England and Wales Care Standards Tribunal

 


Linnet Ouna

Appellant

v

The General Social Care Council

[2007] 1008.SW Respondent

Before:

Mr. Stewart Hunter (Nominated Chairman)

Dr. Sati Ariyanayagam

Dr. Jill Low

Sitting at the Care Standards Tribunal, Pocock Street, London

On 4^th October 2007

DECISION

Representation

At the hearing Ms Ouna represented herself and Ms Eleanor Gray of Counsel, instructed by Field Fisher Waterhouse LLP, represented the Respondent.

Appeal

1. This is an Appeal by Ms Linnett Ouna under Section 69 (1) of the Care Standards Act 2000 ("the Act") against the decision of the Respondents made on 12th February 2007 to refuse to register the Appellant as a Social Worker on the register maintained for this purpose pursuant to Section 56 (1) of the Act.
2. Section 58 (1) provides that the General Social Care Council ("GSCC") must be satisfied that an applicant for registration is of good character and is physically and mentally fit to perform relevant work. This was not an issue in this case. However, Section 58 does allow the GSCC to specify conditions that an applicant must meet for registration, which are set out in Section 58 (2) and (3). In this case the GSCC formed the view that the appellant could not comply with specified conditions as to qualifications, in particular the requirements of Section 64 (1) (b) which deals with qualifications gained outside England and which states as follows:-

"An applicant for registration as a social worker in the register maintained by the English Council satisfies the requirements of this section if:-

(b) he has, elsewhere than in England, undergone training in relevant social work and either:-

(i) that training is recognised by the Council as being to a standard sufficient for such registration: or

(ii) it is not so recognised, but the applicant has undergone in England or elsewhere such additional training as the Council may require".

3. Section 57 (1) of the Act provides that an application for registration must be made to the GSCC in accordance with the relevant rules, those rules being the GSCC (Registration) Rules 2005, ("the Rules"). Rule 4 indicates that an application should be made in writing; it then goes on to set out the information which an applicant is required to provide.

Where an applicant obtains their qualification and training abroad they are asked by the GSCC to complete a form giving general information about themselves ("Part 1"); there is also a further form in which they are requested to provide information about their qualifications, education and experience ("Part 2").

4. The standard which the GSCC applies when considering whether a qualification or training gained abroad is of sufficient standard to meet the requirements for registration is whether the applicant's training and experience is equivalent to the requirements of the UK qualification, the Diploma in Social Work. This is a qualification held by most social workers, although students in social work in the United Kingdom now follow a three year BA (Hons) degree course in Social Work. The six competencies of the Diploma in Social Work were Communicate and Engage, Promote and Enable, Access and Plan, Intervene and Provide Services, Work in Organisations and Develop Professional Confidence. In addition to the knowledge requirements each student was required to undertake 130 days of assessed social work practice, overseen and reported on by a study supervisor in the field against the core qualification requirements.
5. In assessing whether an applicant has undergone training and social work elsewhere than in England which is equivalent to the requirements of the Diploma in Social Work, the GSCC relies upon its International Recognition Service ("IRS").
6. The onus is on the appellant to demonstrate that she is a person who meets the requirements of Section 58 of the Act.

Facts.

7. On 21st September 2006 an application for registration dated 15th September 2006 was received from the appellant by the respondent for registration of the appellant as a social worker in England.
8. The qualifications submitted by the appellant to the GSCC included a Certificate in Social Development Course awarded by the Kobujoi Social Work Training Centre in Kobujoi, Kenya, the appellant having completed a one year course in social work theory and practice, between January 1986 and December 1986. The Certificate provided by the Centre indicated that the appellant had studied social work theory and methods, community health, a number of general subjects as well as general agriculture and animal husbandry.

Whilst in Kenya the appellant had also completed a number of short courses, including courses on HIV/Aids, gender awareness and the treatment of rape survivors.

The appellant had also been awarded an MA in International and Child Welfare from the University of East Anglia following the completion of a course which had started in October 2005 and continued until July 2006. The information provided by the appellant regarding the course indicated that it was comprised of a number of units, which included social policies and child welfare, understanding children and families, International perspective on the planning and provision of child welfare service and child welfare practice.

