SCIE media releases 2003

Government backs SCIE's e-learning initiative with £2m

30 September 2003

The government has awarded SCIE nearly £2m to encourage e-learning in social care in England.

Health minister Stephen Ladyman has backed SCIE's proposal to develop a strategy and promote e-learning by agreeing an additional grant of £0.32m in the current financial year, £0.56m next year and £1.1m the year after.

The strategy and accompanying projects fit with SCIE's work in supporting social work education and the new degree; its development of the electronic Library for Social Care (eLSC) and its promotion of a learning culture in social care.

The strategy will focus initially on supporting the new social work degree. But, in the longer term, it will encompass all social care. It is part of a package of government-backed initiatives in social care, aimed at improving the quality of learning and assessment.

"This is exciting news," said Amanda Edwards, SCIE's head of knowledge services. "E-learning allows increased and flexible access to study that may better meet individual needs. SCIE now has the opportunity to work creatively with a range of partners to develop e-learning in a way that will address the particular needs of the social care workforce."

"E-learning has considerable potential to contribute to the training and improvement of practice in what is a dispersed social care workforce," said the minister. "SCIE, with its links to the NHSU, higher education facilities and other key players, is in an excellent position to develop an e-learning strategy for the whole social care sector."

Notes for editors

1) The Social Care Institute for Excellence was established as an independent company and a charity by the Department of Health in England and by the Welsh Assembly in 2001.

Its role is to gather and publicise evidence of how to get the best results in social care, in order to improve social care policy and practice. Most of its funding comes in the form of grants from the Department of Health and the Welsh Assembly government. It draws on the expertise of people who use and work in services and on findings from research, inspections and service reviews.

SCIE's job is to make this knowledge widely available, translating it into accessible policy and practice guidance and promoting its use to enhance the quality of social care services.

The charity works closely with service users and their supporters and carers, with practitioners and service providers and with social care researchers, educators and policy makers in the statutory, voluntary and independent sectors.

2) The NHSU is the new 'corporate university' for all health service and social care staff, set up by the government to support NHS modernisation of care.

3) The new social work degree started this month in England and Wales. Sixty six universities - the majority of the higher education providers currently offering social work qualifications - are licensed to offer the degree this autumn. The rest are expected to introduce the three-year degree in 2004.

The new degree focuses on practice. The element of academic learning is aimed at supporting practice, rather than practice supporting academic learning. The government has announced extra resources of £7m in 2003/04 (with planning figures of £13m in 2004/05 and £37m in 2005/06) with the intention of achieving an increase to 200 days of practice learning for social work students and providing for the planned increase in the number of students.

Contact numbers

For more information, please contact Amanda Edwards (SCIE head of knowledge services) on 020 7089 6840 or Linda Steele (SCIE press and media executive) on 020 7089 6858 or DH media contact Rachel Hayward on 020 7210 5315