tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/social-workers-8198/articlesSocial workers – The Conversation2024-01-10T14:40:04Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2159092024-01-10T14:40:04Z2024-01-10T14:40:04ZSocial workers can help children more effectively by assessing the needs of the whole family<p>What do children need most? The answer often depends on a person’s relationship with the child.</p>
<p>When people think about children outside their family and close friends, they commonly make <a href="https://www.socialserviceworkforce.org/system/files/resource/files/Other%20People%27s%20Children.pdf">basic needs</a> the priorities. Food, shelter and services such as health and education come first. </p>
<p>When we think of children we have a close relationship with, it’s different. We see all their needs as <a href="https://www.socialserviceworkforce.org/system/files/resource/files/Other%20People%27s%20Children.pdf">important, immediate and interconnected</a>. </p>
<p>People give as much priority to the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(16)31390-3">higher-order needs</a> as the basic needs of children they’re close to.</p>
<p>This thinking carries over into policymaking and intervention priorities in low and middle-income countries. As a result, many interventions in the lives of other people’s children, such as responses to a <a href="https://www.unicef.org/eca/press-releases/protecting-children-must-be-top-priority-latest-refugee-surge-response">refugee crisis</a> and alternative care for children, put basic needs first.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.socialserviceworkforce.org/system/files/resource/files/Other%20People%27s%20Children.pdf">research</a> in the fields of sociology and development economics suggests that children’s needs are not hierarchical and that they are best met by – and in – families. By drawing on examples from the literature, we outline how children’s various needs are equally important. Caring for them is therefore a balancing act, best done by those close to them: their families. </p>
<p>This way of thinking highlights the importance of supporting families to support children. Social services are critical because they have the potential to facilitate the intensive interventions required by the most vulnerable families and children. The quality of such a service will be key in meeting the needs of other people’s children. </p>
<p>Family-centred interventions, more often than not, meet the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/cad.20232">complex needs</a> of individual children. </p>
<p>It is important to note that family can take many forms, not necessarily biological. The key characteristics are connection, proximity and responsiveness to children leading to nurturing care. </p>
<p>In many low- and middle-income countries, the social services workforce is <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213417302077?via%3Dihub">under-resourced, underqualified and overburdened</a>. </p>
<p>The political weakness of the sector and the people they serve make <a href="https://www.socialserviceworkforce.org/system/files/resource/files/The%20Role%20of%20Social%20Service%20Workforce%20Strengthening%20in%20Care%20Reforms_0.pdf">advocating for change</a> difficult. Moreover, the task of <a href="https://www.unicef.org/sites/default/files/2019-05/Guidelines-to-strengthen-social-service-for-child-protection-2019.pdf">strengthening</a> the social services workforce may be seen as overly complex and costly. </p>
<h2>Helping families will help children</h2>
<p>Highlighting the role of the family draws the <a href="https://www.socialserviceworkforce.org/system/files/resource/files/Other%20People%27s%20Children.pdf">discussion</a> towards how best to support the family. We highlight three tiers of support: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Universal enabling interventions: These create the supportive environment all families need. National security, civil and human rights, safe communities, schooling and healthcare are clear examples. For well-functioning, well-resourced families these universal interventions are all they need to support their children’s development.</p></li>
<li><p>Targeted family strengthening for some: These improve families’ capacity to look after children by weakening or removing barriers to care. For example, social protection interventions such as cash transfers give caregivers access to a range of resources and services they would not otherwise have. For many families, these may be the only additional supports they require.</p></li>
<li><p>Critical family functioning interventions for the most vulnerable: These families require intensive internal intervention involving direct, skilled and sustained interaction at an individual family level by highly trained social workers. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>When internal family function is seriously compromised, and social services fail to intervene, children are put at <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/series/ECD2016">profound</a> risk with life-long consequences. </p>
<p>Throughout childhood and particularly in adolescence, compromised family function can increase risks of early marriage, mental health challenges, interpersonal violence, and threats to sexual and reproductive health. These <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(12)60149-4/fulltext">consequences</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27174304/">stretch</a> to the next generation when adolescents become parents with families of their own. </p>
<h2>Don’t neglect the social workers</h2>
<p>Intensive intervention in critical family function needs to be provided by highly trained personnel. Such high-quality training is rarely done. In many countries such as South Africa it is available but <a href="https://tmsafri.com/challenges-facing-social-workers-in-south-africa/">uncommon</a>. </p>
<p>To be effective, these social workers must be linked to families as soon as possible, have sufficient supervision and support, a manageable workload, access to necessary resources such as transportation, as well as adequate pay to enable adequate attention to the children and families concerned.</p>
<h2>The way forward</h2>
<p>Governments need to strengthen the social service workforce if they are to support families whose function is highly compromised and whose children are at risk. </p>
<p>The cost to individuals and society of allowing these struggling families to fail in their essential functions is great.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215909/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>It takes a family to raise a child. Vulnerable children should not be treated in isolation. Family-centred interventions usually meet the complex needs of children.Chris Desmond, Researcher, SAMRC/Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science- PRICELESS SA, University of the WitwatersrandKathryn Watt, Research Manager, The Asenze Project, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2185082023-12-12T23:58:25Z2023-12-12T23:58:25ZProgram at Hamilton Public Library shows how libraries can expand the social services they provide<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/565206/original/file-20231212-29-g6jmfe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C44%2C2500%2C1613&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A new program at the Hamilton Public Library is making on-site social workers available to the public.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Hamilton Public Library)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/program-at-hamilton-public-library-shows-how-libraries-can-expand-the-social-services-they-provide" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>When we need help or advice, it’s not always clear where to go, what resources are available to us, or who to turn to when we need support. Public libraries are often easily accessible and free to the public. That means the <a href="https://thewalrus.ca/future-of-libraries/">local public library is often the first port of call</a> for people looking for help or advice.</p>
<p>This is changing how community members engage with their library and how staff engage with community members entering their doors. While libraries often act as an informational resource for folks looking to access community and social services, the public’s intensifying needs necessitate an expansion of the library’s role in our communities.</p>
<p>Staff at <a href="https://hpl.ca/">Hamilton Public Library</a>’s (HPL) 23 branches and two bookmobiles increasingly encounter people with a range of complex health and social issues in their library spaces. They include individuals with housing and food insecurity, newcomers to Canada, those dealing with mental-health challenges, substance use and addiction, and individuals who struggle with technology, face language barriers, and income pressures, among other challenges. </p>
<p>Given these growing and varied needs, having social workers in libraries is vital. Library staff often do not have the knowledge or expertise to effectively offer crisis and mental-health support people need. </p>
<h2>What’s happening at Hamilton Public Library</h2>
<p>In November 2022, HPL responded to this challenge. In partnership with Hamilton Public Health Services’ <a href="https://www.hamilton.ca/people-programs/public-health/mental-health-services/mental-health-street-outreach-program">Mental Health and Street Outreach Program</a>, HPL developed a program to provide <a href="https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/hamilton-public-library-to-hire-a-social-worker-at-its-downtown-branch/article_ec6348b6-22bb-5b31-8911-a98ab38bf12b.html">on-site social work services</a> at its downtown central library, with two part-time social workers being present, visible and accessible on the first floor. </p>
<p>In partnership with Hamilton Public Health Services, HPL staff and social workers working at HPL voiced a need to document and study their social work program. the aim is to identify short- and long-term outcomes, engage with different library members to explore how the social work program is understood and to make these findings available to other public libraries who may be considering their own social work program. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564559/original/file-20231208-23-8jod9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man gives advice to a woman in a library." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564559/original/file-20231208-23-8jod9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564559/original/file-20231208-23-8jod9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564559/original/file-20231208-23-8jod9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564559/original/file-20231208-23-8jod9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564559/original/file-20231208-23-8jod9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564559/original/file-20231208-23-8jod9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564559/original/file-20231208-23-8jod9n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The public library is increasingly the first place people go when they need support or advice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>With colleagues, I partnered with HPL and Hamilton Public Health Services to take a deeper look at the program from multiple stakeholders’ perspectives. Over the next year, interviews with different community stakeholders (library members, library workers, and social workers) will help make visible how these different stakeholders understand and use social work activities and services at HPL. </p>
<p>Social workers working in public libraries is a recent but growing partnership practice across North America. <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/library-social-worker-helps-homeless-seeking-quiet-refuge">The first social worker in a public library</a> was in San Francisco in 2009. <a href="https://publiclibrariesonline.org/2019/01/providing-social-service-resources-in-a-library-setting/#.XDtQqGtmscY.wordpress">In that case</a>, library members experiencing homelessness were accessing the library to seek refuge and meet their basic needs.</p>
<p>Since this first program, there have been many variations of social services offered in public libraries across North America. Taken together, this is signalling a shift in how we think about and use public libraries — from book repositories to community anchors and social infrastructures. </p>
<h2>Expanding the library’s role</h2>
<p>Social workers in libraries take on multiple roles, including helping people access resources, offering supportive listening and brief counselling and providing training to library staff on how best to deal with crises when they arise.</p>
<p>Social workers also support access to services like housing, harm reduction, employment counselling and food security, and they provide crisis intervention and the de-escalation of disruptive behaviours on-site. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564562/original/file-20231208-27-wxkgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The glass entrance of a library building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564562/original/file-20231208-27-wxkgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/564562/original/file-20231208-27-wxkgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564562/original/file-20231208-27-wxkgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564562/original/file-20231208-27-wxkgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564562/original/file-20231208-27-wxkgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564562/original/file-20231208-27-wxkgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/564562/original/file-20231208-27-wxkgs2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">More public libraries are hiring in-house social workers to provide the kinds of help and advice members of the public are searching for.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Library social workers aim to remove systemic barriers to make their services more accessible. They can do this by offering preventative support in their role as community collaborators and advocates, and by helping people access services that offer longer-term solutions to their problems. </p>
<p>Social workers in the library are also crucial; they are trained and able to support trauma, mental-health issues, challenges and complex needs in a way that meets the person where they are at emotionally, physically and/or cognitively.</p>
<p>Ultimately, this project at HPL will help ensure the social work program meets its intended outcomes and will inform decision-making about the program’s future design and sustainability. This work is especially important as HPL is piloting a <a href="https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/library-expands-use-of-social-workers-to-barton-branch/article_47e845d3-9267-5e45-a0e2-ca09c18333ee.html">second social work program at its Barton branch</a>.</p>
<p><em>Sarah Gauthier, a Manager of Central Information Services with HPL, and Kianosh Keyvani, a Clinical Resource Co-ordinator with the City of Hamilton’s Mental Health and Street Outreach Program, co-authored this article.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218508/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Dalmer receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bridget Marsdin and Leora Sas van der Linden do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The public’s intensifying needs necessitate an expansion of the library’s role in our communities.Nicole Dalmer, Assistant Professor in the Department of Health, Aging and Society, McMaster UniversityBridget Marsdin, PhD student, School of Social Work, McMaster UniversityLeora Sas van der Linden, Program Manager, Community Research Platform, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1820722022-05-17T13:12:49Z2022-05-17T13:12:49ZChild protection in England: here is what social work experts know must change in the system<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463594/original/file-20220517-12-1yb3ia.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More than any individual failings, failures in child protection services are a systemic problem.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/happy-smiling-kid-glasses-going-school-1146209870">Sharomka | Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The recent cases of seven-year-old <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-61255930">Hakeem Hussain</a>, 16-month-old <a href="https://metro.co.uk/2021/12/16/star-hobsons-great-grandad-slams-soft-sentences-for-killer-and-mum-15780031/">Star Hobson</a> and six-year-old <a href="https://theconversation.com/arthur-labinjo-hughes-case-the-problem-with-national-reviews-into-child-abuse-173366">Arthur Labinjo-Hughes</a>, all of whom died as a result of horrific <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/26/england-social-services-children-uk-austerity-pandemic">abuse and neglect</a>, have rightly led to questions as to how and why these children died. They have also led to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/24/observer-view-failures-of-child-proection-system">criticism</a>, from politicians and the media alike. </p>
<p>Some of this criticism may be legitimate. We don’t know all the facts of every case, but it’s possible that the individual frontline workers involved might have been unable or unwilling to undertake their duties. Their senior leadership, too, may not have been up to the task. Genuine mistakes might also have been made. </p>
<p>However, this is by no means the complete picture of child protection work. Despite the <a href="https://www.corc.uk.net/media/1415/201611improving_childrens_social_care_services.pdf">dearth of reliable data</a> –- which is, itself, an indictment of the political oversight of this field – there is some evidence that indicates that many professionals involved in child protection and vital, wider family support are effective. In England, 35% of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childrens-social-care-data-in-england-2021/main-findings-childrens-social-care-in-england-2021">children’s social care</a> departments are rated as “good” and 12% as “outstanding”. The UK has been <a href="https://outoftheshadows.eiu.com/">ranked first</a> among 60 countries for its response to child sexual abuse and exploitation. </p>
<p>Rather, then, the criticism reflects a profound collective failure to appreciate the <a href="https://theconversation.com/daniel-pelka-death-shows-how-hard-child-protection-can-be-16638">scale</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/child-protection-investigations-can-silence-children-and-offer-impunity-to-abusers-103549">complexity</a> of child protection as a societal – and systemic – problem. If children are to be protected and families supported, these systemic failures have to be addressed.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A young black girl rests her head on her forearms on her knees, sitting on the floor, barefoot, in a living room setting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463600/original/file-20220517-24-gk9c20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463600/original/file-20220517-24-gk9c20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463600/original/file-20220517-24-gk9c20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463600/original/file-20220517-24-gk9c20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463600/original/file-20220517-24-gk9c20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463600/original/file-20220517-24-gk9c20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463600/original/file-20220517-24-gk9c20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Much child protection work is first about helping parents care for their children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/black-girl-sadness-emotion-1065983891">Rawpixel.com | Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The ever-increasing scale of child protection work</h2>
<p>In the year ending March 2021, children’s social care in England received almost 600,000 <a href="https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/characteristics-of-children-in-need/2021#dataBlock-1cf297a4-2748-4176-64ce-08d987e087b8-tables">referrals</a> from people concerned about children’s wellbeing. Many of the families in which these children live have major, if not massive, problems, which the professionals involved in child protection are charged with addressing. <a href="https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/characteristics-of-children-in-need/2021#dataBlock-dd01cc49-7bcf-4125-951a-08d9986262b5-tables">Domestic abuse and mental health</a> are among the most common. </p>
<p>Much child protection work is not in fact about immediately preventing abuse and neglect, although this is invariably at the forefront of practitioners’ thoughts. Instead, it is about the often fraught task of <a href="https://uobrep.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10547/622459/Article%20v9.pdf?sequence=2">working with parents</a> so they are more able and more willing to care for their children appropriately.</p>
<p>Previously, practitioners involved in child protection were expected to respond to four major types of maltreatment: emotional, physical and sexual abuse, and neglect. Over time, though, they have been required to tackle an <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/942454/Working_together_to_safeguard_children_inter_agency_guidance.pdf">ever-expanding range of concerns</a>, including <a href="http://nationalfgmcentre.org.uk/breast-flattening/">breast flattening</a> (the application of force to the breasts of young girls to restrict their development), child criminal or sexual exploitation, child marriage, child trafficking, female genital mutilation, online abuse and radicalisation. The child protection task has, therefore, increased not only in scale but also complexity, rendering it yet more challenging.</p>
<h2>How children’s social workers face organisational challenges</h2>
<p>In 2021, while <a href="https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-s-social-work-workforce">2% more people</a> joined the social worker profession, as compared to the previous year, 15% of those already employed left. There is currently a 17% vacancy rate within the sector; and agency staff occupy 16% of social worker posts. </p>
<p>This level of churn is a symptom of the pressure social workers are under. It also exacerbates existing problems, causing further disruption to services and greater pressure on staff. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="An adult dressed in black walks down a pavement, holding a small child by the hand." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463604/original/file-20220517-22-hyt5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/463604/original/file-20220517-22-hyt5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463604/original/file-20220517-22-hyt5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463604/original/file-20220517-22-hyt5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463604/original/file-20220517-22-hyt5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463604/original/file-20220517-22-hyt5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/463604/original/file-20220517-22-hyt5o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The families of children in need of protection are often facing multiple, complex problems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/frome-uk-january-5-2017-exterior-559278979">1000 Words | Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>According to the most recent <a href="https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/children-s-social-work-workforce">government figures</a>, social workers have an average of 16 cases at any one time. This is only slightly above the recommended range, as specified by a 2003 government-commissioned <a href="https://democracy.durham.gov.uk/Data/Cabinet%20(DCC)/20030515/Agenda/$Laming%20Enquiry.doc.pdf">review</a>, of 12 to 15 cases. </p>
