We spoke with Newham’s Elena Nicolaou to hear about her journey into social work via the Step Up to Social Work programme, the benefits of taking some time out and working abroad, and what factors into the decision between agency and permanent social work roles.
As Newham’s Safeguarding Children Workforce Development Lead, Elena’s role is all about developing the knowledge and skills of social workers and partner agencies, keeping them up to date with best practice, and ensuring everyone understands what any changes to legislation mean for them. Elena’s role sees her developing and running Newham’s Social Care Academy training programme as well as overseeing training across the wider safeguarding partnership.
“My role has two parts: about 75% of my work is with internal children’s services, and the other 25% is with the safeguarding partnership. With the Social Care Academy, I organise the training programme, including lunchtime seminars, and monitoring and evaluating training. I do the same for the partnership but the training is multi-agency, including social care, the police, health, education, and the voluntary sector.”
There are many pathways to becoming a social worker. In fact, Elena started out with aspirations to become a music therapist, but soon discovered that her personal values were a great match for social work. Her undergraduate degree was in music, and she was initially looking into postgraduate courses in counselling. However, she switched focus to social work after a conversation with her aunt:
“I still remember that conversation really clearly now, she said “You know, it’s hard to get jobs in counselling and therapy, what about social work?”. I had never considered social work, so I started researching this and thought “Oh my gosh, this aligns totally with my values!”. I’ve always been really into social justice, rights and advocacy, so I just started exploring routes into social work.”
Elena met the requirements for the Step Up to Social Work postgraduate programme, which offers candidates a fast-track route to qualifying as a social worker while gaining practical experience. Aside from the fierce competition for places, the course itself can be demanding, but Elena found that this approach prepared her well for practice:
“I thought it was an excellent course, I’d highly recommend it. It is intense, but it covers everything it needs to cover. The majority of other people on the course had a more related degree than I did, but I thought it bridged that gap really well.”
After finishing the Step Up programme and qualifying, Elena began her social work career with a permanent role in Harrow, in a frontline role which helped to give her a solid grounding in social work practice:
“I went straight in and did a frontline role for two years. We covered assessment right up until when a child was placed permanently and went to a Looked After team. So I did assessment, children in need and child protection – the full spectrum! The grounding you get really does set you up for going into different teams. You gain a lot of skills, and the variety means you run into all sorts of issues and challenges.”
A switch to agency practice came after Elena took some time away from social work, spending a few years working abroad before returning to London. Taking this time out gave her a chance to broaden her horizons and devote time to personal and professional growth:
“I definitely think I’m a better worker for having lived and worked abroad. From having done charitable work, for having lived in another culture, to just having time out to reflect. I learned another language, and just have a different understanding of culture.”
After deciding to go back to social work practice, Elena weighed up both agency roles and a return to permanent work with a local authority. To begin with, she opted for an agency role which which offered higher pay and a more convenient location.
“It was definitely a financial decision, that’s just how it is sometimes! Social workers don’t go into the field for the money, but at that time with Covid and the cost of living, I had to consider finance and location.”
Elena’s decision to return to a permanent was driven by the greater opportunities for progression that working for a local authority offers. After attending a Newham online recruitment event for agency social workers, Elena weighed up the costs and benefits, including additional courses, and decided that a permanent role was more suitable. Elena applied to do the Practice Education course whilst transitioning from agency to permanent and started just a few months later. Shortly after this, Elena heard about her current role. The chance to move into a learning and development niche was too good to pass up:
“Even as a newly qualified worker, I was really inspired by a reflective supervisor that I had, and I could always see myself doing something like this. Learning and development roles are quite rare and hard to get anyway, but they’re practically impossible as an agency worker.”
Elena believes that the most important thing an agency social worker should do, when considering a return to permanent practice, is take the time to weigh up all of their options holistically:
“It’s about keeping an open mind, really weighing it up and looking into it. Not just what you would be paid, what are the opportunities? Is it a stepping stone to something else? I really liked the people at Newham, I like the culture. There’s a drive to want to be excellent and that really resonated with me. As a British Greek Cypriot, I also really like working in a place with diversity and where diversity is valued. I’ve worked in some very white areas of the UK, but I prefer a multi-cultural environment. I will say that pay was a factor as well, and Newham offers a competitive financial package including an excellent pension.”
The move to a learning and development role has turned out to be ideal for Elena in more practical terms as well. Trading the casework of her agency role for training and mentoring means her hours are easier to fit around a young family, and she sees potential for her to go further in terms of career progression now that she has settled on a permanent role in Newham:
“I have this driver that I want to achieve my potential, and I didn’t think I was achieving my potential [with agency work]. I had thought about it for a long time. I’ve also got a toddler now, so I’m not ashamed to say that I can’t be running around on visits at seven o’clock or writing a court report at midnight, it’s just not practical anymore!”
If you're considering the switch back from agency social work to a permanent role, now is a great time to look at the bigger picture like Elena did. The benefits of career development, stability, job security and work-life balance often outweigh short-term financial gains. Discover why now may be the time to make the switch back to a permanent social work role.
Find out more about working with Elena in Newham and view their current job opportunities. You can also contact Liam Barrell, Newham’s Workforce Programme Manager at liam.barrell@newham.gov.uk to discuss their offer for agency staff that would like to work in the borough.