April  15, 2017 blog

The Privilege of Social Work

It’s easy to find problems, anxieties and stresses on a day to day basis. We often joke that social workers have a particular outlook that encourages a degree of grumpiness and that’s not so difficult to understand. Often we do work with people who have been ignored and marginalised by society with resources that are being cut and in large scale organisations that can often frustrate our professional judgements. The feeling of working in a sausage factory when you want to be a creative — co-producing innovative care plans but stuck in a model which favours top down implementations can be frustrating and can sap one’s soul.

It is in this environment that is best remembered, reminding ourselves if noone else is there to do it, of the privilege that it is to work in this field. If we begin to stop thinking and remembering the privileges we have — not on a day to day basis, everyone has good days and bad days and we have the rights to dips in mood, but on a weekly, monthly, yearly basis, it may be time to think about moving out or moving on.

I have twice ‘stepped out’ of social work since qualifying. Once was just after one year of practice as a locum social work. I went to work in a completely different field for two years. There were various circumstances around this which weren’t related to me not wanting to do social work but it had been a tough initiation. This was back in 2000 before AYSE or NQSW programmes or protected caseloads or anything like that. I went straight into an older people’s care management job in a busy inner city London team. My caseload hovered between 35–45. In the weeks before I left, I closed or transferred 49 people and families to others. I lacked confidence after completing my qualification. And I left. It was only after leaving (and I was gone for two years), that I realised what I had left behind. It wasn’t during month one, or month five — it was more in year two actually. During those years, I came to the decision that it was absolutely what I wanted to do — or at least, I wanted to try in a different setting. One office, one environment and one organisational culture, does not define the profession.

So I returned, again as a locum — into an generic, multi-disciplinary adult social work team, again in inner city London (a different borough) and again as a locum. It was different — not least because the service manager inspired faith and confidence and she was supportive. I applied for a permanent job in the team as soon as it came up and stayed in that borough (although I moved internally into mental health) for roughly ten years. Then I stepped out again, to where I am now. I am still using my social work skills and knowledge but am not in a post which requires me to have a social work registration (although I maintain it because I feel it is a part of a professional identity which is important to me).

Moving away from a direct social work role in a local authority/mental health trust has given me space to breathe. It has also given me cause to reflect on the meaning of the role I left behind and what I miss about being a social worker. Sometimes we can’t appreciate the value of what we have until we don’t have it anymore.

So what are the privileges of social work? Well, this is just my view. I’m no expert, but it’s important to fill in the gaps yourself and consider, away from the specific job, in the specific borough, with the specific team — what the profession has given you? But these are my answers.

