Author's Pre-publication Draft Regulation and

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Author’s Pre-publication Draft Regulation and continuing education in Aotearoa New Zealand social work Liz Beddoe Abstract Social work in New Zealand achieved limited registration in 2004. Research in progress suggests that registration appears to have created a greater sense of entitlement to continuing professional education (CPE); its advent has legitimized social workers’ demands for greater access to professional development. The opportunities and challenges for practitioners posed by this change are explored and some ideas presented about strategies to grow a social work culture that engages in scholarship and research, thus reducing the ‘gulf’ between academia and practice. Introduction

The history of social work in any country is inseparably intertwined with the trajectory of its educational opportunities, both for pre-service and continuing education. Social work education is predominantly vocational and serves the profession, delivering well prepared graduates ready to take up roles as beginning practitioners and providing opportunities for postgraduate study, research and professional development for practitioners. Social work academics hope that as well as being ready for practice, graduates will also be critically reflective, committed to socially just practice , research minded, and with an orientation towards career-long learning. Unpacking this a little of course reveals many stakeholders with an interest in these outcomes: universities and institutes, educators, students, service users, employers, regulators, professional body, the policy makers and decision makers who fund social services. In New Zealand changes in social work education have been occurring rapidly over the past five years as the profession adjusts to legislated system of registration. Parallel with major domestic change, New Zealand social work is also becoming more international. From being rather insulated and isolated in the 1980s and early 90s, New Zealand social work has extended its international relationships. International contact occurs at professional body level with the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW); amongst educators via the International Association of Schools of Social Work (IASSW) Asia Pacific regional networks; and for employers and practitioners via international communities of policy and practice development. There is increasing cross-fertilization of ideas through the region’s journals. This is likely to grow as the region becomes more connected through research, publishing and other collaborations. Contact and collaboration intensifies our understanding that while there are many common features, there is great diversity in the myriad models of social work practised throughout the world. Increased workforce mobility, trends towards greater regulation

Published as Beddoe, L. (2009). Regulation and continuing education in Aotearoa New Zealand social work. In C. Noble, M. Henrickson & I. Y. Han (Eds.), Social Work Education in the Asia Pacific Region: Issues and Debates. (pp. 388-412). Melbourne: Vulgar Press.

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and changing educational requirements have raised awareness of issues stemming from the internationalisation of social work (Lyons, 2006). During the current decade social work has been increasingly moving towards greater regulation and New Zealand, England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, India, Singapore and South Africa have developed registration arrangements. Licensing is regulated within the various jurisdictions of the United States and Canada. In 2003 the New Zealand Parliament passed the Social Workers Registration Act (SWRA 2003). This legislation created a Social Workers Registration Board (SWRB) and set in place the legal architecture for a process of registration of social workers. Citing concerns about the readiness of the profession for full compulsory registration, the New Zealand government opted to make registration voluntary and did not create ‘protection of title’ for social work. A review of the legislation conducted in 2007 recommended that ‘protection of title’ be explored and it is expected that this will follow in due course (SWRB, 2007, p.9). The IASSW Global Qualifying Standards document recognises the increasing mobility of social workers and raises hopes for greater comparability of broad curricula between qualifications in order to facilitate portability (IASSW, 2005). There is of course the potential for tension between jurisdictions where qualifications and professional requirements differ. An example of a potential difficulty is that of New Zealand requires a minimum of a three year Bachelor of Social Work for registration, although the New Zealand universities offer four-year degrees, and the Australian requirement is a fouryear or three plus two degree. The existence of an agreement between the Australia and New Zealand governments to implement mutual recognition principles relating to the sale of goods and the registration of occupations means that this disparity will pose difficulties for the regulating bodies, should Australian social work move towards statutory regulation. This situation illustrates one of the consequences of increasing regulation in that, having regulated qualifications and standards for social work, regulatory bodies need to reconcile their standards with the need to recruit those with overseas qualifications, particularly to meet any shortfall in graduates. While there are clearly regulatory issues here, there are also challenges for social work practice contexts, training and cultural awareness (Welbourne, Harrison and Ford, 2007). While having many elements in common, social work education, status, autonomy, public recognition and the processes for regulation vary substantially in different countries (Weiss-Gal & Welbourne, 2008). Movement of professionals between borders will challenge schools of social work and professional bodies to prepare graduates with enduring and portable knowledge and skill and a commitment to continuing education to meet the changing demands of practice, wherever they are domiciled. Continuing professional education (CPE) may be conceptualised as a major mechanism for the profession to respond to the challenges of rapid change, including international mobility, while at national and local level it can address domestic issues. In can be driven by individual aspirations and CPE in New Zealand may well be at a turning point as more social workers hold and undergraduate degree and will undoubtedly aspire to gain a higher qualification (Beddoe & Henrickson, 2005). CPE is both an individual and a


