Discussion 2 WK 6
Social Work Education Vol. 23, No. 4, August 2004, pp. 365–381
Going Beyond Training: Theory and Practice in Managing Learning Kate Skinner & Bill Whyte
The establishment of new bodies to replace the Central Council for Training and Education in Social Work (CCETSW) and to regulate the social work profession provides the opportunity to establish an improved progressive system of qualifications and continued professional development in the coming years. With the current pressure on social work agency budgets it is imperative that precious training resources—staff and money—are used to make the maximum impact on service delivery. Our involvement in the provision of a range of training programmes leads us to believe that much of the staff development and training effort invested by agencies in their staff often seem to have a limited impact on effectiveness. A change in approach is needed so that learning is placed at the heart of organisational processes to maximise the benefits of affirmation and growing professional confidence. This is essential if we are to continue to ‘nurture’ valuable professional staff and ensure that services remain flexible, creative and respon- sive in meeting ever-rising public expectations.
This paper examines some of the challenges of evidence-based practice and the demands for routine evaluation and objective-setting. The advantages and disadvantages of a competence specification approach within the development of service and occu- pational standards as the basis for professional education are discussed. The paper argues that strategies for practice learning require the development of learning organisa- tions and a better academic and agency partnership to support more effective pro- fessional education and continued professional development.
Keywords: Post-qualifying Social Work; Social Work Training; Deep Learning
Introduction
The integration of all local authority social work services within Scottish social work departments as a result of the Kilbrandon report (SED, 1964), with its
Correspondence to: Bill Whyte, Criminal Justice Social Work Development Centre for Scotland, University of Edinburgh, School of Social and Political Studies, 31 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LJ, UK. Email: B.Whyte@ed.ac.uk
ISSN 0261-5479 print/1470-1227 online © 2004 The Board of Social Work Education DOI: 10.1080/0261547042000244991
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emphasis on social education and social learning approaches to change, made an organisational leap which set Scotland on a distinctive path in the social work field. This change has had long lasting effects on practice ideologies and on academic teaching in Scotland. However serious questions about the capacity of generic social work training to equip people to operate as social workers within local authorities in Scotland has been a live issue since the implementation of the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968, which provides the legislative framework for these services.
Since the establishment of Scotland’s Parliament, the Scottish Executive has published proposals for ‘modernising’ social work (Scottish Office, 1999, Cm 4288) and legislation to set up a Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) has been implemented. The Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001 maps out a future for social work within a regulated framework, which will require the registration of practitioners operating from a baseline of service objectives and standards. The Council’s role is to raise standards across the whole of social care by regulating the workforce. From October 2001 the SSSC replaced CCETSW as the statutory regu- lator of professional social work training and post qualifying training and will manage national training for the sector. Quality Assurance Agency benchmarking statements have been published highlighting the need for effective ‘joined up’ thinking. National Care Standards on residential provision for older people, people with mental illness and children will be implemented by the Scottish Commission for the Regulation of Care beginning in April 2002. National Occupational Standards for social work roles are also under development by employment representatives through the national training organisation.
All of these developments provide a map for the direction of social work practice and management and the basis for a new progressive system of qualifications to be introduced by 2002/3. The increase in pace of change in the service has been dramatic in recent years and the demands for professional knowledge, skill and expertise have never been greater. Policy is now being re-formulated by the current administration within the context of its social inclusion strategy and within the framework of ‘best value’ and the imperative of establishing ‘what works?’.
Sinclair (1998) suggests that, historically, social interventions have not been subject to the same imperative for rigorous testing that has applied to medical interventions and that policy has often been based on value positions or on custom and practice. Despite considerable input of time, effort and resources to alleviate social problems over many years, many stubbornly persist. This perception has contributed, at a time of economic restraint, to the demand for public services to demonstrate that their expenditure is justified by the positive outcomes achieved. To address the question of ‘what works?’ requires access to sound knowledge and information about the impact of current policies and practice, an evidence-led approach to planning provision and an allied training strategy. The requirement for managers and practitioners to have deep and critical knowledge and expertise in their field is self-evident.
