by Andrew Holman
So Valuing People Now faces yet another delay. As I had predicted, Ivan Lewis wasn't going to keep his job as the minister responsible for implementing the new policy, he was shipped sideways at the last cabinet shuffle and the new bloke wants a rewrite.
by Allan Norman
So, you are satisfied that the child is likely to suffer significant harm, and that a care order is appropriate. Inconveniently, the child's clear preference is to stay with her mother. Hardly a unique situation. What do you do?
This was the situation in Re H (a child) [2008] EWCA Civ 1245 (25 September 2008). The mother was found, among other things, to have exposed the child to emotional harm, and to witnessing the violence that existed between mother and her carer, and to be incapable of meeting the child's emotional needs. The judge said that the child's wishes had to be respected, but were not determinative. The care order was made.
By Gary Fitzgerald
by Allan Norman
I had a sense of déjà vu as I read the decision of the Care Standards Tribunal in the appeal of Tricia Forbes published last week, see Forbes v General Social Care Council [2008] EWCST 1267(SW) (03 October 2008). I have previously commented on the tribunal's decision earlier this year in respect of Lisa Arthurworrey.
I might have called it indicative of a trend: certainly, these are not the only social workers who have been flailing at the deep end with insufficient experience to manage allocated child protection cases; sadly, they are not the only ones to have been let down by systems of management and supervision that should have been there to support them; tragically, they are not the only ones left to take the rap for child protection tragedies.
By Helen Bonnick
By Melinda Phillips
by Allan Norman
In an idle moment, I reviewed the job titles offered by the nearly 300 delegates to BASW England's conference last week. It's less than scientific, but I reckon to have found 131 different job titles, or one for every 2.3 delegates.
Startlingly, just 29 of those titles appeared to be protected titles. To put it another way, that's 78% of the job titles that fall outside of the scope of the protection of title provisions in section 61(1)(a) of the Care Standards Act 2000.
By Nigel Leaney
by Allan Norman
Last week, l watched Esther Rantzen take on what the programme writers decided to label "the PC brigade".
Now I know I am writing for a social work audience, and I have seen the controversy generated by her documentary elsewhere. Nonetheless, I am going to take as my starting point that we can agree that her central thesis is correct. That is, that our society is developing in a direction where we fear interacting with children, and where we are suspicious of those who do interact with children. And that this direction is harmful to children, including to effective protection of children from real harm.
by Andrew Holman by Allan Norman
The event, Believe in me!, at Stafford Gatehouse Theatre last week, lived up to its promise.
Which is quite something, because what it promised - and delivered - was a somewhat eclectic event about the portrayal of social work in the media.
Among those there rubbing shoulders were social work practitioners, and social work's detractors. Journalists, politicians and a budding actress. School pupils and professors. Children with experience of the care system, and grandparents aggrieved at losing their grandchildren to the same system. Would-be social workers, and would-be journalists.
Direct payment users treasure their relationships with their personal assistants, but can feel uncomfortable on pay dayby Helen Bonnick
As more women enter the jobs market, the burden of care upon them can be reduced by helping more men become carers, write academics Hilary Land (far left) and Susan Himmelweit
by Allan Norman
A colleague of mine recently decided to retire from social work after more than 40 years of service. She wrote to the General Social Care Council, to advise them of her decision, and took the opportunity to thank them for their role in developing the profession of social work - recalling while doing so that she was one of the last tranche of members of what was then the Institute of Almoners.
In return, she received a letter which confirmed her "request to be removed" from the register, and told her that her last known employer would be informed. The letter went on - citing chapter and verse - to explain that she would be committing a criminal offence if she held herself out as a social worker once she was no longer registered.