1. Social work has given me a sense of professional belonging. Prior to starting my MA in social work, I had worked in residential care. I enjoyed care work. I worked with adults with learning disabilities and — not least, I had a lot of fun in the job. I liked the people I worked with, both residents and staff and I was fortunate to work for an organisation which was well-run and wanted the best for residents. I was a young graduate in London and my family and friends couldn’t always understand why I had taken a job (and worked in it for 4 years) which didn’t ‘require’ my qualifications. This didn’t bother me remotely but there was a constant expectation that was sometimes irritating. A friend of mine, who I’d worked with went on a few dates with a guy she met doing a bank shift who was applying to do a social work postgraduate course (Reader, she married him — they now have two teen kids!) who persuaded her to do the same. She then persuaded me to go for it too. I had never even understood what social workers did before that. But going from never really thinking in ‘career’ terms to having a ‘proper qualification’ was an enormous jump. The training gave me confidence and it gave me a starting point from which to build more expertise and skill in social care settings. The profession has given me an identity and introduced me to wonderful, knowledgeable social workers and most importantly service users who have been willing to share painful experiences and key expertise generously. I didn’t realise how important ‘belonging’ was until I actually felt it.
2. Social work has given me a voice. It’s easy to complain about our lot in the face of management structures which are very top down but the professional role is explicitly laden with power. We make vital decisions about people’s lives and the things that are important to them. We need to respect this and we can only respect the power we have by respecting the position we hold. It is through being a social worker that we can be heard by courts, by other professionals and by service users. If I go to someone’s house during a visit and make what I believe to be an off-hand comment about tidiness (note, I never did — I’m not really bothered by messy!), it can instil a sense of fear in those who are responding not to me — a nice, friendly person who sometimes likes to joke (as I think!) but a representative of local authority/mental health trust Bumbleshire. If ‘a social worker’ says it, it must be important/key. We should never lose sight of the impact of our voice. Professionally, I’ve used the voice I gain to write blogs and articles, to speak to those outside the profession and to speak to students and newly qualified social workers. This is a role which requires responsibility. The power of a voice — when people listen to that voice is not something to take lightly. To those who haven’t yet utilised the full scope of the social work voice, try it. You can write, you can tweet, you can join a professional organisation and join others or create a support group within your own organisation. Collective voices are stronger than individual voices.
3. Social work has given me power. I have written a lot about power and social work so for fear of repeating myself, I’ll say it again. Even if we don’t always feel it, we have power intrinsic to our roles as social workers. We have power in relation to people who use services is enormous. When we don’t recognise that, we do those who rely on us a disservice. If you don’t enjoy the job or feel disempowered by the organisation you work in, try another role or another setting but don’t let those who rely on you, suffer or feel the backlash of your own disillusionment. They deserve better. You deserve better.
4. Social work has given me an understanding of the world and the society I live in. I have had the privilege of walking with people through some of the most intensively difficult, personal and private areas of their lives and being in a position to offer a range of things, from a package of care to a kind word. Yes, sometimes I’ve had to take action which has been unwelcomed — often, when I practiced as an AMHP (approved mental health professional) and was responsible for making decisions about detaining people under the Mental Health Act against their will. I was able to try, as far as I could, to make an awful, traumatic experience and experiences, as human as possible as far as I could. We have to work within organisations and sometimes I felt the decisions forced on me were not the ‘right’ ones, when I was asked, for example, to follow budget constraints regarding provision of care where I thought someone needed more than the local authority was offering. Even though this challenged me, the role enabled me to carry out the ‘will of the state’ in the kindest way possible and that was how I reassured myself. We can sometimes hate some of the actions we take and are asked to take and those who are subject to our actions certainly have the right to hate us, hate our organisations and resent us but we can always try and make every interaction kinder and more human — whatever the circumstances. That is an enormous privilege.
5. Social work has given me broad knowledge base of parts of our world that I would never otherwise have any understanding of. I have seen the circumstances in which people live in and strive and struggle and it has given me a sense of gratitude for all that I had. I realise there is nothing noble in this. I have just seen so many people that I have developed such admiration for struggle from day to day and deal with tragedy, loss, challenge with such fortitude and dignity that I feel I owe it to those who I work with and have worked with as service users to respect and appreciate every single thing that I have and can enjoy.

Grumbling happens. Of course it does. It happens in all jobs and all roles. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t have ebbs and flows of enthusiasm but amid the grumbles, we also have to step back and think of the wonder, opportunities and privilege that this job — this profession- can give us.

 

Mental Health Social Work Role Rob

Labour policy briefing JT

Pol rev soc wk general

Policy brief mental health

House of Commons 4-5.30 Committee Room 21.

The meeting was arranged by Sharon Hodgson MP (Shadow Children’s Minister) and her researcher- Daniel Tye, to whom many thanks for this opportunity to meet up.  Also there (and helping to put the word around about the group amongst Labour parliamentarians were Emma Lewell-Buck (Shadow Minister at DCLG with Troubled Families as part of her brief), Cat Smith and Clive Lewis (Shadow Ministers for Women and Equalities and in Energy Department. It had been necessary to change the time, so Baroness Armstrong (Patron of the group who had been intending to Chair the first hour was unable to do so. Also, Luciana Burger (Shadow Cabinet member with the mental health brief) and Lord Watson (children spokesman in the Lords) and 3 other group members MPs who had intended to at least ’drop in’ were unable to do so.

