Employers' Experiences and Views of Grow Your Own Social Work Programmes: A Qualitative Interview Study

In the light of expressed support for Grow Your Own or employer sponsored schemes for

social work training, this article explores why they are not so frequently adopted. It draws

on findings from a multi-method study of GYO activities and outcomes in England, in

particular interviews with 27 participants from 20 organisations employing social workers

and funding GYO activity. These interviews revealed that GYO was seen as a means to

recruit and retain new social workers, specifically to recruit workers who were able to start

practice immediately and needed minimal support, but also to widen access to the

profession and to demonstrate evidence of the employers’ wider commitment to its nonqualified

staff by providing a career pathway. Not all those interviewed were able to

provide firm data as evidence of their belief in the value of GYO schemes. The article

concludes that the reasons for the decline in GYO schemes lie in the sizeable investment

required to develop and sustain them. It identifies some mismatch between the need for

immediate solutions to workforce shortages and the longer-term investment in students

and in workforce development staff who are necessary to reap the benefits of such schemes.