9. The appellant's employment history was also considered. The appellant had worked for the Child Welfare Society of Kenya between January 1987 and August 2005. The appellant included with her application form a letter from Ms Justine Oduya the Regional Co-ordinator of the Rift Valley region of the Child Welfare Society of Kenya dated 21st July 2006. In that letter Mrs Oduya stated that:-

"Linnet had served in various capacities which included training and child care, management of two of our residential homes in which she was in charge of the general administration and supervision of social workers; and her last position of a Programme Officer within the Family Services Department in my region".

The letter went on to state that the appellant has been responsible for training newly employed social workers as well as building the capacity of those already in the service. She had supervised the preparation of reports for court and convened case conferences. As part of a technical management team she had reviewed and evaluated policies and represented the organisation in other forums. The appellant was also said to have played a key role in the drafting of the Children Act 2001 as well as the drafting of adoption guidelines. The penultimate paragraph of Mrs Oduya's letter stating that:-

"Linnet has generally worked in training, residential care, team leader and the development of policies, advocacy work and needs assessment in Family Services Department. I have no doubt that she is able to transfer her skills and experience to another setting".

The appellant also provided with her application form a generic job description for the Programme Officer post with the Child Welfare Society of Kenya, together with details of the general responsibilities of the post.

10. In terms of the membership of other organisations the appellant provided the GSCC with a copy of her membership certificate from the Kenya National Association of Social Workers dated January 2002.
11. The appellant as part of her application for registration included a personal statement which amongst other matters was required to indicate how she met the core competencies of the Diploma in Social Work. In that document the appellant indicated that she considered that she had met the core competencies of the Diploma in Social Work in the areas of communicate and engage, promote and enable, assess and plan, intervene and provide services, through her training in social work, twelve years working as a social worker, five years as a Programme Officer and her MA in International Child Welfare. She then went on to set out in more detail what her work as a Programme Officer had entailed and gave further information to show how she considered that she had met the core competencies of working with organisations and the development of professional competence. This included setting out her work as part of her technical management team with the Child Welfare Society of Kenya and also the areas covered during her MA in International Child Welfare.
12. The GSCC asked its IRS to assess the appellant's qualifications and provide a recommendation on the equivalency of her training to the Diploma in Social Work. The assessor from IRS reported on 7th November 2006. The assessor had been able to confirm that the Certificate in Social Work Theory and Practice course which the appellant had obtained from the Kobujoi Social Work Training Centre did exist, but it had not proved possible to obtain confirmation from the government of Kenya as to whether the course was recognised by them. The assessor concluded that the applicant did not meet the equivalent of the UK Diploma for Social Work and gave the following reasons:-

•    The qualifying course that the applicant has attended in Kenya is a one year course; and the UK Diploma of Social Work requires the student to complete two years of study;

•    The Certificate course does not indicate that there is an assessed practice placement; the UK Diploma of Social Work requires two assessed practice placements;

•    The entrance requirement of the Certificate course is the Kenya Certificate of Education which is equivalent to a UK GCSE or O Level standard (although the UK NARIC cannot give a confirmation of comparable UK standard on the Social Work Certificate); it is therefore of a lower level of entrance standard of the UK Diploma in Social Work;

•    The short courses that the applicant has attended during her practice do not sufficiently compensate the gaps of the level of standard and the depth of the requirements of a formal UK Diploma of Social Work course;

•    The length of the applicant's practice may have compensated the practice requirements of the UK Diploma of Social Work; but it has not been academically as well as professionally independently assessed;

•    The applicant's admission to a UK Master's degree course does not affect this decision as it is not a UK recognised Diploma of Social Work qualifying course;

•    The Kenya Association of Social Worker's membership does not qualify for a UK recognised social work qualification.

13. The assessor's recommendations were reviewed by IRS manager Diane Smith in a report dated 28th November 2006. The recommendations and reasons for declining to register the appellant were given by Ms Smith in her report. It was recommended: that the applicant had not met the requirements of the Diploma in Social Work; there was a mismatch between her professional activities and the Diploma in Social Work. The applicant's course was only one year in length, was likely to have been at a lower academic level than that required by the Diploma in Social Work and did not include any assessed practice placement in a social work role as part of the course.

Ms Smith went on to say that "if the appellant were to successfully complete qualifying social work training in the UK; it would then be possible for her to apply for registration on the basis that she had completed the required training under Section 58 of the Care Standards Act".