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Evidence-based Practice
The tentative move within social work towards evidence-based practice is highlight- ing many of the issues facing the profession today. Evidence-based practice is founded on measurement and evaluation—measurement of work done and aims or objectives achieved. There is much debate about the ‘how’ and ‘what’ of measure- ment in social work. Traditional methods used within the natural sciences, for example counting the number of interventions, measuring the length of interven- tions, are not wholly useful in a discipline with as many un-quantifiable variables as there are in social work (Smith, 1995). There are also many cultural objections to overcome, not least because in social work we have a limited history of getting research into practice (Nutley et al., 2000, p. 3) and of measuring what we do and how we do it. Inevitably, then, this shift towards providing evidence needs to take place incrementally, and possibly experimentally, in the first instance in order to begin to identify which approaches seem to work for some people some of the time.
A central part of evaluation is that of measurement and assessment against pre-determined criteria (Utting & Vennard, 2000). For social workers carrying out individual or group work with service users, this requires setting objectives for their work with each service user or group of service users. For managers it requires setting objectives for each managerial task or project. Objectives need to be explicit and ‘SMART’—specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound—both input-process objectives and output-outcome objectives (Chapman & Hough, 1998, para 7.7). How many practitioners and managers routinely set transparent and measurable objectives like these? Probably few, and some of those who do may be doing so without the support, knowledge or expectation of their agency.
In areas where service standards have been set either at a local or national level, the process should be greatly assisted. Work has been done within criminal justice social work through the publication and enforcement of National Objectives and Standards in Scotland (SWSI, 1991) and is being replicated in other areas of social work, such as child care, youth justice, social work with older people and people with mental illness. In community care local standard-setting exercises have taken place and performance criteria set. The contribution of inspection to the process of standard setting is considerable and no doubt will be built on in all the services.
It is important not to overlook the anxieties that might be generated by a movement towards standard and objective setting. We have experience of running short courses on evaluating social work practice and have become acutely aware of the discomfort caused by the introduction of this approach. Deep down many practitioners and managers seem to have doubts about their own capacity or the capacity of their agency to deliver a measurably high quality service. Measurement brings with it the risk that this incapacity will be exposed. There is also the attendant fear that ‘nothing may work anyway’ so there may be some resistance to declaring an intention to bring about change in intractable situations. Unfortunately, the ‘nothing works’ label can then become attached to the provision. Equally there is a risk that political and managerial pressure for evidence of what works ‘reveals an
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over-simplified and over-certain view of what evidence does or might consist of, and of how it should be interpreted and used’ (Smith, 2000, p. 1). Part of the value of the exercise then may be in recognising that some things are not readily changeable and should therefore not be a primary focus for effort and activity. Hopefully this will be compensated for by the affirmation that can be derived from those objec- tives—however modest—which have been met for some people, in some circum- stances.
It will take more than a degree of professional confidence to strike out and be the first in a workplace to start operating in such a developmental way. Professional confidence can only come from a belief that what needs to be done is worthwhile and from knowledge that an effective contribution can be made. This takes us back to the need for practitioners to be thoroughly steeped in their own discipline. It simply is not enough to be qualified and then well-versed in agency policy and practice (Marsh & Triseliotis, 1996). The knowledge-base needs to reach deep into the core of theory and research in the field of work so that the objectives set call on what is known about the effectiveness of methods in the area of practice.
A Competence-specification Approach
Hey (1990) suggested that the pressures for change in social work have arisen from socio-technical developments on a global scale. The behavioural technologies now increasingly being used are associated more with the fields and disciplines of education and psychology. However it is not the focus on behavioural change itself that is new to social work. We detect a gradual and sustained shift in emphasis from concepts and language of therapeutic or treatment interventions based on psycho- dynamic theories as the principal means of achieving behaviour change towards techniques based on learning theories (Andrews & Bonta, 1997; Sheldon, 1994). This ‘social learning’ approach is more compatible with a strategy of ‘social inclusion’ and social justice, which recognises the influence of structural factors and social context on individual change, and with the traditional emphasis in social work theory of working with individuals within their social context (Siporin, 1975). It remains to be seen how far practitioners’ repertoires can be expected to encompass technologies which are based on significantly different approaches and styles, albeit requiring certain common knowledge and skills.
