AI for Social Workers in Adult Social Care: Safe, Ethical and Effective Use in Practice

Overview

Artificial Intelligence is rapidly entering social care practice, offering new ways to support professional reasoning, reduce administrative burden, and strengthen defensible decision making. This course introduces social workers to practical, real world uses of AI that enhance, not replace, professional judgement. The session focuses on how AI can support reflective analysis, safeguarding decision making, MCA assessments, documentation quality, and day to day casework thinking. Participants learn how to use AI tools safely, ethically and confidently within the boundaries of the Care Act, MCA, Human Rights Act and organisational policies. The emphasis is on practical application, risk aware use, and clear boundaries: AI does not make decisions, diagnose, or determine thresholds. Instead, it acts as a structured thinking partner that helps practitioners organise complex information, explore hypotheses, and improve clarity in recording. This training is highly relevant for teams managing high caseloads, complex situations, and increasing scrutiny around safeguarding and mental capacity decision making.

Who is AI for Social Workers in Adult Social Care: Safe, Ethical and Effective Use in Practice aimed at?

Social Workers in Adult Social Care

Course Length

1 day

Learning Outcomes

On conclusion of this course, participants will be able to:

Understand what AI can and cannot do in social care practice
•    Use AI safely within legal, ethical and organisational boundaries
•    Improve clarity, structure and quality of case recording
•    Use AI to summarise information, generate hypotheses and support reflective practice
•    Using AI for drafting and structuring relevant case notes/court/tribunal reports and care act assessments
•    Using AI as a guidance tool for MCA and Safeguarding Adults casework and reflective practice analysis including to improve defensible recording and generate reflective prompts
•    Identify risks, limitations and common pitfalls in AI use
•    Recognise how AI can reduce administrative burden while maintaining professional accountability
•    Use of AI as a support tool, not as a decision-maker
•    AI use to summarise reports e.g medical letters and risk assessments 
•    Thinking about which AI tool is most reliable
•    The advantages and disadvantages of AI tools 
•    Using AI for reflective practice to challenge assumptions
•    Checking reliability of data obtained from AI tools
•    Confidentiality issues i.e GDPR/organisation policies/anonymisation and ensuring professional accountability