14. On 12th January 2007 the GSCC wrote to the appellant indicating that they were considering refusing her application. On 12th February 2007 GSCC wrote to the appellant again confirming that her application had been refused on the basis that the appellant had not met the qualification criteria set out in Section 64 (1) (b) of the Act. The GSCC made reference to the IRS report and stated that if the appellant was able to successfully complete social work training in the UK it would be possible for her to reapply for registration on the basis that she had completed the required training under Section 58 of the Act.
15. In her appeal to the Tribunal the appellant included a number of reasons why she considered that the GSCC's decision was wrong. These included the following:-

"The GSCC's guidelines state that where the course is not equivalent to the Diploma in Social Work, then other relevant training and professional experience must meet this requirement. I had worked for 19 years in a social work setting. I have since 2005 studied at a higher level in the United Kingdom and successfully obtained a Masters degree in International Child Welfare. Whereas this is not a fully accredited GSCC course, the course was conducted in a social work setting".

And later in the same statement included the following:-

"The GSCC has not raised any specific issues on my competencies. The GSCC requires information that dates back to five years only. I mentioned the information beyond five years because my employer mentioned my period of employment and it was necessary that I account for all the period.

I do appeal against the refusal to include me on the social care register based on qualifications gained more than 20 years ago ….. "

16. In its response to the appeal the respondent set out the history of the application, concluding at paragraph 25 as follows:-

"The appellant did not provide sufficient evidence with her application to demonstrate to the council that, in all the circumstances, her training was equivalent to a Diploma in Social Work. Both the external assessor and the IRS manager concluded that the appellant's primary qualification was at an insufficient academic level to meet the requirements of the Diploma in Social Work and that her subsequent work experience and further training was insufficient to make up for the shortfall in this academic level of her training."

17. The appellant submitted a written witness statement dated the 28th August 2007, as well as giving oral evidence, this included evidence regarding her background, her qualifications and training. In terms of the Certificate in Social Work Theory and Practice that the appellant had obtained from the Kobujoi Social Work Training Centre, the appellant confirmed that the entrance level required had been on the basis of Kenyan examinations which were equivalent to English GCSE's, but that was the position at the time and the appellant had not been in a position to obtain advance level examination results. In 1986 the Certificate of Social Work had been a widely recognised qualification in Kenya it had been a one year course, but was now two years. The appellant had completed the course on the basis of a work programme of two years which in practice had been condensed into one year.

During the course the appellant had attended a two month placement covering the areas of child welfare, foster care, adoption, residential care and family support. The placement involved some group work and was assessed by supervisors.

In her application form to the GSCC the appellant indicated that she had undertaken two placements whilst on the Certificate in Social Work course in Kenya and that the total number of hours spent on the placements was 80.

18. The appellant also gave further details about her work with the Child Welfare Society of Kenya. In particular the manner in which her work had been supervised.
19. As far as the appellant's MA was concerned the appellant pointed out that before a university in the United Kingdom accepted a foreign student they had to be satisfied that that student had the necessary academic ability to do the course. The appellant had assumed that her university course would have covered all the necessary academic requirements that were necessary for her to be registered as a social worker.
20. The Tribunal also heard evidence from Ms Catherine Clark an Education Standards and Information Manager with the GSCC, who had also signed a witness statement dated 28th August 2007. Ms Clark explained how the appellant's application had been processed and the reasons why the GSCC had refused to register the appellant. In relation to the appellant's MA in International Child Welfare, Ms Clark confirmed that the course was not one that was recognised or approved by the GSCC for qualifying as a social worker; it did not meet the requirements of the Diploma in Social Work or the Social Work degree. Although the MA course completed by the appellant may have related to social work it was not approved as suitable to prepare students to undertake the full professional work of a competent social worker including a wide range of professional and statutory duties.

As regard membership of the Kenyan National Association of Social Workers, Ms Clarke said this was a membership organisation not a regulatory organisation and therefore did not establish member's competency or standard.

Tribunal's Conclusions

21. The appellant obtained a Certificate in Social Work Theory and Practice from the Kobujoi Social Work Training Centre in Kenya having completed the course between January 1986 and December 1986. The GSCC through its IRS service raised a number of issues relating to this course.

Firstly that the entrance requirements on to the course were at a lower level than those that had been required to attend the UK Diploma in Social Work course. The appellant herself accepted that this was the case, but gave evidence that there was no opportunity for students such as herself in Kenya at that time to obtain more advanced qualifications. We accept the appellant's evidence on this point and consider it unreasonable to assume that the course in question would necessarily be at a lower standard if there were no higher entrance qualifications that the appellant could have obtained.