Of particular interest is the extent of knowledge, skill, and competence required at various stages of professional development to operate within an increasingly regulated framework of service standards whose emphases are consistent with the shifts to quality control by way of outputs and outcomes rather than inputs and process. While increasingly policy makers are concerned only with outcomes, the most effective and efficient means of achieving these outcomes lie within the professional domain. A critical understanding of process remains essential and requires rigour in examining how outcomes are produced, and how knowledge and theory are applied within the context of the ‘principles’ of benchmarking and best value. These steps can ensure that service delivery is systematic and results-
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orientated, without denying that process and context remain crucial in the evalu- ation of social programmes (Pawson & Tilley, 1997).
The adoption of output specification through statements of competence has influenced much of the thinking in social work training in recent years. It has been adopted in large measure as the model for all levels of training from SCOTVEC National Certificates through to higher awards. The ‘competence approach’ provides a model that seeks to establish occupational standards which individuals are ex- pected to meet in their work. National occupational standards to be developed for social work will provide statements of competence which attempt to bring together the skills, knowledge and values necessary to carry out the work. The aim of this approach is to reduce complex behaviour to a set of single behaviours which are observable, definable and measurable. The approach attempts to make performance visible and hence improve the chances of holding people individually accountable, increasing inter-assessor reliability, and thus making assessments of various kinds fairer, reducing iniquitous emphasis on personal qualities by concentration quite properly on work output performance (Joss, 1990).
Despite the increasing reliance on vocational competences, the approach has also been subject to much criticism particularly in its application to higher levels of work. The theoretical assumptions of such an approach remain largely untested empirically and create numerous conceptual and methodological problems (Clark & Arkava, 1979; Marsh & Clark, 1990). Much of the developed analysis of vocational compe- tencies has concerned employment involving relatively low status work in more technical kinds of employment (Winter, 1990) and even here problems have been experienced in applying the approach. However simple and straightforward a competence may seem it is inextricably entangled with all the other competences that were rejected as too complex to start with (Hey, 1990).
Whatever its benefits, the competence approach has significant disadvantages, particularly for professional social work. Joss (1990) argues that it denies the holistic nature of such human relations work, showing what people must do but not how or why. As a consequence it fails to provide an explanation of the importance of the exercise of discretion in social work, thus devaluing the fact that equally competent performances can arise from quite different actions. It may consequently be viewed as discouraging creativity and risk-taking, and be over-reliant on quantitative measures to the exclusion of abstract concepts such as reflective insight, which are not easily amenable to observation. Similarly this approach can be a limited training tool since it cannot shed light on the learning process, only on the acquisition of (or lack of) competence (Joss, 1990).
Clark (1995, p. 564) has argued also that competence alone is inadequate as a principle of professional formation and that consequently any attempt to build professional training on it would be misguided. A competence approach relies on observed worker-activity outcomes as the key test rather than performance in traditional academic tests of knowledge or skill. While attractive in theory, to translate this principle adequately into action it is necessary to identify the roles, tasks and skills that comprise the job and to create valid assessment tests. The
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building of an evidence base is inextricably linked with its utilisation. This has hardly begun in social work. If this process is to be progressed, assessment criteria for professional competence would need to be derived from research on effectiveness in specific circumstances. It remains to be demonstrated that any practical and sensible assessment system can fairly and rigorously test for professional competence. It is to be hoped that examples such as the ‘Pathfinder’ initiative (Home Office, 1998) and ‘Getting Best Results’ (Scottish Executive, 1999), in attempting to identify ‘effective- ness criteria’ based on research evidence, will assist in the accreditation of pro- grammes of intervention in criminal justice. As a consequence this will assist the process of ‘accreditation’ and professional training. Such tests are not currently available and, in any case, may prove difficult to devise and implement.
The Nature of Learning for Professional Practice
Heron (1981) suggests that there are three types of learning needed to link theory and practice. These are: factual knowledge, practice knowledge and experiential learning. Learning by reflection has been defined as ‘a process of internally examin- ing and exploring an issue of concern triggered by an experience, which creates and clarifies meaning in terms of self and results in a changed conceptual perspective’ (Boyd & Fales, 1983, p. 113).