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corporate investment and economic policy has promulgated the imperative of lifelong learning and its broad social and economic benefits (Beddoe, 2008). Current requirements of the quality assurance and regulation add pressure on employers to provide resources to support for social workers’ continuing professional development. A functionalist account of CPE, focusing on compliance, provides only a partial and inadequate explanation of the significance of continuing education to many social workers and their agencies. Educational qualifications may not only address issues of competence but for individuals they have symbolic value as they help to mark out status within the profession, and in line with the trend towards credentialism, we can expect to see greater numbers looking at postgraduate education. Jarvis argues that one of the consequences of the greater demarcation of professional workers is the need for recognition of being ‘up- to -date’ (Jarvis, 1996). The lifelong learning approach suggests that ‘the very idea of CPE connotes evolving expertise in a world in which practitioner knowledge is quickly rendered out of date by the fast pace of research and scholarship’, (Dirkx, 2006, p.37). The possession of a higher qualification may ‘add value’ for what it symbolizes rather than what it entails. Similarly, as continuing education becomes more closely linked to workplaces, many higher degrees are now available for part time enrolment and are linked back to the work context through practical work based components (Jarvis 1996, p.240). The process of credentialing can influence individual practitioners as they consider their value in the market. In New Zealand the requirement for a degree raises the benchmark and applies pressure to the individual registered social worker who holds a diploma, and who may fear reduced opportunity for promotion without a degree. As Tobias has suggested, the process of professionalization itself is full of contradictions as groups of workers gain greater power and control of their destiny, but sometimes at the expense of others (Tobias, 2003, pp. 451-2). The raising of entry standards frequently has a downstream effect of putting pressure on the next ‘rung’ of a career ladder. In the current era social work is not dissimilar to other professions - it is subject to the impact of globalization: shortages or gluts of particular kinds of professionals; international markets for education and professional skills and increasing specialization within broad occupational categories (Jarvis, 1996). New Zealand social work is not immune to these trends. Social work education faces the challenge of meeting these changing aspirations. This chapter explores the early impact of social work registration in New Zealand is considered, considering the history of the profession and its educational journey. A brief ‘snapshot’ of the current state of continuing education, research and scholarship will be explored drawing on understandings from research findings. The Development of Social Work Education in New Zealand


