Social work and mental health: refocusing the training agenda for ASWs

The occupational competency approach to defining the work of Approved Social Workers and the consequent requirement to arrange training and assessment in accordance with a CCETSW devised framework has met with widespread antipathy from those involved in ASW training. In the light of the critical literature regarding the imposition of the functional competence model throughout social work education this paper examines the specific challenges of ASW training, notably the contested nature not only of social work but also of mental health and distress. From a proposition that the theoretical consensus implicit in the competency approach does not exist in the mental health field and that the current framework attempts to obscure fundamental conflicts between different standpoints, it is argued that the theoretical tensions, their lived manifestations and the consequent practice problems are more productively positioned at the centre of ASW training. It is further argued that the issues discussed in relation to the competency approach to ASW training have a particular bearing both on the identified problems of multi-disciplinary mental health work and on the current promotion of competency based joint-training responses.