Medway Council

The Department for Education introduced social work teaching partnerships to improve the overall quality of learning, continuing professional development and practice. This was for social work students and the existing workforce. We are led by social work employers and funded by the government. The Kent, Medway and South East Social Work Teaching Partnership aims to inspire education and training that leads to high quality social work.

The partnership has been in place since 2016, when we replaced the old ‘Social Work Education Group’ meetings. In 2018 we received government funding to improve the quality of social work education and training in the region which will continue until March 2020. Then we'll continue to develop social workers through partnership working and through the local authorities Social Care Academies.

Vision

Our vision is to attract, recruit, develop and retain social workers. This would be through the transformation of their education and development in practice throughout their career.

The partnership

The organisations involved are:

• Medway Council, the lead partner
• Kent County Council
• University of Kent
• Canterbury Christ Church University
• Open University, an associate partner
• Skills for Care, an associate partner

We are governed by a strategic board of directors from:

• Kent and Medway Council's children and adult services
• principal social workers
• organisational development leads
• senior representatives from the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University 

Aims

We have set an implementation plan to ensure there are improvements in social work education and practice.

These improvements are aimed at the following areas:

• governance
• admissions
• placements and curriculum
• academic delivery
• practice support and development
• workforce and labour market planning
• progression
• academics' experience of practice