously carried out by TCRU researchers and others for the expert working groups developing the children’s National Service Framework. Selected references from a database of resources on multi-agency working compiled by DfES were also followed up.  There is a wide range of literature which describes multi-agency working especially between health and social care professionals, in children’s and adults’ settings, and there is general agreement over the factors which promote and hinder this. Relatively little research has reported specifically on the role of social workers in multi-agency settings, but the lessons from the more general literature are likely to be applicable to this group. They include the importance of strong leadership and vision, clarity of roles and responsibilities, and sufficient time and resources to support joined-up working.   Messages of particular relevance for the role and tasks of social workers in multi-agency working include the value of  a ‘key worker’ or ‘lead professional’ who can facilitate the involvement of different professionals, and the potential significance of joint training in developing an awareness of other professionals’ roles. Evidence on the benefits and disadvantages of co-location of services, for example placing social workers in schools or health settings, is mixed. More important appears to be the development of a ‘communication mindset’ among professionals. A key message is that joined-up working does not mean doing away with difference and that there is likely to continue to be a need for specific social work skills, rather than a blurring of professional identities. Successful partnerships appear to depend on clarity about the particular contribution of each service and on working across professional boundaries, but not the erosion of expertise.  5.  What information is available on the take-up of post-qualifying training by social workers?  For this question, the main sources of data were a literature search of bibliographic databases for academic articles and an internet search to identify policy and review papers addressing the PQ framework.   Although the academic research in this area comprises a few small-scale local studies, the messages from all data sources are largely consistent. Two main reasons stand out for a lower than expected registration and completion rate for PQ Awards under the framework introduced in the early 1990s. The first is organisational issues, and the second is resource factors. These appear to be more important than the attitudes of social workers or any aversion to the PQ framework itself. In particular, workload pressures, lack of support from managers and a variable mandate from national government about the importance of gaining the various specialist awards, as well as limited integration of PQ study into career progression, were important factors.   Despite the gaps in the literature, it seems that many social workers are put off applying or do not complete PQ courses due to such obstacles. Making the PQ framework succeed will require strong and effective partnerships between employers and educational institutions, and resolving the organisational and resource issues.   Conclusions  There is considerable overlap in the questions addressed in this overview, and the evidence needs to be considered as a whole. Although it was not possible in the time available to undertake a comprehensive review of the literature, there appears to be little research that compares the roles and tasks that social workers undertake in different settings or for different client groups, or that investigates the outcomes for service users when tasks traditionally undertaken by social workers are performed by other staff. There is, however, considerable agreement on the approaches and values that underpin social work practice, and on the qualities that service users seek in the professionals who work with them.    For further information, contact  j.statham@ioe.ac.uk  

The tasks and roles of social workers: a focused overview of research evidence

Statham, J

Institute of Education EPrints

 
Research Summary 
 
March 2006 
 
 
The tasks and roles of social workers: a focused 
 overview of research evidence 
 
June Statham, Claire Cameron and Ann Mooney  
Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London 
 
Introduction 
 
Options for Excellence is a joint DfES and DH-funded review of the social care 
workforce. Four task groups have been set up, each dealing with different aspects of 
social care. Task Group 3 is considering the roles and tasks of social workers. In order 
to inform the work of this group, the Thomas Coram Research Unit (TCRU) was asked 
to provide, within our responsive programme of work for DfES, an overview of relevant 
research and data in three main areas: the effective deployment of social worker time 
and tasks, improving cross-professional working, and attitudes to take-up of post-
qualifying qualifications. The review is structured around the following five questions: 
 
• How do social workers spend their time? 
• How should they spend their time?  
• What sort of social work tasks add most value to service users? 
• What promotes cross-professional working from a social work perspective?  
• What information is available on the take-up of post-qualifying training by social 
workers? 
 
This review was carried out over a very short time scale in late February/early March 
2006, and does not claim to be a comprehensive review of all available evidence. The 
aim was to draw together in one place relevant information from a variety of sources, 
including searches of bibliographic databases and key journals for selected topics, 
following up references provided by DfES, summarising findings from a recent 
comprehensive review of social work in Scotland, drawing on evidence gathered to 
inform the development of the children’s National Service Framework and studies 
undertaken by TCRU researchers, and personal contact with researchers working in 
relevant fields to identify unpublished material. Although the review aims to cover social 
work in different settings, there is a bias towards social work with children and families, 
since this is the area where TCRU researchers have particular knowledge and expertise.  
 
This briefing paper summarises relevant findings under each of the five research 
questions. More detail of the material reviewed, sources of evidence and full references 
are provided in the accompanying 38 page report.  
 
1. How do social workers spend their 
time? 
 
Sources of information for this question 
included work undertaken by DfES to inform 
the Every Child Matters Green Paper; email 
contact with researchers known to have 
undertaken work in this field; findings from 
selected studies within the DfES ‘Costs and 
Effectiveness’ research initiative; and other 
material identified through desk research.  
 