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The New Zealand profession’s education system was very much modelled on an English system, with early educators recruited from English programmes (Nash, 2003). The professional association in New Zealand (NZASW, later Aotearoa was added to the title and the acronym became ANZASW) was formed in 1964 and social work education had commenced at Victoria University of Wellington in 1950. For many decades many social workers lacked formal qualifications in social work, despite a proliferation of programmes during the 1990s. Being ‘qualified’ meant holding a Diploma in Social Work but many social workers may have come from other professions or held a university degree but lacked professional preparation. In the early years the professional association NZASW very much focused on the need for training opportunities for social workers. In an article in the association’s fledging journal, Ritchie (1967) describes the challenges facing a very young professional association as it sought to develop the intellectual foundation for social work. Ritchie suggested that a university qualification alone does not justify a claim for professional status for an occupational group. He does however note the importance of the university in the socialization of beginning practitioners: the processes of ‘un-learning’, experiencing new learning and the construction of a new identity. Ritchie’s aspirational prescription for education for a strong profession was for social workers to have gain a four-year undergraduate degree, followed by a two-year postgraduate social work programme, then a one-year internship (p.11). There has never been a serious attempt to implement this full programme. Social work education has long been a site of debate and contention in New Zealand, with the importance of educational qualification being the focus of the registration debates of the 1980s and 90s (Nash, 1997; 2003; Nash and Munford, 2001).There has not always been congruence in terms of factors of influence in social work practice in context and the social work taught within the academy. For example in the early 1990s social services were wracked by the pressures of managerialism and social workers were fighting to retain their professional roles. In the academy in New Zealand radical social work was taught and ‘professionalism’ was accordingly a highly problematic concept in the face of racism and structural and institutional oppression. During this time it is possible that social work employers and students were more concerned than ever at the ‘gap’ between the theoretical ideals taught in the academy and the pragmatic demands of practice. During the same period the state developed mechanisms to try to force education providers to better meet ‘the needs of industry ’and New Zealand adopted a National Qualifications Framework. This saw the development of an alliance between industry and qualification management systems, in which the participation of both professionals and educators were weakened (Nash 1997, p.18). By 1996 educators were feeling the pressure from the field to conform to managerialist expectations and a conference of educators had a theme of ‘Who drives social work education? Nash describes concerns that fragmentation of social work roles was driving the alliance between state organisations and those bodies given the mandate to set standards for social work education. There is ‘some worry that an emphasis on technical skills will emerge, to the detriment of critical and theoretical Knowledge’, (Nash, 1997 p. 19). During the early 1990s the government child welfare organisation, NZ Children, Young Persons and their Families Service, had Published as Beddoe, L. (2009). Regulation and continuing education in Aotearoa New Zealand social work. In C. Noble, M. Henrickson & I. Y. Han (Eds.), Social Work Education in the Asia Pacific Region: Issues and Debates. (pp. 388-412). Melbourne: Vulgar Press.

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developed a very close involvement with the Council for Education and Training in the Social Services. The state agency had designed training modules directly related to outputs from the agency’s agreement with government. Remnants of this approach remain in the national unit standards approach, although this has been rejected by the universities and largely abandoned by polytechnics in order to develop their own undergraduate degrees. Given Ritchie’s lofty prescription for a graduate education for social work in 1967, it is useful to examine the nature of social work education four decades later. If a fully qualified workforce was the aim then progress has been slow. Daniels cites a study reported by Levett as showing that only about 14% of social workers held a qualification in 1969 (Daniels, 1973, p.47). In 1981 a larger study reported only 12% of social workers had a social work qualification (Rochford & Robb, 1981). Sheafor (1982) in a regional study found 36% qualified. Significantly, only 19% of those who self-identified in the social work category in the 2001 New Zealand census, also reported having qualifications, while 53% held some post school qualifications, though as Harington and Crothers point out, ‘this data does not elaborate on the nature of the educational qualifications that have been achieved [they] may not be in social work, and there could have been a great deal of water under the learning curve bridges masked in these figures’ (Harington & Crothers, 2005, p 8). Currently, however, there is a rising expectation that social workers do hold formal social work qualifications. It is now very difficult to get any accurate figures to compare, but we can assume that the overall percentage of qualified social workers is much higher, perhaps 60-70% (based on anecdotal information), but the majority would hold a diploma as their highest social work qualification. The SWRB currently has recognised programmes at 16 institutions: five in universities, two in Wananga and nine in institutes of technology. This ‘mix’ of qualifications produces uneven preparedness for practice and the old issues remain about what the essential knowledge set is; who determines its features; which dispositions are the ‘right’ ones; and how all this is transmitted remains a site of struggle and debate (Nash & Munford, 2001). In terms of postgraduate study the picture is still quite murky. A recent working paper suggested that the largest group of qualified social workers currently still hold only a Diploma in Social Work (ANZASWE, unpublished working document, 2008). This means that the research capability of these practitioners is limited as they are not prepared for research or post graduate study. The working party report notes that out of $15.1 million spent on social services education 44% is spent on Degree level, 33% going on Certificate level (sub-professional) , 20% at Diploma level ,and only 3% on post graduate education (ANZASWE working document) . Postgraduate programmes are offered in four universities and one institute of technology. These programmes vary from programmes leading to registration, research masters and doctoral degrees and specialised taught postgraduate programmes such as supervision, front line management and specialisations.


