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Greenwich Practice Academy

Greenwich Practice Academy

Greenwich Practice Academy

The Royal Borough of Greenwich Practice Academy is a professional development hub for social workers at all levels, from students and newly qualified social workers to strategic leaders, as well as colleagues across children’s services in the Youth Justice Service, Family and Adolescent Support Service, and Inclusion and Disabled Children and Young People Services.

Our objectives are to: 

  • support and upskill the children's workforce with a clear practice framework of compassion focused approaches and systemic practice to ensure children receive a consistently good service 
  • improve and sustain good outcomes for our children and families 
  • provide bursaries for staff across the workforce for training and qaulifications in systemic practice 
  • create career pathways for social workers beyond the assessed and supported year in employment (ASYE) 
  • enable our subject experts from across Children's Services to assist in the development and facilitation of programmes 
  • implement and coordinate national development programmes at a local level to improve practice and ensure compliance with national standards 
  • provide updates on any changes to legislation and guidance  
  • provide updates on current research  
  • maintain oversight of training that the children’s workforce have done  
  • promote the Royal Borough of Greenwich as an employer of choice to improve retention 

Check our live roles now 

  • Leaders Forum

    Royal Borough of Greenwich Leader's Forum include a range of topics such as learning styles, supervision skills, writing skills, and self-care for managers.

    Leaders for London

    Leaders for London is a nine-month programme to develop, nurture and inspire potential leaders of children's and other services.

    The programme provides group coaching and individual development for established and emerging leaders from local authorities, health, police, youth, probation, voluntary and third sector and GLA. Participation is open to London's 32 Councils and current roles usually include Deputy Directors, Assistant Directors and Heads of Service across all types of provision.

    The programme offers participants the insights, skills, knowledge, resources and networks necessary to help them to enrich and develop their leadership capacities and capabilities - as well as the skills and confidence to apply for promotion.

    Black and Asian Leadership Initiative (BALI)

    The BALI programme explores the obstacles and barriers facing aspiring Black1 leaders and gives them the knowledge, skills and strategies to overcome them.

    The BALI programme was designed in 2012 by Meera Spillett (a former Director of Children's Services), Rosemary Campbell-Stephens MBE (an associate with the National College for School Leadership) and Patrick Scott (The Staff College) to explore the obstacles and barriers facing aspiring Black leaders and give them the knowledge, skills and strategies to overcome them.

  • You will have access to Making Research Count, a research initiative established universities and developed by regional centres. These centres promote knowledge-based practice and improve services in social work, social care and their interface with allied agencies in the statutory and voluntary sector.

    This includes:

    • workshops, seminars and developmental events
    • support to develop an agency approach to knowledge-based practice
    • sharing of regional knowledge-based events
    • conferences
    • production of national and local research summaries
    • A website
    • monthly online journal club for Children's Social Work and Adult Social Work, that meet to identify and discuss key areas of emerging social work research/policy.
    • topic-specific resource lists
    • child sexual exploitation
    • county lines
    • domestic violence and abuse
    • professional resilience
    • working with racial/ethnic diversity
    • a quarterly newsletter, with forthcoming events and other, research-related news items

    We are also partnered with Research in Practice, which provides learning and development resources, as well as expertise and training for any member of the workforce with a Royal Greenwich email. 

    They offer complementary ways to engage and learn as well as providing opportunities to reflect on and evaluate your learning, best practice and the impact this has for you and the people you support, whatever your role or level of experience.

    What's available?

    The resources cover assessment, attachment, child neglect, domestic abuse, early help, recording, strengths-based practice, hoarding, self-neglect, mental health, safeguarding, legal literacy, trauma and lots more. You can:

    Read publications, news and views, case law and legal summaries, research summaries and policy updates) Watch recorded webinars and videos Listen to podcasts Join an online event such as lunch and learns, 90 minute webinars or full day workshops.

  • All social workers must undertake CPD in line with Social Work England (SWE) requirements. We believe that the experience you gain as social workers is an invaluable resource. That's why collaborating with your peers to improve your knowledge, skills and practice is at the heart of learning at the Practice Academy. Most of our training sessions are delivered by honing into Greenwich practitioner's and leader's experience, skills and knowledge.

    Our Practice Academy offers an excellent induction programme and an extensive suite of learning topics at various levels informed by our consultation with our practitioners, audit and quality assurance activity. We know the importance of fitting in with your busy schedules and will deliver through bitesize learning modules, lunch and learn sessions, video modules and half day sessions.

  • We are part of South East London Teaching Partnership, an early adopter social work teaching partnership along with the London Boroughs of Lewisham, the London Borough of Southwark and Goldsmiths University of London.

    The partnership has made great achievements in improving the quality of social work knowledge, skills and practice through working with partners to ensure that the right people are getting onto social work courses, that the quality of practice education is good and that what students are learning is relevant to what they need to do as new social workers. We attained our ambition to 'bring the university into the workplace and bring the workplace to the university' by creating new roles such as accredited Practice Educators and Teaching Consultants to ensure Newly Qualified Social Workers meet the expectations set out in the Knowledge and Skills for child and families social workers statement whilst enabling our experienced workforce to share their expertise and bring practice to life.

  • We work in partnership with local universities to offer practice placements to students studying for a Social Work qualification. Practice placements allow students to gain the knowledge and skills necessary to develop and meet the professional Social Work Standards (Social Work England Standards, 2020). All students are taught and assessed by experienced social workers. Students have access to a comprehensive induction, regular check-ins, and training delivered by the Practice Academy team and Greenwich Safeguarding Partnership.

  • Our recruitment cycle for NQSWs (Newly Qualified Social Workers) to join the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment is usually from March enabling final year students to apply as they await their formal qualification from their university. We offer successful candidates the opportunity to be employed as an unqualified case manager until their registration is received, their contract and title is automatically transferred to Social Worker once they have registered with Social Work England.

    Newly qualified social workers will undertake our well established Assessed and Supported Year in Employment programme which has been running for over ten years with the same provider and package of support, evolved and refined by consistent feedback from our NQSWs and stakeholders.

    A robust package of support for ASYE

    Our Practice Academy will support ASYE's through the first 12 months of practice. They will benefit from a well supported programme that includes a protected caseload, professional development, support, and mentoring as you progress through the early stages of your social work career. Skills for Care undertook a quality assurance visit in late 2021 and provided positive feedback for our ASYE programme.

    The Academy allows newly qualified social workers to develop their skills in a safe and secure learning environment. Our support package includes:

    • induction programme
    • a training package including both mandatory training and specifically designed training to start your social work career
    • one-to-one reflective and group supervisions by the Professional Educators
    • ASYE development days and team meetings
    • monthly bespoke workshops to provide newly qualified social workers with the basic skills to start their practice and develop resilience.
    • support and advice from the ASYE co-ordinator
    • self-directed learning
    • extensive shadowing of other social workers
    • buddy support from recently qualified social work practitioners who have completed the ASYE programme
    • a structured pathway of case allocation over an initial six-month period
    • lunch and learn bimonthly sessions

  • Step Up to Social Work is an intensive full-time, fully funded, postgraduate diploma in social work training programme that allows you to become a qualified social worker in just 14 months. You need to have a willingness to learn, be emotionally resilient and be able to undertake this challenging yet hugely rewarding academic degree programme. This is a nationally funded programme delivered by partnerships across the country.