Delivery evaluation of the National Assessment and Accreditation System (NAAS) for social workers - Alpha and Beta phases

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Expressions of interest are sought for a two year, real time, formative study to evaluate the delivery of the National Assessment and Accreditation System (NAAS) for social workers - Alpha and Beta phases.

As part of our wider reforms of children's social care, the Department for Education has committed to roll out a new National Assessment and Accreditation System (NAAS) for social workers, which will provide a consistent way of ensuring that child and family social workers, supervisors and leaders have the knowledge and skills for effective practice. Following a consultation, which drew in a broad range of views from across the sector, the Department has decided to operate an Alpha- and Beta-phased approach, supported by in-depth analysis and evaluation, before progressing with a full national rollout. The Alpha phase (involving 5 or 6 LAs) is expected to run for eight months from July 2018 to March 2019 and the Beta phase (involving 12 or 13 LAs) to run for seven months following completion of the Alpha phase - ending in January 2020.

Using an agile, iterative and collaborative way of working, the evaluator will work closely with the delivery partner and the Department, allowing us to make phased adjustments as the final assessment system develops.

The aim of the project is to:

1. Carry out a formative process evaluation to assess the service design and operational delivery of the assessment and the initial impact during the Alpha/ Beta phases on key users including social workers, heads of service/ Directors and service users - including an analysis of fixed and marginal costs of delivering the assessment

2. Provide, real time recommendations on the delivery model to allow the Department to continuously improve the service design and operational delivery on an iterative basis both within the Alpha and Beta phases and for the national roll-out

3. Identify data that can be used over the longer term to examine the impact of NAAS on individual social workers, local authority employers, the wider child and family social worker workforce and outcomes for children and families. We propose a mixed methods approach of qualitative and quantitative data collection. This will be carried out alongside, and where required embedded within, the service to assess delivery of the system.