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Trends in the profession Following the implementation of registration in 2004 the profession has been deeply preoccupied with the policies and practices developed under the Social Workers Registration Act (SWRA),( Lonne & Duke, 2009). O’Brien suggests that the social work voice has been ‘very muted around such fundamental issues as… child abuse, the attacks on beneficiaries, child poverty’ (O’Brien, 2005, p.17). Instead, he argues, ‘we have been consumed by the demands of achieving professional legitimacy and the issues surrounding recognition and registration as a profession’ (p.17). This lower public profile can also be attributed to economic rationalism and the managerialist projects of the 1990s which frequently saw social work struggling with changing agendas about the role of welfare. Social work in New Zealand is not atypical in occupying marginal territory and holding a weak position in many of the settings in which it operates. The profession is small and is poorly understood-its public image is of ill-defined bureaucracy provided through media discourse based on unflattering stereotypes that contradict its own idealized self-image. Internally it faces challenges managing the dual tasks of professionalization and meeting its commitment to empowerment, anti oppressive practice and social justice. Educators have a key role to play in ensuring that social work students are not presented entirely uncritical accounts of registration for as Tobias (1996, 2003) suggests the processes and intentions of professionalization are not ‘innocent’. Tobias has considered the relationships between the development of the professionals and the processes of education and credentialising. The processes of professionalization, including the intensification of CPE, have served to justify some claims of privilege, power and monopoly. For powerful groups this can be seen to exclude others, for less powerful groups these same processes may lead to greater control over their own work and ‘greater recognition, respect and more equitable reward structures for work that has been undervalued and marginalized’, (Tobias ,2003, p. 452). In an earlier text he argued that there were two models of professionalization one ‘strong’ and one weaker. The stronger and predominant model of professionalization is characterized by the production of a more or less standardized, research-based body of knowledge and skills, the development of extensive and intensive programmes of initial professional education and training for practitioners, and the establishment of exclusive professional credentials’ (Tobias 1996 pp. 94-96) .

Although relatively weak in terms of its voluntary application, registration in New Zealand leans towards that model. Tobias characterizes the weaker approach to professionalization as: characterized by greater openness and inclusiveness…. It has close links with social movements and generally implies the establishment of some form of organisational framework through which this sense of common purpose may be expressed, and may involve the establishment of ongoing education and training programmes for practitioners. However, these programmes are not necessarily focused


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on the acquisition and/or maintenance of exclusionary credentials or licenses to practice’ (Tobias 1996, 94-96).