<p>However, a <a href="https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2022/03/25/caseloads-bigger-more-complex-and-harder-to-manage-say-childrens-social-workers/">recent survey</a> among social workers, by the Community Care consultancy, reveals that the average is actually closer to 26 cases per person. It also shows that cases are becoming more complex. More than one third of social workers in this survey stated that their caseloads are “completely unmanageable”.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.basw.co.uk/system/files/resources/basw_annual_survey_summary_report_2021.pdf">A second survey</a>, by the British Association of Social Workers, found that 96% of practitioners have to work overtime – overtime which is invariably unpaid and for which they often cannot claim <a href="https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2020/09/04/four-ten-social-workers-anticipate-quitting-profession-within-five-years-back-high-stress-caseloads/">time off in lieu</a>. Insufficient time with families, an absence of other support services, excess administrative tasks, a lack of supervision, and media and public criticism, are just some of the other legion pressures facing social workers. </p>
<p>Those surveyed by Community Care reported that these working conditions have left them feeling “deflated, burnt out and extremely tired”. This, they said, has, in turn, affected the <a href="https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2022/03/25/caseloads-bigger-more-complex-and-harder-to-manage-say-childrens-social-workers/">quality of their work</a>. </p>
<p>Some authorities have gone so far as to state that there is a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/aug/11/crisis-in-childrens-services-in-england-is-shocking-if-not-surprising">“crisis” in child and family social work</a>. Given that most public services – the <a href="https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/contact-or-visit-us/press-office/press-releases/unacceptable-delays-will-continue-without-urgent-funding">judicial system</a>, <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o672.full">mental health services</a>, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/04/nhs-is-in-crisis-but-the-roots-go-much-further-back-than-omicron">NHS</a>, <a href="https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/whats-wrong-with-the-police">policing</a>, the <a href="http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/PressPolicy/News/vw/1/ItemID/1102">prison service</a>, the <a href="https://magazine.unison.org.uk/2022/03/02/probation-on-a-pittance/">probation service</a>, <a href="https://www.fenews.co.uk/education/teaching-crisis-looms-with-90-set-to-quit-the-classroom-before-they-retire/">schools</a> and <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o107">social care</a>, even <a href="https://bda.org/news-centre/press-releases/Pages/nhs-dentistry-little-urgency-from-government-to-solve-access-crisis.aspx">dentistry</a> – are judged as being currently in “crisis”, this should come as no surprise. Indeed, “crisis” appears to be the default position now in public services. </p>
<p>In 2021, the government, ostensibly in response to concerns surrounding children’s social care, commissioned the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/education-secretary-launches-review-of-childrens-social-care">Independent Review into Children’s Social Care</a>. The review’s final report is due by the end of May 2022. It has come in for a considerable amount of <a href="https://www.cypnow.co.uk/news/article/care-review-contract-sparks-concerns-over-no-extra-funding-for-reforms">criticism</a>, which is unusual for a child protection-related review. Scholars, myself included, have voiced concerns over various aspects of the review, including its independence, scope and timescale.</p>
<p>The leaders of the review, by contrast, have claimed that it represents a “once in a generation opportunity to transform the children’s social care system”. Such statements represent a dangerous naivety about the complexity and challenge of child protection work, and the ability of a review to transform it. As I have <a href="https://theconversation.com/arthur-labinjo-hughes-case-the-problem-with-national-reviews-into-child-abuse-173366">pointed out</a>, like innumerable reviews before it, this one is likely to have little, or no, beneficial impact. </p>
<p>Both the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee <a href="https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Pressures-on-Childrens-Social-Care.pdf">have lambasted</a> successive governments for their gravely negligent attitude to children’s social care. What is needed is not yet another review but action. Specifically, a genuine and massive commitment – with the requisite investment of time and energy – on the part of a competent government to improve the child protection system, and, for that matter, all other areas of public service. </p>
<p><em>The headline on this article has been amended to specify that the child protection system in question is in England, and not in Britain as a whole, as it previously, and incorrectly, stated.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/182072/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bernard Gallagher does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>If children are to be protected and their families, properly supported, the child protection system needs real investment and reform.Bernard Gallagher, Reader in Social Work and Applied Social Sciences, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1809502022-04-19T00:48:36Z2022-04-19T00:48:36ZThe workforce in the child protection system needs urgent reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457852/original/file-20220413-26-wuvuix.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C12%2C4104%2C2400&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The crisis in child welfare in Australia has, for too long, resulted in too many children taken into care, with many <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-28/child-protection-system-failing-vulnerable-kids-australia/100768482">not receiving</a> the timely assistance and care they and their families need.</p>
<p>Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-children-are-still-being-removed-at-disproportionate-rates-cultural-assumptions-about-parenting-need-to-change-169090">11 times more likely</a> to be taken into care. Children from culturally diverse families, and children and parents with disability are also over-represented in the system. Children often enter child protection systems for many reasons, including neglect because of poverty. Families need support to care for their children safely, rather than having their children removed. </p>
<p>Our national <a href="https://www.acu.edu.au/-/media/feature/pagecontent/richtext/about-acu/institutes-academies-and-centres/icps/_docs/trends-and-needs-in-australian-child-welfare-workforces.pdf">study</a>, published by the <a href="https://www.acu.edu.au/-/media/feature/pagecontent/richtext/about-acu/institutes-academies-and-centres/icps/_docs/trends-and-needs-in-australian-child-welfare-workforces.pdf">Institute of Child Protection Studies</a>, found this problem is made worse by poor workforce planning. The need for child welfare services has gone up but the current workforce is ill-equipped and unable to respond. </p>
<p>Reform is urgently needed to reshape the system and its workforce towards more services that prevent problems emerging in the first place, rather than a system geared towards removal. Such reform would support children to remain safely with their families.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-faulty-child-welfare-system-is-the-real-issue-behind-our-youth-justice-crisis-72217">The faulty child welfare system is the real issue behind our youth justice crisis</a>
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<h2>A prevention approach</h2>
<p>Our study examined broad-ranging, publicly available data to investigate emerging trends, issues and needs in the child welfare workforce and the educational profile of the workforce. </p>
<p>We approached this research from a public health perspective, where the priority is prevention and early intervention.</p>
<p>We wanted to evaluate how ready this workforce is to implement principles outlined in the <a href="https://www.dss.gov.au/our-responsibilities/families-and-children/programs-services/protecting-australias-children">National Framework for Protecting Australia’s Children 2009-2020</a>, a guiding policy document agreed upon by state and federal governments at the 2009 Council of Australian Governments (COAG) meeting.</p>
<p>These principles envision a system where services and key stakeholders – such as teachers, health workers and community service workers – are funded to work together with children and families to reduce vulnerability and prevent child abuse and neglect. </p>
<p>Research has also identified ways we can invest in supporting <a href="https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s10578-021-01309-0?sharing_token=85NNTOc3CNC5kn-fajy7i_e4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY4Jlx2ius8ljlvrVOy52z-wmj_Wb5N___MA4OIwvlD96BmGxgVoxQ84eVaeLtRuDZuwXugqjjACjFJiNZEINYAPNOHyHwydOkqAjL3TILpXaxOyfO78uGKWeMiMRrW9ids%3D">parents</a> to address early issues that might otherwise become a child protection concern.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/457860/original/file-20220413-15-9vrqt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The workforce for the preventative and supportive services in the child protection system is poorly defined and resourced.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>If early intervention approaches prove to be not enough, more intensive services exist to support more vulnerable families to reduce the risk of child abuse and neglect. Then, the formal state child protection response (sometimes known as the “tertiary tier” of the broader child welfare system) should only kick in if the supportive services are not able to manage or reduce the risk of child maltreatment.</p>
<p>Even when someone notifies a state child protection authority about a child’s safety, they and their family don’t always get the help they need. Safety concerns keep on being raised. Removal of children may be necessary in some instances. But removal often does not ensure the safety and well-being of children.</p>
<p>We need early, specialist support that is actually helpful for children and families, culturally appropriate, and meaningful. This is by far the most effective way to deal with child abuse and neglect and promote child safety and well-being, while minimising removals.</p>
<p>To achieve this goal, workforce reform is needed.</p>
<h2>A question of resourcing</h2>
<p>The workforce for the preventative and supportive services in the child protection system is poorly defined and resourced. </p>
<p>Many of these workers – teachers, early childhood educators, nurses, GPs – do not have the qualifications or skills needed to recognise and assess risk of harm and provide needed support. </p>
<p>These problems inherent with prevention and support increases the pressure on the child protection systems. </p>
<p>Most of the funding and resources are aimed towards the more severe end of the child protection systems, yet high levels of staff turnover continue, which negatively affect the quality and consistency of service. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1067&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458462/original/file-20220418-24-t3vqgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1340&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Key findings from our report.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.acu.edu.au/-/media/feature/pagecontent/richtext/about-acu/institutes-academies-and-centres/icps/_docs/trends-and-needs-in-australian-child-welfare-workforces.pdf">Trends and needs in the Australian child welfare workforce: An exploratory study</a></span>
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<h2>Diversifying the workforce</h2>
<p>Our analysis highlighted that workers in child protection systems are overloaded yet still must deal with complex situations. They often lack the training or skills and have limited experience to draw on.</p>
<p>The number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers, culturally diverse workers, and workers with disability does not align with the disproportionate representation of these groups within child protection systems. </p>
<p>Those that <em>are</em> in the child protection system tend not to be in leadership roles, and less likely to be making decisions.</p>
<p>Educational programs key to child welfare – such as social work, psychology and human services – are not meeting the increased demand for workers. </p>
<h2>What would make a difference?</h2>
<p>Investment priorities must shift. Funding needs to be aimed at preventative and supportive services for vulnerable children and their families, rather than at the part of the system that deals with removals. We must respond to people’s needs early and decrease the pressure on child protection systems.</p>
<p>The preventative child welfare workforce (including teachers, early childhood educators, nurses, GPs and other community service workers) needs to be better resourced and supported. These stakeholders must be able to develop the skills and knowledge necessary to identify and respond to the risk factors.</p>
<p>Better professional development for all workers in the child welfare sector is urgently needed.</p>
<p>The numbers of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers, in support and child protection services needs to be increased in a way that recognises their knowledge, expertise and value in keeping children safe. More government funding and support for First-Nations led organisations like <a href="https://www.snaicc.org.au/">SNAICC</a> (Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care) could potentially assist with this.</p>
<p>There is also a need for more culturally diverse workers and those with a disability.</p>
<p>Higher education providers and child welfare sectors must work together to plan for the continuing demand and future needs in child welfare services. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-nations-children-are-still-being-removed-at-disproportionate-rates-cultural-assumptions-about-parenting-need-to-change-169090">First Nations children are still being removed at disproportionate rates. Cultural assumptions about parenting need to change</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180950/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Erica Russ has prior experience working in child protection and have previously undertaken other state government funded research related to child protection. She is a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers. This story is part of The Conversation's Breaking the Cycle series, which is about escaping cycles of disadvantage. It is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation. The researchers would like to acknowledge seed funding for this project provided by the University of New England, Faculty of Medicine and Health and New England Institute of Healthcare Research Collaborative Research Scheme.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Lonne is am a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Daryl Higgins receives funding from the National Health and Medical Research Council, a range of Australian, state, and territory governments, and non-government agencies. He is a member of the Australian Psychological Society.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Morley has previous experience working in the child protection field and has previously undertaken other state government funded research related to child protection. She is a member of the Australian Association of Social Workers.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Maria Harries and Mark Driver do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Families need support to care for their children safely, rather than having their children removed.Erica Russ, Senior Lecturer, Southern Cross UniversityBob Lonne, Adjunct Professor, Queensland University of TechnologyDaryl Higgins, Professor & Director, Institute of Child Protection Studies, Australian Catholic UniversityLouise Morley, Lecturer, University of New EnglandMaria Harries, Senior Honorary Research Fellow, The University of Western AustraliaMark Driver, Research Assistant, University of New EnglandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1612742021-06-24T20:10:16Z2021-06-24T20:10:16ZPodcasting overcomes hurdles facing unis to immerse students in the world of workers’ experiences<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407797/original/file-20210623-26-1w1zxe2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5742%2C3828&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/pensive-woman-wearing-wireless-headphones-relaxing-1953753604">Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Podcasting is helping to revolutionise tertiary education. Universities have found themselves caught between shrinking budgets and an official insistence that they make graduates job-ready. Academics have had to be creative and flexible about how they engage their students with crucial learning, and podcasting is one way to do this. </p>
<p>In the past year, universities have been <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/australian-pm-no-special-deal-universities-bailouts">denied JobKeeper</a> payments to retain staff, seen the government’s “<a href="https://www.dese.gov.au/job-ready">job-ready graduates</a>” funding and tuition fee changes <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-government-is-making-job-ready-degrees-cheaper-for-students-but-cutting-funding-to-the-same-courses-141280">prioritise some disciplines</a> over others, and then had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/13/australian-universities-brace-for-ugly-2022-after-budget-cuts">funding cut</a> despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/as-hopes-of-international-students-return-fade-closed-borders-could-cost-20bn-a-year-in-2022-half-the-sectors-value-159328">international student revenue losses</a>. </p>
<p>Despite the constraints of this post-COVID world, universities must still produce graduates for the caring professions <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/people-and-communities/gender-indicators-australia/latest-release">dominated by women</a>, such as health and community services, that we arguably need most. The budget did increase funding for sectors such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/budget-package-doesnt-guarantee-aged-care-residents-will-get-better-care-160611">aged care</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/an-extra-1-7-billion-for-child-care-will-help-some-it-wont-improve-affordability-for-most-160163">child care</a> – but what about the education of the future workers needed to provide social services? </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/big-spending-recovery-budget-leaves-universities-out-in-the-cold-160439">Big-spending 'recovery budget' leaves universities out in the cold</a>
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<p>The business world has been talking about “pivoting” in the post-COVID environment, and academics have had to do the same. Universities have been known for their large lecture theatres, but these are <a href="https://theconversation.com/lecture-theatres-to-go-the-way-of-the-dodo-9893">no longer acceptable</a> in a world of social distancing. </p>
<p>Instead, university courses are now being taught either remotely, with students studying from home, or in a blended fashion involving a combination of home engagement and smaller face-to-face classes. Academics have had to meet the challenge with shorter pre-recorded lectures, smaller classes and flexible modes of delivery that students can engage with from home. </p>
<p>This has been easier for some degrees than for others. It’s a challenge for health and social sector degrees, such as social work and human services, that have a large practical component. </p>
<p>We know the best way to teach a student to work with people is to have them work with people. In the current climate, this has become more difficult. </p>
<p>Despite these challenges, academics have found it’s possible to teach core practice skills remotely. Using technologies such as podcasting is one way to prepare students for eventually working with people. </p>
<h2>Why are academics choosing podcasting?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/10713/podcast-listeners-in-the-united-states/">popularity of podcasting</a> has <a href="https://apo.org.au/node/308947">increased in recent years</a> as a direct and accessible way to consume large amounts of content, and this includes its use in education. Increasing numbers of education-focused podcasts are appearing on free online platforms. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/michelle-obama-podcast-host-how-podcasting-became-a-multi-billion-dollar-industry-142920">Michelle Obama, podcast host: how podcasting became a multi-billion dollar industry</a>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Members of the Social Work Stories Podcast team" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=592&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/407791/original/file-20210623-15-33r0c0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=744&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">The Social Work Stories team has been creating podcasts tailored to students’ needs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>It has been a natural step for academics to use these podcasts in their teaching. They are also creating their own podcast content. This ensures these podcasts are discipline-specific and tailored to their students’ needs.</p>
<p>Podcasting has the potential not only to tell stories for passive listening, but also to engage the listener in the practice of <a href="https://theconversation.com/thinking-about-thinking-helps-kids-learn-how-can-we-teach-critical-thinking-129795">critical thinking</a>. Critical thinking is highly regarded across disciplines as a key graduate attribute that contributes to a job-ready workforce. </p>
<p>It is crucial in the flexible study environment that students are able to engage in critical thinking, regardless of where that study takes place. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/thinking-about-thinking-helps-kids-learn-how-can-we-teach-critical-thinking-129795">Thinking about thinking helps kids learn. How can we teach critical thinking?</a>
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<p>The discipline of social work, taught at universities across Australia, is no exception. As an allied health profession employed largely in the health and community services sector, current circumstances have had direct impacts on social work practices and education. Job-ready graduates need to have professional practice skills built into their studies.</p>
<h2>The Social Work Stories Podcast</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://socialworkstories.com">Social Work Stories Podcast</a> showcases examples of de-identified cases from the coalface. The hosts analyse the anonymous social workers’ stories. Drawing out the complexities of social work practice enables listeners to critically engage with the content along the way. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=678&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/403250/original/file-20210528-15-vd0aq1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=851&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://socialworkstories.com">The Social Work Stories Podcast</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>Listeners are asked to “listen out” for theories that are being used, or moments of practice dilemmas or inspiration. In this way they are getting a taste of the experience of social work. </p>
<p>In one episode a social worker discusses the dilemmas involved in providing end-of-life care in hospital. In another a social worker discusses the challenges of providing information on consent to a group of male adolescents. It is as though listeners themselves are working on the cases being discussed. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-are-in-a-bubble-that-is-set-to-burst-why-urgent-support-must-be-given-to-domestic-violence-workers-141600">'We are in a bubble that is set to burst'. Why urgent support must be given to domestic violence workers</a>
</strong>
</em>
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<p><audio preload="metadata" controls="controls" data-duration="266" data-image="" data-title="Social Work Stories audio clip" data-size="8527956" data-source="" data-source-url="" data-license="Author provided" data-license-url="">
<source src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2189/sw-stories-promo.mp3" type="audio/mpeg">
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Social Work Stories audio clip.
