Director appeals for culture training for social workers

Social work training does not include enough teaching on
cultural issues, according to a social services director,
writes Sally Gillen.

Leicester council director Andrew Cozens told delegates at a
conference run by charity Africans Unite Against Child Abuse, that
he hoped the three-year degree would give cultural sensitivities a
stronger focus.

He said: “I do not think social work training routinely
prepares students for work in a city like Leicester.”
The east Midlands city has a 52 per cent black and minority ethnic
school population.

It was important for social workers to understand the limits of
their knowledge, but also be aware of where they could find
information about different cultures, Cozens said.

He said many councils, especially those with a predominantly
white population, had not “the first idea” about where
to locate information on different cultures.