The Graduate Entry Trainee Scheme (GETS) - what to expect

Ingrid began working with children and young people in Germany where they qualified to work with Children and Young People. Ingrid moved to England in 1986 and raised their children whilst working from home as a registered childminder as well as delivering training to prospective childminders. 

Ingrid was also employed at one of the local colleges where they worked as an NVQ assessor and verifier for their child care based NVQ programmes.

Ingrid moved to Hampshire County Council in 1998, where they started as a support worker in a residential children’s home for 12–16-year-olds who were placed in the care of the local authority.

At the end of 1999 Ingrid became a social work assistant in a reception and assessment team undertaking a range of social work-related tasks.

Ingrid qualified in 2002 with a Diploma in Social Work at Portsmouth University as well as a diploma in Applied Social Studies. In 2006 Ingrid received a degree of Science in Post Qualifying Child Care Social Work and in 2012 was awarded the graduate certificate in Practice Assessment.

Ingrid continued working as a front-line social worker until 2017 when they accepted a post within Hampshire County Council’s learning and development team to work as a practice educator to support newly qualified social workers joining Hampshire’s two years Graduate Entry Scheme programme. Since 2020, Ingrid has lead the ASYE programme offered to Hampshire’s newly qualified social workers within the first year of our Graduate Entry Scheme programme.

Rob Winfield works for Hampshire County Council in the Learning and Development Service. Rob is a qualified social worker and practice educator with a Degree in Applied Social Studies.

I started my social work journey in 1989 working in a family centre in rural Gloucestershire before moving to work in children’s residential units within Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. 

In 1997 I became a social work assistant in the children and families team in Buckinghamshire undertaking a broad range of social work related tasks. 

In 2000 Rob qualified with a Diploma in Social Work with Oxford Brookes University and then in 2001 received my Hons Degree in Applied Social Studies, at which point Rob worked as a social worker in a generic social work team. 

In 2002 I moved to Somerset and worked as a social worker in a disabled children’s team, becoming the team manager in 2005.  I remained in this role managing both children with disabilities and mainstream social work teams until 2011, at which point I became a service manager for the Isle of Wight children’s services responsible for children and young adults disability services.

Rob continued in this role until 2015, at which point they took on additional responsibilities for the Isle of Wight fostering and adoption services as the resource service manager.

In 2016, Rob moved to Southampton City Council for a year as the service manager responsible for SEN and Education. At the end of this contract in early 2018 Rob made the decision to return to frontline practice after a significant number of years as a senior manager and spent 2018 to 2021 working as a social worker in a children in care team for Hampshire Children’s Services and then as an assistant team manager in a children’s assessment and safeguarding team.

In January 2022, Rob joined Hampshire’s learning and development service on secondment to support and promote the development of new social workers entering the profession and now jointly leads the development of the GETS programme within Hampshire alongside Ingrid Millerchip. 

Returning to frontline practice has given me an opportunity to appreciate some of the pressures in today’s world faced by new social workers joining our profession.