Paper presented at 2010 JSWEC Conference. There is a perception, both domestically (Ombudsman for Children, 2006; Andrews, 2008) and internationally (Tham, 2006, Stalker et al., 2007), that retaining child protection and welfare social workers is problematic. This paper presents the findings of a recently completed qualitative study that examined this issue in one Health Service Executive (HSE) area in the Republic of Ireland. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with child protection and welfare social workers to explore their understandings of the factors that influence their decisions to want to stay in or leave their current employment. Contrary to expectations, the study found that the turnover rate for these social workers was quite low and that two thirds expressed their intention to stay in this work. This paper examines the professional, organisational and individual factors which contribute to these social workers’ retention. Particular emphasis will be placed on one aspect of this study that examined social workers’ understanding of career pathways in social work and explores how these understandings influenced their employment decisions and retention. This analysis looked at social workers use of metaphors to describe their motivations for ‘doing’ this work. This led to the development of a typology of social workers’ entry motivations which contributes to our understanding of how social workers make decisions to stay or leave decisions which are often made before they even start working in child protection and welfare. The research found that the situation might not be as pessimistic as an initial reading of the literature might suggest. The presentation will conclude with an examination of the implications of these findings for the users of child protection and welfare services, social work education and child protection and welfare service managers.

This project makes the coded and categorised Climbie corpus available for search. The corpus includes all transcriptions from the 68 days of oral evidence. Suggestions for how to use the data as a learning and research resource are also included.

This case study discusses the planning, progress and implementation of the validation of the MA Child Protection Pathway at the School of Human and Health Sciences, University of Huddersfield, for post-qualifying social workers and post-graduate health professionals. The proposal took full advantage of developments in work-based learning, learning agreements and the use of mentors. Development issues are discussed, together with reflection on how the course has progressed.

This short A4 guide illustrates an enquiry-based blended learning design used to teach Child Protection Processes. Its aim is to describe the learning design and encourage discussion about this type of learning and teaching approach. This learning design aimed to provide social work students with the underpinning knowledge, skills and experiences required to operate within the child protection (CP)process from referral through to child protection conference (CPC). A blended learning design was created centered around an incrementally developing problem based case study. Using a mixture of face-to-face teaching, online enquiry-based activities and role-play, students were able to develop the planning, recording, assessing, communicating and presenting skills required to respond to a CP referral, plan an investigation and prepare a report for a CPC.