Service users often learn as they reflect on what they do and this process is mirrored in the learning by the practitioner. This process occurs when the prac- titioner reflects on the service user’s learning and achievement and on their own experience as a change agent. Each social problem is experienced by an individual as unique, open to many different explanations and cannot be resolved simply by the application of previously formulated techniques (Trotter, 1999). Social problems are extraordinarily complex and resistant to intervention. The kind of solution or constellation of solutions developed to tackle a situation depends on the analysis of the problem in the first place (or, more subtly), whether the situation is deemed a problem, or more subtly still, whether it is deemed a problem that should be tackled (Joss, 1990).
Attempts to apply technical/rational models and concentration on problem solv- ing methods, as in a competence-based approach, run the risk of neglecting the key issues of problem identification, naming and framing, which are highly political and value-laden activities. Practitioners must learn how to frame and reframe situations in different ways and to engage in a process of questioning, improvisation, invention and testing strategies in response. There is an art of problem framing, an art of implementation and an art of improvisation as well as the art of influencing and motivating (Schon, 1987). Similarly even an appropriate technical ‘solution’ such as a structured programme of intervention with pre-set aims, measurable objectives and relevant content must be delivered in a way that matches the learning style of the individual participant (Trotter, 1999). These are important characteristics of ‘reflective’ and critical practice.
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An important requirement for good professional social work provision is an holistic approach to service delivery both in a theoretical and in a practical and discretionary way. The ability to apply subtly different responses to the different needs of different situations, while working to explicit objectives and direction may itself be a key competence. For this reason Clark (1995) suggests that competence will not do as a single path to specifying social work knowledge and skill and that establishing an empirically grounded account of the role of theory in practice is also required. His typology of knowledge covers observational, contextual, abstract and theoretical knowledge, of which theoretical knowledge comes ‘top of the tree’. He suggests that practitioners typically have an amalgam of well-founded knowledge, personal impressions, practice wisdom and experience. In their work they must address a series of ‘instances’ in providing services and enter a process of practical theorising whereby they formulate the purposes appropriate to the ‘instance’. The exercise of professional expertise subsists in the art of practical theorising.
In this context professional discipline requires ‘deep learning’, a duality of learning based on a deep understanding of theoretical principles, application of the rules of evidence, methods of enquiry and performance objectives and standards, combined with creativity. Deep learning is achieved when formal learning and personal experience are brought together within a learning environment (Entwhistle & Ramsden, 1983). The task of introducing evidence-based practice must also involve getting professionals to stop doing things, where there is evidence of ineffectiveness as well as promoting new practices based on promising evidence of effectiveness (Nutley et al., 2000, p. 5). ‘Unlearning’ has been used to describe the need to cast off previously established ways of doing things in order to be able to take on board new understandings.
The task for social work education and training is to achieve deep learning within a dual curriculum involving theoretical knowledge and the practical application of knowledge and skills in the work situation (Dale, 1994). Research by Marton & Saljo (1976) and Newble & Entwhistle (1986) shows that students often adopt either a surface or deep approach to learning. Those using a surface approach concentrate on remembering facts in order to pass examinations. Those using a deep approach seek to discover why something is the way it is and search for its meaning.
Lowe & Kerri (1998) attempted to discover whether a reflective learning approach led to a higher level of deep learning than more conventional didactic methods. Their experiment with two groups of student nurses demonstrated that there was no significant difference between the level of learning achieved in the two groups. What did emerge, however, was that the group of students learning by reflective methods learned more quickly than those learning by conventional methods. This has clear implications for those organising learning programmes, in that their design and delivery needs to embody principles and practice of reflective learning, where participants have the opportunity to apply their understanding to their own practice. A further aspect still to be researched is that of retention of deep learning—does the method of learning influence how much is retained over a period of time?
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The Role of Social Work Education: Post-qualifying Training
The nature and structure of social work training is subject to review in Scotland and proposals for the future direction are expected shortly. It remains to be seen whether or not a competence-based approach is continued or a new model adopted.
A major difficulty with the competence approach is in trying to distinguish between different levels of performance and specialism. It remains to be seen how far practice requirements can be adequately captured in statements of competence in a way which is sufficiently unambiguous for qualitatively different standards to be established (Hey, 1990, p. 10).
