How do social workers lead? An Evaluation of the Role and Contribution of Adult Principal Social Workers

In recent years there have been increasing concerns over the wellbeing of social workers and the number of social workers who are leaving their roles. Such workforce pressures result in people accessing services and their families experiencing poorer care due to turnover in their social workers and social work teams having reduced capacity to respond to local demand and changes in need. Positive and engaged leadership is an important factor in helping professionals such as social workers feeling supported in their work. 

Local authorities are required by law to appoint Principal Social Workers (PSWs) within Adult Services to provide professional social work leadership in their areas. This is to improve the quality of practice and to support the recruitment and development of the social work workforce. Within each local authority, PSWs take on different responsibilities alongside their PSW duties with some employed in senior operational roles whilst others being based in education or quality assurance roles. Despite having been in place for over 10 years, there has been no national research of the PSW role.

• Aim

  To evaluate the contribution of PSWs to improving adult social work practice and the recruitment & retention of the professional workforce and to identify enablers and barriers to the work of PSWs as professional leaders.

• Research questions

  • How are PSWs expected to contribute to improving quality of practice and developing the workforce? 
  • How is the role implemented within local authority areas and what impacts are seen to be achieved?
  • What are the enablers and barriers to the PSW role working effectively?
  • What organisational and development support would better enable PSWs to achieve the expected impacts?

• Research plan/ methods

  The research will begin by developing a ‘theory of change’ for the PSW role – this will map out the current context in which PSWs work, the impacts they are expected to achieve, and the activities which are thought to lead to these impacts. This will be developed through speaking to national stakeholders with an understanding of the role and holding a workshop with current PSWs and the Project Advisory Group.

  We will then undertake research in six local authority areas (case sites) to explore how the PSW role has been implemented and supported and how this has helped or hindered PSWs in achieving the expected impacts. The case sites will be selected to reflect the different roles and organisational seniority of PSWs and different types of local authority area. Through focus groups and interviews, we plan to speak to around 40 people in each case site including people with lived experience, social workers, team managers and senior leaders in the local authority and partner agencies such as the NHS.

• Planned outputs

  The research team will work with Research in Practice (RiP) to create learning materials to support current and future PSWs.

  A national report outlining the findings regarding the overall expectations of PSWs and how they can be better supported in the role on a local and national basis to better achieve the expected impacts.

  A range of academic outputs will also be produced related to the project.