: *PRE MARKET ENGAGEMENT * Child & Family Social Worker Leadership CPD Programmes

Current planning for any future requirement is likely to be a leadership and management development programme for child and family social workers at the following differentiated levels:

• Practice Supervisor: for all social workers who provide supervision to a frontline social worker.
• Middle manager: for managers of Practice Supervisors and Practice Supervisors who are aspiring to be Middle Managers. Middle managers are social workers who are operating between practice supervisor and heads of service level. They will have management and operational responsibilities.
• Head of Service: will target Middle Managers who are aspiring Practice Leaders and current Heads of Service who manage a service area in a local authority.
• Practice Leaders: for those working as Assistant Directors and Heads of Service aspiring to progress to that level. Practice leaders are qualified social workers with the day-to-day operational responsibility across the whole local system for child and family social work practice, and for child and family practitioners and practice supervisors. Most usually, this is referred to as the Assistant Director of Children’s Social Care or Director of Family Services.

Programme cohorts may need to be delivered separately but have similar content and aim to embed a set of consistent leadership skills as part of content design and be based on the PQS.

The programme solution will need to be flexible to reflect both local authority and individual needs and cohesive across the different levels. The programme must be attractive to social workers and their employers as participation will be optional.

Key outputs:

• Support social work practice through a programme covering leadership, management and supervision, which helps to embed learning and development in the workplace.
• Provide an in-post offer for Practice Supervisors and both aspirant and in post offer for those in post for Middle Managers, Heads of Service and Practice Leaders.
• Operate flexibly and cohesively throughout the leadership levels.
• Be developed around the Knowledge and Skills Statements.
• Run over an extended period rather than as a one-off course.
• Include some form of employer selection to enable participation.

Additional Information available from:

Practice Supervisor Development Programme Repository (rip.org.uk)

Firstline programme (thefrontline.org.uk)

Practice Leadership Programme | Centre For Systemic Social Work (cfssw.org)

Additional Early Market Engagement Event

Current contract for Assessed and Supported year in Employment (ASYE) is due to expire at the end of March 2022. The existing contract has a max annual value of £6,493,335 (£5, 780,000 grant funding payments to LAs; £713,535 programme management)

The Department is holding an early market engagement event for a possible future opportunity on Wednesday 7 July 2021 at 2pm – 4.15pm via Microsoft Teams to enable interested suppliers to

• Hear about the potential opportunity
• Have a clear understanding of the outcomes the Department would require in any re-procurement
• Help develop any future requirement.

Assessed and Supported Year in Employment - www.gov.uk/government/publicati… ↗

National Assessment and Accreditation System - www.gov.uk/guidance/national-as… ↗

All organisations wishing to attend the event and /or follow up 1:1 session (8th/9th July) (should email DfE.ASYE@education.gov.uk no later than 12pm 6 July providing company details and the name of the person(s) attending, job role(s), email address that will be used to access the event link. Please note two individuals per organisation can attend the event. Microsoft Teams invitations will be sent after 12pm 6 July Additional information: At this stage, this is purely a market engagement exercise, presentations, Q&As will be made available for anyone unable to attend on the day. Any subsequent procurement will be advertised separately and all organisations wanting to participate will need to respond to the contract notice advertising the procurement when this is published. DfE welcomes and encourages interest from SME’s, VCSEs