In the current framework for social work training, statements of professional competence often amount to descriptions of professional practice which are not level-specific. The three-tier structure of current social work qualification attempts to reflect different levels on a ladder of learning. To some degree the existing model in Scotland attempts to mirror some aspects of medical training with progression from general practitioner, to specialism and to a more advanced level required by those offering specialist assistance to others. At the stage of undertaking a social work qualifying programme (DipSW), the aims of learning are expressed in terms of six core or general competence and practice requirements (CCETSW, 1997). Basic skills in critical assessment, intervention planning and responsiveness to the capacity and style of the user, and the ability to work ethically under the direction of an experienced professional are sought. These skills are not role-specific and are intended to be transferred to many professional social work roles, in children and family work, community care, youth and criminal justice. Specialist or deep and detailed knowledge consolidated through experience may well be provided by a practice teacher, supervisor, or consultant to support the newly qualified worker in practice.
At the post-qualifying stage (PQSW), practitioners are required to extend their level of competence beyond that of DipSW level to work more independently and effectively in complex situations, exercising their powers and responsibilities ethically as professional social workers, including the use of discretion and the management of risk (CCETSW, 1997). Specialist knowledge is developed and skills consolidated through more independent application within a framework of supervision. Specialist consultancy may be required to assist specific areas of practice and extend knowledge and skills. Over the past two years a set of occupational standards have been developed for child care social work at post-qualifying level and a national PQSW course in criminal justice social work has been developed. This trend towards service-specific competence is likely to be continued in other areas of provision.
The current Advanced Award (AASW) requires holders to make a significant contribution to service development and provision by researching, planning, imple- menting and monitoring strategies for change using a wide repertoire of methods. The ability to enhance the capabilities of others is central to the Advanced Award which may relate directly to users or equally to assist those at DipSW or PQSW level work more effectively by operating as a consultant. The advanced practitioner or
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manager must demonstrate evidence of leadership, the ability to work independently yet accountably and the capacity to assist other professionals to achieve a high level of performance.
The three current awards with their different levels can be seen to offer a framework within which individual social workers can progress while maintaining a degree of general practice training and the development of a specialism. The nature of the framework suggests that progression takes place over time, and that learning comes from experience ‘on the job’ supported by academic programmes. The level of performance, both professional and academic, required at post-qualifying level is higher than that required at qualifying level and suggests that knowledge and skills have been both widened and deepened and are applied to more specific specialisms. This may well correlate to Gardiner’s (1988) concepts of levels of learning, where the deepest learning ‘requires the ability to learn and to transfer both the content and the learning to new and different situations’ (p. 102).
Experience in Scotland to date indicates that the response of employers to post-qualifying awards in social work has been mixed, particularly the Advanced Award, and few courses have been established. Some agencies have grasped them enthusiastically as an aid to their own staff and service development strategies, some have barely recognised their existence. Perhaps even more negatively, we know of one large Scottish Authority which took a policy decision that resources should not be invested in post-qualifying initiatives. There is, of course, a range of less polarised responses in between. The ‘modernising’ agenda may see radical alterations to this structure. It is important that competences are developed in consultation with practitioners and professional bodies as well as with employers and where possible have some empirical basis for their promotion. If those developed are exclusively in the control of employers, there is a risk that they will do little more than promote a top-led uncritical and mechanistic practice rarely challenged by front line workers, when what is needed is accountable professional judgement and expertise based on evidence where this exists.
Those agencies that have welcomed and built on the post-qualifying framework have used it to put into place a cadre of specialists or consultants who are more able to take leadership in their field and act as resources to their staff groups. The investment of resources in these processes, which might be described as training for a specialism, has carried with it a clear expectation that practitioners will use their learning to influence practice, practice outcomes and the generation of new knowl- edge.
Management Learning in Practice
Our experience of running a short management training programme for criminal justice managers and an Advanced Award programme/MSc for staff and managers in criminal justice social work settings may have something to offer here. The Advanced Award/MSc programme is a two year part-time programme for experi-
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enced practitioners or managers, delivered on a modular basis, with practice or management options. The short programme was commissioned by the Scottish Executive to support the establishment of specialist criminal justice social work management within 32 Scottish Local Authorities following local government reform in 1996. The programme, 20 days in all, was run four times for approximately 20 managers, senior and middle, each time. As well as detailed feedback evaluation throughout and at the end of each programme, at the end of the four programmes, we surveyed all the participants to canvass their views on the programme and how they had made use of it.
