Annual Report of the Adults Principal Social Worker

The work of the Adults Principal Social Worker (PSW) Andrew Errington for Coventry City Council during 2023/24.

What is a PSW?

Care Act 2014 states a PSW should;

• be visible across the organisation
• support and develop effective conditions for practice
• oversee quality and improvement of practice
• have direct contact with the Adults Director and front-line practice

The PSW for Adults, Andrew Errington commenced in post in July 2016 and is the Head of Safeguarding and Practice Development. Andrew reports to the Head of Adult Social Care Sally Caren

Workforce Development

• Updated the Learning and Development portfolio for Adult Services in ensuring access to a range of relevant and current virtual and in person training opportunities.
• 86 training events relevant to Social Work attended by 951 staff
• 2 dedicated CPD events, refresher training for deafblind assessors and 4 new deafblind assessors qualified
• Hosted a 7th ‘virtual’ annual practice week with the Children’s PSW providing access to a week of practice focused events.
• 665 staff booked places across the 37 sessions during the week.
• Planned training events with a focus on legal literacy and ensuring assessment and support is inclusive and engages with sexuality, gender identity and religion, belief and spirituality
• Further Adult Services Wellbeing week in February 2024 with staff attending various online and in person activities and events focusing on health and wellbeing

Social Work Education

• Embedding links with our local Higher Education Institutions Coventry and Warwick Universities and supporting the West Midlands Social Work Teaching Partnership
• Practitioners supporting teaching on the Adults Module at Coventry University
• Continuing to support new routes into Social Work, including the new Degree Level Social Work apprenticeships
• Second cohort of 3 apprentices qualify, 5 members of staff undertaking the Degree Level SW apprenticeship, 4 further places planned for 2024

Meeting Standards

• Supporting the Post Qualifying Standards for SW Practice Supervisors, commissioning supervision training and purchased reflective, theory and self-cards practice for every supervisor to use
• Prepared practitioners for the 4th renewal with their Social Work Regulator ‘Social Work England’
• Launched a new ‘Learning Hub’ for front line staff

Strength Based Approaches

• Continuing to support Strength-based Practice Framework with Motivational Interviewing training and coproduced with practitioners a direct work resource with a range of tools to support communication and engagement
• Continued to host Complex Case and Risk Enablement Panel discussions
• Leading on establishing the demographic profile of people accessing Adult Social Care, exploring experiences of different communities

Practice Development Roles

• SW Practice Development roles are supporting newly qualified Social Workers, promoting Practice Education and providing practice support to front line staff and managers
• Supporting 10 new NQSWs (as of end of March 2024)
• 4 primary placements for SW’s
• 1 new SW Practice Educator trained

Practice Quality

• Practice Quality Assurance Framework with new simplified audit system. Includes observation of practice, practice and supervision audits. Allows organisational view on practice themes
• 307 audits undertaken in 23/24 (as of end of March 2024)
• Embedding the senior managers quality assurance activity, receiving and feeding back on examples of case work and undertaking customer interviews
• Developed a Practice Development, Learning and Improvement Framework systematic way of identifying organisational wide learning, areas of improvement and sharing best practice across the organisation
• Introduced a ‘We asked, You said, We did’ process to ensure any improvements identified by quality assurance and experience approaches are subject to feedback

Professional Curiosity

• Ensuring practice informed by evidence and curiosity, raising the profile of our subscription to ‘Research in Practice for Adults’, ‘Care Knowledge’, and ‘SW Connect’ helping staff to stay up to date on the latest expert information and legislation to help day to day practice
• 112 staff are now using Care Knowledge
• 79 staff now accessing SW Connect
• 9 in 10 respondents in health check survey agree with the statement ‘I have access to best practice, research and evidence materials’
• Commenced use of ‘Research Circles’ brings together practitioners and academics to attend a reflective session to read and review a piece of research

Policy and Best Practice Guidance

• Chairing the Adult Services Policy Group, ensuring policy and public information are accessible to all relevant staff and up to date.
• Championing the use of NICE National Guidelines, part of a national research study on the use of Guidance and producing a WM resource for frontline staff ‘How can NICE guidance support evidence informed SW practice’ (in conjunction with NICE implementation field team)
• Policy lead and author of key policies and guidance. Led the development of a revised Operating Protocol for Community Deprivation of Liberty
• Reviewed, updated and produced a new suite of public information for Adult Social Care. Ensuring public information note availability in the 6 main languages used in Coventry
• Translating key safeguarding information and posters into different languages
• Leading Diversity & Inclusion work including joining the Social Care Workforce Race Equality Standard (SC WRES) pilot

Practice Leadership

• Elected Co-chair of the West Midlands Adults Principal Social Worker Network until 2025 (chairing network since January 2017).
• PSW research associate supporting the development of a research culture in the region.
• Undertaking regional virtual ‘safe and effective practice reviews’ in support of CQC assurance preparations.
• Member of S75 Board and ICB professional leadership governance boards.

Safeguarding Adults

• Supporting the work of the Safeguarding Board through chairing the SAR subgroup. Supporting Board multi-agency learning events on key issues.
• Trialling new approaches to seeking people’s feedback on safeguarding enquiries
• Member of the WM Safeguarding Leads network
• Chair of the Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) subgroup

Engaging and coproducing

• Co-chair of the Adult Social Care ‘Stakeholder Group’. Supporting development of coproduction and engagement activities including an annual schedule of community engagement events.
• Leading on the production of Coventry’s ‘Local Account’, an annual report reflecting on the work of Adult Social Care 
• Leading ‘real time’ experience survey to seek feedback from people, identify areas for improvement and to ask people if they want to get involved 

Celebrating and Connecting with Practice

• Virtual networks and forums in place for staff engagement continued
• Supporting Adult Social Care Celebration event
• Keeping in touch with staff via the Adult Services E Bulletin and ‘Let’s Talk’ sessions

Priorities for 2024/25

• To continue to embed strength-based tools and techniques in practice and ensure they are translating into strength-based conversations and recording
• To continue to focus on practice quality and to engage in different ways with the experience of people accessing Adult Social Care
• Embed the Practice Development, Learning and Improvement Framework

Download a print version of this report