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span><span class="download"><span>8.13 MB</span> <a target="_blank" href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/audio/2189/sw-stories-promo.mp3">(download)</a></span></span>
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<p>The Social Work Stories Podcast comes from a collaboration between the University of Wollongong and social work practitioners. It now has an international reach of 96 countries and more than 250,000 downloads. Social work graduate programs regularly use the podcast in their curriculum across Australia. </p>
<p>Podcasting has allowed academics to be creative in their course delivery despite the political and financial pressures on the sector. It offers one way forward in a difficult time for academia in Australia. </p>
<p>The Social Work Stories Podcast is available on iTunes and Spotify, with Twitter handle and Instagram @SOWKStoriesPod.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/podcasts-and-cities-youre-always-commenting-on-power-114176">Podcasts and cities: 'you’re always commenting on power'</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/161274/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mim Fox receives funding from the National Health & Medical Research Council.</span></em></p>Tight funding and COVID-related limits on face-to-face contact have forced academics to find other ways to expose students to the real-life work they are preparing them for.Mim Fox, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, University of WollongongLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1220972019-10-28T13:07:49Z2019-10-28T13:07:49ZMaking employees feel welcome and valued can pay off – especially for nonprofits<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/298367/original/file-20191023-119429-1vxpbgw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6148%2C2258&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Employee satisfaction rises when it's OK to be your true self at work.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/diverse-group-people-working-together-concept-300362036">Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Before I began to study and teach how to shape <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=GF_MYkEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">workplace relationships</a>, I was a social worker. For about six years, I worked at a variety of nonprofits that served the needs of people with substance use problems, adolescents with mental health challenges and children who had been abused.</p>
<p>At every job, I noticed a pattern. All my colleagues felt unappreciated and wanted to quit. </p>
<p>As a scholar, I’ve learned that this dynamic isn’t unusual. Whether they are hospitals, museums, food pantries, churches or environmental groups, all nonprofits constantly struggle to attract and retain qualified staff. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21368">Research I’ve conducted</a> suggests that when employees feel valued and that their colleagues and bosses appreciate them, talented staff members become more likely to stick around.</p>
<h2>Feeling appreciated</h2>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.nonprofithr.com/2017-nep-survey-new/">national survey</a> of 420 nonprofit organizations conducted in 2017, 28% of nonprofits said the top challenge they faced was hiring qualified staff, and 81% of nonprofits said they can’t get the staff they do hire to stay.</p>
<p>This same survey indicated that nonprofits may not do enough to address these problems. Two out of three had no systematic way to recruit qualified staff and vet new hires. And four out of five did little to encourage employees to stick around, such as helping them feel valued by expressing appreciation for the unique talents they bring to the workplace, or giving them raises and paying salaries commensurate with their skills and experience. </p>
<p>In addition, the top three <a href="https://www.nonprofithr.com/2019talentpriorities/">reasons employees give for leaving nonprofits</a>, according to the results of a different survey, are dissatisfaction with their career opportunities, compensation and benefits and workplace culture – or what it feels like to work there.</p>
<p>These results suggest that salaries – which <a href="https://www.payscale.com/data/nonprofit-pay-cut">can be lower in nonprofits</a> than in comparable private-sector jobs – are not the only factor that makes it hard to keep talented people on board.</p>
<h2>Making workplaces inclusive</h2>
<p>To get a clearer view of how this works, I recently completed a study regarding how managers at hospitals can <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/nml.21368">improve employee performance through greater inclusivity</a>.</p>
<p>Inclusion, a term that generally refers to <a href="https://ideal.com/diversity-and-inclusion/">making all people feel welcome</a> regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and disabilities, is also about helping employees feel appreciated as unique individuals and helping them feel valued as key members of their team. </p>
<p>Characteristics such as your childhood economic status, where you went to school, your current neighborhood or political views may have an effect on how comfortable and accepted you feel on the job.</p>
<p>More than half of all <a href="https://ccss.jhu.edu/2019-nonprofit-employment-report/">nonprofit jobs are in the health care field</a>. And even though nonprofit hospitals generally pay their workers better than other nonprofits, they also have trouble hiring and retaining qualified staff, according to the 2018 <a href="https://nff.org/surveydata">State of the Nonprofit Sector</a> survey.</p>
<p>As I explained in an article published in the <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15427854">Nonprofit Management & Leadership</a> academic journal, when hospital managers and top leaders helped employees feel more included, they became more committed to stay and felt better about their performance.</p>
<h2>Adopting best practices</h2>
<p>Results from my hospital study and other research suggest that there are several things employers can do to create an inclusive workplace. Not only does this approach make good business sense, it is also the right thing to do by valuing all employees as human beings.</p>
<p>Here are some <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0899764019829834">practices I recommend</a> for employers based on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21368">my research</a>.</p>
<ul>
<li>Engage all employees to weigh in on important work-related decision-making.<br></li>
<li>Express appreciation for feedback given from employees of all job positions, not just when suggestions come from managers or leaders. </li>
<li>Treat each employee as a unique individual, offering coaching, feedback and opportunities that build on their own talents.</li>
<li>Communicate a shared sense of purpose and inspire a collective vision of the future.</li>
</ul>
<p>And making workplaces more inclusive may be the key to making not just <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23303131.2016.1138915">nonprofit jobs more desirable</a>, but any kind of workplace – including those in the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1059601119839858">private</a> and <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1080/23303131.2016.1138915">public</a> sectors.</p>
<p>[ <em>Like what you’ve read? Want more?</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=likethis">Sign up for The Conversation’s daily newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122097/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kim Brimhall received funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Agency for Healthcare Research and
Quality, Grant/Award Number: 1R36HS024650-01</span></em></p>Salaries are not the only factor making it hard to keep talented people on board.Kim Brimhall, Assistant Professor of Social Work, Binghamton University, State University of New YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1243812019-10-03T07:55:25Z2019-10-03T07:55:25ZCare leavers: ‘Trying to access childhood records is distressing and dehumanising’<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295190/original/file-20191002-49383-1b6s1zt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=90%2C80%2C6619%2C4386&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/archive-folder-pile-files-789157507?src=MF9uFBYnOmvK8GSA6Hzuog-1-10">shutterstock/PAKULA PIOTR</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>There are currently around 75,000 children in care <a href="https://www.becomecharity.org.uk/care-the-facts/about-the-care-system/">in England</a>. These children will grow up seriously disadvantaged by their childhood experiences – <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/535899/Care-Leaver-Strategy.pdf">despite government interventions</a>.</p>
<p>Care leavers, for example, are <a href="https://www.learningandwork.org.uk/our-work/life-and-society/improving-life-chances/care-leavers/">six times more likely</a> to enter the criminal justice system, are <a href="https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/news-and-blogs/our-blog/care-leavers-risk-homelessness-as-rents-continue-to-rise">more likely to be homeless</a> – and often have <a href="https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Care-leavers-transition-to-adulthood.pdf">low levels of emotional well-being</a>.</p>
<p>Children who have grown up in care are also more likely to <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/535899/Care-Leaver-Strategy.pdf">struggle to pass exams</a>, get a job, or to attend further and higher education – <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/757922/Children_looked_after_in_England_2018_Text_revised.pdf">almost 40% of care leavers</a> aged 19 to 21 are not in education, employment or training. </p>
<p>Many people who grow up in care have gaps in their childhood memories, not least unanswered questions such as “Why was I taken into care?” or “Where did I live?” And for many care leavers, accessing their care records can be part of a therapeutic process of coming to terms with the past. </p>
<p>But many care leavers who try to access records held by local authorities and charities often find their files are missing. And when people do receive their records, they have often been heavily redacted, or censored to remove any “third party information” – such as names of parents, siblings, family members and carers.</p>
<h2>The power of the past</h2>
<p>As part of our <a href="https://cpb-eu-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.ucl.ac.uk/dist/1/627/files/2019/07/Care-Leavers-Experiences.pdf">recent research</a>, we worked with people who grew up in care <a href="https://twitter.com/i/status/1162029533022818305">to find out what</a> it was like for them to access their care records. <a href="https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/mirra/">The MIRRA project</a>, led by UCL with the <a href="http://www.careleavers.com/">Care Leaver’s Association</a> and the charity <a href="https://www.family-action.org.uk/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-8qO_uz45AIVTPlRCh2Upwu7EAAYASAAEgIUt_D_BwE">Family Action</a>, collected interview and focus group data from more than 80 care leavers, social workers and information managers working for local authorities and charities who look after children. </p>
<p>We found that accessing care records can play a significant role for care leavers – acting as a “paper self” long after they have left care. Care leaver Gina explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There came a point where I wanted to know where I’d been, I wanted to know who’d fostered me, because there was little chunks of my life missing, like where I’d gone to school? Did I have any friends? How long was I there?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Susan, who was in care in the 1970s and 1980s, told us why her records matter:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For the first time in my life, I was free. And it was all because of those records. It was very emotional. It was so important to me … it can put things away so that you can carry on with the rest of your life.</p>
</blockquote>
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<p>But our research also shows how the voices of children and young people who lived in care were often entirely missing from records. And this can cause significant distress and upset – as John-george explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>One of the most profound things for me about the file is my lack of voice. It is totally stolen and words are put in your mouth, saying this is how you feel about certain occasions and certain people, and at times there’s conflict with what I believe.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The voices, experiences and feelings of children and young people in care are rarely heard in their records. And they have few family or childhood photographs or stories that might answer their questions. All of which can have a huge impact on their sense of self later in life and the memories they have about their childhood. </p>
<p>Even if they are able to access their records, many care leavers are handed files rendered virtually meaningless by the thick black lines of redaction. Nor is there support or signposting to organisations that can help.</p>
<p>Care leaver Jackie explained how this can be deeply troubling, making people feel powerless, rejected and dehumanised:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s pieces of paper that are just blacked out, and there’s absolutely nothing on them. And then there’s other pieces of paper where there’s just a sentence in there. And I’m looking at it … and all it’s showing me is I’ve been rejected again.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>A child’s voice</h2>
<p>Care leavers have often had very difficult experiences as children, and making the transition into independent adult life can be tough. But our research highlights the vital role care records can play in helping care leavers to get a better understanding of their past. </p>
<p>Records can help care leavers to understand why they went into care. They may help them come to terms with what happened and to understand why they could not be looked after at home. But it can be traumatic to read care files. So instead of a culture of record-keeping for compliance, there needs to be a culture of caring record-keeping. Encouraging children in care to write about what they know about their life story can help to add their voice in the records. As can allowing them to keep personal memory objects, such as toys or photographs. </p>
<p>As our research highlights, care records must put the experiences of the child at the heart of the file – from what is written down in the first place, to how records are kept and stored, to how decisions are made about access. All of which can make a big difference to someone at what can be a very vulnerable time in their life.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124381/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Shepherd received funding from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/P008941/1). Additional funds were provided by Research England Higher Education and Innovation Fund via UCL Innovation, and Research Impact funds via UCL OVPR. </span></em></p>Children’s voices are being omitted from their care records, with devastating effect.Elizabeth Shepherd, Professor of Archives and Records Management, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1109762019-02-21T11:43:48Z2019-02-21T11:43:48ZThe US adoption system discriminates against darker-skinned children<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/258592/original/file-20190212-174883-1dbhy1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children who have darker skin wait longer on average to leave foster care.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/child-holds-drawn-house-family-close-308048285?src=g49vyp5plKNnLLwRfFXTkA-1-84">Stepan Popov/shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When it comes to adoption, Americans might assume that each child is treated equally. But research shows that darker-skinned children are repeatedly discriminated against, both by potential adoptive parents and the social workers who are charged with protecting their well-being.</p>
<p>Social workers are often called upon to assess a newborn’s skin color, because skin color influences potential for placement. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/06/27/195967886/six-words-black-babies-cost-less-to-adopt">As a 2013 NPR investigation found</a>, dark-skinned black children cost less to adopt than light-skinned white children, as they are often ranked by social workers and the public as less preferred. </p>
<p>According to Washington University law school professor Kimberly Jade Norwood, “In the adoption market, race and color combine to create another preference hierarchy: white children are preferred over nonwhite. When African-American children are considered, the data suggest there is a <a href="https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1547&context=law_globalstudies">preference for light skin and biracial children</a> over dark-skinned children.” </p>
<p>As a social worker with an interest in the social effects of skin color, I believe that the social work profession must be held accountable for its discriminatory practices. </p>
<h2>Light skin versus dark</h2>
<p>Regardless of race, adopting parents prefer to adopt a light-skinned child. A 1999 study at the Institute of Black Parenting, a Los Angeles adoption agency, showed that as many as 40 percent of the African-American couples <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2017.1321511">expressed a preference for a light-skinned or mixed-race child</a>, regardless of their own complexion. </p>
<p>Children who are white are slightly more likely to be adopted out of foster care. Of the more than 400,000 children in foster care awaiting adoption in 2017, <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/afcarsreport25.pdf">about 44 percent were white</a>, while the majority were children of color. However, of those who were adopted with public agency involvement, 49 percent were white.</p>
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<p>According to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2004 data shows that children with lighter skin were <a href="https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/docs/MEPABriefingFinal_07-01-10.pdf">adopted more quickly out of foster care</a>. While white children waited 23.5 months on average, black children waited 39.4. </p>
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<p>In preparing a paper on this subject in 2017, I found a 1999 report from the American Civil Liberties Union which conducted a court-authorized review of 50 adoption case files in New York City. They concluded that the practices of social workers <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/10911359.2017.1321511">favored children with more Caucasian features</a>. When social workers were asked about this, they contended that it was to insulate dark-skinned children from rejection. </p>
<p>Research suggests that the skin color issue continues to be a problem across the U.S. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1091142114547412">A study similar to that of the ACLU’s</a> was conducted in 2010 in the state of Michigan. This study looked at 1,183 adoptive Michigan families who adopted children from 2007 to 2009, through both public and private adoption agencies. According to the findings, 42 percent of adoptive parents’ most recently adopted children were “very fair or somewhat fair” in skin color, while 31 percent were “somewhat dark or very dark.”</p>
<p>Finally, research shows that it costs more to adopt a white child in the U.S. than it does to adopt a black child. According to the NPR investigation, <a href="http://foster-care-newsletter.com/human-discount-black-children-cost-less-adopt/#.XFnc77x7mpo">it costs about US$35,000 to adopt a white child</a>, absent legal fees. Meanwhile, a black child cost $18,000. </p>
<p>These prices, which are set internally at adoption agencies based on a number of factors, suggest that white children have a higher market value in the adoption marketplace and are more highly sought after by adoptive parents.</p>
<h2>The dark side of adoptions</h2>
<p>The evidence suggests that social workers do discriminate based on skin color. What’s more, private agencies that do not employ social workers no less enable skin color discrimination by referring to adoptees’ skin color.</p>
<p>Adopting parents may ask for a child <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=91834&page=1">who looks similar to them</a> or who has lighter skin. Currently, even when skin color is not an official record, social workers are inclined <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1091142114547412">to share such information casually in response to parents’ questions</a>.</p>
<p>When social workers accommodate a preference regarding skin color – by evaluating a child’s skin color or by responding to parents’ questions about a potential adoptee – they are breaching their code of ethics. <a href="https://www.socialworkers.org/About/Ethics/Code-of-Ethics/Code-of-Ethics-English">The official Code of Ethics for the National Association of Social Workers</a> clearly states that social workers “should not practice, condone, facilitate, or collaborate with any form of discrimination” on the basis of race, ethnicity or color, along with other factors. </p>
<p>Assessing children by skin color allows for a ranked ordering, where dark-skinned children may be singled out as less valued. While it is not always a matter of formal record, children assessed as dark-skinned clearly have a different experience than white children in the adoption process.</p>
<p>No doubt, the significance of skin color requires it be noted in files – but, in my view, it should not be monetized. I feel that skin color should be maintained as a confidential record, unless social workers can establish a clear reason why sharing it would lead to the best adoptive outcome for the potential adoptee. </p>
<p>I believe that it’s important to expose the dark side of adoptions that children regardless of skin color be valued and safe from discrimination.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/110976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ronald E. Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In the US, black children wait longer to be adopted and cost less to adopt than white children.Ronald E. Hall, Professor of Social Work, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/976022018-07-05T10:36:45Z2018-07-05T10:36:45ZWhen caring hurts: Attrition among social workers, medicine’s unsung heroes<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224768/original/file-20180625-19390-1lq3x6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Medical social workers perform many tasks for patients, but the work is taking a high toll on them, leading to burnout and attrition.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/unpaid-work-cheerful-caregiver-helping-senior-1074783779?src=DIjK1sJA3oVbugPPnVZi0A-1-0">YAKOBCHUK VIACHESLAV/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>You can tell a lot about a job and the people doing it by asking them to describe their best day at work. For Ali, a 28-year-old pediatric cancer social worker, that day occurred one year ago. A 17-year-old cancer patient who had been given two months to live made a bucket list. On her list were graduating from high school and getting accepted into college. So Ali and her colleagues arranged a graduation ceremony in the hospital, at which they read off a list of the colleges to which she had been accepted.</p>
<p>Ali and other social workers savor such opportunities to make a difference. They got to know the patient and her family well, reached out to a variety of school officials and community leaders to make the event happen, and enabled many friends and hospital employees to participate in it. Though the ultimate outcome was heartbreaking – the patient died just days after the event – Ali cherished the opportunity to stage such a meaningful event and help make a better death possible.</p>
<p>This is just one example of how medical social workers so often play the role of the “glue” that holds health care together. Doctors, nurses and other health professionals typically have their hands full with patients’ medical needs. My medical colleagues and I know that performing a surgical procedure or prescribing medicines for the patient is only a part of a comprehensive plan of care, and even the best medical care may fail if it is not well integrated into the patient’s life.</p>
<h2>Caring and coordination</h2>
<p>Medical social workers help to ensure that the psychological and social needs, or what we in the field call the psychosocial needs, of patients and families get attended to, and that all aspects of the patient’s care – inpatient, rehabilitation, outpatient, in-home and so on – are coordinated. They ensure that medicine and life work well together. For example, a patient coping with a diagnosis of cancer or dementia may need help with services as diverse as insurance, in-home health services, psychotherapy and grief counseling.</p>
<p>In the U.S., medical social work got started in Boston at <a href="http://www.mghpcs.org/socialservice/Documents/HistoryTimeline.pdf">Massachusetts General Hospital</a>, which started a training program in 1912. Today the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes211022.htm">number</a> of U.S. medical social workers is about 170,000. They work in a variety of settings, most commonly hospitals, patient homes and nursing facilities. Generally, a master’s degree in social work is required to enter the field, and the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes211022.htm">average annual compensation</a> is about US$56,000.</p>
<p>Though employing medical social workers costs hospitals and health care organizations money, there is <a href="https://onlinemsw.fsu.edu/blog/2016/10/27/social-workers-lower-cost-healthcare">evidence</a> that having social workers on staff lowers overall health care costs. They do so by ensuring that needs are responded to promptly, addressing problems before they grow larger; by helping to reduce repeat medical visits by ensuring that needs are fully met in the initial visit; and by helping to coordinate a complex system of care to ensure that its many parts are pulling together in the same direction.</p>
<h2>Leaving the profession</h2>
<p>Even though medical social work represents a rewarding career, many social workers, including Ali, are leaving their jobs. This is not an isolated problem. The state of <a href="http://www.khi.org/news/article/nearly-a-quarter-of-dcf-social-workers-left-in-2015">Kansas</a> recently found that it was losing one-fourth of its children’s social workers each year, and the same appears to be true in <a href="https://www.mydaytondailynews.com/news/local/high-staff-turnover-burnout-puts-child-welfare-system-crisis/lDxydAqvyWqr3INdDikMWM/">Ohio</a>. A recent <a href="http://www.sao.texas.gov/Reports/Main/16-702.pdf">Texas report</a> showed that social services had the highest turnover rate of all state employee categories at 25 percent.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224734/original/file-20180625-19375-1d9vsai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224734/original/file-20180625-19375-1d9vsai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224734/original/file-20180625-19375-1d9vsai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224734/original/file-20180625-19375-1d9vsai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224734/original/file-20180625-19375-1d9vsai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224734/original/file-20180625-19375-1d9vsai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/224734/original/file-20180625-19375-1d9vsai.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Medical social workers, psychologists and therapists strike at a Kaiser Permanente medical center in West Los Angeles on Jan. 12, 2015.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Kaiser-Hospitals-Strike/b4afbd42101245f4a85c8c1ba0120604/7/0">Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is a big problem. To do their jobs well, medical social workers need to know other health professionals, hospitals, social services, and patients and families well. Each time a medical social worker is lost, it takes months or even years to get a replacement up to speed. In the meantime, patients and families can end up falling through the cracks. When their relationships with medical social workers end, they must start all over again with strangers.</p>
<h2>Factors causing turnover</h2>
<p>So why are medical social workers leaving their jobs? One of the biggest problems, according to Ali, is large caseloads. “When each social worker is responsible for too many patients,” she says, “it becomes impossible to give each patient and family the level of care they need. Because you are stretched so thin, you end up tending only to the patients and families with the most urgent needs. You are forced to choose who not to care for, and that feels like failure.”</p>
<p>Ali cited the example of a family she had been working with the day we met for an interview: “They are functioning okay, financially stable, showing up on time for their clinic appointments. I know they need help, and that if I could spend with them the time they need, I would be able to provide them with much better support leading up to their child’s death. But because I am so busy tending to those with more urgent needs, I won’t know them or be able to support them well when it comes.”</p>
<p>Ali also worries about the amount of time she and her colleagues spend on paperwork. She estimates that, on average, for every hour she can spend working face to face with patients and families, she and her colleagues spend more than two hours filling out forms and the like.</p>
<p>A related difficulty is the fact that, whenever a gap in care opens up, medical social workers tend to be the ones who get called to fill it. Suppose, for example, that a family has a gap in insurance coverage. Says Ali, “Social workers have no special training in insurance, but because it is not anyone else’s job either, we are expected to take care of it. It would be so helpful if we had financial navigators who could help patients and families with that aspect of their care.”</p>
<p>Though dedicated to the care of others, Ali and her colleagues are often uncared for themselves. “When a patient dies,” she says, “there are systems in place to reach out to doctors and nurses, but no one thinks of the social workers, who often get to know the family just as well. It is hard, and we need space and time to talk about these things, but no one checks in on us, and with our caseloads so high, we are expected just to move on to the next patient.”</p>
<p>Few people know it, but Ali and her colleagues are often the last people in the hospital to see a deceased patient. “We are the ones who walk the patient out of the hospital for the last time, handing them off to the funeral director,” she says. “That might not seem like a big deal, but over time it begins to take a toll on you, especially when you have gotten to know them well over months or years. Sometimes you just need someone to talk with about it.”</p>
<p>When we understand better the crucial coordinating and caring role medical social workers like Ali play today, we see how vital it is that medical practices, hospitals, health care facilities and our whole health system attend to their concerns. When they do their jobs well, everyone – patients, families and other health professionals – wins. Ali and her colleagues are not asking for a raise. They are simply asking for the opportunity to provide the kind of care they would want for their own families.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97602/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Gunderman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Medical social workers coordinate care, an especially important job in complicated cases. Just as nurses and doctors are feeling burned out, these unsung heroes are feeling the burn, too. Here’s why that’s dangerous.Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/936182018-03-29T18:28:35Z2018-03-29T18:28:35ZLosing children to foster care endangers mothers’ lives<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212293/original/file-20180327-109169-1ud3g17.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Research shows that the rate of death by suicide is more than four times higher for mothers whose children were placed in care.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shuttersock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mothers whose children are placed in foster care are at much higher risk of dying young, particularly due to avoidable causes like suicide.</p>
<p>When a child is placed in foster care, most of the resources are focused on the child, with little to no support for the mothers who are left behind. </p>
<p>I have been working with colleagues at the University of Manitoba to look at what happens to mothers after their children are placed in care. </p>
<p>The focus of two recent studies has been to look at mortality among this group of mothers.</p>
<h2>Deaths by suicide and heart disease</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0706743717741058">first study, published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry</a>, looked at suicide attempts and suicide completions among mothers whose children were placed in care. </p>
<p>In this study, we compared rates of suicide attempts and suicides between 1,872 mothers who had a child placed in care with sisters whose children were not placed in care. </p>
<p>We found that the rate of suicide attempts was 2.82 times higher, and the rate of death by suicide was more than four times higher for mothers whose children were not in their custody.</p>
<p>In the second study, just <a href="https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/aje/kwy062">published in the American Journal of Epidemiology</a>, we compared the rates of death from avoidable and unavoidable causes between 1,974 mothers who had a child placed in care, and their sisters whose children remained with them.</p>
<p>We found that mothers whose children were placed in care were 3.5 times more likely to die from avoidable causes (e.g. unintentional injury and suicide), and 2.9 times more likely to die from unavoidable causes (e.g. car accidents and heart disease).</p>
<h2>Losing a child is traumatic</h2>
<p>So why is this happening? </p>
<p>Mothers whose children are taken into care often have underlying health conditions, such as mental illness and substance use. In both studies, we took pre-existing health conditions into account, so that was not the reason for the higher mortality rates we found. </p>
<p>In a recent study, <a href="http://jech.bmj.com/content/71/12/1145.info">I found that when a child goes into foster care, their mother’s physical and mental health gets much worse</a>. Losing custody of a child can be very traumatic, and can <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26194783">make life feel meaningless</a>.</p>
<p>Most legislation pertaining to child protection services indicates that families should be supported, but the guidelines around what is expected of the child welfare system when it comes to the biological mothers are not clear. </p>
<p>The main role of social workers is to ensure that the child is doing well. Social workers are already so busy, so it is often hard for them to justify spending their limited time to help mothers resolve challenges and work with them to address their mental and physical health needs.</p>
<h2>Children end up motherless</h2>
<p>The lack of supports for mothers when their children go into care means that many of them die premature deaths. </p>
<p>While this is a tragedy in its own right, this also means that many children in foster care end up motherless. </p>
<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2206.2006.00424.x">A study in Sweden</a> found that by age 18, more than 16 per cent of children who had been in foster care had lost at least one parent (compared to three per cent of children who had not been in foster care). </p>
<p>By age 25, one in four former foster children had lost at least one parent (compared to one in 14 in the general population). This means that many children in foster care don’t get the chance to be reunited with their families.</p>
<h2>A humanitarian crisis</h2>
<p>Canada has one of the highest rates of children in care and within the Canadian child welfare system, Indigenous children are over-represented. </p>
<p>Recently, <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/a-special-edition-of-the-current-for-january-25-2018-1.4503172/we-must-disrupt-the-foster-care-system-and-remove-perverse-incentives-says-minister-jane-philpott-1.4503253">Jane Philpott, minister of Indigenous services, referred to the Indigenous child-welfare system as a humanitarian crisis</a>. </p>
<p>Providing adequate preventative supports would reduce the number of children in care, which would reduce the number of mothers who go through the trauma of being separated from their children. </p>
<p>Specific guidelines need to be put in place to make sure that mothers are supported when their child is taken into care. This would improve the chances of reunification. </p>
<p>And, by virtue of being a human worthy of treatment with dignity, mothers deserve support, even if it does not directly relate to how she interacts with her child(ren).</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93618/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Wall-Wieler does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mothers are dying prematurely after their children are taken into foster care.Elizabeth Wall-Wieler, PhD student in Community Health Sciences, University of ManitobaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/897192018-01-16T12:39:04Z2018-01-16T12:39:04ZKiri: another unrealistic and damaging portrayal of social workers on screen<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/202045/original/file-20180116-53292-vvfglq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sarah Lancashire (left) stars in the Channel 4 drama, Kiri. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Channel 4 </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A child dies. A nation mourns. The professionals gather to ask how and why. The media and the public want answers, then justice. It’s sadly an all too familiar process.</p>
<p>With Channel 4’s new TV drama Kiri, the British public peek into the world of the social worker at the centre of a horrific scandal. The show is about a social worker called Miriam, played by Sarah Lancashire, and her actions around the disappearance of a child called Kiri. </p>
<p>Sadly, the first episode bombarded the viewer with a litany of potentially damaging images of social work. Miriam is seen adding alcohol to her morning coffee, sporadically drinking from a hipflask throughout the day, gossiping with colleagues, drink driving, and engaging in an inappropriate friendship with an ex-service user. Social workers on Twitter were less than impressed. </p>
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<p>What appeared to frustrate social work viewers most, though, was Miriam’s dog in the office. Perhaps a trivial point, but one which seems emblematic of how easily a portrayal can go astray. </p>
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<h2>Exploited for TV drama</h2>
<p>Social work, though a relatively burgeoning profession after it became a protected title as recently as 2005, appeared on TV screens as early as the 1960s. But portrayals, such as <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056753">East Side/West Side</a> in 1963-4, <a href="http://scholarworks.wmich.edu/jssw/vol15/iss4/7/">depicted the profession as bureaucratic and inefficient</a>. In 2016, after the BBC soap opera EastEnders portrayed an emotive scene in which a child is removed from the care of its mother, social workers <a href="http://www.whatsontv.co.uk/eastenders/eastenders-news/eastenders-lola-baby-plot-angers-social-workers-206552">took to Twitter</a> to express their disappointment at the missed opportunity to represent child protection effectively. </p>
<p>Despite the criticism, EastEnders writers leaned on the profession again to progress their plot, this time when one character <a href="http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2017/10/09/irresponsible-inaccurate-social-workers-react-eastenders-child-removal-storyline/">had two children removed</a> from her care following anonymous reports of bruising.</p>
<p>Positive representations of social work do exist – such as the true story turned 1980s film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1438216/">Oranges and Sunshine</a> – but they are seemingly few and far between. </p>
<p>The writer of Kiri, Jack Thorne, <a href="http://www.channel4.com/info/press/press-packs/interview-with-writer-Jack-Thorne">said he was inspired</a> to “examine the pressures (social workers) are put under” after watching his mother work in the caring professions. It was a similar story for comedian Jo Brand, co-writer of <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/damned/">Damned</a>, a Channel 4 comedy set in the offices of a fictional local authority. Brand <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2016/sep/23/damned-jo-brands-new-sitcom-finds-the-humour-in-social-work">said</a> she was hoping to make social workers “seem like real people” and to dispel the stereotypes. </p>
<p>My own ongoing research hopes to uncover whether social workers feel that Damned, and other shows like it, are successful in achieving positive or accurate representations. </p>
<h2>Impact on the profession</h2>
<p>Poor representation and portrayal of the profession has been <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1021145713542">associated with lower salaries</a>, and poor <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.5175/JSWE.2006.200500502">recruitment and retention</a> – so it is no wonder that social workers have had enough. A 2009 Social Work Taskforce <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20130321034206/https://www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/01114-2009DOM-EN.pdf">report</a> described how a “culture of defensiveness … serves only to exacerbate media frenzy”, and the public image of the profession is “unremittingly negative”.</p>
<p>Despite some of the negative character flaws we see in Miriam during Kiri, she is represented as a fully imagined and complex person, struggling on. She is seen caring for her mean and racist mother, as well as her sick dog, and juggling a number of complex cases. </p>
<p>With her alcoholic tendencies and inappropriate behaviour, Miriam might not be the best portrayal of the profession, but her character bucks the trend of “child snatcher” or “child catcher”, for which social workers had become, almost exclusively <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1468017316637221">synonymous with</a>.</p>
<p>Kiri is being aired less than a year after the government’s new Children and Social Work Act gained <a href="http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2017/04/28/children-social-work-act-2017-social-work-reforms-become-law/">royal assent in April 2017</a>. The changes brought about by the law include a new regulatory body for social work, as well as a restructuring of national child safeguarding in England. Some of this has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2017/apr/25/the-government-is-jeopardising-progress-on-child-sexual-exploitation">criticised</a>, but there is still hope that a new regulator, to be named <a href="http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2016/11/04/social-work-england-quick-guide-regulator-set-replace-hcpc/">Social Work England</a>, could be just what the profession needs to help boost public confidence. </p>
<p>Social work arguably offers a great wealth of stories for writers to weave the complex and dramatic stores of 21st-century Britain. But the depth of complexity that is the reality for social work practice is not in keeping with the momentum of an engaging drama. The pace and drama demanded by modern television has been described by some researchers as <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1468017307080352">at odds</a> with realistic or positive portrayals of social work. </p>
<p>However, in shows such as Channel 4’s <a href="http://www.channel4.com/programmes/999-whats-your-emergency">999: What’s your Emergency</a>, complex issues of the emergency services are made palatable for viewing, giving an insight into what it’s like to work in such contexts. This style and genre of reality television documentary offers the opportunity for social work to be explored on screen without reliance on the stereotypes that can be deleterious to the profession. The problem with stereotypes is not that they are necessarily untrue, but <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story/transcript">they are incomplete</a>. And social work needs and deserves complete stories.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/89719/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Meredith does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new Channel 4 drama has drawn criticism from social workers for its representation of the profession.Robert Meredith, Social Work Researcher and Teacher, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/867222017-11-07T10:26:16Z2017-11-07T10:26:16ZSocial workers aren’t incompetent child snatchers – so why are they portrayed that way?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193464/original/file-20171106-1027-1t7sjs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/teenage-girl-suffering-depression-conversation-therapist-151137668?src=pDTR3JQAqUnjJTiUyGEzWA-1-23">Alexander Raths/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Social workers get a bad rap when it comes to their portrayal in the media. Often, they are shown taking children from their families in a heartless and wholly inaccurate manner. This only serves to reinforce <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-dont-like-the-idea-of-a-nasty-social-worker-do-you-15861">already low public opinions</a> of anyone who works in children’s services.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/eastenders/news/a840771/eastenders-social-worker-complains-stacey-children-being-taken-away-scenes/">recent episode in BBC soap Eastenders</a>, for example, showed a social worker arriving with two police officers at a family home, following an anonymous allegation made earlier the same day. They removed the children against their mother’s wishes and placed them with one of their grandparents. Among the many inaccuracies, no one actually looked at the children’s alleged injuries, their safety was not assessed, there was little discussion with their mother, and no checks were made on the place they were going to, to ensure it was safe. There was also no legal order for removing the children, which might reinforce the view that social workers can and want to just take children away from parents.</p>
<p>The BBC has since said that they sought the advice of social workers and police for the script, but this was <a href="https://www.basw.co.uk/news/article/?id=1561">met with cynicism</a> from the profession.</p>
<h2>Damaging confidence</h2>
<p>There have been instances where social workers <a href="https://theconversation.com/daniel-pelka-death-shows-how-hard-child-protection-can-be-16638">were in the wrong</a>, but not all have made mistakes on the job. For the vast majority, this is the latest in a long line of negative and often inaccurate stereotype portrayals that are damaging how social workers are perceived by the public, and making their jobs harder as a result.</p>
<p>Sharon Shoesmith – director of Haringey social services at the time when <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11626806">Peter Connelly, “Baby P”</a>, died in August 2007 – has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/aug/19/sharon-shoesmith-baby-p-haringey-social-services-interview">written about the media furore</a> following the convictions of Connelly’s killers. The effect of Connelly’s death and the moral panic that ensued had a massive impact on social services nationwide, as well as villainising Shoesmith herself. Within two days of the news, The Sun newspaper had set up a petition calling for her and the other social workers involved to be sacked, which was delivered <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-13576013">along with tens of thousands of letters</a> to then prime minister, Gordon Brown. It was later ruled that Shoesmith had been <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-24722556/baby-peter-case-sharon-shoesmith-agrees-six-figure-payout">unfairly dismissed</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193525/original/file-20171107-1020-d8b0cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/193525/original/file-20171107-1020-d8b0cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193525/original/file-20171107-1020-d8b0cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193525/original/file-20171107-1020-d8b0cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=799&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193525/original/file-20171107-1020-d8b0cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193525/original/file-20171107-1020-d8b0cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/193525/original/file-20171107-1020-d8b0cu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1004&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There is no shame in accepting help from a social worker.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.refinery29.com/2017/11/179847/princess-diana-engagement-suit-harrods">Iakov Filimonov/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The truth is that around <a href="http://cdn.basw.co.uk/upload/basw_43143-3.pdf">one in five children under the age of five</a> in England are being referred to children’s services. Though the researchers behind this statistic recognised that some children do need to be protected, there is little evidence to support this level of statutory involvement. Nor is there need for the growing focus on early – and increasingly investigative – interventions, alongside <a href="https://www.cafcass.gov.uk/leaflets-resources/organisational-material/care-and-private-law-demand-statistics/care-demand-statistics.aspx">increases in the removal</a> of children from their families. </p>
<p>All this does is create levels of suspicion and fear of social workers, especially for families in the most deprived areas. Studies have found that children in deprived neighbourhoods are <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740917304425?via%3Dihub">more than 11 times more likely</a> to be on the child protection register, and 12 times more likely to be “looked after” by the state. But this is not because these families are abusing their children, nor because social workers wrongly believe they are unable to do so. Rather, poverty is said to be “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-39107846">part of the picture of harm</a>”.</p>
<h2>Realistic relationships</h2>
<p>There are clear reasons why it is easy for the public to believe negative portrayals of social workers – but the few do not represent the many in this case. So what can be done to change public perception?</p>
<p>Revisiting the origins of social work, it was former prime minister Clement Atlee, whose post-war government brought the welfare state into being. Atlee – who had previously been a social worker and social work lecturer – outlined a profession of principles in his <a href="https://archive.org/details/socialworker00attliala">1920 book The Social Worker</a>. Though nearly 100 years old, some ideals still remain applicable today.</p>
<p>Atlee suggested that social work should be radical, relationship based, realistic and reciprocal. He believed it should be about looking for the root causes behind problems and working with families, while carrying out thorough, realistic analyses. Atlee suggested that if social workers were prepared to listen and learn they would gain a great deal.</p>
<p>These are not just some ideal principles, written by an academic or spouted by a politician. This is how social workers do their jobs today. They are there to help families, not to tear them apart. It is never an easy task to split a family and it is only done when it is believed to be in the child’s best interests.</p>
<p>We cannot ignore cases like that of Peter Connelly, or indeed <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2062590.stm">murdered eight-year-old Victoria Climbié</a>, but the danger is in missing out on the many stories of children and families being helped and supported through difficult times. Portraying social workers as incompetent child snatchers rather than useful sources of support and help will only stop people accepting help in what could be their most pressing time of need.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/86722/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Abyd Quinn-Aziz is affiliated with BASW, is a register social worker and registered by Social Care Wales.</span></em></p>Social workers are there to help, not to rip families apart.Abyd Quinn-Aziz, Senior lecturer, Cardiff UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/795942017-06-19T14:00:22Z2017-06-19T14:00:22ZWe do nothing for missing people who come home – here’s what should change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174437/original/file-20170619-12445-163emd8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Missing People Choir raise awareness in the grand final of ITV's Britain's Got Talent. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">ITV</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>One prominent finalist on the recent ITV talent show <a href="http://www.itv.com/britainsgottalent">Britain’s Got Talent</a> was the Missing People Choir, whose haunting voices and accompanying images helped raise consciousness about those who disappear. After the grand final, it was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40206264">widely reported</a> that a missing young boy had returned to his family after seeing his image on screen. </p>
<p>Now that the celebratory headlines have passed, hopefully that story has a happy ending. In reality, however, a return is often difficult.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.missingpersons.police.uk/download/56">Between</a> 250,000 and 300,000 people go missing in England and Wales every year, while in Scotland it’s 39,000. You may be surprised to learn that around 99% come home, including 97% of adults within a week of disappearing. Indeed, only 1%-2% of cases usually remain outstanding for more than a year. </p>
<p>Sadly, around a third <a href="http://www.missingpeople.org.uk/downloads/returning-adults-briefing-paper">disappear again</a>, and 80% also report mental health problems. One key reason is that missing people, particularly adults, receive little or no support when they come home. A first return is a missed opportunity to prevent a future disappearance. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/86WTNx4vqkI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Testimonies</h2>
<p>I was the principal investigator for a <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1068/d14080p">unique project</a> conducting in-depth interviews with 45 returned missing adults and 25 family members in Scotland and England. It revealed fascinating insights, including what happens after missing people return. As the two following examples show, a return can involve conflict and intense emotion:</p>
<p>Jayne:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I was numb when I came home, I didn’t feel guilty … it was more, ‘shit, I haven’t done what I wanted to do, failed again’ … so I hadn’t achieved anything by my little run away. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Darren:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>When you come back you have a load of things you may not want to face. That pressure is not what someone who disappears wants to have … I think you need an ear when you get back. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Women in particular <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tran.12160/abstract">talked about</a> stepping back into situations of overwhelming responsibility, potential domestic violence or family conflict. </p>
<p>Rachel:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Going missing didn’t solve anything … I just came back to a massive load of chaos, angry chaos. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174439/original/file-20170619-12397-1sa9j5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174439/original/file-20170619-12397-1sa9j5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174439/original/file-20170619-12397-1sa9j5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174439/original/file-20170619-12397-1sa9j5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174439/original/file-20170619-12397-1sa9j5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174439/original/file-20170619-12397-1sa9j5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174439/original/file-20170619-12397-1sa9j5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174439/original/file-20170619-12397-1sa9j5q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The missing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/single-woman-alone-swinging-on-beach-250745014?src=bGkjrEwoSx2UauH7sG3AIw-1-7">Antonio Guillem</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Such difficulties clearly risk another incident. People reported to us that no one seemed to understand what they had done, wanted to listen to the right detail, or ask the right questions in the right time and place. In Angela’s case, her return was marked by silence:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>My friends don’t really talk about it, they know about it, but haven’t really spoken about it. [My mum] knows about it. She doesn’t talk about it because these kind of things are really frowned upon.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>How loved ones respond</h2>
<p>Angela saw her experience as being explained by a particular cultural response to mental health issues in her part of Scotland. But in general, families and friends often <a href="http://eprints.gla.ac.uk/88696/">don’t know</a> what to say. We tend to have a language and emotional repertoire around disappearance, but are silent, uncertain or angry and disbelieving about the return.</p>
<p>Families experiencing repeat missing events spoke of “treading on eggshells”, hardly daring to ask what really happened. Some tried to manage their anger, like Sam, whose brother disappears regularly:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>You can be quite pissed off that they dared do it in the first place and I think it’s possibly trying to realise that it’s not actually about you.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Loved ones can find it hard to ask where the person went. Adrian, whose daughter has been missing more than ten times, said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We’ve just got into a habit where we’ve stopped asking, because she’s never coughed up any information. There’s that constant barrier in that area. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Family members constantly fear another absence and what might cause it. They may frequently over or underprotect the person, either constantly checking on them or never questioning where they are going. </p>
<p>Families are not well supported in their local communities. While a search for a missing person <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S175545861530044X">can prompt</a> intense neighbourly feeling and direct action, people often lose interest or distance themselves when the person comes back. Gail said her community was “totally unsupportive” after her daughter returned, for example. </p>
<p>A missing person can even be a surprising source of family shame and even stigma. This contributes to the common silence around the experience. As Sally said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I think the people who know my mum and my sister know not to mention it. It has become an unmentionable thing really.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>The solution</h2>
<p>At present, returning adults are usually only interviewed by the police to check they are safe and well. In terms of referrals for further support, often the most they can expect is the phone number of the Missing People charity. (Note that returning children at least <a href="https://www.missingpeople.org.uk/about-us/about-the-issue/research/903-research-publications.html?showall=&start=1">have to</a> receive an interview from a trained independent professional to ascertain why they went missing and try and avoid a repeat.)</p>
<p>The situation for adults is currently changing. Three “<a href="http://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/news/peopleprojects/headline_526408_en.html">national conversations</a>” in England, Wales and Scotland took place last year, organised by the University of Glasgow, with contributions from the police, relevant charities and academics like myself. </p>
<p>They called for returned missing people to be given more attention, and for more social workers and mental health professionals to offer support. Such professionals are best placed to handle a return as a process rather than a singular event. Meanwhile, the Missing People charity co-authored a <a href="http://www.missingpeople.org.uk/downloads/returning-adults-briefing-paper">briefing paper</a> that set out why returns are not simply a policing issue and why return should involve other sectors and professionals. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174441/original/file-20170619-12397-ymczyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174441/original/file-20170619-12397-ymczyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/174441/original/file-20170619-12397-ymczyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174441/original/file-20170619-12397-ymczyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174441/original/file-20170619-12397-ymczyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174441/original/file-20170619-12397-ymczyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174441/original/file-20170619-12397-ymczyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/174441/original/file-20170619-12397-ymczyq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What needs to be done.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/wanderlust-204137011?src=bGkjrEwoSx2UauH7sG3AIw-1-44">Alex Pfeiffer</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In May, the Scottish government then launched the <a href="http://www.gov.scot/Publications/2017/05/1901">Missing Persons Framework</a>, with new guidance encouraging these kinds of professionals to conduct return discussions with the returned person. This applies to all missing people and has put Scotland at the forefront of prevention work. </p>
<p>The question now is whether this kind of guidance will be enough to change the statistics on missing incidents. If not, mandatory action may be required. It is time we recognised that coming home requires more than a glowing “media moment”. We need to work in new ways to reduce the chances of missing people disappearing over and over again.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/79594/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hester Parr receives funding from the ESRC. </span></em></p>99% of people who disappear come home again. A third of them don’t stay.Hester Parr, Professor of Human Geography, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/504102015-11-26T04:32:44Z2015-11-26T04:32:44ZSouth Africa isn’t managing mental illness, particularly for the poor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/103174/original/image-20151125-23833-afwxoy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A child from a special care centre in Cape Town celebrating international kite day. In South Africa mental health services are not a priority. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Epa/Nic Bothma </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Mental health conditions, disorders and diseases are rarely on the frontline of health regulations and international health agendas. But global institutions such as the World Health <a href="http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/89966/1/9789241506021_eng.pdf">Organisation</a> have been engaging with governments to improve mental health systems.</p>
<p><a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001178">Research</a> shows there are several barriers blocking improving mental health care. These include diminished civil society support, a lack of global consensus on mental illness and its treatment, missed policy opportunities and limited evidence on the delivery of mental health interventions.</p>
<p>But in the last two decades increased attention has been given to mental health as a global priority. Civil society has become more active. In addition, high impact journals such as <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1000160">PLoS Medicine</a> and <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/series/global-mental-health-2011">The Lancet</a> have raised the profile of mental health. </p>
<p>The new sustainable development goals have also put mental health and wellbeing firmly on the agenda, although there has been <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001846">criticism</a> that the goals fall short of their true potential. </p>
<p>It is estimated that globally between 12% and 48% of people suffer from mental <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1001178">disorders</a>. Over 70% of this burden lies in low and middle income countries. </p>
<p>In South Africa, as in many developing countries, mental health doesn’t feature as a public health <a href="http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2015-07-15-psychiatry-in-distress-how-far-has-south-africa-progressed-in-supporting-mental-health/#.VlWQR3YrLIU">priority</a>. In <a href="http://www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/south_africa_who_aims_report.pdf">rural</a> communities mental health is not supported at all. </p>
<p>One of the consequences is that trauma is common in South African society. This is evident from unusually high interpersonal <a href="https://africacheck.org/2014/09/17/comment-why-is-crime-and-violence-so-high-in-south-africa-2/">violence</a>, including homicide, rape and domestic violence.</p>
<h2>Low levels of care</h2>
<p>At least 15% of those interviewed for the South African Stress and Health <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18245026">Study</a> - the first nationally representative survey of psychiatric disorders in an African country - said they suffered from anxiety disorders. These could include obsessive compulsive disorder, post traumatic stress disorders and panic disorders. Nearly 10% suffered from mood disorders such as depression or bipolar disorders. Another 9% suffer from substance abuse disorders. Nearly a third of the respondents reported a lifetime history of at least one psychiatric disorder. </p>
<p>But only about a quarter of those who needed treatment were getting access. This is partly because expenditure on mental health is <a href="http://www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/south_africa_who_aims_report.pdf">pitiful</a>. On average, provinces spend less than 3% of their health budgets on mental health, mostly on psychiatric hospitals which, in any case, should be the last resort in the chain of treatment. </p>
<p>There are several other reasons for this dismal provision. These include:</p>
<ul>
<li><p><a href="http://www.who.int/mental_health/policy/services/integratingmhintoprimarycare/en/">vast distances</a> to access specialized services,</p></li>
<li><p>the chronic <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2499642">stigma</a> barrier in public health facilities, </p></li>
<li><p>inequality and poverty. People suffering from mental illness are caught in a “cycle of <a href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736%2811%2960754-X/abstract">poverty</a>”, which leaves little prospect of escape.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Where are the carers</h2>
<p>South Africa’s mental health <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19506789">workforce</a> is woefully inadequate. There are only 0.3 psychiatrists, 0.3 psychologists and 0.4 social workers for every 100 000 residents. <a href="http://www.who.int/mental_health/evidence/atlas/profiles/bra_mh_profile.pdf">Brazil</a> has 3.07 psychiatrists, 9.60 psychologists and 1.02 social workers for every 100 000 residents.</p>
<p>South Africa has 800 registered psychiatrists and nearly 8 000 psychologists, mostly working in private <a href="http://www.health-e.org.za/2015/10/12/mental-health-the-poor-neglected-stepchild/">health</a>.</p>
<p>Although the government has made significant strides creating <a href="http://www.health-e.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/National-Mental-Health-Policy-Framework-and-Strategic-Plan-2013-2020.pdf">policy</a> and passing <a href="http://www.gov.za/sites/www.gov.za/files/38182_rg10309_gon874_0.pdf">legislation</a> to provide mental health services, implementation has been a problem. This is because:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Most of the groups supporting people with mental disorders are non-profit organisations that survive on shoestring budgets. </p></li>
<li><p>A shortage of state resources for the specialised and complex needs of psychiatric disorders.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>There should be strong collaboration between the service providers, particularly non-profit organisations, and the private sector. This does not happen. </p>
<p>Recent developments are not promising. The Gauteng Department of Health <a href="http://www.gov.za/speeches/gauteng-health-terminates-life-healthcare-esidimeni-contract-21-oct-2015-0000">announced</a> it will end its contractual relationship with Life Healthcare – South Africa’s largest and longest running public-private partnership. This will result in more than 2000 patients with chronic mental illness being discharged from Life Esidimeni, which means “place of dignity”. </p>
<p>In the absence of proper community care, people who need care often end up homeless or in jail as has been shown in the <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6479924">US</a>. In addition, pressure increases on under-funded non-profit organisations.</p>
<h2>Glimmers of hope</h2>
<p>There are some promising initiatives in the pipeline to strengthen mental healthcare in the country and in parts of the continent. </p>
<p>This includes groups that empower practitioners and policy makers enabling them to <a href="http://www.cpmh.org.za/">lobby</a> for mental health services. There are also consortia that investigate cost effective <a href="http://www.affirm.uct.ac.za/">interventions</a> for mental health disorders, how to <a href="http://www.prime.uct.ac.za/">scale up</a> mental health services and enhance the health systems to deliver mental health services adequately. </p>
<p>The state has a responsibility to provide mental illness treatment and to promote mental health. But the reality is that it will need to tap into human resources from non-profit organisations as well as private sector funding. This collaboration can only happen if the state renews its focus on how it can deliver mental health services.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/50410/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>André Janse van Rensburg is affiliated with the University of Stellenbosch (Department of Political science) and Ghent University (Department of Sociology) as a doctoral candidate, and with the Centre for Health Systems Research & Development, University of the Free State, as a researcher.</span></em></p>While the global health community has made mental healthcare a priority, South Africa is not following suite. The impact is felt most acutely by poor people suffering from mental health disorders.André Janse van Rensburg, Researcher at the Centre for Health Systems Research & Development, University of the Free StateLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/459062015-08-11T13:43:35Z2015-08-11T13:43:35ZHow Jeremy Hunt’s seven-day NHS plans will punish social workers<p>Proposals to offer routine NHS England services seven days a week have already <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/doctors-declare-war-on-jeremy-hunt-over-weekend-working-myths-10431783.html">generated a backlash</a>. The plans may be driven by a desire to reduce the <a href="http://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/19/3/213.short">higher death rate</a> for patients admitted to hospital at weekends, but NHS workers have <a href="https://theconversation.com/iminworkjeremy-why-doctors-are-rejecting-jeremy-hunt-seven-day-roster-45117">expressed their frustration</a> at the apparent lack of recognition for their existing work.</p>
<p>But the implications of a seven-day NHS reach much further than healthcare employees. Local authorities are <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/5/contents">subject to fines</a> of more than £100 per day if they are responsible for delaying a patient’s discharge. Yet social workers often have very little time to make any arrangements a vulnerable patient might need upon leaving hospital. Depending on the type of referral, they could be given as little as 24 hours to ensure a safe discharge before the fine kicks in. A seven-day NHS would mean the pressure this puts on social workers would intensify.</p>
<p>Hospital social workers support the most vulnerable patients to leave hospital safely. Their work is varied but predominantly includes working with older people, individuals with dementia, physical or learning disabilities, terminal conditions and people who have suffered life-altering injuries. A social worker will meet with a patient, their family, carers and other professionals in the hospital to ensure they can safely and comfortably return home with adequate support.</p>
<p>This can include commissioning support workers, preparing the physical environment and ensuring the patient is emotionally prepared for life with increased care needs. Hospital social workers also have to assess patients’ ability to contribute to their care planning, something that can require time and a calm, relaxed environment (a luxury not always possible in a hospital).</p>
<h2>Growing delays</h2>
<p>Hospital social workers’ jobs are already getting harder. The number of delayed transfers out of hospital <a href="http://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2013/04/2014-15-Delayed-Transfers-of-Care-Annual-Report.pdf">has risen</a> from 9.6 in every 100,000 patients in 2013-14 to 11.2 in 2014-15. There is also a specific increase in the number of cases where social care is believed to be either entirely or partly responsible for this delay. Although these numbers may seem minimal to those outside the service, the increase represents the intense pressure that social care and social work staff are under following <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/04/1bn-further-cuts-to-social-care-will-hit-tens-of-thousands-say-experts">local government budget cuts</a>.</p>
<p>As a former hospital social worker in a pilot extended-hours team, I have seen consultants, doctors, nurses and heath care assistants working all hours in A&E departments and I can vouch for their commitment to their patients. However, increasing the levels of consultant cover on general admissions wards during weekends and evenings by association increases the expectation that patients will be discharged during this time.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91440/original/image-20150811-11107-xny59a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/91440/original/image-20150811-11107-xny59a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91440/original/image-20150811-11107-xny59a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91440/original/image-20150811-11107-xny59a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91440/original/image-20150811-11107-xny59a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91440/original/image-20150811-11107-xny59a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/91440/original/image-20150811-11107-xny59a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Paperwork problems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The knock-on effect of these plans will be that local authorities will either have to arrange social work cover during evenings and weekends or face even more fines. Both of these alternatives mean further spending in a time of long-term austerity.</p>
<p>And the impact doesn’t end there. Once the social worker has ensured a vulnerable patient is safe to be discharged, they also have to alert any care organisations already working with that patient and explain any changes needed in the level of care.</p>
<p>This will require some level of administrative support for these often small businesses to ensure staff can be contacted and coordinated at short notice. Some patients will also need new services commissioned, which again requires additional support workers to be located who can take on new clients at short notice. This is an unrealistic challenge for small businesses.</p>
<h2>Extra bureaucracy</h2>
<p>Many local authorities have introduced extra levels of approval before care packages can be commissioned, with managers now having to sign off care plans before they can be implemented. Previously, social workers have had the freedom to commission care without this level of authorisation. This additional bureaucracy was designed to ensure the money spent on care is essential to the patient. Is the expectation that social care management will now work extended hours to ensure this system continues? </p>
<p>Age UK estimates that there are [1.9 million people](http://www.ageuk.org.uk/Documents/EN-(GB/Factsheets/Later_Life_UK_factsheet.pdf?dtrk=true) accessing some type of social care provision in England. These are the people who are likely to be most affected by the seven-day NHS proposals, along with already overworked NHS staff, local authority social workers and support workers.</p>
<p>With a <a href="http://www.adass.org.uk/budget-survey-2015/">further £1.1bn</a> of cuts across the social care sector expected this year, a big question remains over how local authorities and care agencies will be able to fund an increase in their services to match a 24/7 NHS.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45906/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Pollock does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Making the NHS a seven-day service would intensify the pressure on the groaning social care system.Sarah Pollock, Lecturer in social work, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/450132015-07-22T11:29:06Z2015-07-22T11:29:06ZHow UK anti-terror guidance could violate children’s human rights<p>There are enormous dangers in the way child protection legislation in the UK intersects with Channel, the government’s <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/channel-guidance">anti-radicalisation programme</a>. There are only a few legal steps between the suggested interventions set out in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/425189/Channel_Duty_Guidance_April_2015.pdf">Channel guidance</a> and the possibility of a child being removed from their home because their family’s political views are unacceptable and don’t adhere to “British values”. </p>
<p>This runs the risk of violating the overriding principles of both domestic UK child protection law and children’s rights set down in the 1989 <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx">UN Convention on the Rights of the Child</a>. It <a href="https://cdt.org/blog/change-the-channel-how-uks-adoption-of-mandatory-anti-radicalization-program-violates-human-rights/">has also been argued</a> that it breaches the <a href="http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Convention_ENG.pdf">European Convention on Human Rights </a>. </p>
<p>This has happened in the recent past in countries such as <a href="http://www.errc.org/article/life-sentence-romani-children-in-state-care-in-hungary/3953">Hungary</a> and Argentina, also motivated by a desire to “save” children from harmful influences. Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, the Nobel laureate and human rights activist, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/world/americas/argentinas-daughter-of-dirty-war-raised-by-man-who-killed-her-parents.html">has pointed out</a> that both the Church and military in Argentina justified removing and placing children from political opponents for adoption as a necessary step to protect them from harmful influences. </p>
<h2>Alarm bells</h2>
<p>Channel is part of the government’s overall <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/97976/prevent-strategy-review.pdf">Prevent strategy</a> issued in 2011. While the statute does not refer to children or young people, guidance for the panels focuses almost entirely on interventions relevant to young people with only cursory references to “vulnerable” adults. Section 2 of the guidance <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/425189/Channel_Duty_Guidance_April_2015.pdf">states emphatically</a> that preventing “radicalisation” is a “protection” issue that may require action by social workers:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The way in which Channel will be delivered may often overlap with the implementation of the wider safeguarding duty, especially where vulnerabilities have been identified that require intervention from social services, or where the individual is already known to social services. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>It is precisely this overlap that rings alarm bells. Guidance does not clarify how the overlap with potential criminal prosecution will be managed. Nor does it set out how young people are to be protected from: “arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence … (and) unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation” – article 16 of the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/crc.aspx">1989 UN Convention of the Rights of the Child</a> which the UK has ratified.</p>
<p>The guidance recommends that if parental consent for the referral of a young person to a panel is not forthcoming and there are “vulnerabilities” in the home environment, it may be necessary for action by social workers under <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/part/III/crossheading/provision-of-services-for-children-and-their-families">section 17 of the Children Act 1989</a>, with the potential for intervention in their family life or for the compulsory removal of their child <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/section/47">under section 47</a> of the same act. </p>
<p>“Extremism” is defined in the guidance primarily as opposition to listed “fundamental” British values, as though the definitions of these values are undisputed and uncontested. To define unacceptable political views and expressions of dissent as child abuse is a dangerous step to take. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89224/original/image-20150721-24301-egjdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/89224/original/image-20150721-24301-egjdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89224/original/image-20150721-24301-egjdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89224/original/image-20150721-24301-egjdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89224/original/image-20150721-24301-egjdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89224/original/image-20150721-24301-egjdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/89224/original/image-20150721-24301-egjdz4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In extreme cases, children could be removed from families.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Adult and child hands via Deyan Georgiev/www.shutterstock.com</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Of course, removing children from their families to protect them from significant harm may sometimes be necessary. Enormous strides have been made in the detection and prevention of physical child abuse and recognition and understanding of child sexual abuse. There is now a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/175391/Munro-Review.pdf">substantial body of knowledge</a> about the nature and causes of child abuse and how it may be prevented. </p>
<p>None of this knowledge is evident in Channel guidance and it is misleading to imply that what is primarily a surveillance operation is intended to protect young people from harm.</p>
<h2>Extra pressure on social workers</h2>
<p>As Channel guidance is not a statutory duty but advice which authorities must have “regard”, it is hoped that social workers involved in using it will maintain the highest professional standards and integrity and ensure interventions are not instigated for political purposes. </p>
<p>However, in the <a href="http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2015/05/27/government-uses-queens-speech-advance-jail-plans-social-workers/">Queen’s speech</a>, the new Conservative government revealed that the <a href="http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200001/cmbills/031/2001031.htm">Police and Criminal Justice Bill</a> will pave the way to make a criminal offence of wilful neglect for professionals who fail to act on child protection concerns. It’s possible that this could mean social workers who resisted making a statutory intervention that was deemed necessary by a panel could be charged with wilful neglect. </p>
<p>Channel guidance conflates the abuse of children and young people with prevention of terrorism initiatives in gravely misleading ways. It also undermines the paramount principles regarding the welfare of children in both domestic legislation and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. </p>
<p>In its framework for assessing a child’s vulnerability, the Channel guidance identifies factors such as “a need for identity, meaning and belonging” and “a desire for political or moral change” as indicators of vulnerability to involvement in terrorism. Surely we want to educate our young people to strive for meaning and belonging, and surely political and moral change is a characteristic of human society. The Channel programme will not protect young people from becoming drawn into terrorist violence but by failing to respect the desire for justice, it <a href="https://theconversation.com/radicalisation-on-campus-why-new-counter-terror-duties-for-universities-will-not-work-43669">runs the risk of alienating</a> them further. The programme should be withdrawn.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45013/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Petrie does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Channel programme is meant to protect children, but it could be breaching their rights.Stephanie Petrie, Honorary Senior Research Fellow, School of Law and Social Justice , University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/328982014-10-31T03:29:16Z2014-10-31T03:29:16ZChild protection: how to keep vulnerable kids with their families<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63274/original/9kmngzrt-1414644577.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Social workers can successfully work with most families that find themselves in trouble without taking their children away.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-210400726/stock-photo-father-and-son-fixing-bike-in-summer-park.html?src=arvTCrurT8hEeA9Tm5z1tA-1-25">Nadezhda1906/Flickr</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After a long period of expansion in the number of children living in out-of-home care, most modern child protection systems around the world have been labouring to prevent such placements. Instead, they’re choosing to work more closely with families to safely maintain children in their own homes. </p>
<p>There are many reasons for this shift. First, taking someone’s children away from them has to rank as one of the most drastic, costly and intrusive acts a government can carry out. This is recognised by each state’s substantial protection of family rights. </p>
<p>Second, maltreatment takes many different forms, which can occur with differing frequency and severity. This ranges from relatively minor “one-offs” to repeated, severe and escalating instances of horrific abuse. The vast majority of cases investigated by child protection services would fall somewhere in between. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, except in the most obvious cases, methods for assessing the extent and severity of child maltreatment are <a href="https://theconversation.com/risky-business-how-protection-workers-decide-to-remove-children-from-their-parents-32679">fairly limited</a>. They can require substantial forensic skills that are not present in our workforce, and even these are prone to high rates of error. </p>
<p>Third, and most importantly, while placement in foster care might benefit some children, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-remove-kids-from-abuse-and-neglect-but-are-they-better-off-in-the-long-run-32686">overall outcomes</a> for children placed in care tend to be uniformly poor when compared to their peers. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.chapinhall.org/sites/default/files/ChapinHallDocument_1.pdf">Research from the United States</a> shows that children transitioning from out-of-home care into adulthood have high rates of homelessness, teen pregnancy, unemployment, justice system involvement and crime victimisation, while having lower rates of educational attainment. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63283/original/hqhc5qpp-1414646429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63283/original/hqhc5qpp-1414646429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63283/original/hqhc5qpp-1414646429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63283/original/hqhc5qpp-1414646429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=900&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63283/original/hqhc5qpp-1414646429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63283/original/hqhc5qpp-1414646429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63283/original/hqhc5qpp-1414646429.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1131&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The child protection system isn’t very good at addressing individual families’ vulnerabilities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-215551318/stock-photo-beautiful-mother-and-daughter-walking-to-school.html?src=wyj_2mTqbAQfgfrdudcAiw-1-10">Joana Lopes/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Although these outcomes cannot be attributed entirely to the foster care experience, it is probably safe to say that placing more children in out-of-home care is not a good idea.</p>
<p>That said, we’re not very good at supporting families that find themselves in trouble, particularly when their difficulties are related to conditions that are not of their own making. </p>
<p>Vulnerabilities related to poverty, social isolation, inter-generational issues around parenting skills, limited access to education, and mental and physical health issues top the list, as does the extensively documented, long-standing history of mistreatment of Aboriginal people whose children are now disproportionately placed in out-of-home care. </p>
<p>The next wicked problem for our taxpayer-funded system is how to move beyond the identification of child maltreatment to the prevention of government-funded out-of-home care. We have every reason to believe we can successfully work with most families, without taking their children away.</p>
<h2>Case model: SafeCare</h2>
<p>It’s important to note there are no magic bullets. But there are some good bets. These tend to come in the form of behaviourally focused, manualised programs that focus on specific and changeable features of child maltreatment. </p>
<p>One example from the US is <a href="https://www.childwelfare.gov/preventing/programs/types/safe_care.cfm">SafeCare</a>, an in-home parenting program for families with children aged up to five years who are involved with the child protection system for reasons of child neglect. </p>
<p>SafeCare’s 18 to 20 sessions employ a combination of training, modelling and behavioural rehearsal to help parents build the necessary skills for managing difficult child behaviour. This includes how to plan and execute daily activities, reduce hazards in the home and employ steps to prevent injury, and make appropriate health-care decisions. </p>
<p>SafeCare is one of the few programs that has been rigorously tested against normal, high-quality family services. The investigators observed significant and substantial gains in parenting skills as well as the prevention of subsequent substantiated child maltreatment reports, especially for first-time mothers. </p>
<p>A sub-group analysis of Native American families receiving the service showed similar gains up to six years after intervention – an encouraging finding for Australian Aboriginal families. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63282/original/tsynfr8t-1414646112.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63282/original/tsynfr8t-1414646112.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63282/original/tsynfr8t-1414646112.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63282/original/tsynfr8t-1414646112.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63282/original/tsynfr8t-1414646112.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63282/original/tsynfr8t-1414646112.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63282/original/tsynfr8t-1414646112.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Except in the most obvious cases, our methods for assessing the extent and severity of child maltreatment are fairly limited.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-195617255/stock-photo-red-headed-girl-with-red-haired-dog-eating-dog-biscuits.html?src=n1WB65E07z5x06N6K0O2_Q-6-45">S Curtis/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It also happens to be highly economical. The non-partisan <a href="http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/">Washington State Institute for Public Policy</a> uses a set of complex statistical analyses to rank the benefit-to-cost ratio of a wide range of public services. It ranks SafeCare highest among all effective child welfare services, with more than US$16 benefit for every dollar spent. </p>
<p>Although it is not clear from this publication exactly what makes SafeCare more cost-effective than the others, we can speculate. The program focus – child neglect – is expensive in the long run if not successfully resolved. SafeCare is also a structured, time-limited approach with a clear beginning and an end, so it’s not open-ended. </p>
<p>The approach also has a strong focus on supporting families through implementation of the program. </p>
<h2>Improving existing services</h2>
<p>Unfortunately, implementing new services isn’t enough; we also need to better align our child protection and family services systems. This requires breaking down existing barriers to implementing new approaches and modifying existing ones. </p>
<p>Impediments range from negative staff attitudes and limited experience with new approaches, to inflexible service models, perhaps tied to specific funding streams. There is also a lack of comprehensive, in-field support for the workforce, which is needed to build competence in the types of effective, behaviourally based strategies contained in SafeCare. </p>
<p>We need to re-create our child protection systems and infrastructure to meet the needs, circumstances and challenges of families coming through the child protection gateway. To do this, we must translate the best evidence into practice, routinely monitor outcomes and use this information to continuously improve service content and delivery. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63285/original/s9gx3hfm-1414646662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/63285/original/s9gx3hfm-1414646662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63285/original/s9gx3hfm-1414646662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63285/original/s9gx3hfm-1414646662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=756&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63285/original/s9gx3hfm-1414646662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63285/original/s9gx3hfm-1414646662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/63285/original/s9gx3hfm-1414646662.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=950&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Better understanding the problems will help drive evidence-based solutions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-157889258/stock-photo-boy-drawing-on-the-paper.html?src=9DI9VzUeD7Hb0cLzZeuw_A-1-7">jeep5d/Shutterstock</a></span>
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</figure>
<p>Individual states have begun to mine their vast stores of services data in an effort to understand the pathways that children and families take through the system. While still fairly limited, these data can be used to figure out what separates children who come into care from those who can safely remain with their parents. </p>
<p>Is it drug and alcohol use? Domestic violence? Harsh and coercive parenting? Insufficient economic support? Are they mostly very young children? Teenagers? </p>
<p>Gauging the extent of the problem allows us to better choose the focus and number of services needed within specific neighbourhoods or regions. It is far from easy to do this on a massive scale. </p>
<p>For now, we have to work hard while also being patient – not reaching out for the first program or idea – but investigating more fully the evidence for each problem that exists from international and Australian research studies, and how this fits within our various state and local systems. </p>
<p>This requires that we all – policymakers, practitioners, researchers, consumers and community members – come together to improve the system. We have the roadmap. We now need sustained, bipartisan support to make it happen.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>This is the ninth and final part of The Conversation’s series on <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/child-protection-in-australia">Child Protection in Australia</a>. Click on the links below to read the other instalments:</em></p>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/infographic-a-snapshot-of-australias-child-protection-services-33090">Infographic: a snapshot of Australia’s child protection services</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/abuse-and-neglect-australias-child-protection-crisis-32664">Abuse and neglect: Australia’s child protection ‘crisis’</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/risky-business-how-protection-workers-decide-to-remove-children-from-their-parents-32679">Risky business: how protection workers decide to remove children from their parents</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/we-all-have-a-role-in-protecting-children-end-the-silence-on-abuse-31281">We all have a role in protecting children: end the silence on abuse</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/we-remove-kids-from-abuse-and-neglect-but-are-they-better-off-in-the-long-run-32686">We remove kids from abuse and neglect, but are they better off in the long run?</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/complex-trauma-how-abuse-and-neglect-can-have-life-long-effects-32329">Complex trauma: how abuse and neglect can have life-long effects</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/foster-parents-need-more-support-to-care-for-vulnerable-children-32680">Foster parents need more support to care for vulnerable children</a></li>
<li><a href="https://theconversation.com/empowering-indigenous-communities-to-prevent-child-abuse-and-neglect-32875">Empowering Indigenous communities to prevent child abuse and neglect</a></li>
</ul><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/32898/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aron Shlonsky receives funding from a number of government contracts and council grants, but does not benefit financially or personally from any programs or services described in this article.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>The organisation Robyn Mildon works for receives funding from a number of government contracts and council grants, but she does not benefit financially or personally from any programs or services described in this article.</span></em></p>After a long period of expansion in the number of children living in out-of-home care, most modern child protection systems around the world have been labouring to prevent such placements. Instead, they’re…Aron Shlonsky, Professor of Evidence-Informed Practice, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of MelbourneRobyn Mildon, Director , Parenting Research CentreLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/310252014-08-29T13:13:35Z2014-08-29T13:13:35ZIn Rotherham blame game, media ignores those who did good work<p>Rotherham Metropolitan Council has released its <a href="http://www.rotherham.gov.uk/downloads/file/1407/independent_inquiry_cse_in_rotherham">independent report</a> on the handling of child sexual exploitation cases in the borough between 1997 and 2013. </p>
<p>The author of the report, Professor Alexis Jay, is an academic and former Chief Social Work Adviser to the Scottish government. Professor Jay has unquestionably produced an important report, which should leave us in no doubt that many young people in Rotherham were sexually exploited, with some also experiencing severe physical and emotional abuse. </p>
<p>Jay also makes clear that there were serious failings on the part of some officials; failings that allowed children to be abused and enabled their abusers to escape justice. </p>
<p>But as important and impressive as this report is, it is insufficiently balanced. In particular, it does not give enough attention to the broader context in which work to address child sexual exploitation (and child sexual abuse and child abuse more generally) is done.</p>
<h2>Facing reality</h2>
<p>For example, Professor Jay criticises a council official who had reportedly stated that “agencies need to retain a sense of proportionality with regard to child sexual exploitation, as it only actually accounts for 2.3% of the council’s safeguarding work in Rotherham”. </p>
<p>The report’s response is that “this is not an appropriate message for senior managers to give”. But it’s hard to see how else managers can be expected to cope in the face of excess demand and deeply inadequate resources. Surely they have to allocate resources according to levels of demand coming from different areas of their work. </p>
<p>She is right to add that child victims of sexual exploitation are at risk of “serious injury and harm” – but so too are many victims of physical abuse, emotional abuse and neglect, countless cases of which are known to agencies throughout the country.</p>
<p>Jay also suggests that the police (and other agency workers) did not deal robustly enough with suspects, the large majority of whom were of Pakistani heritage, for fear of being labelled as racists. Many in the media have <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2735194/Girls-young-11-doused-petrol-told-raped-next.html">seized upon this issue</a>, criticising the police for being “<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2736283/From-sex-abuse-gangs-jihadis-State-s-fear-racist-letting-evil-thrive.html">too PC</a>” – even though Jay’s claims, in fact, are very clearly <a href="http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/08/rotherham-fear-of-all-the-wrong-things-failed-1400-children/">qualified</a>. </p>
<p>The UK does, though, have a considerable problem with racism, in terms not only of our inter-personal relationships but also in the public sphere – and it is essential that agency workers should strive to ensure that they are not racist in the delivery of their services. Indeed, in the same week that the report came out, all police services in England and Wales agreed to adopt a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28923242">new code of conduct on the use of “stop and search” procedures</a>. That code was produced to address concerns that stop and search is being applied disproportionately to black and minority ethnic groups. </p>
<p>The police could be forgiven for being totally exasperated – one day accused of being racists, the next of being too politically correct.</p>
<h2>20-year trend</h2>
<p>My main criticisms are, however, directed at the media, large swathes of which have responded to the report with what can only be described as hysteria. </p>
<p>This is part of a trend over the last 10-20 years that has seen the media become ever more concerned with, and involved in, major child protection cases. </p>
<p>In principle, it is only right and proper that this has happened. Press coverage has over the years made a major contribution to child protection in the UK; in just one example, the investigative reporting of The Times’s Andrew Norfolk is <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28934963">widely credited</a> with uncovering the “scandals” in Rotherham and elsewhere in the country. </p>
<p>But the media’s response to the Rotherham report has been an altogether different matter, and has shown none of the requisite responsibility.</p>
<p>Excessive attention has been paid to the officials who are or were involved in child protection in Rotherham, with some calls for the wholesale dismissal of staff. It is, of course, quite appropriate for the media to scrutinise officials, and anyone found to have been grossly negligent in their work should of course face sanction. But the media seems to be wilfully overlooking the demands of due process and formal justice – precisely the things the perpetrators of the abuse in question escaped.</p>
<p>Much of the coverage also skates blithely over the fact that the bulk of the report’s complaints are directed at middle managers, and even more so senior ones. This is reflected in the subsequent anger at former director <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-28977821">Sonia Sharp</a> – now running education services in Victoria, Australia – and strategic director <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11060102/Rotherham-the-council-leaders-who-presided-over-child-abuse-scandal.html">Joyce Thacker</a>. But this overlooks the fact that the report singles out a wide range of front line staff for praise - among them residential social workers and voluntary sector youth workers.</p>
<h2>The bigger picture</h2>
<p>Most of the post-report furore has brazenly and irresponsibly failed to consider the broader context in which work to address sexual abuse and exploitation is carried out. This is at least touched in the report, but it seems the media was disinclined to take account of the sections that raise it. </p>
<p>The fact is that agencies involved in child protection face a massive and increasingly unmanageable workload. For example, and only last week, the Audit Commission announced that there had been a 12% increase, over the last four years, in the number of children taken into care. This is at the same time as local authorities and other agencies are <a href="http://www.familyandchildcaretrust.org/families-in-the-age-of-austerity">having to cut back their services</a> as a result of national government austerity measures – and it is an urgent problem.</p>
<p>Besides this, there has been scant effort to appreciate the difficulties agency workers face when they actually go about helping young people involved in or at risk of exploitation and abuse. Many of the children they encounter are not only vulnerable – they can also be extremely challenging to deal with, often as a result of the situations for which they require help in the first place. </p>
<p>While there has been widespread acknowledgement of the trauma the victims of exploitation and other abuse are likely to experience, inadequate attention is paid to the longtime <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/13/council-leaders-call-overhaul-childrens-mental-health-services">dearth of psychiatric and therapeutic services</a> for these children.</p>
<p>Most gratingly of all, even while rushing to jump on the anti-PC bandwagon, the media has paid no mind to the rife sexism – white and BME alike - that accounts for much of the sexual abuse of children (to say nothing of women) that takes place on a horrifying scale. </p>
<p>So, yes, agency workers should of course be held to account for failings in their practice. But it is essential that we examine all the myriad issues that are involved in responding to the sexual exploitation of children – and even more importantly, that we face up to the things that explain how that exploitation and abuse comes about in the first place.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Next, read: <a href="https://theconversation.com/cultures-of-all-kinds-let-children-down-in-rotherham-31040">Cultures of all kinds let children down in Rotherham</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/31025/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bernard Gallagher receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, The Nuffield Foundation, the Department of Health and the NSPCC.</span></em></p>Rotherham Metropolitan Council has released its independent report on the handling of child sexual exploitation cases in the borough between 1997 and 2013. The author of the report, Professor Alexis Jay…Bernard Gallagher, Reader in Social Work and Applied Social Sciences, University of HuddersfieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/277302014-07-31T09:25:04Z2014-07-31T09:25:04ZSocial workers should be paid and trained like doctors<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/53328/original/j8x2gb2m-1404833196.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Working out what's going on isn't as easy as it looks.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-158217437/stock-photo-son-and-father-answer-questions-of-a-social-worker-in-home.html?src=tprS2LVytUmxLh1HXmbPng-1-4">Social worker by Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Social workers <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-dont-like-the-idea-of-a-nasty-social-worker-do-you-15861">deal with messy</a>, complex and ambiguous situations where off-the-peg solutions are often irrelevant. Take a mother who wants to feed a hungry baby, but her fridge is empty because she can’t afford milk. How do you help her?</p>
<p>Understanding the structural lack of opportunity that some people have and the context of the society in which we live is crucial to recognising how to best help. This kind of work requires very special people to do it.</p>
<p>The profession is at a crossroads. New measures for training <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/blueprint-for-future-of-child-and-family-social-work-unveiled">have been unveiled</a>, following two recent reviews into improving social work education. One was <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sir-martin-narey-overhauling-childrens-social-work-training">by Martin Narey</a>, commissioned by government, and the other was an independent review <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/social-work-education-review">by David Croisedale-Appleby</a>. Both are worth paying attention to.</p>
<p>Croisdale-Appleby recommended a degree-based entry qualification that would promote a forward-looking profession underpinned by social science research. Social work, he said, should come with a proper career structure and a strong advocacy body that drives professional developments.</p>
<h2>Qualifying as a social worker</h2>
<p>Currently, qualifying programmes at bachelor and masters levels are confusing and they cannot cover all the subjects a social worker requires: psychiatry, psychology, sociology, policy, economics, political theory, research methods, statistics, and natural sciences. </p>
<p>Instead, we should have a model where a generic qualifying degree is obtained at bachelor level, leading to more specialism at masters and PhD level, much in the same way as doctors do. This would allow skill levels to be clearly defined and give time for social workers to practice in several fields before specialising through further degrees. This way, pay for higher qualifications and more complicated work would become both an incentive and a reward.</p>
<p>Doctoral study should also be compulsory for those who want to teach social work or manage agencies. Qualifications need to be clearly linked to career structures that nurture professionals throughout their careers, provide logical progression and tie education to occupational position, status and pay. We need to attract dedicated, well-qualified professionals to address daunting social problems that damage people, which also requires a regulatory body led by academics, practitioners and service users alongside a profession-led advocacy body.</p>
<p>So far, social work in England has failed on these counts because successive governments favour party-political agendas, professional and service-user voices are weak, regulatory regimes are inadequate and education is under-resourced.</p>
<h2>Skills to read context and nuance</h2>
<p>Poverty is so often an integral part of the lives of those who come into contact with social services but it doesn’t determine behaviour. People retain agency in their lives. But poverty denies them opportunities to do things differently and exacerbates conditions such as mental ill health. Poverty affects lone mothers, older women, and black and minority ethnic women more than anyone else. </p>
<p>Understanding this structural non-opportunity is crucial to recognising what people can do easily, and what they cannot achieve. Poverty is one relevant context. Domestic violence, sexism, racism are others. These do not excuse doing nothing. But exploring their impact on the behaviour of individuals and social problems is part of practising social work that is anti-oppressive. For example, understanding that a young black man is refusing to go to school in response to racial harassment and abuse there.</p>
<p>Poverty, violence, sexism, racism – all of these and others compound the messy and complex realities that social workers address in situations that are also very ambiguous. Addressing complexity is impossible in a techno-bureaucratic practice. It takes pragmatism, judgement and an understanding of how all these contexts and nuances fit together in people’s lives.</p>
<p>While being supportive and not excusing unacceptable behaviour, social workers also need to assume nothing, probe deeply, ask difficult questions; treat people as unique citizens with dignity, agency, rights and responsibilities, change behaviour, and hold governments accountable for failing to maintain the rights of marginalised groups. The fine balance between care and control is central to preventing child abuse, domestic violence and criminal acts.</p>
<p>Education must produce professionals capable of making fine judgements, using knowledge, experience and research effectively. The profession’s values, commitment to human rights and social justice promote professional excellence in specific situations that are adapted to unique individuals and social settings.</p>
<h2>Care and control</h2>
<p>Definitions of social work are contested. Mine has social workers interacting with people to enhance well-being, creating supportive environments to produce behavioural change. Practitioners operate in a political climate, constantly renegotiating power while remaining responsible for people’s right to take decisions, fulfil their potential and contribute to society. </p>
<p>But as it currently stands, social workers aren’t valued, are too easily blamed and not used or paid enough. This would be unheard of in other professions that are seen as skilled. Injecting a clearer sense of value into this profession, including in the very training we give, would positively impact society and those within it who are less fortunate, often through no choice of their own. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/27730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lena Dominelli is a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>Social workers deal with messy, complex and ambiguous situations where off-the-peg solutions are often irrelevant. Take a mother who wants to feed a hungry baby, but her fridge is empty because she can’t…Lena Dominelli, Professor in the School of Applied Social Sciences, Durham UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/259322014-05-06T05:21:28Z2014-05-06T05:21:28ZCreeping privatisation leaves social work fighting for its soul<p>Social work is at a crossroads. As the next election cycle begins, the country’s social workers are caught between two completely different visions of their profession. One is based on the ideal of a democratic mandate and community recognition; the other sees the job principally as a teachable set of management attributes.</p>
<p>On the one hand, a <a href="http://www.thefrontline.org.uk/frontline-graduate-programme">slick website littered</a> with magazine-style pictures of models acting the role of social workers, advertises for brand managers to promote the new Frontline education programme: an “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2014/mar/18/frontline-social-work-traning-scheme">officer class model</a>” of social work, supported by merchant banks and management consultancy companies and fronted by <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/11/josh-macalister-social-work-frontline">Josh McAllister</a>, a sharp-suited 26-year-old with no professional social work experience. </p>
<p>Frontline employs modern marketing methods, including paid student “brand managers” to promote it within institutions. The stated aim of its marketing campaign is to recruit “outstanding individuals” for their masters degree, which is not in social work itself but instead (and contentiously) in “social work leadership”.</p>
<p>On the other hand, there was the recent <a href="http://www.socialworkfuture.org/attachments/article/345/SWAN%20Conf%202014%20-%20flyer.pdf">Social Work Action Networks annual conference in Durham</a>, opened and closed by Heather Wood and Cathy King, two activists from the working-class movements of the North East. Now in their 70s and 80s, they are clearly both part of the communities they have represented, and of <a href="http://socialistworker.co.uk/art/37940/Social+Work+Action+Network+conference+calls+for+resistance+to+the+cuts">a broader radical culture</a>. After asking social work delegates if they are “sitting comfortably”, they then reminded them that they certainly shouldn’t be in a climate of poverty, cuts and austerity.</p>
<p>The growing tensions in both social work education and practice are part of broader policy struggles over the role of private providers in public services; and of the mission of social workers and their relationship with the communities they serve and work in – or the private companies they work for and promote.</p>
<h2>Creating an officer class</h2>
<p>Taught in UK universities since 1908 and with more than 100 undergraduate and postgraduate courses currently on offer, social work has long been an established discipline in the UK. Given the extensive provision of education for the sector, the Frontline programme makes very little sense as just another education provider. However, a closer look at the management consultancy and other linked business sponsors of Frontline shows that it makes complete sense as a support programme for the privatisation of social work.</p>
<p>These are the same business and political sponsors which supported the <a href="http://www.teachfirst.org.uk/">Teach First</a> programme – which Frontline boss McAllister <a href="http://notsobigsociety.wordpress.com/tag/josh-mcalister/">took part in</a> – and the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/apr/07/schools-last-minute-budget-cut">defunding of local authority education departments</a>. The Russell Group graduates who have been targeted by Frontline’s fast-track graduate programme are intended to provide an “officer class” of future senior managers and a graduate group supposed to be more amenable toward the rapid privatisation of public social work and care services. </p>
<p>The 80% <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/graylings-reckless-probation-privatisation-threat-public-safety">privatisation of public sector Probation Services</a> this year provides a template for the much larger intended privatisation of local government social work services for vulnerable children and their families.</p>
<p>Frontline, while being <a href="http://martinwebber.net/?p=1202">largely rejected</a> by the profession itself and <a href="http://www.hpc-uk.org/assets/documents/100045CDEnc01-AppreportFrontlinePGDipSWpostETC.pdf">recently criticised</a> by the regulator for misleading advertising and major programme problems is <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2502035/Micheal-Gove-Social-workers-transformed-life.html">actively supported</a> by the education minister, Michael Gove. It is predicated on the neo-con idea that what is needed to drive service improvement is not adequate funding, partnership with clients or democratic control, but rather a special type of leader within the profession who will innovate and transform child protection and other services. </p>
<p>This almost religious emphasis on leadership and “transformational management” (transformation from what and to what is never quite clear) forms part of a recognisably conservative political programme to radically reduce public services across all sectors and replace them with private provision.</p>
<h2>Services at breaking point</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, underfunded services are reaching crisis point. In a <a href="http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2013/11/19/community-care-survey-exposes-rising-thresholds-leaving-children-danger/">recent major survey</a>, 88% of social work respondents reported that austerity measures within their councils have left children at increased risk of abuse. Some 73% of respondents said they lacked the time, support or resources to prevent children from experiencing serious harm. Half of child protection workers said they had come under pressure to reclassify “child protection” cases as “child in need” cases – a less serious category – therefore requiring less expensive intervention. </p>
<p>In a particularly sobering example, Coventry City Council <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/poll/2014/mar/21/social-workers-caseloads-increasing-poll">recently revealed</a> that workloads in Children’s Services have increased by almost 50% in the past two years.</p>
<p>Recent linked Conservative policy “innovations” include <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/sir-martin-narey-overhauling-childrens-social-work-training">reports into social work education</a> by the former chief of the prison service and Barnado’s, Sir Martin Narey. The apparent aim is to produce a less socially critical professional curriculum; this goes hand-in-hand with the <a href="http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2012/11/02/government-to-appoint-two-chief-social-workers-not-one/">appointment of chief social workers</a>, who are for the first time being given the power to define the role of social work by direct government dictat rather than expert debate.</p>
<p>Two politically and culturally diametrically opposed groups offer us two very different visions of the future of social work: social work as a modern profit-orientated business, or as a community-involved, democratically controlled public service. The tension between these two different models is stretching the former liberal consensus of the profession to breaking point.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/25932/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Terry Murphy is affiliated with the Social Work Action Network and is a Labour party member .</span></em></p>Social work is at a crossroads. As the next election cycle begins, the country’s social workers are caught between two completely different visions of their profession. One is based on the ideal of a democratic…Terry Murphy, Senior Lecturer Social Work, Teesside UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/209332013-12-03T06:21:55Z2013-12-03T06:21:55ZBlame game rippling through social work fails kids at risk<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/36675/original/vdv8zhfk-1385980242.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C3%2C2296%2C1549&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Former Haringay director Sharon Shoesmith was awarded a six-figure sum for unfair dismissal.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PA/Dominic Lipinski</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Child protection social workers appear in the media for all the wrong reasons. Most of the time, after a child abuse inquiry, they’re blamed for not doing enough or for acting too hastily and removing children without real cause. The pressure leaves many social workers feeling they’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t.</p>
<p>I used to work in frontline social work. Over the years I became increasingly paranoid about the decisions I made and started to feel I was focusing less on the families I was working with and more on ticking all the boxes. I became overly concerned with what the organisation thought about the way I practised than the needs of the child and my main priority seemed to be ensuring I would never be blamed for making the “wrong” decision. </p>
<p>It’s a common experience. An MPs report into <a href="http://cdn.basw.co.uk/upload/basw_90352-5.pdf">the state of social care</a> is being published today in response to serious concerns raised by social workers about difficult conditions, low status and the impact this has on vulnerable people in their care.</p>
<h2>Similar dilemmas, diverse reaction</h2>
<p>The professional dilemmas facing social workers in different countries aren’t always that different – a child who is being abused by a parent, for example, can be found in any number of places. But the systems in which they work and the way their work is viewed is hugely diverse – something I have since discovered researching different cultural factors that affect how social workers see themselves and their jobs. </p>
<p>In the late 1990s Andrew Cooper and Rachel Hetherington carried out some <a href="http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Protecting_Children.html?id=calpQgAACAAJ&redir_esc=y">revealing research</a> into social work across Europe. They found social workers who were revered for the work they did – not just by society but by governments and the media. They found this led to social workers who felt confident about the way they practised and which enabled better relationships between the professional and the family.</p>
<p>More recently, I carried out <a href="http://qrj.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/04/05/1468794113481794">my own research</a> that compared social work in the north of England and Flanders, Belgium. Based on observations and interviews of professionals working in child protection facing similar everyday issues, I was able to see what kind of an impact blame culture was having.</p>
<h2>Everyone loses</h2>
<p>In the UK, it became apparent very early on that the fear of making mistakes and failing the public particularly affected those at the top of the organisation. People like Sharon Shoesmith, the former head of Haringey Council children’s services in London who was sacked over the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/society/baby-p">Baby Peter scandal</a> and has faced <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/baby-p/10424062/Sharon-Shoesmith-villain-Victim-Or-someone-who-got-it-wrong.html">intense media scrutiny</a> then and since. </p>
<p>But I found blame doesn’t stop at senior managers. When an organisation starts malfunctioning it only encourages everyone to start blaming each other. The blame culture that exists outside the profession only serves to create a blame culture within it. When a decision needs to be made, or one that has been made is questioned, no one wants to take responsibility for it for fear of what might happen in the future if its found to have been the wrong call. </p>
<p>In Belgium they did things differently. Accountability – accepting that mistakes happen and trying to see what can be learned from them instead of looking where to place blame – was an activity that was very much embedded in their culture. The space and environment that social workers worked in was also much more welcoming and offices were intentionally located above a school so that clients didn’t feel intimidated when they visited.</p>
<p>These differences made a huge impact. Social workers were proud of their profession and the families they worked with seemed much more comfortable with them. The professionals’ creativity and being able to reach out to clients seemed to have such a positive effect.</p>
<h2>Hierarchy and power</h2>
<p>In the UK, there are hierarchies, power imbalances and it’s all very oppressive. Not only are social workers demonised by the government, society and the media but service users are also stigmatised, with families having to enter fortress-like buildings to see their social worker. In some agencies they even have to talk to the receptionist from behind glass windows; not great if you want to tackle some people’s idea that it is an “us” and “them” situation.</p>
<p>It would also help if senior managers recognised the impact they had on staff further down the hierarchy. If those at the top were to address their own negative behaviour it could be vital in reducing the “pointing the finger” mentality social workers face.</p>
<p>The stories that we read in the news and see on TV can be harrowing. They make us angry, upset and make us question what we could have done. There are always things that could have been done differently. But pointing the finger hasn’t meant they don’t happen again. Instead we need to be more constructive about why they happened and strengthen “the system” that let these children down.</p>
<p>My findings demonstrate how societal and political ideologies can permeate organisations – to no-one’s benefit, least of all the children who need help from social workers. Uninformed politicians who have no professional experience of what social work is about do very little to help by persistently damning everything social workers do and stoking the flames. We can’t forget that they have their own agendas too. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/20933/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jadwiga Leigh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Child protection social workers appear in the media for all the wrong reasons. Most of the time, after a child abuse inquiry, they’re blamed for not doing enough or for acting too hastily and removing…Jadwiga Leigh, Senior Lecturer, Edge Hill UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.