- Conference
- 2023 National Black Members’ Conference
- Date
- 22 September 2022
- Decision
- Carried
Conference notes that there are a disproportionate number of newly qualified Black social workers failing their post qualification programme. The Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) is a 12-month employment-based programme of support and assessment for newly qualified social workers (NQSWs).
Participation in the ASYE supports NQSWs to consolidate their degree learning, develop capability, and strengthen their professional confidence in an employment environment, while being assessed against the post-qualification key standards.
Employers are responsible for the design, delivery, and quality assurance of their ASYE programmes, and passing the ASYE is a condition of the social worker’s employment contract. Failure invariably leads to the social worker’s employment being terminated or, if kept on, being transferred to roles with lesser capabilities and not able to use the title of ‘social worker’.
An article in Community Care magazine (11/10/2021) stated, ‘Black and ethnic minority workers are three times as likely to fail ASYE as white colleagues’, figures show from 2018 to 2021, 3.2% of Black and ethnic minority social workers failed to complete their ASYE, compared with only 0.9% of white social workers. Most employers also acknowledge that there is work for them to do in embedding proactive approaches to overcoming inequalities and addressing systemic racism within the service.
Conference calls on the National Black Members committee to:
1)To produce guidance for local government branches including those in devolved nations (where appropriate), where there is an ASYE programme to support them in gathering data and statistical information from employers on pass and failure rates for Black social workers in both adult and children’s social services;
2)Produce a survey for branches to send to newly qualified Black social workers to find out their personal experience of working through the ASYE programme;
3)Highlight to Social Work England, other devolved regulators (where appropriate) and the British Association of Social Workers the findings from the data gathering exercise as a way of persuading them to adopt any necessary changes to the way the ASYE programme operates.