The Induction of Newly Appointed Social Workers: Some Implications for Social Work Educators

This article draws on the findings of a small study of newly appointed social workers in family and child care work. These practitioners had completed a period of induction with a mainly rural council in the north of England and the purpose of the research was to describe this process from their perspective. The focus on child care was selected given the recruitment and retention challenges in this field. The findings point to the importance of the quality of the new workers' relationships with agency colleagues and supervisors, and are placed in the context of research, policy and guidance on induction. Practitioners' perceptions of qualifying training programmes are described and implications are drawn for social work educators. Links are made with the role of the university tutor and the potential for facilitating critical and reflective professional self-management initiatives in helping prepare final year social work students for work.