Prof Ray Jones (member of Association of Professors of Social Work) and Sam Baron (Chair of JUC-SWEC) introduced some key issues of concern following the recent government announcement of plans to change the social work regulation and training systems. Issues raised included:

• The expanded funding (channelled via the Frontline partnership) of fast-track specialist routes, and the negative impact on the (still majority) university courses;
• The move from a broad-based University education in preparation for the challenges of a social work career to an ‘on the job’ skills-based specialist training with a narrow focus on child protection.
• The likely impact on the availability of social workers for the elderly and adults with disabilities as funded places are reserved for work with children (at a time when recent legislation and generational pressures require more social workers to be part of integrated health and social care teams
• The fragmentation of service delivery and the lack of continuity of relationships between social workers and those they serve, and with their professional colleagues resulting from the ‘outsourcing’ models being favoured by government policies and funding models

There was a lively discussion about the implications of these changes (coming on top of changes in housing, benefits and local government cuts) on the service to vulnerable families.  Strategies were discussed for labour parliamentarians and professionals to help each other to challenge (nationally and locally) mis-information about the costs and proposed benefits of proposed changes and publicise   negative consequences on vulnerable adults and children of increased case-loads, high vacancy rates,  and the service instability caused by the over-use of agency/interim managers and social workers. Possible future plans and directions included:

• Finding ways of co-ordinating the work of the labour shadow team and select committee members so that party policy towards social work (and responses to government ‘initiatives’) is ‘joined up’ across the education, health, DCLG, home office, and justice teams.
• Use our different roles and media contacts to engage the voice of the public (the petition to halt the proposed privatisation of child protection decision making was an example).
• Members of the group in direct practice roles can provide anonymised examples of the impact eg of changes of social worker, cases un-allocated when agency workers move on. Students and lecturers can give examples of potentially goodl social workers who have had to give up their courses because of financial hardship
• Group members to provide background briefings to MPs and Lords on issues where our members have expertise which are about to come up in debates, consultations, select committees or legislation.
• To assist with this, LSWG will gather information on the specialist areas of LSWK members so that specialist reference groups can provide a speedy response to requests of information and case examples
• Members of the group to draft possible PQs.
• In the immediate future there are serious concerns about the cost of the ministerial ‘reform’ proposals, the way in which the tendering process for the various ‘initiatives’ is being conducted, particularly with contracts going to the private sector.  There was discussion of how information might be collected (eg via FOI requests) to support a referral to the Public Accounts Committee to investigate the use of public money.
• A first step is to provide information to the Education Select Committee’s current inquiry and to consider whether the Health select committee might also consider the threat to the future of social work within the health services
• Find ways for the group to contribute to Labour National Strategy Policy Forum
• Link up with UNISON, and other socialist societies to propose motions, become involved in fringe meetings at Labour Conference 2016. This needs to start now.

 

Brighton Conference and the Fringe meeting with Socialist Health Association

When plans were made in July for Labour Social Work Group to join a discussion on Labour’s policy for Integrated Health and Care, the Party leadership was still up in the air.  I can’t begin to describe the heady atmosphere at the Conference, enhanced by perfect sunny weather and the backdrop of bustling Brighton.  So I’ll concentrate on the workshop.

First, I had to drag myself away from a packed conference hall just as John McDonnell was about to speak. Against that competition, I was rather surprised that there were around 40 people at the Socialist Health Association Fringe Meeting on Social Care and Health.  The ordering in the title was deliberate, as the SHA committee were keen to have social care up front and not in its usual position as an ‘add-on’ to health.

As was the case with many of the billed events at Conference there were changes in planned speakers due to changes in Shadow Cabinet roles. So Emily Thornberry wasn’t there as she has been appointed Shadow Minister for Employment (where she will still have scope to put her previous experience in health and care into good use when impact of benefit cuts and work assessment tests comes up).  However, it was a good opportunity to meet Angela Rayner MP, (one of the new intake – already in the Whips office and a member of the Communities and Local Government Committee).  Drawing on her work as a carer (not a well-trodden route into parliament), as a UNISON rep and now from her constituency caseload, she provided powerful arguments as to why the health and social care services should work closely together, and against the fragmentation that is resulting from increasing privatisation and cost cutting.  We also heard a consumer perspective from a Labour Chair of a Health Watch Board and on Health and Wellbeing Boards

