Social Work Teaching Partnerships expansion - applications for funding (existing and new) from April 2018 - Please note that this is a grant.

See 'Attachments' for a word version of the description and further information. The Governments teaching partnerships programme brings universities and local authorities together to deliver high quality training for social workers.

These partnerships aim improve the recruitment, retention and development of social workers and the overall quality of practice. We define a social work teaching partnership as: 'an accredited collaboration between HEIs and employers which delivers high quality training for social work students and qualified practitioners and equips them to practise to specified standards in statutory settings.

' Social work teaching partnerships are an opportunity to give social work students the right knowledge and skills, and creating outstanding qualified practitioners. Existing partnerships are already developing the right environments for excellent practice and innovation to flourish.

We expect all teaching partnerships, new and existing to exercise high standards in training and support for professional practice and to exemplify what can be done as we move towards the establishment of a new regulator for the social work profession. Teaching partnerships offer a great opportunity for working together to invest in the highest standards of social work education and practice.

They provide the chance to ensure that we have more good placements available for students, more support for practice educators and more input from practicing social workers and people with lived experience in educating social work students. In turn, this will help to create and sustain a learning culture for social workers and organisations.

This third expansion of the teaching partnership programme marks a long-term commitment to academic rigor and valued research. Making sure practice is at the heart of all that we do is the key focus of this Government's social care reform strategy.

Teaching partnerships form a very important part of this. We all have a responsibility to make sure that, children, families and vulnerable adults receive the help and protection they need.

Our expansion plans look to cement important collaborations between universities and local authorities to ensure a steady stream of high-calibre social workers to the frontline. We now aim to fund further partnerships, new and existing, from 2018, subject to successful assessment of applications.

We may also publish FAQs and anonymised questions and answers on Contracts Finder to help partnerships with their applications. Questions deemed to be commercially sensitive will be answered separately by email