Social work services

Tender description

This contract refers to the delivery of the Practice Supervisor Development Programme (PSDP), a leadership and management development programme for child and family social workers in local authority employment. Practice Supervisors in child and family social work play a pivotal role in delivering good quality services to children and families through their support and oversight of front-line practitioners. As set out in Putting Children First: Delivering our vision for excellent children's social care, the Government wants to support committed new practice supervisors to be the best leaders and managers they can be and help transform practice in social work. The programme will be expected to help participants develop the skills set out in the Knowledge and Skills Statement for practice supervisors. The delivery of an effective and innovative Practice Supervisor Development Programme will be crucial to our focus on improving the quality of service children and families receive. The programme is intended to be a leadership and management development programme for child and family social workers making the transition to their first practice supervisor role. We are planning on seeking a contractor to develop the programme content and deliver the programme to local authority social workers identified as meeting clear entry criteria. The programme will need to be flexible to reflect both local authority and individual needs. In particular, the programme will need to: — Be attractive to social workers and their employers as the programme will be optional; — Support social work practice through a programme covering reflective supervision that supports embedding learning and development in the workplace; — Operate flexibly with existing LA programmes; — Be developed around the Knowledge and Skills Statements; — Run over an extended period of time rather than as a one-off course; and — Include some form of employer selection to enable participation. Bidders will be expected to display expertise in the design and delivery of leadership and management training and strong knowledge of child and family social work practice. We will consider consortium bids. We expect to go to market in late autumn for a contract period of 3 years (until 2019/20).