Continuous learning is critical to high-quality social work practice, but the demands of the job can mean time to carry out skills and knowledge development is squeezed out.

Community Care Inform has just launched the latest wave of its Learning Landscapes research, to shine a light on social workers and other social care practitioners’ experiences of learning.

We want to find out how much time you have for learning, how sufficient this is and what the barriers are to you receiving the development time you need.

We also want to understand how well supported you are to learn by your employer, what your learning preferences are and how far these are met in your workplace.

Our last survey, carried out in 2024, found that most social workers had less time for learning than they did 12 months previously, including because of high caseloads and vacancy levels, affecting their career development, confident and resilience.

We shared these results with sector leaders and employers to help them understand the realities of learning and development for their practitioners, in order to support positive change.

Community Care Inform is calling on practitioners to take part in this year’s research so that we can showcase – to employers and more widely – how things have changed since 2024 and promote improvements in learning and practice.

By taking part, you can also be entered into a draw to receive a £50 gift voucher from One4All.

Take part in the research now.

Most social workers have less time for learning than they did 12 months previously, research for Community Care Inform, set out in a newly published report, has found.

The trend has been driven by high caseloads and team vacancy levels, and has affected practitioners’ career development, confidence and resilience.

The Learning Landscapes study also identified a gap between the time practitioners felt they needed for learning each week and the time they had available, leading almost a fifth (18%) to consider leaving their current employment.

The vast majority of practitioners had attended some training in the previous 12 months, with the average being five days. However, over half had had to cancel at least one day of training during that time due to work commitments.

The findings of Learning Landscapes have now been published in a whitepaper.

Cancelled training a key issue

Workforce leaders who have seen the findings said they chimed with their experience of the pressures on staff to make time for learning.

Gemma Durrant, head of learning and development, children’s services, at Hampshire County Council, said it had a 26% cancel on-the-day rate across all of its courses.

She said cancellation rates had been much lower for a course on implementing a new case management system, which she attributed to greater senior management buy-in.

Tackling non-attendance at training

At Birmingham Children’s Trust’s attendance was very high for social work training, said Sophie Gilbert, head of its learning academy.

One potential factor in this was the fact that, when a person did not attend a course, the learning and development team emailed their manager to ask why.

For Surrey County Council, cancellation rates had fallen by 50% after it started charging teams for non-attendance, said principal social worker in children’s services Kasey Senior.

She said that, while she and learning and development colleagues did not want people to feel blamed, the charging policy had led assistant directors and service managers to think more about decisions to cancel training.

Making a reality of protected time

As with Inform’s 2022 survey, giving practitioners protected time was respondents’ favoured way for organisations to support learning, being cited by 53% of respondents to the 2024 research.

Workforce leaders polled by  said their organisations offered protected time, but very few said that these policies worked in practice.

Hampshire offers all social workers five days’ protected learning a year, but Gemma said the council did not monitor take-up.

“It’s about personal responsibility – some people say, ‘that’s what I’m doing’, others are not bothered and [some] get overwhelmed,” she said. “I don’t want to say to people, ‘it needs to be this number of hours per month’, as that may not work for everyone.”

Supporting experienced practitioners’ development

Kasey said there was a gap in the provision of protected learning time for practitioners who were four-plus years’ qualified.

“[Their ] learning is based on their relationship with their manager,” she said. “If that’s working, fine. But we’re not monitoring it.”

If you are a principal social worker or workforce lead, or work in practice development, and are interested in finding out about the Learning Landscapes study, please email rebekkah.tabern@markallengroup.com for more information.

Social care practitioners can get up to speed with the law around adult safeguarding at Community Care’s next masterclass.

Expert speakers will cover issues including the legal framework around adult safeguarding, its intersection with the Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA), the inherent jurisdiction and how to handle cases involving self-neglect or hoarding.

Alongside this, delegates will also learn the key lessons for practice from the safeguarding adults reviews (SARs).

The masterclass, which costs £325 plus VAT, takes place on 28 March 2025 at etc.venues, Manchester.

The adult safeguarding event builds on the success of last year’s legal masterclasses, in Manchester and London, on mental capacity.

