FROM THE EDITOR An appetite for change C MARK IVORY Enterprising social work is likely to happen in organisations willing to give autonomy to the frontline hief social worker for children Isabelle Trowler says this year could be a big one for social work. Naturally enough, she points to the proposed new assessment and accreditation system for approved child and family practitioners and a whole system change initiative for social work in 26 local authority childrens departments, both instigated by the Department for Education. As she says: We must build a much stronger evidence base about the optimum system conditions for effective child and family social work practice. The evidence base for social work and the need to try new ideas in order to strengthen it was much discussed at our London Summit on the childrens social work practices and their lessons for future innovation. There were conflicting views on whether service innovation had to be tested at arms length from local authorities, but near-unanimity on the necessity of innovation in some form. For many participants the ingredients of better childrens social work services were experimentation, culture change, strong leadership, better commissioning, decisionmaking and autonomy, and independence and enterprise. Enterprising social work is much more likely to happen in those organisations willing to de-rigidify bureaucratic cultures and pass decision-making autonomy down to the frontline and the budgets to go with it. According to several Summit contributors, the result can be cost savings as social workers engaged in direct work can respond in a more sensitive, timely and cost-effective way to need than, say, a local authority manager or panel. What underpins all of this is a culture of learning, including learning from new approaches to practice. It pays organisations because it helps them retain good social workers who will be better equipped to embrace change. As the influential management thinker Peter Senge said: Change and learning may not exactly be synonymous, but they are inextricably linked. That is no bad thing. If the chief social workers comments are anything to go by, social workers will need an appetite for change in 2015.