Professor Robbie Gilligan:

This is a very important issue about different forms of support for people in their careers at both early and later stages. One of the issues I hope the committee might give consideration to mentioning is a systematic and structured approach to continuing professional development. This would include opportunities like structured approaches to mentoring and so on. To make social work an attractive option in career terms, employers should be offering a clear and structured pathway of professional development so that people, by staying in the system, gain access to various opportunities which would enhance their careers, their promotion opportunities, and their capacity to do the job in a satisfying way. Maybe those are the kinds of things they hear about on offer in other countries and that may draw some of them away. If we can reduce to some extent the numbers of people who feel motivated to leave by better conditions abroad, that would have an impact. If we can also attract back some of those people by offering them good opportunities similar to the ones that attracted them away in the first place, that would have an impact. Making the hole in the bucket smaller is very important, and it is done by a series of incremental measures, but continuing professional development is a very important piece in the jigsaw that we should not lose sight of. It makes for a more stable, committed, and effective workforce.