O’Brien echoes these sentiments in suggesting that social work still has a ‘critical advocacy role’ to play and ‘in exercising that role and in utilizing the knowledge and expertise that goes with the profession, social work and its professional body need to find new ways of forming effective partnerships’ (O’Brien, 2005, p.21). He notes that ‘one of the advantages of the new professionalism is that it enables the social worker to speak with authority and it also gives legitimacy to action oriented activities ‘(p.22). In Australia, Gillingham promotes a similar perception suggesting that registration need ‘not necessarily conflict with an agenda for social justice’ and indeed that can raise the profile for social work (Gillingham, 2007, p.175).These optimistic views of the advantages of registration are important for social work education as educators need to present coherent strategies for ‘just’ practice. Social work has often been uncomfortable with the trappings of professionalism. The promotion of registration had a rocky path in New Zealand. In the 1970s and 1980s debates within the political association were very heated. Randal (1997) notes that Ivan Illich’s speech in 1978 at a national social work conference on ‘the disabling professions’ undermined the argument for increasingly professionalisation of social work and by 1986 the conflict over registration nearly led to the demise of the ANZASW (Beddoe & Randal, 1994) .In addition regulation and qualification were regarded as additional obstacles to increasing the participation of Maori and Pasifika people as workers in social services. New legislation, for example the Children, Young Persons and their Families Act (1989) heralded more collaborative strengths- based practice designed to better meet the needs of Maori families and other ethnic groups. This stimulated the provision of many more training opportunities to enable more Maori graduates to enter the profession. The challenge remains to develop greater understanding and utilisation of Maori knowledge in practice (Ruwhiu, 2009). The SWRA (2003) requires the Social Workers Registration Board (SWRB) to establish a schedule of recognised New Zealand social work qualifications for purposes of registration (Section 6a). The SWRB decided that from 2006 a Bachelors level degree in social work would be required for new practitioners. A minimum of three years of study is required, although five university schools offer four- year programmes. While no formal challenge to these SWRB decisions was offered there was some criticism the decision to set a bachelors degree as the qualification required for registration. Pitt’s comment (2005) exemplified some of the reaction: Setting the standard at degree level appears to reinforce traditional, positivist ideas about what is acceptable knowledge. It supports those with power in society and marginalises others. …By setting this kind of standard are we as a profession perpetuating the very power structures we challenge in our daily practice? (Pitt, 2005 p.41) Regulation changes the relationships between key stakeholders (Beddoe 2007) and in New Zealand there has been an inevitable period of adjustment as all stakeholders (educators, practitioners, employers, professional bodies and service users) come to understand the


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new relationships that registration brings, especially the nature of the relationship with government that statutory registration (as opposed to self-regulation) has delivered (Beddoe & Duke, forthcoming). The SWRB will continue to consider programmes of work to enhance the standing of the profession and this will require considerable consultation with key stakeholders. Table One :The Impact of registration on social work education, sets out the major issues that link registration and social work education. Many of these issues remain the subject of discussion and debate. It is a complex ‘work in progress’ (Beddoe, 2006; 2007). A more recent issue has emerged from the review of the SWRA in which the issue of coverage of the wider social services sector has been recommended: To achieve comprehensive coverage of all social work activity, we consider the social worker registration system should be broadened to include registration of associated workers. This would enable workers in associated fields to participate in a registration system. Practitioners undertaking activities normally only undertaken by social workers, such as people in the process of gaining sufficient social work experience to demonstrate minimum levels of competence, would be required by law to at least be registered as an associate social worker (SWRB, 2007, p10) Clearly there are implications here for the education of social workers. Should this path be pursued the cost of compliance may well even further reduce the resources within the sector for continuing education, especially at postgraduate level. Table One: The Impact of registration on social work education Impact of Registration (2004-7)

SW Education in New Zealand (2004-11)

Fitness for Practice

Increased scrutiny of curriculum and practicum arrangements Increased role in gate keeping.

Competence to practice social work with Maori: who decides? What is crucial knowledge and skill?

Iwi Maori research and innovation

Competence to practice social work with Pasifika and diverse ethnic and cultural groups in Aotearoa

Multiculturalism & the increasing mobility of the workforce

Differential of social work from related occupations

Increased demand for education and training for social care workers, community and youth workers.

Tensions of Indigenization v Internationalization

Issues of coverage for social care workers, community and youth workers Raising the benchmark and the proliferation of new degrees and pathways

Recruitment and retention of students Consideration of a 4-year degree beyond the university sector The quality of the academic workforce

Standards and curriculum. Who decides?

New curriculum in the new social work environment


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Cultural competencies and cultural safety

Specialization v generic education

Career long learning for practitioners: can CPE really make a difference to competency?

Continuing education , research and innovation

Who pays for CPE?