Speaking at the adult safeguarding masterclass are:

• Tim Spencer-Lane, a lawyer specialising in adult social care, mental capacity and mental health, who will provide an overview of the legal framework around adult safeguarding in England and Wales, including the criteria for a safeguarding enquiry and the protection powers available to practitioners.
• Professor Michael Preston-Shoot, an academic specialising in adult safeguarding, who will share learning from the second national analysis of SARs, which he co-authored.
• Francesca Gardener, a specialist Court of Protection barrister from 39 Essex Chambers, who will discuss the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court, explaining the limits of its power to protect vulnerable adults sharing learning from key case law.
• Rebecca Clark, a barrister from Exchange Chambers, who will speak on the application of the MCA to adult safeguarding cases.
• Neil Allen, a barrister at 39 Essex Chambers and senior lecturer at the University of Manchester, who will help practitioners navigate the complex ethical dilemmas when deciding whether or not to intervene in self-neglect and hoarding cases.

You can find out more, and book your place, on our dedicated masterclass website.

For social care practitioners, learning from the expertise of those with lived experience of services is critical to good practice.

That’s why people with experience of receiving social care will be at the forefront of the learning being delivered at Community Care Live 2024, which takes place in London from 8-9 October.

Voices of lived experience

Bestselling author and care experienced trainer Jenny Molloy will be returning to the event for a session on day two (9 October) on how social workers can work better with women who have recovered from addiction and domestic abuse.

Jenny will draw on her work as patron of women’s recovery charity Trevi and will be speaking alongside two other experts by experience, Helen and Vicki.

Also on day two, Luke Rodgers will tell his compelling story of going from being a care leaver to founding charity the Care Leaders, which provides children’s services practitioners with training on supporting young people from a lived experience perspective.

And on day one (8 October), expert by experience and academic Rebecca Regler will deliver a session on why involving people with lived experience in social work’s design and delivery is so important, and how it can be increased at individual and strategic level.

Promoting inclusion

Alongside these sessions, we are welcoming back the ever-popular Chickenshed Theatre Company, whose members will be sharing their own experiences of social exclusion in their production, ‘Inclusion Emergency’.

The show, on day one, is designed to help practitioners understand young people’s lived experiences and the barriers to inclusion that many face.

Practitioners will also be drawing on their lived experience at this year’s event. This includes a session on how employers can make workplaces more inclusive for staff with neurodivergent conditions, such as ADHD, autism and dyslexia, delivered by social workers Florence Smith and Jenni Guthrie, from training firm Neuro Inclusive Solutions.

A wealth of free learning

And this is just a flavour of the learning on offer at this year’s event, with 37 sessions across the two days. Most of these are free to attend for eligible social care practitioners, with topics this year including relationship-based practice, learning from serious cases, supporting adults with learning disabilities to participate online and trauma-informed practice with young asylum seekers.

We also have a dedicated learning stream for occupational therapists on day one, which will cover anti-oppressive practice, working with risk and forging strong working relationships with social work colleagues.

Top-quality legal training

Alongside our free sessions, we will again be running eight paid-for legal seminars, delivered by leading barristers and legal trainers.

These include Community Care Inform legal editor Tim Spencer-Lane, who will be delivering sessions on the Mental Capacity Act and care and support decisions, the legal framework around safeguarding adults and section 117 aftercare under the Mental Health Act on day two.

Our other legal sessions cover hoarding, covert medication and capacity law, supporting asylum seekers with additional needs, understanding capacity, competence and parental responsibility in relation to young people, protecting young people from exploitation and private family law proceedings.

You can book any one of these sessions for £35 + VAT.

Network with colleagues and explore opportunities

Alongside the learning, you will have the chance to network with fellow practitioners and explore new opportunities – with employers, learning organisations, providers and recruiters – in our exhibition.

And to help you relax and to provide a break from the learning, you can take part in our seated yoga and medication sessions, delivered by Essex County Council practitioners.

It is thanks to Essex County Council, our event partner, Hampshire County Council, our learning sponsor, and Wiltshire Council, our event sponsor, along with our exhibitors, that it is possible for us to put on this event and deliver so much high-quality content.

We look forward to seeing you in London in October!

Two abiding facts about social work are that practitioners are time poor and that continuing professional development (CPD) is critically important for good practice.

Community Care Inform wants to find out how you manage the evident tension between these truths, through a survey designed to paint a comprehensive picture of how social workers – and other social care practitioners – learn today.

The survey asks how much time you feel you need for learning and research each week to do your job to the best of your ability and – how much you actually have.

Do you have enough time to learn?

We want to find out if you lack time for sufficient learning and if so, why. Is it high caseloads, vacancies on your team, insufficient learning resources or a lack of support to carry out CPD from your manager?

We also want to find out what impact this learning deficit is having on you and your career.

We also want to hear about how your organisation supports you in your learning and how this could be improved, as well as how you like to consume learning, for example, through face-to-face courses, webinars, podcasts or written guidance.

How we plan to use research findings

Community Care Inform plans to use the research to highlight practitioners’ experiences of, and opportunities for, learning and how this can be improved to enhance practice.

We will do this by sharing results from the survey, including on the Community Care website, and working with employers to help them apply the findings in their workplaces.

As an added incentive to take part, you will be given the option to be entered into a draw to receive a £50 gift voucher from One4All. The survey will be open until the end of the summer.

Community Care Live 2024 is open for registration!

Our annual event provides social workers and other social care practitioners with free learning, the chance to connect with fellow professionals and a wealth of opportunities to explore with employers, learning organisations and providers.

Why come to Community Care?

Learning from lived experience

This year’s free programme will provide practitioners with critical learning on key topics across children’s and adults’ services, including supporting unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, young people at risk of involvement with violence, adults with learning disabilities and people with dementia, and understanding the benefits system.

While several of these will be delivered by leading practitioners and academics, there is also a strong focus on learning from the voices of lived experience.

Bestselling author and care experienced trainer Jenny Molloy will be returning to the event for a session on day two (9 October) on how social workers can work better with women who have recovered from addiction and domestic abuse.

Jenny will draw on her work as patron of women’s recovery charity Trevi and will be speaking alongside two other experts by experience, Helen and Vicki.

Also on day two, Luke Rodgers will tell his compelling story of going from being a care leaver to founding charity the Care Leaders, which provides children’s services practitioners with training on supporting young people from a lived experience perspective.

Highlighting the ‘inclusion emergency’ 

And on day one (8 October), expert by experience and academic Rebecca Regler will deliver a session on why involving people with lived experience in social work’s design and delivery is so important, and how it can be increased at individual and strategic level.

Alongside these sessions, we are welcoming back the ever-popular Chickenshed Theatre Company, whose members will be sharing their own experiences of social exclusion in their production, ‘Inclusion Emergency’.

The show, on day one, is designed to help practitioners understand young people’s lived experiences and the barriers to inclusion that many face.

Practitioners will also be drawing on their lived experience at this year’s event. This includes a session on how employers can make workplaces more inclusive for staff with neurodivergent conditions, such as ADHD, autism and dyslexia, delivered by social workers Florence Smith and Jenni Guthrie, from training firm Neuro Inclusive Solutions.

Top-quality legal learning

Our paid-for legal stream will provide you with learning on social care law from leading barristers and legal trainers.

These include Community Care Inform legal editor Tim Spencer-Lane, who will be delivering sessions on the Mental Capacity Act and care and support decisions, the legal framework around safeguarding adults and section 117 aftercare under the Mental Health Act on day two.

Our other legal sessions cover hoarding, covert medication and capacity law, supporting asylum seekers with additional needs, understanding capacity, competence and parental responsibility in relation to young people, protecting young people from exploitation and private family law proceedings.

You can book any one of these sessions for £35 + VAT.

Network with fellow practitioners and explore opportunities

Alongside the learning, you will have the chance to network with fellow practitioners and explore new opportunities – with employers, learning organisations, providers and recruiters – in our exhibition.

And to help you relax and to provide a break from the learning, you can take part in our seated yoga and medication sessions, delivered by Essex County Council practitioners.

