Social Work Graduate Programme

k_t11

So I read a report in the Irish Times on January 30th 2014 stating that TUSLA (new children and family agency) are considering establishing a new social work graduate programme to fill some of the 200 unfilled posts in C&F at the moment. They also reported an approx 31000€ starting wage?? 20% less then the current starting wage for professionally qualified social worker. What do people think about this??

News article is here: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/more-than-200-social-work-posts-vacant-as-child-referrals-increase-1.1672805

WildRosie

€31k? Nice. It's a lot better than what Jimmy's offering to nurses.

SeanC320

I actually think is unfair, its more exploitation to our profession, it outlines that it will guarantee new graduates 12 month "probationary" contract I believe that this is a cost saving measure directed by the new agency, id like to know what about people that awaits a EOI from the panel, is new graduates going to automatically fill the gap of shortages and hence people on the panel will remain there.

mopimopr

My thoughts exactly.

There have been so many articles about SW in the past 2 weeks - unfilled posts, the length of time it takes to fill posts, moving forward with the new agency etc - none of which mention the SWs on panels.

There are hundreds of SWs which have been through a three stage interview process (how much has that cost since April 2013?) and are ready to start work whenever they decide to approve posts. Not to mention the SWs on bands lower that B who have not been given their third interview yet. More than enough SWs around.

And instead of working on getting some of these SWs into posts which need to be filled, they say they need to start up a new programme and pay graduates less to fill posts. Nonsense.