I used my 15 minutes to introduce people to Labour Social Work Group (and to thank Socialist Health Association for the considerable encouragement they have given us in our fledgling months). I started by emphasising that Health, Care, Social Care and Social Work have to be conceptually ’unpicked’, when trying to come up with ways to better integrate them.  I used a quote from Robin Miller of the University of Birmingham Health Services Management Centre to emphasise that in the next year or so Labour has to move beyond the warm words about ‘integration’ being ‘a good thing’ and get down to detail.   In his paper ‘Is integration or fragmentation the starting point to improve prevention?‘  Miller wrote:

‘We are still trying to understand what types of integration will make the greatest impact in different contexts and for which beneficiaries. ….We need greater precision as to exactly what type of integration is being proposed and between what services. At present there is often a dense conceptual and definitional fog accompanying integration (my emphasis). The term is being used nationally (and indeed locally) in relation to a diverse range of collaborative arrangements between a host of different organisations, services and

professions in order to (hopefully) address a variety of complex issues.’

I used this quote to emphasise that the SOCIAL WORK profession, with its emphasis on the social, is key to working in partnership with vulnerable people of all ages to help them put together the combination of health, therapeutic, social and other public services (including housing, and social security payments) that best responds to individual and family needs and wishes. Much of the emphasis around ‘integration’ has been on services for the elderly, but I emphasised that working age disabled people, those with mental ill-health or addictions and parents and children with long or short term conditions and stressors, also need the benefit of effectively co-ordinated health, care and social work services.

Which allowed me to raise the question of the most appropriate arrangements for the delivery of social work and other components of social care within better co-ordinated service systems. These are likely to be different for the different age/needs groups. (We’ve already had examples of mental health social workers moving from Social Services Departments to Health Trusts and back again).

So going back to Miller’s really important analysis of what is known (or rather the little that is known) about ‘integrated health and care’ to date, now is the time for the Labour Party policy groups and Shadow ministers to move from the generality to the detail. And a joint plea from SHA and Labour Social Work Group that, in doing so, they take time to listen to the Labour party members from across the health and social care professions who have to make the systems they come up with work.

My final plea was for Labour policy makers and shadow ministers to recognise and do something about the fragmented responsibility for social work.  Not only is it split between Education and Health Shadow Ministers, but also Home Office, MoJ, Work and Pensions and DCLG, are directly or indirectly employing social workers. The confusion about specialist versus generic initial training (including the rapid expansion of the fast-track specialist social work training courses – Frontline, Step-up and now Think Ahead) is just one example of the Tory agenda that the newly appointed Shadow ministers need to get to grips with. The Tories are not hanging about in their drive to outsource key decision making roles, and their intervening in social work education in order to produce a more compliant profession. Look no further than Cameron’s speech to the Tory conference.

There was a very lively debate- around whether social work is a single profession, or two; whether there is a place for mandatory reporting of child abuse, and more broadly about the impact of the social security cuts and housing crisis which are pushing more and more adults and children beyond the reach of community-based preventive services resulting in ever-increasing pressure of hospital and residential care.

I also made contact with Labour Campaign for Mental Health, and discovered class (the Centre for Labour and Social Studies- a very welcome addition to the left of centre think talk world  (www.classonline.org.uk) So now there is work to be done in contacting the Shadow team, who need to quickly get to grips with social work issues if the worst of the planned Tory assaults are to be exposed. All offers of help, joining in meetings in particular areas, writing briefings gratefully received.  See below list of shadow team whose portfolios touch on social work.

June Thoburn  Interim Chair

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week there have been some debates about one of the ‘old chestnuts’ that has haunted the social work profession for many years. Do we need different initial education programmes for adults and children and families social work? Narey spoke to ADCS (Association of Directors of Childrens’ Services) seeming quite keen on the idea.

For me, the generic nitial teaching and learning that social workers embark on is a strength of the profession. Children live with adults. Adults live with children. Sometimes, children even live with older adults. Sometimes, grandparents are the primary carers for children. It isn’t rocket science really. Yet that seems to be a difficult concept for some who propose separate and fast track training (rather than education) schemes in social work to handle. Maybe because it doesn’t follow the narrative that schemes like ‘Frontline’ want to establish that specific areas of children and families social work is somehow fundamentally different (and by implication more complex) than other areas in which social work happens.