It is thanks to Essex County Council, our event partner, Hampshire County Council, our learning sponsor, and Wiltshire Council, our event sponsor, along with our exhibitors, that it is possible for us to put on this event and deliver so much high-quality content.

We look forward to seeing you in London in October!

Staying up to speed with the case law and its implications for practice can be a huge challenge for busy social workers.

That is why Community Care has gathered together some of the leading legal experts on the Mental Capacity Act 2005, to deliver a masterclass in London next month, designed to equip practitioners to apply the legislation in day-to-day practice.

A similar event in Manchester in March was hugely well-received by practitioners (see box), so we are sure that those who attend the London masterclass on 10 July will come away equally confident in applying their learning to practice.

Book your place now

Leading mental capacity lawyer, and Community Care Inform legal editor, Tim Spencer-Lane will open the day with an update on the latest MCA case law.

Handling complex cases

He will also provide guidance on handling cases involving complex capacity assessments and best interests decisions.

Tim will be followed by 39 Essex Chambers barrister and legal trainer Neil Allen, who will deliver a session on the application of the act to hoarding cases.

Neil will draw upon the judgment in AC and GC (Capacity: Hoarding: Best interests) [2022] EWCOP 39, the first Court of Protection ruling on hoarding, in which he appeared.

He will cover, among other things, the relevant information for the purposes of a capacity assessment when it comes to a person making decisions about their items and belongings, and what happens when the right to private and family life (Article 8) under the European Convention of Human Rights is engaged.

Executive functioning difficulties

Neil will also deliver the next session, on the challenge of conducting capacity assessments of people with executive functioning difficulties. In such cases, a person may appear to have capacity to make a decision but may not, in practice, be able to carry the decision out.

He will highlight the importance of using real-world observations, in some contexts, and focusing on the person’s ability to use and weigh information as part of the capacity assessment.

After lunch, Ben Troke, author of A Practical Guide to the Law on Deprivation of Liberty (Law Brief Publishing), will examine the state of the law on deprivation of liberty.

Ben, who is a partner at the firm Weightmans, will look at how to understand deprivations of liberty in context and the importance of focusing on a person’s rights to private and family life, under Article 8 of the ECHR, as well as to liberty (Article 5).

Capacity and consent to sexual relations and marriage

Rounding off the day is a session on capacity in relation to consent to sexual relations and marriage, delivered by Francesca Gardner, a barrister at 39 Essex Chambers with extensive experience of all aspects of Court of Protection work.

Francesca will cover the relevant information a person needs to understand, retain and use or weigh to be able to consent to sexual relations, the occasions when such capacity assessments need to be person-specific, rather than act-specific, and how to assess a person’s capacity to consent to marriage.

Attending the masterclass costs £325 + VAT.

Book your place now

The Social Care Online library has closed after almost 20 years providing access to information on the sector.

The Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), which ran the service, said it was no longer meeting the needs of social care professionals.

Social Care Online provided a searchable database of abstracts relating to good practice on different aspects of social care and was targeted at practitioners, as much as students or academics.

‘Social care’s equivalent of a search engine’

It was launched in 2005, replacing the previous Electronic Library for Social Care.

At the time, SCIE described it as “social care’s equivalent of a search engine”, comprising good practice guidance, government publications, inspection reports, legislation, training material, directories of other social care resources and access to major social care databases.

However, its usage has declined considerably over the years as alternative sources of information have become available and search engines have developed, and it has been used primarily by academics and students in recent years.

It was last updated in early 2023, when the decision was taken to close it, but it finally closed in March of this year.

University users, and others, with access to the Ovid platform will be able to access the content from Social Care Online through the Social Policy and Practice database, while health and social care staff can access similar information through NHS OpenAthens.

‘No longer meeting needs of social care community’

SCIE said it had developed a new digital tool to better meet the needs of care professionals.

“The decision to close Social Care Online was announced at the start of last year as it became increasingly clear the service was no longer meeting the needs of the social care community, said Deborah Rozansky, SCIE’s director of policy, research and information.

“Since then, we have conducted extensive research with care professionals to understand the content they need and the best way for them to consume it. This has enabled us to develop a new digital tool, which we hope to launch within the next 12 months. Our aim is to close the workforce knowledge and skills gaps by building care workers’ skills while on the job.”

