Many skills are essential to being an effective social worker, but high on that list is the ability to lead effectively. Since it was established in 2013 the innovative two-year Leadership Development programme (LDP) offered by the charity Frontline, which trains cohorts of “outstanding” future social workers to be practitioners as well as leaders in the field, has been showing the way.
The charity is keenly aware that recruiting social workers to be leaders is a priority, given the half a million children in England without a “safe or stable home”. The purpose, it says, is to build “a movement of leaders in and outside social work” to improve the lives of vulnerable children and their families.
So how does the LDP achieve its goals? And how does Frontline ensure that the best leadership skills are acquired and built upon?
Focusing from the outset on trainees acquiring hands-on experience and practice-based learning with vulnerable children and families, the programme is designed to foster leadership skills every step of the way. “Social work is a leadership profession in which you must inspire, persuade, and bring out the best in diverse groups of people,” the LDP’s creators explain.
The programme begins with a five-week summer institute, after which trainees spend more than 200 days in placements with local authorities alongside experienced social workers. They receive a postgraduate diploma in social work at the end of the first year and, by the end of the second year, participants are qualified social workers with their own caseloads and a master’s qualification.
Crucially, the LDP has an “earn as you learn” element. Successful applicants benefit from a tax-free bursary of up to £19,200 in the first year, as well as having tuition fees and accommodation at the summer institute covered by Frontline. In the second year, when they complete a fully funded master’s degree, participants will be placed in a local authority as newly qualified social workers, earning up to £35,000.
Training and on-the-job experience are key, but Frontline also supports graduates of the leadership programme as part of a fellowship initiative after they’ve qualified. The fellowship is specifically tailored to developing new ideas on how to address social disadvantage. These can range from efforts to influence policy to effecting changes to social work practice. There are also endless networking opportunities available throughout the programme. The fellowship is also open to those who have completed the Firstline leadership scheme for experienced managers, and to consultant social workers who have worked with Frontline for at least two years.
The LDP particularly appeals to aspiring social workers eager to help shape the future of the profession and its wider impact on society. One of these is Charley Lintern. A Frontline alumna from the first cohort, who went on to practise as a children’s social worker at Newham council in London for two and a half years, Lintern says being able to grasp how good leaders can have a positive impact on vulnerable people’s lives has been one of the most valuable lessons she has learned from involvement in the LDP. “If you can motivate and inspire people, that’s what creates a momentum for change,” she says.
The core “competencies” that are the backbone of Frontline’s requirements for applicants and its approach to cultivating “empowered” social workers are crucial to the programme’s success, according to Lintern. Leadership potential is one of these primary competencies. “Right from the beginning there was a real focus on leadership,” Lintern observes. “You think about leadership in a new way. The approach tells you that you can be a leader in any situation and to think about it as cooperative, not about hierarchy.”
Lintern describes how, once she was working with children and families, she was able to apply the approach effectively. She recalls one family in particular where the mother was dealing with a chronic alcohol problem, was in rehab, and was trying to get her children back. “I was trying to work with the family on how they could help make the situation better,” Lintern says, recalling that by empowering, negotiating, and understanding the family’s needs, the outcome was a positive one. “I worked with the mum to create a plan,” she explains.
Other aspects of Frontline’s approach are equally critical to generating positive outcomes, according to Lintern, who is also a trustee at the charity. Frontline stresses to prospective participants, for example, the importance of demonstrating a clear motivation to help vulnerable children and families and of developing a flexible communications skillset that works for families, colleagues and outside stakeholders.
In what can be a high-pressure, unpredictable work environment, Lintern believes Frontline’s emphasis on adaptability and nurturing a capacity for identifying risks, along with a rigorous approach to complex problems, sets it apart. She says she has acquired skills that “have helped with interactions with children” and ensure she can “think and respond under pressure”.
Lintern arrived at the LDP straight out of university, but the programme also attracts people who are slightly older and seeking alternative careers in the public sector. Bart Preston, a 33-year-old former Benedictine monk who previously studied medicine, is one of the career changers. Like Lintern, he says being given the leadership tools necessary to work in complex situations with some of the most vulnerable children and their families has convinced him he made the right choice. Preston, who says he decided to “be at the coalface” helping families in difficulty, rather than be cloistered, has just finished his first year of the LDP.
Elements of the programme that have been especially instructive have included the importance placed on self-awareness, resilience and empathy, he explains. “Unique elements” like learning how to become “self-reflective” as a practitioner and “to really examine your own history and makeup” have spurred him to approach families with humility and respect, he says. In a time of considerable need for many families and pressure on local authorities’ resources, equipping social workers with leadership expertise is vitally important, he adds.
Preston, who is based in London, says being slightly older may give him a different perspective, but that having worked with younger people on the leadership programme it’s clear that everyone “brings different strengths” to the training and to the job of social work.
