Building education and practice partnerships

Responsibility for delivering a skilled workforce lies with employers.  The Scottish Government/CoSLA concordat requires delivery of improved public services and also makes clear the responsibility of local authorities for delivering this.  Scottish Government has a strategic role to support agencies in developing the social service workforce.  This includes working with stakeholders to develop partnerships, policies and  systems, where necessary, to facilitate and create change.

It is clear that social workers must be capable of reflecting on their own practice, able to make informed judgements and have the ability to review and adapt their practice when necessary. This has implications for how we train and educate social workers to ensure they are effectively prepared for current and future practice.

This means that it is vital that strong working partnerships between employers and Scotland's universities and colleges are developed. This workstream will help to set up and support new partnerships so that teaching and learning reflects the aspirations of Changing Lives and so that employers fully contribute to this.

The Scottish Government believes that Learning Networks have a unique contribution to make in delivering a partnership approach to learning and development and is making resources available to the Learning Networks over the next 3 years (2008-2011) in order to make that contribution possible.  The success of Learning Networks will be down to their ability to influence and deliver shared ownership and shared delivery of priorities by Network members.

Success Criteria

• Education meets the needs and expectations of employers.
• Practitioners are well prepared for the roles they will need to fulfil.
• Effective dialogue is maintained between education providers and employers.