Growing research capability in practice as well as academia

Resources to support postgraduate education

Continuing professional education in New Zealand Continuing education in social work includes in-service training, attendance at training programmes and workshops delivered by professional bodies, specialist agencies and training organizations; and lastly participation in formal higher education .The aim of the latter is to develop higher order thinking and scholarship. There is much support for developing a stronger element of critical inquiry in social work practice (Fook, 2003, De Cruz & Jones, 2004). Beddoe and Henrickson reported that almost all respondents to a survey of CPE in New Zealand wanted to undertake some CPE in the future and over 50% would like to have opportunity for further study in their professional specialty (Beddoe & Henrickson, 2005, p.83). Despite this we can see from the social work education ‘spend’ reported earlier, that the uptake of postgraduate qualifications is very low. This is an inevitable consequence of the costs of funding study for first qualifications for those already in practice. Further research is needed to determine whether this is changing as more social work agencies achieve a fully qualified and registered workforce. One of the impacts of low levels of participation in higher education is that there is limited research on social work practice. Projects such as the ‘Growing Research in Practice’ (GRIP) project have proposed a collaborative partnership model to promote practitioner participation in research (Beddoe et al 2007; Lunt et al 2008; Fouché & Lunt, 2009) and further opportunities will be pursued vigorously by universities as research degree completions attract higher levels of funding. Contribution to the development and utilisation of knowledge is an ethical imperative for social work. Beddoe et al assert that ‘ Critical enquiry can facilitate social workers to utilise knowledge gained from practice to advocate for service improvements and the removal of barriers to full economic and social participation’(Beddoe et al, 2007, p.40). Aligned with the optimistic view proposed by O’Brien and Gillingham, Harington suggests that practitioner scholarship may offer a strong way forward, utilizing the skills of observation, analysis, intervention and review already demonstrated by highly competent practitioners to provide a window on ‘some of the most intransigent and intractable issues confronting society (p. 92). Harington argues for academic and professional support for developing practitioner research in order to lift civic literacy and asserts Practitioners should be recognised for the studies they mount on the circumstances they find in the real world. Their systematic procedure should challenge orthodoxy. Social work often Published as Beddoe, L. (2009). Regulation and continuing education in Aotearoa New Zealand social work. In C. Noble, M. Henrickson & I. Y. Han (Eds.), Social Work Education in the Asia Pacific Region: Issues and Debates. (pp. 388-412). Melbourne: Vulgar Press.

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negotiates the diverse realities that clash in social systems. It is plausible to expect from social work robust attempts to characterise and gather learning from these accounts (p.91). The development of professional registration in New Zealand provides a considerable opportunity for the profession to validate this optimism, through raising the educational level and consequentially the standards of social workers and encouraging greater research activity.

Conversation from the frontline: Practitioners talk about continuing education Over the period 2004-6 the author conducted a study of continuing education with social work practitioners and managers during a period of intense change in New Zealand social work. The study, still in progress, employed a series of semi-structured individual and group interviews with 40 social workers, professional leaders and managers. Analysis suggests that registration has strengthened the mandate for continuing professional education. Registration is life-long and practising registered social workers must maintain a current Annual Practising Certificate (SWRB 2006). Renewal requires social workers to demonstrate that they are maintaining current competency (SWRB, 2004). Maintaining five-year competency certification requires submission of a portfolio attesting to safe practice and registered social workers must provide evidence of at least 150 hours continuing professional development across a three year period and undertake regular supervision, commensurate with their experience and current roles (SWRB 2006). These requirements offer some certainty about the mandate for continuing education: My hope with registration is that once we have some clearer benchmarks and we have the registration process with the requirements for CPE, we will then have an ability to negotiate with managers (community social worker) The compliance aspect of this mandate has given some impetus to practitioners, managers and educators to find time and resources to support professional development and improve the status of the profession: Well I think the Registration Act has given it [education] an enormous influence and I think that some of the things that are emerging now are because of people envisioning that the whole professional status of social work was going to be validated and therefore those opportunities would be available to grow social work knowledge and skills (Manager) A focus group participant noted that many social workers were used to having to provide evidence of professional development, because regular demonstration of competency had been a feature of professional life for many of the participants working in the public health sector for over ten years. To some extent this normalized some of the CPE component of registration. This was seen as a positive as it was something that they were confident about, and an aspect of the impact of registration that was not


