Leadership and Management Overview
Why is the Skills Academy focusing on Leadership and Management?
Social care deserves the very best managers and leaders. Liberating and affirming services, delivered in partnership with people who rely on social care calls for people with imagination, excitement and enthusiasm. We need confident, skilled and creative leaders and managers in order to raise standards throughout the sector. The Skills Academy is working to transform the quality of leadership and management in the social care sector at all levels and to raise the profile, capability and resilience of social care leadership.
What is our focus?
In response to feedback from employers we have developed a series of leadership and management programmes that address leadership needs at every level of the workforce:
- National Management Trainee Scheme in social care for graduates
- Leadership in the Frontline programme for first-time social care managers and new leaders
- Aspiring Leaders programme for managers already at a fairly high level and aspiring to senior management
- Coaching and mentoring register and provision
- A series of seminars for those leading at the highest levels of management in social care
What have the Leadership and Management programmes delivered so far?
The Skills Academy delivered its pioneering National Management Trainee Scheme for graduates in Social Care in 2009. 20 graduates have almost completed the first year of the scheme. It has already established itself as valuable and successful with overwhelming interest from employers. Graduates in the first year were placed in different social care organisations across England covering voluntary, statutory and private sectors. They have experienced frontline social care work as well as being tasked with specific delivery projects in their placements and have participated in excellent leadership and management learning days.
The Skills Academy is hosting a series of leadership seminars for senior leaders in social care. The seminars provide an opportunity for these leaders to come together, whether they work in private, statutory or not-for-profit care, and to share ideas and thinking as well as develop a stronger cross-sector voice. At the first event in January the Work Foundation, the leading independent authority on work and organisational effectiveness, shared its findings from research into the links between excellent leadership and sustained high performance. The second seminar, held in partnership with the Guardian offices in March, debated how social care leaders can contribute to citizen empowerment and generate greater local control. In June the third seminar, in partnership with the International Futures Forum, explored the view that today’s social care landscape is one of ‘conceptual emergency’ and that there are specific competencies required to be effective in such an environment.
Further seminars and master-classes in the series are planned, with the outcomes being greater access to the latest leadership thinking and expertise nationally, greater engagement between social care and leading learning and development institutions and a greater clarity about the specificity of social care leadership.
The Skills Academy has developed a coaching and mentoring resource, available online to provide information for anyone in the sector who would like to find out more. Coaching has become an increasingly valued resource across all sectors in recent years, and within social care the demand for coaching has increased in line with the changes and complexities in social care managers’ roles. We are aiming to improve access to high-quality coaches and mentors for people working in social care at all levels.
What is the Leadership and Management programme doing right now?
Now in its second year the National Management Trainee Scheme has recently completed recruitment for 2010/11 and has had an even bigger response than last year from graduates and employers alike, with 25 successful graduates starting the scheme in September. The scheme has been so popular with employers that the Academy has more employers than graduates to place this year and Methodist Homes Association will also be funding and hosting three graduates as part of a franchised extension of the scheme.
Employers and providers in the sector have told us they need more support in getting the most out of their first-time managers, so the Skills Academy has developed the Frontline Leaders programme, with 6 organisations participating in the first wave. The programme is engaging social care employers and their frontline managers in the creation of a new leadership development model based in coaching theory to better equip them to deliver outstanding care.
The social care sector needs a recognised national pathway for managers from all backgrounds to develop their career options and this programme will help provide a recognised route to excellent leadership in the sector. In partnership with Ashridge Business school we have developed and finalised our Aspiring Leaders programme, which will provide a national programme of learning for senior and middle managers across the private, voluntary and public sectors who wish to strengthen their leadership skills and prepare for senior management roles. Applications are being invited to join one of the three intakes to this programme before Spring 2011.
The Skills Academy is working closely with ADASS to provide high level support and development programmes to newly-appointed directors of adult social services with the goal of reducing turnover at this crucial level and time in adult social services. The programme will consist of action learning and work-based development as well as direct input on national policy and leadership practice. The first of three intakes of new directors will be recruited for autumn 2010.
What is the next step for Leadership and Management?
To find out what’s next for the National Management Trainee Scheme for social care, the Frontline Leaders programme, Aspiring Leaders programme and Coaching and Mentoring project, visit their specific areas of the website
The Skills Academy is beginning to scope a leadership programme for middle managers. Middle managers are frequently the most critical link in organisations between corporate policy and frontline delivery, and yet are also likely to feel they are hard-pressed and unsupported. Using the work-based learning models and coaching principles that run throughout all Skills Academy leadership products the Academy is exploring how best to support middle managers in developing their own leadership capabilities and managing the difficult pressures of their roles.
In collaboration with Skills for Care the Skills Academy, in response to the Social Work Task Force report, is working to produce a programme of
training and support for social work managers. The programme will utilise the Academy’s research and expertise in leadership and management and will align with the principles underpinning all Skills Academy programmes. It will provide support for social work managers at all stages and in all areas. A suggested programme of work and development has been designed and consultation with social workers, employers, managers and service users will begin soon.
The Academy is researching the potential need for a management and leadership qualities framework for the care sector. Such frameworks exist in other sectors and the Academy is exploring how this could be beneficial for the social care sector. The framework will provide a specification of the leadership behaviours required for social care, a basis for individual development and will also assist in the commissioning, design and assessment of learning programmes. The Academy is collaborating with the Work Foundation to determine what excellent leadership in social care is.
How can you get involved in the Leadership and Management programmes?
If you are interested inIf you are interested in attending a consultation day around the Skills Academy’s work for
middle managers please contact:
If you’d like to let us know about your work, find out more about one of the programmes, or simply ask a question, email: