Tag: politics

Prof Ray Jones Briefing for LSWG on possible impact of Clauses 3 and 10 of Children’s Wellbeing Bill

There is much which is positive in the recent review in England of children’s social services, including the call to reverse the funding cuts of the past 14 years and the focus on family support and on kinship care, but with a few concerns and anxieties as well:

HOLDING BACK EXPERIENCED SOCIAL WORKERS AS EXCLUSIVELY CHILD PROTECTION SOCIAL WORKERS

The proposal, which was accepted by the Conservative government and which continues to be piloted and promoted by the new Labour government of holding back experienced social workers to only become involved with families when there are child protection investigations and plans has all the warning bells of unintended consequences:

  1. The thrust of the MacAlister review to provide more help for families when they start to struggle will be undermined by even more families, usually in the midst of significant poverty and deprivation, being drawn into child protection processes and procedures as the means of getting attention and engagement from experienced social workers.
  2. Other workers and agencies will talk up concerns about families as child protection concerns to get any involvement from, and the insurance cover of the involvement of, experienced social workers. But all the families will get is continuing contact with less experienced and confident workers with experienced social workers being held back and limited and trapped in monitoring and surveillance roles.
  3. The social workers in the specialist child protection multi-disciplinary teams will be more centrally located as specialist teams need to cover a wider area. They will be more remote from communities, will not have local knowledge of neighbourhood networks, and will have much more limited relationships with early years services, neighbourhood police officers, GPs, health visitors, youth workers, schools etc within a community area. In essence they will parachute in to do a child protection investigation with limited local intelligence and then leave.
  4. There has over the past 14 years been an exponential growth in child protection investigations (+152% since 2009-2010), but only 33% lead to child protection case conference. In effect, families have had the threatening intrusion of a child protection investigation with no significant concerns then found about the care of their children.
  5. Even when there are concerns leading to child protection plans these are not about physical abuse (7%) or sexual abuse (4%) but about emotional abuse (37%) and especially neglect (49%), which are heavily related to families under stress and going under when immersed in longer term poverty with no light at the end of the tunnel. These families need help not the anxiety-provoking and harassing oversight of child protection plans by this new breed of exclusively child protection social workers and remote multi-disciplinary teams.
  6. Directors of children’s services, Ofsted and BASW https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2024/04/10/seven-more-councils-chosen-to-test-family-support-and-child-protection-reforms/ have expressed their concerns about this direction of travel which seems to have been accepted by the government and the reports from the initial pilots is that is has been difficult to recruit and retain experienced social workers to take on this skewed role.

CONTINUING TO ALLOW PRIVATE FOR-PROFIT PROVISION OF CHILDREN’S SOCIAL CARE

Unlike in Scotland and Wales (and unlike in practice Northern Ireland) England has not turned away from private companies providing residential and foster care for children. BIG profits are being taken from the public funding for children’s care services whilst poorer quality care is provided remote from children’s families and at a distance from the children’s social workers.

The MacAlister review commented on this concern but the recommendation was for the better commissioning and purchasing of private sector services through regional commissioning and purchasing consortia. This will only make it worse – local authorities and social workers will have even less knowledge of the private sector placements they are making. Not only will the placements be at a distance but the commissioning will also be at a distance.

This tanker of privatisation does need to be turned! Two ways forward whilst not a big bang destabilisation of current arrangements on which local authorities have become dependent, so a softly softly approach is necessary:

• Make available a larger capital grant to local authorities to rebuild their own local capacity in residential children’s homes and require local authorities to file an annual report with the DfE on their plans and progress in having sufficiency in directly managed and provided local children’s care services.
• Have a requirement within the national data sets and performance measures to report on what proportion of children ‘looked after’ are within foster care and residential services directly managed by the local authority, and have as a part of Ofsted inspections and each local authority report a focus on whether children are being cared for within the local authority’s own area.

Ray Jones
16.1.2025

2024 Election- Manifesto for a Labour Social Work and Social Care

UNLEASHING THE POWER OF SOCIAL WORKERS IN THE CAMPAIGN TO TRANSFORM SOCIAL CARE

Social work values are Labour Party values. We call upon the Labour Party to unleash the power of social workers to play a vital part in transforming social care and the support and protection for children, older people and working age adults with disabilities. This will play an important part in reducing the pressures on the NHS and mainstream education services.

TO RELEASE THE POTENTIAL OF SOCIAL WORKERS THE NEW LABOUR GOVERNMENT MUST TAKE STEPS TO–

PREVENT the need for people to be cared for away from home

In the context of a commitment to reduce poverty and inequality and its devastating impact on children, families and adults, social workers can work with local authorities, community groups and voluntary organisations to provide the inclusive services that people of all ages need: to be safe at home, to thrive, and to become active contributors to their communities and the economy. This would reduce to a minimum the number of people for whom care away home is the only viable option.

PROTECT children and adults of all ages from abuse and neglect

Social workers have the personal qualities and interpersonal skills to form trusting relationships with children and adults who have complex needs and/or struggle to engage because of negative experiences of people in authority. Social workers have sound legal knowledge and expertise in assessing risk and taking prompt action to protect people who are being abused or neglected. This includes making expert and sensitive judgements about the safety and wellbeing of people experiencing crises in their mental health or when their capacity to make decisions is impaired.