Social workers typically complain that their 
work has become more bureaucratic and 
less client focused in recent years. Most 
time use studies find that direct work with 
service users accounts for a relatively small 
proportion (between a quarter and a third) of  
social workers’ time. However, the reliability 
of this information is affected by lack of 
consistency in how activities are defined (for 
example what counts as ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ 
work), differences in how data on time use is 
collected, and the typically small sample 
sizes. The national Children in Need survey, 
which adopts a broader definition of direct 
work that includes activities such as writing 
reports for courts, liaising with other 
professionals and evaluating assessment 
information, found that two thirds of social 
workers’ time was spent directly helping 
children, young people and their families.  
 
There is very little evidence that addresses 
the issue of effective deployment of social 
workers’ time by considering outcomes for 
service users. A study in Sweden which 
reported better outcomes for users of 
specialist mental health services when 
social workers engaged in more indirect 
work, was methodologically flawed. In the 
UK, some insight into the factors that 
contribute to ineffective use of social 
workers’ time are provided by a study of 
social work processes with looked after 
children. This found that a significant 
proportion of social work time is taken up 
with tasks such as finding suitable 
placements, repeating assessments for 
residential placements and travelling to and 
from placements where children were 
placed outside the authority. All of these 
activities were closely related to shortages 
of suitable placements and/or resources to 
fund the more expensive ones. The level of 
administrative support that social workers 
received and the adequacy of IT systems 
also had a significant impact on the number 
of indirect client-related tasks they were 
required to complete. 
 
2. How should social workers spend 
their time? 
 
To further address how social workers 
should spend their time and the roles they 
might undertake, this overview drew on work 
commissioned to support the 21st Century 
Social Work Review for Scotland; relevant 
research carried out at TCRU; and other 
material found during desk research. Email 
contact was also used to obtain as yet 
unpublished information, for example early 
findings from an analysis of responses to a 
national consultation on the social work 
contribution to mental health services. A 
search of bibliographical databases using a 
range of search terms found very little of 
direct relevance to this area.  
 
Evidence about the tasks that social workers 
alone should do is difficult to find.  The 
current evidence base is weak, which 
reflects a lack of research in social work 
practice and the difficulties of evaluating 
social work interventions. Most of the 
available information concerns the values 
and approaches that represent the 
distinctive contribution of social work, rather 
than evidence about the impact of different 
aspects of their role on outcomes for users. 
A consistent theme in this literature is the 
central importance of relationships, working 
in partnership with service users, a holistic 
and strengths-based approach, and anti-
discriminatory and inclusive practice. The 
quality of the therapeutic relationship 
between social worker and service user is 
cited as crucial to achieving successful 
outcomes, although this is rarely based on 
‘hard’ evidence. 
 
A small number of studies have examined 
organizational arrangements where other 
workers take on some of the tasks that 
social workers do, such as data recording or 
early assessment of requests for support, 
but results are inconclusive. Social workers 
themselves are often motivated to enter this 
work by a desire to work directly with service 
users, and reductions in this direct 
therapeutic role are likely to be resisted. 
However, the common perception among 
social workers that they spend too much 
time on paperwork or data input and not 
enough on face to face work may depend on 
how the task of recording information is 
perceived and how well management 
information systems support social workers 
in their daily tasks. When data recording is 
an integral part of social work processes 
rather than a bureaucratic chore, and 
provides information that social workers 
need to do their job properly, it can be 
viewed quite differently.  
 
A literature review for the Scottish Executive 
identified a number of current social worker 
roles including the social worker as 
advocate, counsellor, caseworker, partner, 
risk assessor, care manager and agent of 
social control, with the combination and 
priority of these roles varying depending on 
client needs and setting. The Scottish review 
proposes the creation of new roles to 
provide career progression for social 
workers, such as practice supervisor 
(without management responsibilities), 
consultant practitioner and lecturer 
practitioner. New paraprofessional and 
business/administrative support roles would 
also be created. 
 
3. What sort of tasks add most value 
to service users? 
 
An important starting point for considering 
what social workers should do is to explore 
which aspects of their current role and tasks 
are perceived as most helpful by users. A 
basic search of the SCIE database identified 
some relevant literature, and this was 
supplemented by information from other 
sources such as an overview of research 
studies involving users of social services 
and a user-led consultation exercise carried 
out to inform plans for adult social care 
services. Some of the studies identified 
cover the wider social care workforce, not 
just social workers, and most report users’ 
views about the way in which professionals 
interact with them and the values 
underpinning this interaction, rather than the 
specific tasks that service recipients find 
most helpful. 
 