The existence of the course was verified by UK NARIC, they had not however been able to confirm that it was recognised by the Government of Kenya.

The second point raised by the IRS in relation to the course was that it was for one year course whereas the UK Diploma of Social Work required a student to complete two years of study. The appellant gave evidence that the Kenyan course was now a two year course and that at the time she had undertaken the course it had been intensive with the intention of effectively completing two years worth of work in one year. However, no additional evidence was forthcoming from the appellant either from the Kenyan government or from any other source in Kenya that this was the situation. We take the view that on a balance of probabilities it is likely that the subjects that the appellant studied on the course whilst they may have been similar to some of the areas of study on the Diploma of Social Work such as social work theory, social work methods and community health, they are unlikely to have been studied in the same depth (given the shortage of time) as would have been the case on the Diploma of Social Work. The purpose of the Diploma in Social Work was as well as providing a level of theoretical academic knowledge also to equip a student to practice as a social worker. Accordingly placement work was an integral part of the Diploma, it being a requirement that a student undertook two assessed practice placement comprising of at least 130 days in total. The evidence from the appellant was that she had undergone 80 hours of assessed practice as part of her course, which is clearly substantially less than a 130 days. It was also necessary for a student on the Diploma course not only to have carried out a practice placement but for that placement to have been appropriately assessed. The appellant did not provide any evidence that the 80 hours placement on the Kenyan course had been so assessed.

22. It is clear from the appellant's application form and the evidence presented to the Tribunal that she had a long career in Kenya in the social care field when she was employed by the Child Welfare Society of Kenya. The Tribunal had sight of a letter from the appellant's regional co-ordinator Mrs Justine Oduya dated 21st July 2006 setting out the areas in which the appellant had worked, which also included representing the Society on the Coalition on Child Rights and Protection, as well as playing a role in the drafting of the Children's Act 2001 and adoption guidelines.

The appellant also produced evidence of having attended a number of short courses whilst in Kenya. Although these were no doubt valuable, given our earlier comments about the Diploma in Social Work being a two year course, we were not persuaded that the short courses were sufficient to compensate for the lack of depth in the Certificate of Social Work Theory and Practice that the appellant took in 1986.

The appellant indicated that while she was with the Child Welfare Society of Kenya various aspects of her work had been supervised and she had attended regular supervisory meetings. Whilst we acknowledge that this may have been an assessment of a kind, it cannot be described as independently assessed practice as envisaged by the Diploma of Social Work nor in any event would it in our view have been of a sufficient duration to meet the shortfall between the 80 hours of placement that the appellant undertook as part of the Kenyan course and the requirements of the Diploma in Social Work.

23. As far as the appellant's MA in International Child Welfare is concerned, it is clear from the subject content provided by the appellant that this covers important social care issues particularly in relation to international child welfare and as such is related to social work but from an academic study perspective. What is also apparent from the details supplied about the course is that it does not include any element of assessed social work or in any way seek to prepare students to undertake the role of a social worker and the wide range of duties that social workers are required to cover. Therefore we do not consider that it makes up for the short fall in the appellant's earlier studies, particularly given the lack of assessed practice that we have identified.
24. In conclusion whilst the appellant has undoubtedly undertaken study in social work related areas both in Kenya and in this country they have not covered the full breadth of competencies required by the Diploma in Social Work, partly because there have been insufficient depth in the areas taught in Kenya and secondly it has not involved sufficient assessed social work practice. It is for these reasons that we find that the appellant's qualifications and experience do not meet the requirements for registration as a social worker.
25. We would however add, as indicated by the GSCC at the hearing, that the qualifications and the training that the appellant has acquired may be such that if she were to enquire at a university accredited to offer the Social Work degree then certain exemptions may be available to her. Moreover whilst we have found the appellant does not at this stage meet the requirements for registration as a social worker nevertheless she does have a lot of valuable experience in the social care field and there may be other career opportunities that would be open to her.

The unanimous decision of the Tribunal is to dismiss the appeal.

ORDER

The appeal is dismissed.

Mr. Stewart Hunter (Nominated Chairman)

Dr. Sati Ariyanayagam

Dr. Jill Low

Date: 2 November 2007