Our expectation had been that very experienced participants in the management programme would come brimming with knowledge about the social policy, the law and research base of their specialism. What we discovered was that many were quite uninformed about these aspects of their work context, though we also noticed that it was not easy for them to acknowledge this! Our insistence that this material needed to be addressed before other more functional aspects of management training were tackled met with some resistance and perplexity. As the programme progressed, it became apparent that much management activity centred on carrying out procedures and requirements set by more senior managers, and that little room was left for reflection and creativity in managing the organisation’s precious human resource. The prospect of reading about innovation and research was seen as almost unreachable, as was the opening up of the debate around evidence-based practice and evaluation of their own work with senior professional managers.
We also heard about agencies where a ‘blame’, as opposed to a ‘learning’, culture made it difficult for staff to talk about areas which were not working well. Fear of being victimised in some way as trouble-makers, with the attendant worries about career prospects, seemed common place. This has enormous implications for potential of ‘whistle blowing’—if it is not easy to raise concerns about areas of practice which are ineffective, how will it ever be possible for staff members to identify areas of practice which are unsafe, either for staff or service users, or to address the limitations as well as the strengths of an evidence led approach to practice?
We were left wondering how the role of the professional manager was seen within social work agencies, many of whom had invested considerable resources in creating opportunities for managers to undertake MBA programmes. Covey (1992) talks of the sixth habit of highly effective people being synergy—creative cooperation— which values differences and builds on them. There is clearly a role here for professional managers to set the culture of ‘learning’ within an organisation. This has to be done in staff groups and teams in real work situations. This situation may have been further complicated in the last few years as many professionally trained directors of social work have been replaced by managers without social work experience or qualification.
We hoped to gain an insight into the process of transfer into the workplace of learning by following up participants after they had completed the short manage- ment programme. We discovered that, despite learning methods that centred on
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participants’ work experience and on practical problem-solving approaches, partici- pants experienced real difficulty in translating their learning into their workplaces. Some identified the blockages as coming from colleagues who were not sympathetic to trying out new ideas, others referred to senior managers who were actively dismissive of the relevance of knowledge and theory to workplace issues. Most, however, talked of the difficulty of implementing new ideas without parallel learning having taken place with their senior colleagues. Taking the risks associated with trying out new activities without the active support and commitment of colleagues is a lonely business, and most were finding it a struggle to see the way forward after a short period. The constant barrage of operational problems soon seemed to outweigh enthusiasm for innovation.
It was clear to us that knowledge and experience in the agency are important as is the context for the work, but on their own will not be enough to promote effective practice. A cultural acceptance of learning as a way of managing and practising needs to permeate the whole organisation, with managers taking a professional lead by demonstrating a commitment to their own learning and then setting practice standards which are rigorous in their formulation and in their evaluation. The feedback loops which are then generated will provide important information about work at an individual, service and agency level and contribute significantly to service planning and development. An important benefit of this approach is that staff routinely receive feedback on the effectiveness of their work which will eventually improve morale—but the key to this is the setting of relevant and achievable objectives so that staff and service users are not set up themselves to fail.
In addition to the need for staff to be better informed about the effectiveness of their own work is a necessity for agencies to be better informed about the work being carried out across the whole staff group. Information systems are gradually being put into place to ensure the collection of quantitative data. This needs to be more routinely part of the management agenda of oversight of work done. At least as important as these steps are those which centre on the collection and analysis of qualitative data, which are the results of accumulated evaluation across teams and services. Experience suggests that agencies and staff still have some way to go in the development of skills in qualitative data collection and analysis, but these can be learned provided there is recognition of the significance and limitations of such data.
