The New Social Workers SIG

Our Mission is to provide a forum of support for new Irish social workers to promote the connection between academia and practice and to provide a high quality service to clients. We define new social workers as student social workers in a graduate or undergraduate programme and professionally qualified social workers who have less than three years’ experience. 

Peer Consultation Groups

The New Social Worker SIG committee has been working hard over the past few months to get peer consultation groups up and running, and we are happy to announce that they have started. 

Based on the experience of new social workers, we have been looking into research and ideas on supports for new social workers, and peer support and consultation specifically. We created a working paper on peer consultation, which sets out the theory and initial framework for the groups. The groups look to provide an additional support to managerial supervision. The groups aim to give a forum for new social workers to engage in learning, discuss ideas, share support, work reflectively, and improve practice. 

We sent out emails inviting interested people to attend a planning meeting in October 2011, which went well. From this beginning, new social workers officially signed up to peer consultation. 

Currently we have two groups meeting once monthly for peer consultation sessions in Dublin. The groups will run from November 2011 to May 2012. At this point the committee plans to review the whole process and another round of sessions will hopefully start after the summer of 2012 and will be open to any new members who wish to join. 

Currently, each session is being evaluated and feedback is welcomed from those involved in the groups. Thus the whole process is peer-led and seeks to provide great support to everyone involved. Feedback so far has been very positive and we are excited to have gotten these groups going. 

Group members

We now have over 40 people signed up to the new social worker website. We would like to take this opportunity to thank all of our current members for their involvement in the SIG so far and to encourage other new social workers to join the special interest group. Check out our website at: www.newsocialworkers.com. The group is open to everyone’s suggestions and is open to new ideas about developing the SIG further. You can email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it for more information.

Thank You

The New Social Worker SIG would like to take this opportunity to thank the IASW executive who have agreed to fund the New Social Worker website. The website is a useful way for new social workers from around Ireland to communicate and discuss professional issues and ideas, as well as to receive support from others in an easy and accessible way. The website is there for all the SIG members to use!

Future plans

The peer consultation groups are currently our biggest piece of work. However the New Social Worker SIG would like to aim to build on this work with a seminar looking more at the area of supervision, specifically in relation to new social workers. We will plan to have an AGM where voting of the next committee will take place. 

Kerry, Beth, Niamh and Conor

New Social Worker committee