Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 27 March 2019

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Children and Youth Affairs

Recruitment and Retention of Social Workers: Discussion

Mr. Andrew Murphy:

To train and qualify as a social worker is a rigorous process. It takes a lot. A member of staff will have gone through a degree in social care.

They will have a certain level of training and a certain perspective on their training. Social work is a different profession from social care. There should and could be a practical way to solve that issue through some mechanism such as the Deputy described. It should be possible to bring qualified social care workers who have a degree into the other profession in a more streamlined way than what is required at the moment, which is to go back and do a full-time, two-year master's degree.