PROMOTE human rights and access to timely care and support

Social workers are effective advocates for people who are being treated unfairly or discriminated against; in supporting people to get the care and support to which they are entitled; and promoting social justice.

PROVIDE leadership

Social workers provide focused, supportive and inspiring leadership to colleagues at all levels from frontline casework to chief officers.

REVERSE the trend of privatisation

The Labour government should end the policy of outsourcing care services to profit-driven private sector providers. When children young people and adults cannot remain at home they should receive high quality not-for-profit local care to meet their needs. Government should fund and empower local authorities, community groups and voluntary sector organisations to use their local knowledge to develop services that reflect the needs of local people.

RECRUIT more social workers to replace those lost through stress and unsutainable working conditions

The Labour government should recruit potential social workers to initial qualifying courses in research-active University Schools of Social Work that prepare them to work with people who are at all stages of the life course, rather than restricting them to specific age groups or specialist areas of practice. Social workers need to appreciate the complexity of human connections. People live in multi-generationalfamilies and communities and their problems and needs intersect and are inseparably connected. Expand the supply of these courses.

RETAIN skilled, experienced social workers

The Labour government should keep social workers in public services by providing salaries, terms and conditions that reflect their level of skill, expertise, knowledge and the demands of the role.

Provide working conditions that reduce bureaucracy, promote professional development and wellbeing, including regular professional supervision, and dedicated time for professional development, reflective discussion and peer support.

How Can the Labour Party Be More Inclusive of Care Experienced Members?

by Kerrie Portman. Care Experienced Labour Party member and Cambridge University Student

During my studies at the University of Cambridge, I conducted research into how political parties can be more inclusive of Care Experienced People, using the Labour Party as a case study. I chose this area as I am a Care Experienced and a Labour Party member. Unfortunately, I was bullied and excluded within my first CLP, though have since foud inclusion in other Labour circles. Political inclusion is allowing everyone having a fair chance to speak their political opinions and Care Experienced people should be no exception. Care Experienced People face systematic increased disadvantage such as higher rates of loneliness, premature death, unemployment, mental illness, and suicide attempts. These are not divorced from politics, making our inclusion within political settings even more important. Political parties can help create a sense of identity, shared commonality, and sense of belonging. Including Care Experienced People in political discussions can help us feel included and reduce the ‘othering’ and out-grouping. Political parties investing effort into including and valuing Care Experienced People within the Party and policies can improve the quality of life for Care Experienced People and aid the emotional duties of Corporate Parentship. Labour, specifically, has a legacy of inclusion and this targeted campaign brings increased responsibility. 

During my research, I conducted primary research, conducting semi-structured interviews with Labour Party members. During this, I found four key themes emerging; a lack of data rendering Care Experienced people invisible unless they made it known they were Care Experienced, a lack of cultural humility and CLP’s being set in their traditional ways, assumptions and the need for CLP’s to understand the importance of listening to the views of Care Experienced people to better be able to help the full spectrum of the community and training and terminology and how alienating this can make CLP’s and politics in general. 

At the end of my research project, I included an appendix of all the recommendations from my interviewees, which can be roughly divided into two categories; cultural shifts and practical suggestions. All interviewees agreed that Care Experienced People deserve to be more included and more involved within the Labour Party and I hope the recommendations are seriously considered

  • Identifying the barriers Care Experienced people face
  • Make it more welcoming to people in general
  • Creating a safe space for Care Experienced people to share their experiences
  • Creating policies that address structural barriers
  • Recognising Care Experienced people as a specific demographic and marginal group culturally
  • Increasing the visibility of Care Experienced people
  • Creating networks, collectives and/or groups at CLP and regional level for Care Experienced members
  • Educating members on different ways to engage
  • Placing more emphasis on different forms of participation
  • More education on Corporate Parentship
  • Seeking input from Care Experienced people when writing manifestos
  • Speaking to Care Experienced people and treating them with respect when issues are raised
  • Specific support for Care Experienced members who want to run for positions (for example, looking at transferable skills)
  • Having guest speakers who are Care Experienced speaking to CLPs
  • Creating a Care Experienced Officer role within the Labour Party and having someone to specifically support Care Experienced members
  • Reducing specialist terminology
  • Being aware of new members
  • Outreach to those who can’t attend branch meetings, as well as related local charities and organisations
  • Specific outreach to recruit Care Experienced members into roles
  • Advocating for being Care Experienced to be a Protected Characteristic and pass Motions to act as though it is
  • Promoting Council Tax Reduction Schemes and other adaptions to improve the lives of local Care Leavers
  • Mentorship for Care Experienced people
  • Delivering (i.e. papers and reports) in a more accessible way
  • Discussing which councils and CLP’s have implemented things that support Care Experienced people and things that haven’t worked
  • Alternating the time, location and formal of meetings
  • Making meetings “less tedious” and more engaging
  • Putting thighs for Care Leavers in the manifesto to “signals something really positive to Care Leavers and other people with similar experiences”
  • Holding regular meetings that explain the basics of the party, what they’re doing and how people can be involved