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problematic, and even seen as providing a rare example of social work being ‘ahead of the game’: Actually it is only now, with the health competency act [ applies to most health professionals] that the other professions are having to prove that they have done on-going education. Registration for them has always been pay your money and get your piece of paper; we have always had to do [competency] That is why when Act came in a lot of the other professions panicked, freaked out and I couldn’t work out what they were getting so fogged up about because this is stuff that we have been doing for years so in that respect I think [we were] way ahead of the game (Health Social Worker) Professional development for social workers is provided largely through the efforts of employing bodies, formal programmes within universities although more recently the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers has begun to develop a programme of informal professional development activities. During the data collection period the reality of the registration environment had started to have an impact on the participants’ work lives. There are contradictory issues for social workers in greater regulation and some ambivalence expressed in the literature that it will achieve its aim of improving practice (Pitt, 2005; Orme and Rennie, 2006) and for some registration is seen as heralding more ‘compliance’ activity, but there is hopefulness, as can be seen in the data presented here, that some positive impacts will be felt in terms of status, influence and resources, particularly for professional development. Registration appears to have created a greater sense of entitlement, as it has legitimized social workers’ demands for greater access to professional development. Registration brings with it aspects of professionalization that have been weak in the absence of a legal mandate. The advent of the benchmark qualification and the annual practicing certificate has strengthened the case for more resources and support: I think that continuing education will be easier for social workers to get because we will have to be able to say well we have to have a programme of continuing education so that we can get our practicing certificate (Health social work team leader) Social workers practising in health services in this study frequently voiced the belief that registration made social work ‘fit better’ alongside the other health professions and this might improve CPE resourcing because the need to meet annual practicing certificate requirements was already understood. Managers, professional leaders and other people with professional influence were fairly consistent in their observation of a hierarchy amongst professions. They held that the perceived relatively lowly position of social work had an impact on the support for and resourcing of social work scholarship and research in practice settings: Jeepers look at them, medicine, nursing, they have got a huge, significant research base, it is well integrated with major providers though joint positions, it has got people on the inside with a strong practice clinical focus, and in the organisations they have got the research bods…. They have got institutes for research and that is what we should have for social


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work… a social work institute to do research, to construct a research agenda, to [set] the agenda for training, where is it? That is what we need. As stated above research activity is low in New Zealand and this is in part explained by the relatively small number of practitioners who hold a research degree. A sample of the ANZASW membership in 2003 found few postgraduate qualifications held by members 6.5% held a postgraduate diploma, 7.0% master’s degree and only 1.1% a doctorate (Beddoe & Henrickson, 2003, pp. 15-16). Research and practitioner scholarship are much more likely to rely on individual motivation and supportive management, as to undertake research within a practice setting requires considerable personal investment of time and money. Employers may not consider practice research as ‘core business’ and in the case of large agencies, research would be the prerogative of those employed for their research skills rather than practitioners. I think that with people in the organisation who are funded to do research, they get support they get funding, you know they get somebody to type everything up for them, somebody to help them but social work is not seen as an area that needs to do research. But I think it really is and we are right at the forefront of how [service users] come into the organisation and how they leave it afterwards (senior manager) Few social work employers, for example, would currently find the resources to support a practitioner to undertake a PhD. Employers’ motivation may not be strong to support practitioners’ enrolment in research degrees when considerable numbers of practitioners are still completing undergraduate degrees. One social work manager regarded this as opportunity lost: The potential is there but it is not being captured, [or] encouraged, it is certainly not being recognised as a whole growth area that we should be investing in. I mean it would link so well with our research unit to use our own practitioners to further that kind of knowledge A common theme was that employers were unlikely to be able to fully support social workers undertaking research degrees, in the main part because of time and resource issues: [doing] a masters … that it is not really seen as something that would come back to the organisation in too many ways and it looks like a lot of time out of work and a lot of cost for little return for the investment (Social work team leader) The other barrier that was frequently raised was the lack of confidence and some participant comments echo Dirkx (2006) states that ‘research on practice’ is conducted by academics, and can ‘marginalise local knowledge generated and constructed by or with practitioners’ (p.275), When I have talked to the social workers about ‘let’s write about this, what we are doing’ ? There is a sense that that is something that other people do; that is what people like you do Liz, it is not what people like us do. Has anybody that has ever said ‘I will give you a hand to write that up -can I support you or could I reduce your caseload to enable you to do that?’ No space made for it Liz, no space and no support so you have to be hugely internally motivated (Team leader.)