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 is a critical piece of legislation, employed every day by social care practitioners to help people aged 16 and over make decisions about their lives or, where they cannot, ensure decisions made about them are in their best interests.

But with case law and practice contexts continuing to evolve, staying up to date with the MCA is vital to ensuring legal literacy in social work and occupational therapy.

Following a highly successful event in Manchester, Community Care is bringing its Mental Capacity Masterclass to London, on 10 July 2024, so that more professionals can increase their confidence and capability when using the act.

Book your place now

Leading mental capacity lawyer, and Community Care Inform legal editor, Tim Spencer-Lane will open the day with an update on the latest MCA case law.

Handling complex cases

He will also provide guidance on handling cases involving complex capacity assessments and best interests decisions.

Tim will be followed by 39 Essex Chambers barrister and legal trainer Neil Allen, who will deliver a session on the application of the act to hoarding cases.

Neil will draw upon the judgment in AC and GC (Capacity: Hoarding: Best interests) [2022] EWCOP 39, the first Court of Protection ruling on hoarding, in which he appeared.

He will cover, among other things, the relevant information for the purposes of a capacity assessment when it comes to a person making decisions about their items and belongings, and what happens when the right to private and family life (Article 8) under the European Convention of Human Rights is engaged.

Executive functioning difficulties

Neil will also deliver the next session, on the challenge of conducting capacity assessments of people with executive functioning difficulties. In such cases, a person may appear to have capacity to make a decision but may not, in practice, be able to carry the decision out.

He will highlight the importance of using real-world observations, in some contexts, and focusing on the person’s ability to use and weigh information as part of the capacity assessment.

After lunch, Ben Troke, author of A Practical Guide to the Law on Deprivation of Liberty (Law Brief Publishing), will examine the state of the law on deprivation of liberty.

Ben, who is a partner at the firm Weightmans, will look at how to understand deprivations of liberty in context and the importance of focusing on a person’s rights to private and family life, as well as to liberty.

The final session will be on capacity and consent to sexual relations and marriage, with a speaker due to be confirmed shortly.

Sophie Gilbert, head of learning academy, Birmingham Children’s Trust

For me it would be: don’t stay put.

Know yourself in terms of your areas of interest and what brought you into this. But also, it’s okay that you don’t stay in a team or a service and that you try different things. Because that’s what helps with resilience and that’s what gives you that motivation.

Everybody in this world needs something that gets them out of bed in the morning and that’s really important. And if you’ve got a job that makes you not want to get out of bed in the morning, that’s the time to start moving on to new challenges.

The world of social work is so vast and there are so many opportunities to make a difference. You don’t have to leave the sector, you can try something new within it.

So, that would be my advice: don’t just go into a service and stay there for the rest of your career. Build, grow and follow your areas of interest and passion.

Rob Winfield, social worker, practice educator and learning and development officer, Hampshire County Council children’s services

All of us around this table and in this room work in a strengths-based way with the families and the adults with whom we work. It’s about how we develop social work so that we’re working in strengths-based ways with our staff as well.

So my message is about valuing yourself and valuing where you are on that journey. People get bogged down in doing frontline practice – they get into frontline practice and they can get lost in it, it’s so busy, so complicated, and can be so challenging sometimes – the job.

So it’s about having that pathway for yourself to understand where you’re going and what your journey looks like, so you stay strengths-based in the work that you do.

But there is a wider message too – that organisations need to work in a strengths-based way in respect of how they support staff. We know that social workers who work in a supportive environment feel empowered in the difficult work that they do in frontline children’s safeguarding.

Aileen Blake, practice development social worker, Gloucestershire County Council adults’ services

We all have our L plates on, we never stop learning. I think that’s something that’s really important for everybody. And for students and newly-qualified [workers] they think ‘oh I need to know everything and I need to know it now’.

But actually, at any level of social work, you’re continuing to learn and need to learn and continue to have that enthusiasm to learn.

We are delighted to be running this workshop again online, on 16 January 2024 at 12pm. If you would like an invitation to attend, please contact rebekkah.tabern@markallengroup.com