Building Bridges Between Local Authorities and a University to Strengthen Social Work Training

Social work training has been criticised in England because academic and practice sites have been far apart, operating within their own cultures. The Government of England introduced the social work teaching partnership initiative in 2015. The intention of the programme (Department for Education & Department of Health, 2015) was to improve the quality of teaching on pre- and post-qualifying social work training programmes, by strengthening links between higher education institutions and local employers of social workers. The pilot phase of the government initiative funded four teaching partnership in different areas of England, one of which was the South East London Teaching Partnership (SELTP). The aim of this paper is to present research findings examining the relationship between academia and practice.