On considering the government preferences to establish ‘fast track elite’ routes into social work via ‘Frontline’ and ‘Think Ahead’ (an odd type of programme which seems to take the problems identified in child protection social work and map them into a mental health setting — a great example of looking for a solution before identifying a problem), time to consider what being a ‘social worker’ and learning to become a social worker actually means.

Does it mean leaving university being able to drop into a statutory adult safeguarding or child protection team and be ‘ready to practice’ (or ready to do a computer-based test for ‘accreditation’ to be a child protection social worker)? For me, that’s getting the whole process of learning the wrong way round. Social work is more than working in a local authority or in a statutory role but this is where all the conversations about initial social work education are happening. What do employing local authorities want? As the health and social care landscape changes though, it’s worth considering that social work is far more than ‘local authority’ social work and training/learning to be a social worker needs to develop far more skills than what a local authority needs and wants. The profession needs to be more ambitious and forward thinking.

Innovation isn’t solely getting new people into the profession. We need to think far more about how people stay in the profession and grow into specific roles. I am all for role-specific training but think that’s far better placed through post-qualification support with the employer taking some responsibility jointly with universities, rather than solely remaining the responsibility of initial qualification programmes.

Being at university, learning to be a social worker isn’t about learning about tasks and functions or it shouldn’t be. It’s about learning theoretical bases for social work. It’s about learning how the law impacts social work practice through the life course. It’s about learning the history of social work and and sociology. It’s about understanding systems and how they impact on oppressive structures. It’s about learning about power and the importance of it in the role which we have. These theories and issues are common to all social work and it’s what places and defines the profession. Yes, it’s useful to have input about child protection work, some lectures on working with people with mental illnesses, physical and learning disabilities, maybe even the odd lecture on older people (it was only one in the two year course I did!). But really, the knowledge can be picked up on the job. The profession is about learning how to implement theories, evaluate evidence, understand research and ensuring that social models are considered when looking at life courses.

Anyone who suggests that placements or learning about adult or mental health services won’t be useful to a social worker entering children’s services demonstrates an ignorance in what social work and social work education is and vice versa. Suggesting that people going into children’s services don’t need to understand the impact of dementia on family dynamics loses one of the key fundamentals about social work as work within societies and families.

The actual skill is learning to transfer knowledge and experiences across different sectors and settings. There are skills in learning to reflect and grow as a professional.

So we need to consider if we want a profession whose initial qualification route pumps out ‘practice ready’ social workers? ‘Practice ready’ cannot come after a three year degree course or a two year postgraduate course. ‘Practice ready’ makes assumptions that learning has a finite end. The end of the social work course is the beginning of professional learning. The employer has a role to develop a graduate with the knowledge for the role they are employed to do. The role of the university and the initial degree course, whether undergraduate or postgraduate, is to equip new social workers with an understanding of the theoretical basis of the profession, an understanding of social history and the skills of reflection and interpretation of evidence as well as the ability to conduct research projects and evaluate knowledge.

The push towards specialisation in social work and the potential for two separate education and training routes into the profession has many risks and interestingly there is an agenda which is being pushed by employers and government to go down this route. This is because focusing on tasks and specifics loses the unifying force of the profession and the focus on the drive for social justice. If we move to train ‘child protection workers’ rather than teach ‘social workers who specialise in child protection roles’ we have lost the soul of the profession.

There’s scope for challenge to the Narey masterplan. It’s interesting that all seems to have gone silent on Croisdale-Appleby who produced a far more intelligent and thoughtful response to the task given to them both to consider the future of social work education. Maybe it’s a case of ‘he who shouts loudest’ but we deserve, as social workers, to be heard in the debates around our own profession. With the College of Social Work due to be wound up soon, one more voice has been lost so the cohesive and most importantly, united voice of all areas of social work — all sectors and all areas of work- needs, more than ever to be heard as one profession.

By ‘Ermintrude’, writing for the Labour Social Work Group