Part of Oral Answers to Questions — Health – in the Northern Ireland Assembly at 2:45 pm on 10 June 2024.
I thank the Member for her follow-up question. I accept that working in children's social care services requires fully staffed, well-motivated and well-managed teams of social workers and, indeed, other staff. Work to identify measures to address the issues in the social care workforce is ongoing under the workforce review implementation board and the children's social care services strategic reform programme. Under the reform programme, a social care workforce work stream has been established. An exercise to scope the existing social care workforce and work on a social care workforce strategy have also commenced.
A number of actions aimed at stabilising the social work workforce have already been taken. They include fast-tracking the employment of newly qualified social workers and the cessation of recruitment of social workers through recruitment agencies. Work on the development of a 10-year plan for pathways into social work is well advanced. That plan aims to maximise attraction into the social work profession, outline the most efficient recruitment processes and describe effective retention strategies to maintain social workers in essential health and social care services. Funding has been secured to commission an additional 40 social work training places, which are expected to commence in September of this year.