The social work profession needs a stronger public voice, say practitioners…
16th June 2011
85% of social workers say they are poorly represented, and have called for greater support for the profession. These findings come from Liquid Personnel’s own survey of almost 600 practitioners in social work jobs throughout the UK.
Our respondents were extremely passionate about the need for a strong public voice, and the need for more positive coverage of social work in the media; one social worker commented:
“Social work needs a positive voice to speak up for it, for example saying how many children and vulnerable adults are SAVED by social workers. Our PR is a disgrace!”
We asked social workers which body or person should be responsible for standing up for professionals and representing their interests:
- 42% said it should be BASW (The British Association of Social Workers)
- 15% said this was the responsibility of the Government
- 13% said a ‘Chief Social Worker’ (a new role which is being proposed)
- 11% said the College of Social Work
Liquid’s managing director, Jonathan Coxon had this to say:
“We all recognise the need for more positivity in the profession, but it’s now time for affirmative action. Organisations such as BASW and the College of Social Work have a real opportunity to begin making a difference for social workers on the frontline.”
“Negative stories will always grab the headlines, and its frustrating that social work’s good news stories will rarely make the front page. But changing the public perception of the profession is not just a PR exercise; it can only come from meaningful investment and reform.”
“At Liquid, we will continue to do our utmost to recognise social workers’ contributions, and to share positive stories about the profession.”
Since these results were released, the findings have been published by Community Care and drawn comment from several key industry figures…
Hilton Dawson, chief executive of BASW, said: “If the 42% of social workers who quite rightly think that BASW should stand up for the profession joined us that would mean we’d have 30,000 more members and £4.8m more to spend on representation and services.”
Maurice Bates, interim co-chair of the College of Social Work, said: “The College is in the early stages of its development, but we already have nearly 7,000 prospective members and are just beginning to demonstrate to social workers that our role is to represent them and stand up for the profession.”
For more information about the survey and its results, please contact us today.
For more headlines from the 2011 social work survey, please click here
