Finding better ways to support social workers
DEPARTMENT FOR EDUCATION
The Department for Education (DfE) is a UK Government department responsible for children’s services and education including early years, schools, higher and further education policy, apprenticeships and wider skills in England.
One key area of responsibility is in helping disadvantaged children and young people to achieve more. Their Vulnerable Children and Families portfolio aims to help children in the social care system as much as possible and as part of this (and in partnership with the Department for Health and Social Care), ensuring that social workers have what they need to support those children is an important consideration.
The challenge
In 2018, the UK Government introduced a National Assessment and Accreditation System (NAAS) for children’s social workers. More than 1700 practitioners obtained their Accreditation Certificates via this system. However, the Department for Education wanted to move away from the current system set up as the contracts to deliver these services were ending and it was a good time to evaluate the service.
They decided that they wanted to bring the capability in-house and to also take the opportunity to digitise as much of the process as possible in light of the COVID-19 pPandemic. Previously a lot of the process involved in-person assessments which were often costly to run and given the pandemic, in-person restrictions made these challenging to coordinate.
A major part of the challenge was in finding a solution quickly so that the data gathered and stored in the original system could be transferred over and utilised effectively going forwards.
What we did
Register Dynamics was asked to supply an Interim Lead Technical Architect who could work closely with the Deputy Director and Lead Delivery Manager to explore the options together.
We launched a Discovery for a new, digital, Social Worker Assessment Service, incorporating the requirements based on the user needs that we had gathered. We analysed the concerns of users alongside their specific needs and also the technical requirements and possible ways to deliver this via one unified platform.
The business requirements for interoperability with the tools and standards in the Education Technology Market were also a really important consideration for us to take into account and we examined various ways to approach these as part of the solution too.
A high-stakes test is a test with important consequences for the person taking that test. It is used to make important decisions about the test taker. As part of the Discovery we were asked to look at ‘high-stakes online assessment’ functionality and to determine how viable and useful it would be to incorporate this. After much discussion and research, we focused our efforts on ensuring that the user needs were fully understood and could be met within a reasonable timescale. We outlined a range of recommendations for the team to move forwards with.
The result
The NAAS programme was closed in March 2022 as planned and a new improved, online system is in its evolution. The Discovery initiated a range of important findings and possible improvements and transformations in the system. We look forward to seeing how the team enhances the offering and how the next version of the Assessment Service evolves.
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