The Views and Experiences of Step Up to Social Work Graduates: Two and a Half Years Following Qualification

In spring 2012, the first cohort of trainees (n = 168) qualified as social workers through a new English fast-track, employer-led programme: Step Up to Social Work (SUSW). This paper reports findings from a survey of this first cohort undertaken in 2014. Of the 145 approached, 138 responded (95 per cent response rate). Survey responses were analysed using SPSS version 21 and the free-text responses were explored thematically using the Framework approach. Of the 130 respondents who started working in children’s social work departments on qualification, 106 were still employed in such settings two and a half years later and 76 were working where they had trained. Of the 115 respondents working in England as social workers at the time of the survey, just under a third were intending to stay for the next year while over half were planning to stay in their current post for between one and four years. These data provide the first indications of the employment and career intentions of this first cohort of SUSW graduates. In light of further investment in England in fast-track training, these findings provide a baseline. They suggest ways for those delivering new training routes to consider graduates’ perspectives and experiences and provide the opportunity to begin to measure the effectiveness of the route on retention.