Across the country, 10% of social worker posts are vacant. In many inner-city boroughs, especially London and the West Midlands, it's even higher.

In this series, Simon Cox explores the initial training of social workers, to discover why, despite hundreds of students graduating with social work degrees each year, the vacancies persist. He follows final year students at Birmingham University from the classroom to their first jobs in mental health, hospice care and frontline child protection.

The recruitment crisis is particularly acute in children's services where the majority of councils report problems recruiting and retaining staff. Newly Qualified Social Workers join exhausted teams struggling with heavy and complex caseloads and they face enormous responsibility, often without adequate supervision and mentoring. Few stay long under such pressure.

Graduates and their employers complain the degree course fails to properly prepare students for their roles, and we hear about the reforms underway to improve social work training.

In this first programme we see the problems finding vital work placements for students, without which they can't graduate. As council budgets are slashed and workers laid off, those remaining have even less time to supervise students. The pressure to get a good quality placement is high - each lasts six months and, if it goes well, can lead directly to a job. A poor one can mean six months making tea and little experience to put on your CV.

As students come to terms with the realities of their chosen career, some emerge with a youthful determination make the world a better place. Others drop out, disillusioned by the mountains of paperwork, unrealistic deadlines and lack of time to spend with people doing "real social work".

Presenter: Simon Cox presents The Report and Click On on Radio 4.
Producer: Deborah Dudgeon
Executive Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4. Show less