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Benefits For Local Authorities

What is positive for Local Authorities is also positive for social workers.  In times past I described international recruitment as a quote, win, win, win outcome & quote; the third winner being myself.  There is little that is more rewarding than helping young people (as Social Workers are relative to my age) change their lives for the better.  I am simply a conduit if you like with real changes being effected by Social Workers themselves which is very much dependant upon LAs approach to induction, supervision, training and career development.

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So what are the advantages of recruiting internationally?

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  •     Many of my social workers have experience of working outside their own countries (including the UK) or working for international child protection organisations such as UNHCR.   They are familiar with comprehensive assessment and case management techniques. 

     

  •  Nearly all have been taught in the medium of English.  Previous international experience adds to both their linguistic and social work skills together with a broader experience of social work concepts and cultural diversity.

     

  •  Many have research, project management and service development skills. Those engaged in monitoring and evaluation have skills to analyse the effectiveness of service provision.

     

  •   International social workers stay in social work employment for much longer than British social workers.  Those that I have recruited previously have demonstrated that they are career-orientated....and by chance three are now Directors of Children Services.

     

  •  A number of social workers have very significant management experience.  They can
    become British Managers within twelve months of commencement.  

     

  •    LAs recoup the cost of international recruitment within six months or a little longer. The savings compared to agency workers are considerable.

ABOUT CHARLES BELL

Call or Email Without Obligation.

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Many years ago I gained an excellent combined Honours Degree in Law and Sociology. I was proud of that. My focus was on family law and criminology.  I returned to my first  University and completed a social work Masters in 1979 at Exeter, a Russell Group University.  In those days only about 5% of young people went to University. If you needed luck you made your own as I did.

 

Thereafter, after two years working in West London managing an adolescent unit and after-care service, I took up a post with Cambridgeshire County Council developing alternatives to custody for children in conflict with the law and alternatives to care with an emphasis on those children who suffered or were at risk of sexual abuse.  I also had a remit to gatekeep the use of secure accommodation.  

 

In effect I was  the Principal Officer for Adolescent/children’s Services.  In those days back in the 1980s Team members had to share a common anti-custody philosophy, they needed to balance justice with welfare, they had to understand principles of sentencing and be able to write excellent court reports. They also had to have the ability to convincingly address Magistrates and Crown Court judges. I insisted on the team being qualified social workers plus a Liaison Teacher.  That was a tall order so I recruited a number of Australians and excellent workers they were.  That means I have been a Manager of internationally qualified social workers.

 

I was a juvenile justice guru heading up Policy and Practice for the Association for Juvenile Justice meeting regularly with lead Civil Servants and MPs.  I was also the founder member of the Standing Committee for Youth Justice. which is still very much alive today.  I wrote and published prodigiously and moved into training and consultancy. For several years I was responsible for publishing Juvenile Justice Worldwide, a publication of Defence for Children International, which provided, amongst other things, secretariat services to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. 

 

In 1998 I was a member of a small DfID-funded ream which assisted the Romanian government t develop a Probation Service.  I took the lead on the law, policy and practice.  After a few years a Romanian social worker asked if I could assist in getting them jobs in the UK.  That was a challenge at the time!   However, these were strongly motivated, well educated and extremely competent Romanian social workers who typically had a four year Degree and Masters and who had to write and speak English routinely because many projects were sponsored by international organisations and the European Union.  

 

In 2001 I started my recruitment business.  I also focused on Zimbabwean social workers.  I started by placing large numbers of Zimbabweans with Birmingham.  My other initial customer was Suffolk who, at one point, had 22% of all social workers (covering both Children’s and Adult Services) from my principal source countries.    

 

I adopted the trading name, ArkAngel Solutions.   At the time there were seventy two different Christian denominations in a country of about 15 million people where tribal religions were also strong.   For Zimbabweans life was stressful with very low employment, extreme, poverty, no currency of its own, Zanu PF and Mugabe. I was the means by which Zimbabweans escaped this situation and had the opportunity to change their lives for the better.

 

 Overall I placed about four hundred social workers in thirty Local Authorities.  Three are now Directors with others Assistant Directors, Heads of Service etc.  All my social workers had comprehensive training (initially based on The Child's World: the Comprehensive Guide to Assessing Children in Need. published by NSPCC) and met weekly in Study Groups in four Romanian and two Zimbabwean cities. Just about everybody got jobs. The demand for international social workers diminished over time for a variety of reasons.  

 

I mothballed my business opening it up again occasionally. Over time the quality of Romanian social workers diminished with notable exceptions.  For much of the last five years I have spent winters in India and south east Asia with several months spent in southern Africa interviewing and assessing social workers.  I placed social workers with a number of Local Authorities but came second best when tendering to place twenty or so social workers with one Local Authority.  With the aid of hindsight, it was a blessing in disguise. That triggered my retirement.

 

In March 2020 I returned from abroad and quickly realised that COVID lockdown was going to be a long term issue.  Being a pensioner by now I decided to restart my recruitment business again...something I am good at and very much enjoy.  There is nothing better combining work with travel, warm weather and cricket for which I have a passion.  I was quite happy to place a small number of social workers each year rather than having a continuous flow..  I felt obligated to prioritise those Indians and Africans I had previously assessed who remained in their own countries.

 

I started knocking on the door of potential employers with sufficient success.  I am very grateful to have the assistance of an Indian social worker who has been employed by a London Borough for four years.  He delivers comprehensive training to my social workers through a What's App group for which I and social workers are extremely grateful.

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