Across the research reviewed, it was 
evident that what service users value most 
(regardless of whether they are children in 
need, parents, older people, people with a 
disability or with mental health problems or 
care leavers) are social workers who are 
able to develop and maintain relationships, 
who listen and who respect them as 
individuals.  The nature of the relationship 
between service user and worker appears 
central to people’s perceptions of what 
constitutes quality.  Empowering 
relationships, being treated as individuals, 
inspiring confidence, demonstrating respect 
by recognising what is important to people, 
ensuring they understand their entitlements, 
and acknowledging that they have expertise 
in their own lives are all seen as important. 
So are personal qualities such as honesty 
and reliability, and organisational factors 
such as being able to see the same person 
over time. The skills needed by workers to 
achieve good relationships include listening 
and communicating, counselling, and 
understanding and knowledge about local 
services.  Service users believed that social 
care workers need the time to develop such 
relationships, which they often did not have 
due to the demands and pressures of their 
jobs.  
 
4. What promotes cross-professional 
working from a social work 
perspective? 
 
There are two types of multi-agency working 
which impact on the role and tasks of social 
workers: social workers operating in multi-
agency settings (such as extended schools, 
children’s centres and multi-agency teams) 
and joint working around an individual child 
or family.  Both are key aspects of current 
government policy, and becoming 
increasingly commonplace. 
 
The main sources of data for this question 
were reports from national evaluations 
commissioned by DfES of initiatives 
promoting partnership working (such as the 
Children’s Fund and children’s trusts); 
research funded within an ESRC initiative on 
multi-agency working; and overviews of 
relevant research previously carried out by 
TCRU researchers and others for the expert 
working groups developing the children’s 
National Service Framework. Selected 
references from a database of resources on 
multi-agency working compiled by DfES 
were also followed up. 
 
There is a wide range of literature which 
describes multi-agency working especially 
between health and social care 
professionals, in children’s and adults’ 
settings, and there is general agreement 
over the factors which promote and hinder 
this. Relatively little research has reported 
specifically on the role of social workers in 
multi-agency settings, but the lessons from 
the more general literature are likely to be 
applicable to this group. They include the 
importance of strong leadership and vision, 
clarity of roles and responsibilities, and 
sufficient time and resources to support 
joined-up working.  
 
Messages of particular relevance for the role 
and tasks of social workers in multi-agency 
working include the value of  a ‘key worker’ 
or ‘lead professional’ who can facilitate the 
involvement of different professionals, and 
the potential significance of joint training in 
developing an awareness of other 
professionals’ roles. Evidence on the 
benefits and disadvantages of co-location of 
services, for example placing social workers 
in schools or health settings, is mixed. More 
important appears to be the development of 
a ‘communication mindset’ among 
professionals. A key message is that joined-
up working does not mean doing away with 
difference and that there is likely to continue 
to be a need for specific social work skills, 
rather than a blurring of professional 
identities. Successful partnerships appear to 
depend on clarity about the particular 
contribution of each service and on working 
across professional boundaries, but not the 
erosion of expertise. 
 
5.  What information is available on 
the take-up of post-qualifying training 
by social workers? 
 
For this question, the main sources of data 
were a literature search of bibliographic 
databases for academic articles and an 
internet search to identify policy and review 
papers addressing the PQ framework.  
 
Although the academic research in this area 
comprises a few small-scale local studies, 
the messages from all data sources are 
largely consistent. Two main reasons stand 
out for a lower than expected registration 
and completion rate for PQ Awards under 
the framework introduced in the early 1990s. 
The first is organisational issues, and the 
second is resource factors. These appear to 
be more important than the attitudes of 
social workers or any aversion to the PQ 
framework itself. In particular, workload 
pressures, lack of support from managers 
and a variable mandate from national 
government about the importance of gaining 
the various specialist awards, as well as 
limited integration of PQ study into career 
progression, were important factors.  
 
Despite the gaps in the literature, it seems 
that many social workers are put off applying 
or do not complete PQ courses due to such 
obstacles. Making the PQ framework 
succeed will require strong and effective 
partnerships between employers and 
educational institutions, and resolving the 
organisational and resource issues.  
 
Conclusions 
 
There is considerable overlap in the 
questions addressed in this overview, and 
the evidence needs to be considered as a 
whole. Although it was not possible in the 
time available to undertake a 
comprehensive review of the literature, there 
appears to be little research that compares 
the roles and tasks that social workers 
undertake in different settings or for different 
client groups, or that investigates the 
outcomes for service users when tasks 
traditionally undertaken by social workers 
are performed by other staff. There is, 
however, considerable agreement on the 
approaches and values that underpin social 
work practice, and on the qualities that 
service users seek in the professionals who 
work with them.  
 
 
For further information, contact 
 j.statham@ioe.ac.uk 
 


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The tasks and roles of social workers: a focused overview of research evidence

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