Social work boss hails programme

THE region’s social work chief has this week hailed the success of the ‘grow your own’ scheme to produce more social workers. At a time when there is a national shortage of qualified social workers, Dumfries and Galloway has been leading the way to develop badly-needed employees through student placements and traineeships. Speaking at Tuesday’s social work committee, council social work boss Stephen Morgan described the line of work as “the best job in the world” in terms of value and impact, but admitted it’s “also very tough”. He said: “We’re really proud of our grow your own scheme. “We started this in the pandemic for two reasons. One: we needed more staff to make sure that children and families and adults were safe. Two: some of the students back then weren’t able to get a physical placement and it was done almost virtually. “And we knew that there was going to be a cohort of newly-qualified staff coming through that didn’t have the same level of experience. “So, we developed a specific program utilising some short-term funding and we’ve committed to that since. Even though some of the students might go and work elsewhere, we’ve actually gained some who would otherwise have gone elsewhere. “They told us was doing that work within social work teams in Dumfries and Galloway really increased their skills and the knowledge. “I’m not aware of another programme elsewhere in Scotland such as this.”