Chapter 6 Staff Training And Development

148. Training and staff development is one way of improving service standards, increasing staff motivation and achieving best value. This chapter looks at local authorities' performance in developing and providing appropriate training opportunities for staff about sensory impairment.

Policy and personnel

149. The training of social work/social care staff is no longer a discrete function of social work departments. Many social work training sections are now amalgamated with or more closely aligned to council-wide training sections. Some staff are dedicated to social work training on a full-time basis. Some have a training remit which extends beyond social work. Others have a training remit as part of a broader job description. Not all hold a social work qualification. As a consequence, we found that the knowledge, skill and commitment of training personnel varied widely.

150. Some of the staff we interviewed knew nothing about the specific training grant for social work services available from The Scottish Office (£4.2 million for 1997-98) or about their council's training budget. One trainer made it clear that sensory impairment training was a very small part of his remit and likely to remain so as other training concerns would continue to dominate. The availability and distribution of training budgets has also altered. It is now sometimes managed by those who know little about sensory impairment.

151. It is evident from the responses to our questionnaire and our fieldwork visits that in-house training opportunities are variable. There are only limited training opportunities available to staff who wish to know more about sensory impairment or improve their communication skills. These are described in Annex 3.

152. Only 3 local authorities explicitly recognised sensory impairment training needs in their community care plans. Less than half of the respondents to our local authority questionnaire said they had a training strategy for staff working with people with a sensory impairment and of these only 5 had a budget allocated for that purpose. Some of the senior managers we interviewed acknowledged that as a support service, training in general, and sensory impairment training in particular, got less attention than operational matters. They did not see it as their responsibility to gain a more detailed understanding of what training was available. Others were more positive, seeing training as central to the development of the organisation and of its workforce.

In-service training

153. Most authorities run basic sensory awareness courses, although these do not reach all the relevant staff. One of the key messages from our interviews and focus groups with people who are deaf or hard of hearing was:

"There should be more deaf awareness training - I feel frustrated if people forget to include me."

154. Senior social work staff, receptionists and administrators, who meet the public on a regular basis all need deaf awareness training. This might consist of learning to recognise the different communication needs of people who are deaf or hard of hearing and simple communication techniques. East Ayrshire is one authority which gives a high priority to this.

155. The way in which people who are deaf or hard of hearing experience their first contact with the local authority can be crucial. If this is a positive experience, it will develop their confidence in staff. If it is not positive, the person may not come back.

156. No authority made reference to Scottish Vocational Qualifications (SVQs) as part of a strategy for ensuring adequately trained staff.

157. Few authorities made reference to joint training initiatives, when it is likely that similar training needs exist in education and health. This failure to pool resources is surprising.

158. Of the authorities we visited, Fife had a particularly comprehensive programme. This recognised that training was shaped by management decisions about the future direction of services and also by the available financial resources. Fife acknowledged that specialist staff could provide basic awareness training for other staff and that specialist staff had their own needs. This can pose problems since specialists are a scarce resource and it can be difficult to justify diverting them to providing training rather than direct service.

159. The range of training offered included:

• basic visual impairment study days and basic deafblind awareness;

• basic communication skills with people with dual sensory loss;

• a basic course on working with older people with a sensory impairment;

• specialist short courses on Makaton, BSL and Deafblind guide/communicator training;

• SVQ development time for the local SENSE resource.

Training staff in Fife evaluated and adjusted courses as necessary, e.g. there were limited opportunities for workers to reach BSL exam standards and so they had shorter non-accredited courses that had a signing vocabulary which was specific to their work.

160. Aberdeen and Moray provided similar training including:

• sensory awareness training for staff provided by the voluntary sector in the contracted out service;

• specialist short courses e.g. BSL, Lipspeaking, LVAs basic awareness, use of Deafblind Manual Alphabet;

• specialist qualifying and post-qualifying training.

Moray was also running a programme of disability awareness training which included deaf and visual awareness. This was offered to anyone who wished to attend.

Nevertheless, the knowledge base of most social workers other than specialist staff about sensory impairment was poor. While some had attended basic awareness training many had not and did not anticipate doing so. The underlying assumption was that people with a sensory impairment would be dealt with by specialists so there was no need for other social workers to learn about this area of work.

The Diploma in Rehabilitation Studies

161. The principal concern of Social Workers for the Blind related to the appropriateness of the Diploma in Rehabilitation Studies which an increasing number of staff are obtaining as their qualification. In Scotland this course is offered by the School of Vision and Rehabilitation Studies which opened in Glasgow in 1993. It currently has 26 graduates with another 21 undertaking the award. Most social work staff think the qualification is a strong one which equips workers well in technical ability and in counselling skills. A minority told us that insufficient attention was paid to the teaching of traditional social work knowledge, skills and values. In our view, this course is sound and appropriate.

The Diploma in Social Work (DipSW)

162. Specialist social workers were critical of the existing DipSW. They thought it did not provide a meaningful understanding of working with people with a sensory impairment. Thirteen authorities told us they offered specialist placements for students who wished to work with people with a sensory impairment. However, only two authorities had such placements in 1996-97. Most also said that they would be willing to offer placements to students who had a sensory impairment.

Specialist training needs

163. Training opportunities available to specialist workers also vary. Practitioners are greatly influenced by the context in which they operate. Some staff appear to be unaware of who they should go to with training requests. In Glasgow, some funded their own training in BSL. On a more positive note, staff in Fife felt well integrated into the department. Their specialist needs were addressed, where possible, and efforts were made to get them on to other social work courses e.g. child protection.

164. How to obtain sign language skills was a top priority for many specialist hearing impairment workers.

165. Only 4 authorities were identified in the responses to our questionnaire as having attained BSL Stage 3. This is regarded as the level required to communicate effectively with those for whom this is a first language. The qualifications of those working in the voluntary sector are not known, making the statistics incomplete but the results are nevertheless worrying.

166. People who used the services had little to say about training but all those we interviewed expressed dissatisfaction with workers' ability to sign.

167. Many candidates reach Stage 1, few Stage 2 and fewer Stage 3. Failure at Stage 3 is particularly high. It may be that some candidates have insufficient opportunities to practise or that there are not enough people who have already reached this level available to support someone else through.

168. One submission (note 40) argues that the work of specialist teams and agencies would reduce if basic training in communication skills was provided to all social work staff.

169. The examining body for BSL, the CACDP, will no longer run Stage 3 examinations from December 1998. They will be offering National Vocational Qualifications - Level 3 BSL Units - which are yet to be piloted in Scotland and may not be available here for the next two years. In the meantime, training programmes preparing people for qualification in the North of England may be accessible.

170. Staff told us that there was a dearth of post-qualifying opportunities. They regretted the demise of a specialist course that Moray House ran as well as the Open University Course on Deafness. A submission from the East of Scotland Society for the Deaf in Edinburgh mentioned the postgraduate diploma/MA in Social Work with Deaf People which is offered on a distance learning basis by Manchester Metropolitan University. The cost was said to be prohibitive and the necessary placement arrangements difficult to make.

171. There are insufficient numbers of trained guide/communicators to be the eyes and ears of deafblind people. All agencies recognise the very specialist nature of this training and work together with the 2 main organisations - Deafblind UK (Scottish office) and SENSE to meet the needs. The considerable expertise of both these groups is universally acknowledged and appreciated, but they cannot meet the existing and growing demands.

Summary

• Sensory impairment training is not a priority for senior management;

• Training staff differ in their ability to identify and meet sensory impairment training needs; as a consequence training needs of both specialist and other social work staff are not being sufficiently well addressed.