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Research activity is low, largely because research is rarely seen as integral to the social work role in most fields of practice (Fouché & Lunt, 2009, p. 51). Practitioners do want to contribute and the GRIP project found that practitioners expressed ‘a sense of excitement that stemmed from the realization that they had extensive knowledge and experience about their practice context to contribute’ (Fouché & Lunt, 2009, p. 56). This kind of activity will raise expectations and employers will face calls to better resource practitioners to undertake higher education: I think registration has got to be a huge thing …people have to do continuing education for the annual practising certificate and they’re going to have to think hard about what they’re going to do…people might become a bit more demanding about well we need to do it, so who’s going to help us here? Who’s going to provide it? Who’s going to run the courses? So there’s going to have to be a bit of agitation (Social worker).

Conclusions Social workers in New Zealand are experiencing the early impacts of registration. There is still uncertainty about the future educational needs and at the time of writing this chapter, work is being done to examine the future workforce needs of social work services. The advent of a degree qualified workforce will inevitably drive up the requirements for promotion. At the time of writing, graduates from the author’s school seem to be considering their options for postgraduate study much earlier than in previous decades. It is likely that social work schools we will have more discerning ‘customers’ in future , and there will be higher demand for post-qualifying education. This may mean that social workers may be starting to examine more closely how further education performs in terms of support for social workers’ continuing professional development. A major issue for the universities is who pays for enhanced opportunities? As Lymbery (2009) has argued, the costs of offering postgraduate programmes may be unsustainable, if insufficient students enrol in courses because tuition fees cannot be covered, and time off for study is not enabled by employers. Government support for social work continuing education in New Zealand is minimal: a comparison with the financial support offered teachers (fees, study awards, time, and paid professional development in schools) and nurses (full coverage of course fees for masters study, scholarships for research degrees) indicates that a well –educated workforce for social work is simply not valued. This poses a problem for a university school of social work wishing to expand postgraduate choices, as doing so is a risky step. Lymbery could as well be talking about New Zealand when he asserts:


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Employers should be under no illusion here: universities are managed and operated as businesses, and academic/professional judgements about the desirability of any given development are increasingly subjected to business-oriented decisions (Lymbery, 2009, p.10). Many practitioners seem to be pointing to greater collaboration between schools of social work and the field- not just about graduate supply and quality and the perennial problem of placements: I think there is this really big separation between academics and practitioners like there is this kind of gulf where practitioners perhaps say that academics are really removed from practice and too linked into theory and don't understand what is going on in the real world and where academics say if only practitioners would integrate some of this theory ….what would be really neat would be this kind of collaboration. Without doubt schools of social work will welcome such collaboration but it is necessary for the parties to understand the realities and constraints in both worlds. There is fairly broad agreement that workers need time away from the frontline for intellectual refreshment and that this should include opportunities for study, scholarship and research. Practitioners and their leaders and managers want an ‘environment in which we support research- professional development that it is done internally so we can, it can be a winwin’ and there is considerable support for greater resources to encourage social workers to undertake higher education and research degrees. It is seen as an imperative to enable practitioners to: up -skill, take sabbaticals, whatever it takes to re-energise, refresh, renew and up- skill the workforce. And I think there is not enough recognition of senior practitioners, who if they were working in universities would get sabbaticals…they have got to go off and investigate, do research around their work. Registration can assist the profession to grow and change through providing both a mandate and an impetus to increase support and resources for social workers to undertake further study, beyond qualifying education. Further investigation of the capacities of all parties to contribute to this development is needed.

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