Agencies as Learning Organisations
Social learning theorists have emphasised the significance of observational learning in changing the behaviour of groups or individuals. The characteristics of social learning suggests that the process requires:
• a model; • that the learning may take place without the specific intention of either the model
to teach or the learner to learn; • that specific behaviours and more general states can be learned in this way;
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• that the consequences of the learning depend on the consequences of the change and that the characteristics of the model influence the learning which takes place (Bandura & Walters, 1963).
Much of the character of organisations results from the social learning which is available to its staff through the behaviour of its significant members. This places an important responsibility on those in a leadership role to demonstrate and value the kind of behaviour they want to encourage throughout the organisation. Structures and processes within the organisation need to facilitate, indeed demand, the kind of learning which enables the social learning process to take place at every level.
We suggest that a culture of ‘curiosity’ and of learning needs to be established and maintained if staff are to be nourished and supported in taking the risks involved in this, or indeed any other, new way of working. The risks are about the work undone while this learning takes place and the attendant risk that a close examination of practice may reveal uncomfortable issues. Discomfort may arise from practitioners and managers who, when encouraged to evaluate their effectiveness against pre-de- termined objectives, become anxious that they have not been, or will not be, able to deliver what is needed. More generalised fears about whether or not the service can be effective in supporting individual change for service users may be a more worrying consequence. Clearly some of this fear is related to that which accompanies any kind of change and is one of the main issues which managers need to address in order to bring change about and then to make it ‘stick’. In this regard, using the principles of learning organisations becomes both the means and the end; or put another way, becoming a learning organisation is both the change which needs to be achieved and the way to achieve major change.
Successful learning organisations (Senge, 1992) empower all within them to take responsibility for the important aspects of the organisation’s business, both intern- ally and externally. Top down management can de-skill and de-motivate staff, preventing them from being effective where they can do their best work.
Learning organisations are those which have strong linkages between the three levels of activity—operations, strategy and policy (Garratt, 1987). Diagrammatically (Figure 1), the arrows between the three levels need to go in both directions, so that operations inform and are informed by policy and strategy and vice versa. This, for some organisations, will mean a considerable shift from the present style of working in which strategic plans are put together hastily and by senior staff alone. Often reference is not made to either operational staff, to service users or to external stakeholders within and outwith the agency.
In Senge’s model of change, staff are invited to evaluate their ongoing work and to use this knowledge and experience to contribute to continuous service improve- ment and to organisational development. Five learning disciplines within a learning organisation are identified as:
• personal mastery—an organisational climate which encourages its members to develop themselves towards the goals and purposes they choose;
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Figure 1
• mental models—reflecting upon, continually clarifying, and improving our inter- nal pictures of the world, and seeing how they shape our actions and decisions;
• shared vision—building a sense of commitment in a group, by developing shared images of the future we seek to create, and the principles and guiding practices by which we hope to get there;
• team learning—transforming conversational and collective thinking skills, so that groups of people can reliably develop intelligence and ability greater than the sum of the individual members’ talents;
• systems thinking—a way of thinking about, and a language for describing and understanding, the forces and interrelationships that shape the behaviour of systems.
Adopting such an approach would require some generosity of spirit and the capacity to re-prioritise work in order to make space for staff to study professional literature, to discuss what they discover and to apply it to their own practice. Setting a climate of learning will not be easy in the face of increasing demand and limited resources. Yet it is the only way forward if effort is to be targeted and resources focused on producing results.
Occupational standards are required but these need to be based on a thorough functional analysis of the roles staff are required to carry out. Attempts to recruit into posts for which there is only a superficial job description or person specification can be no more than haphazardly successful as the process and selectors will base decisions on insufficient information to ensure a good match between candidates
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and posts. Once an individual is in post her or his continued development within the organisation needs to be directed in ways which will, in the medium to longer term, contribute to high quality practice standards and to Senge’s five learning disciplines.
For social work organisations to become learning organisations, many will need to concentrate on first and second order change (Garratt, 1987). First order change is that which takes place at the operational end of the organisation. In this context first order change might involve incremental learning about skills development—objec- tive setting, gathering and analysing qualitative data, setting up data standards and information systems to store and retrieve data. Second order change refers to change at a strategic level. The second order changes are about the re-framing necessary for management structures and processes to become truly in tune with the external environment, where senior managers look upwards and outwards, interpret their observations or findings to inform policy which in turn informs strategy and operations. Boisot (1987) talks about organisations which codify and diffuse organ- isational knowledge. Garratt (1987) makes the point that ‘learning is much too important to be left as the province of personnel or, even worse, training depart- ments’. The message here is clear—senior managers have to recognise their role in learning on behalf of the organisation, and then need to oversee the development of structures and processes which bridge between the literature and research, data collected through information systems and the need to bring about changes to practice.
