WIREDGOV

The Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) has launched a refresh of the common core of skills and knowledge that everyone working with children, young people and families should have.

The refresh of the guidance has been informed through consultation with professionals and volunteers in the workforce, children, young people, parents and carers and sees a strengthening of the core skills and knowledge required in a number of areas, including online safeguarding and early intervention and prevention. Feedback from the consultation also provided an insight into how widely supported and valued the common core of skills and knowledge is for anyone who works with children, young people and their families.

The common core, first launched in 2005, enables professionals and volunteers in the children and young people's workforce to work together more effectively in the interests of the child and underpins successful multi-agency and integrated working.

The consultation to refresh the common core was led by CWDC in collaboration with the Department of Children, Schools and Families and other key partners. Supporting the 2020 Children and Young People's Workforce Strategy, the review considered whether the six areas of skills and knowledge in the common core continue to be the right ones, whether they reflect current policy and front line practice, and how widely the common core is being used by the workforce.

The refreshed common core of six core areas of skills and knowledge for 2010 remains broadly the same, but with a renewed text and updates to strengthen the following areas: 

• Online safeguarding
• Integrated working, as well as joint working
• Early intervention and prevention
• Supporting the needs of teenagers and adolescents
• Disability and disadvantage
• Involving service users, including parents as partners
• Clarifying different types of transitions
• Ensuring the common core matches the needs of the whole workforce

Deirdre Quill, Director of Integrated Workforce at CWDC, said:Support for the common core across the children and young people's workforce has been overwhelming in this consultation. We know that it is used widely, that it is valued, and that there is a need to keep it tightly focused.

This refreshed common core includes a strengthening of areas where workforce needs and policy is changing: it now highlights the need for an awareness of the risks to children and young people from online activities and the importance of online safeguarding. It has also been updated to reflect emerging thinking and practice around the skills and knowledge required to support early intervention and prevention, and the skills and knowledge required to address issues of disability and disadvantage.

The consultation has also highlighted that while many local areas use the common core effectively in induction, training, job descriptions and workforce development strategies, use is not always consistent across local areas or sectors of the workforce.  To ensure the common core is used by everyone who works with children, young people and families - and in all sectors - CWDC is currently developing plans to move towards universal usage.

The consultation was held between July and December 2009, with nearly 1,000 people completing an online questionnaire. Views were additionally canvassed through 40 discussion groups with members of the workforce from different sectors; focus groups with children and young people with disabilities and with parents; and more than 20 one-to-one interviews with government officials and other key stakeholders.

The refreshed common core is available online, detailing the six areas of expertise required by everyone working in the children and young people's workforce: effective communication and engagement with children, young people and families; child and young person development; safeguarding and promoting the welfare of the child or young person; supporting transitions; multi-agency and integrated working and information sharing.

For further information please contact CWDC Press and PR Officer Melissa Loughran on 0113 290 4166 or at comm_officer3@cwdcouncil.org.uk

The Children's Workforce Development Council (CWDC) leads change so that the thousands of people and volunteers working with children and young people across England are able to do the best job they possibly can.

We want England's children and young people's workforce to be respected by peers and professionals and valued for the positive difference it makes to children, young people and their families.

We advise and work in partnership with lots of different organisations and people who want the lives of all children and young people to be healthy, happy and fulfilling. For more information visit: www.cwdcouncil.org.uk