by Nora DuckettIt will have skipped no reader's attention that social work is facing a major crisis and experiencing an unprecedented level of scrutiny from MPs to agony aunts, each with their own ideas about social work's failings, how it should operate and how it should pay for its perceived failures. What is missing from all this is the voice of social workers themselves and without a voice social work is in a very weak position, and unable to fight for itself how can it possibly fight for those it aims to represent; the disenfranchised and the marginalised.
On the 4th July Social Work Action Network (SWAN) London and London Metropolitan University will be hosting a regional conference entitled Social Work: Finding a Voice. SWAN London is a small group of practitioners, academics and students who, having attending a National SWAN event at Liverpool Hope University in 2008, felt inspired to come together to consider what was happening to the profession in London, the implications for people who use social work services and what we could do to help empower social workers to do their jobs well.
Have your say
Holding a conference is one way social workers can have their say and specifically through providing opportunity for individuals to air their frustrations and satisfactions and to talk about what is working and what is not. It will also provide an opportunity to think together about how to move forward. The conference theme of finding a voice is echoed through the choice of invited speakers: Liz Davies, author and academic and Phil Frampton, author and former child in care, and both long time media collaborators, to talk about social work having a voice through the media. Hilton Dawson, CEO of the British Association of Social Workers and former MP, to let the conference know about parliamentary process and how, for example, social workers might be able to get a question asked in Parliament and Roger Kline, a lifetime trade unionist, to consider a voice through trade union activity.
Reignite the fight
Ultimately the conference is a way of listening to and valuing social work and social workers and in so doing to reignite the fight in social workers to achieve the profession's shared values of human dignity and worth, social justice, service to humanity, integrity and competence.
Nora Duckett, senior lecturer in social work
Details about SWAN conference
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