National Institute for Social Work

The National Institute for Social Work Training was set up in 1961, following proposals put forward in the 1959 Eileen Younghusband report for an independent staff college for social work. Its initial funding was assured for ten years by the Nuffield Foundation and the Joseph Rowntree Memorial Trust. It was later renamed the National Institute for Social Work (NISW), with a governing body of some twenty-five members.

Its staff worked throughout the United Kingdom, supporting users and carers, practitioners, managers and policy makers in their work. NISW also attracted students from other countries.

A key member of NISW's staff in the 1970s and 1980s was the notorious child sexual abuse offender Peter Righton, an influential educator and policy adviser on social work theory and social care for vulnerable children. A lecturer at NISW from 1968 on, in 1979 he became NISW's Director of Education and continued in various consultative roles until 1992, when he was arrested and subsequently convicted of importation of child sexual abuse material. In the 1970s he was 'community liaison officer' and an executive committee member of the Paedophile Information Exchange.

Investigations by the BBC and other media have shown that Righton preyed upon children in boarding and 'special' schools from the 1950s onwards. He has been accused of using his NISW status to enable PIE associates and convicted sex offenders to work in youth counselling agencies and residential care for children.

NISW's later funding came as a grant from the Department of Health and Social Security. This was supplemented by fees from courses and consultancies. Special projects e.g. research, were also funded by other government departments, as well by charitable trusts.

NISW was located in Mary Ward House, Tavistock Place, London. NISW North opened in 1986 with an office in Leeds.

When the National Institute for Social Work closed in 2003, its archives were deposited at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. Its Library collection moved to the Social Care Institute for Excellence, as did some staff from the Institute's Research Unit. Other research staff working on the social services workforce project were transferred to King's College, University of London.