If you want to find out more about social work, you might find main links to UK social work sites useful; as follows:
Professional organisations
British Association of Social Workers: http://www.basw.co.uk/
I presume there must be some rationale to this site, but I find it really difficult to cope with. The problem is that it produces ‘stories’ in a journalistic way and then does not index them in any way that I can understand.
Social Care Association: http://www.socialcareassociation.co.uk/
The Social Care Association was originally a residential care professional association, now broadly for people working in the group care world.
Association of Directors of Adult Social Services: http://www.adass.org.uk/index.shtml
Association of Directors of Children’s Services: http://www.adcs.org.uk/
Association of Directors of Social Work (Scotland): http://www.adsw.org.uk/
Research/information organisations
Social Care Institute for Excellence: http://www.scie.org.uk/ (the social care equivalent of NICE; has lots of useful information on its site).
Social Work and Policy Subject Centre of the Higher Education Academy: http://www.swap.ac.uk/ (An ace site for social work academics with all sorts of informationrelevant to social work in the UK and internationally; for people from healthcare its title indicates the reality that social work is very strongly connected academically not with healthcare studies but with social policy as an academic subject).
IRISS, the Scottish equivalent of SCIE: http://www.iriss.ac.uk/about.
Professional registration bodies
The UK care councils
General Social Care Council (England): http://www.gscc.org.uk/Home/
Northern Ireland Social Care Council: http://www.niscc.info/
Scottish Social Services Council: http://www.sssc.uk.com/Homepage.htm
Care Council for Wales: http://www.ccwales.org.uk/
Education and Training bodies
National Organisation for Practice Teaching: http://www.nopt.org/ (an organisation for practice teachers and assessors in social work education)
Skills for Care: http://www.topssengland.net/ (the English social care employer-led training body)
The Children’s Worforce Development Council: http://www.cwdcouncil.org.uk/ (for social care people working with children)
QAA benchmark: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/benchmark/statements/drafts/SocialWork07.pdf The Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency publishes the benchmark against which social work coruses and their curricula are evaluated in the higher education sector.