The 'New Roles in Mental Health' programme is a Health Education England (HEE) initiative to support the introduction, expansion or upskilling of eight professional groups that are involved in mental health settings, one of which is social workers.
This work builds on the commitments set out in HEE’s report , developed to enable the response to the HEE workforce outcomes required to support the delivery of the and the implementation of the ambitions of the NHS ‘’.
The NHS ‘People Plan’ and any future white paper for social care will also identify the workforce planning needed across health and social care services.
New Roles in Mental Health Task & Finish Groups
HEE set up the New Roles in Mental Health Task & Finish Groups to give the main eight professional groups that are involved in mental health settings the opportunity to develop their roles for the future of mental health services. The groups are:
- Allied Health Professionals
- Registered Mental Health Nursing
- Nursing Associates
- Peer support workers
- Pharmacy and pharmacy technicians
- Physician associates
- Psychological Therapies (including Improving Access to Psychological Therapies)
- Social workers.
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Social Workers Task and Finish Group
The Social Workers Task and Finish Group for this project is chaired by Mark Trewin, the Mental Health Social Work Lead from the Office of the Chief Social Worker, and led by a core group of people from HEE, 大象传媒, Social Work England and the Social Work for Better Mental Health programme.
The group has been advised and supported by a range of individuals and organisations from across social work, mental health and the NHS, including Social Work England, British Association of Social Workers (BASW), the Principal Social Workers (PSW) Network, the Local Government Association (LGA), NHS Employers and NHS England.
Between September 2018 and March 2019, the group developed ideas and plans about how the role of social work could be enhanced within mental health services and better supported in integrated teams. You can download the final report below.
The group successfully presented these ideas to the HEE New Roles Board and has been working, since then, to implement the new roles programme.
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