Attention equally needs to be paid to the role of research and the literature base in informing practice standards, and staff will need to become critical consumers of research and part of the debate on the nature of evidence which directs practice. Again these skills can be learned and utilised if an organisation declared them relevant to its core business.
A further feature of the social learning model is the opportunity it offers to service users. Much of the work done with service users by main grade staff stems from the principles of social learning theory. This can be made more effective if the same social learning principles permeate the organisation at every level. It was argued in traditional social work literature (Mattinson, 1975) that in staff supervision social workers may behave in a way which is similar to that of a service user with whom they are closely involved. Although something of a caricature, social work organisa- tions could also be described as having a tendency to share the characteristics of their clientele, like an ineffective parent, they seem to ignore bad behaviour until too late, pay too much attention to trivial matters, respond inconsistently, fail to back up their requests, and are subject to sudden bouts of arbitrary severity. It may be safe to assume, therefore, combining what is known about social learning and the reflection process, that this phenomenon may also occur in reverse, i.e. that service users may model the behaviour of practitioners. In order, then, to achieve the maximum amount of positive behaviour change in service users, the organisation should take care to ensure that its structures and processes are such that appropriate behaviour is recognised and rewarded.
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The Need for Academic and Agency Partnerships
There are many opportunities for formal learning or training made available to social workers. Much of the resources spent, however, could well be considered wasted if the individuals then seem unable to apply or sustain their learning when they return to the workplace. It is our observation that social work qualifying students are less likely to learn from what they are taught in class and more likely to learn from, and have their practice influenced by, what they see going on in agency placements. Even experienced practitioners and managers seem to struggle to make use of acquired knowledge when an agency culture is unreceptive to the challenges and the consequence of change and innovation.
An evidenced led approach to practice development requires closer working relationships between agencies and academic institutions to ensure the two way flow of information about current policy and practice issues. Such partnerships can provide agency staff with the opportunity to remain aware of the strengths and limitations of research in their field and help support a sound empirical basis for learning programmes which take account of the changing needs of practice develop- ment. Formal links between academic institutions and ‘learning’ agencies which foster some sharing or shadowing of staff to allow both sets to contribute to research, evaluation and service effectiveness would seem to be essential. This would also assist the promotion of meaningful and effective Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements that are likely to be introduced by the Scottish Social Services Council and assist agencies in making better use of evidence in planning services and in building in evaluation at the service planning stage. There are too few good examples of such partnerships in Scotland.
Conclusion
We have argued that in our experience much of the staff development and training effort currently being invested by agencies in their staff will not achieve its desired outcome or even may be wasted without a significant shift in approach. Professional staff struggle to hold on to their learning in, at best, unreceptive climates and, at worst, discouraging and negative milieus. Social work agencies need to move towards becoming learning organisations which, by instituting parallel learning at all levels, provide fertile ground from which practitioners and managers can nurture and integrate their own learning and development and bring innovation into the mainstream.
Training programmes of all types need to be negotiated with the active involve- ment of managers. Those same managers need to be involved in parallel learning, so that the climate surrounding staff is one where learning is encouraged, valued and supported. ‘Learning by doing’ is an important part of individual development in most professions, and the advent of evidence-based practice provides a culture for promoting objective-setting and evaluation as parts of normal routine in social work practice and management. These notions bring with them both threats and opportu-
380 K. Skinner & B. Whyte
nities. If the opportunities are enthusiastically grasped within a learning organisation framework the threats which are perceived to spring from the prospect of measure- ment of effectiveness can be minimised. This will maximise the learning and development of individuals and will move services closer to evidence-based practice and true best value. The only … person … who is educated is the … person … who has learned how to learn … how to adapt and change … who has realised that no knowledge is secure (adapted from Rogers, 1990, p. 304).
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Accepted September 2002