Thank God for Social Workers - a response

'Action for Children' a major child care charity has drawn people's attention to a campaign called "as long as it takes", which catalogues spasmodic development of social policy over the years with no real sense of incremental and embedded change. Many changes in policy have sprung into legislation and guidance as a result of a tragedy somewhere in the country. Such tragic circumstances as surround the serious injury or worse still the death of a child/young person are clearly very upsetting for all professionals. It needs to be recognised, however, that it is not care professionals that commit acts against children and at worst it may be acts of omission that they may make that doesn't help fully protect some children.

Having spent many hours trying to reason with parents - and even longer trying to gain access to see children in the past - it needs to be said that caregivers are not stupid and can do many and various things to help throw professionals off the scent, and that is all professionals. The protection of children is a multi-agency responsibility and there is no hidden agenda in the guidance document when it talks of "Working together to safeguard children" - professionals working with families and with each other to try to minimise the risk.

Looking back over nearly 40 years I remain proud to have been a social work professional. I can recall a number of families where I have patiently worked to help families improve the standard of care given to their children and stay together. I can also recall families where I have taken a much more swift approach and convinced the court that care and ultimate permanence by way of adoption or special guardianship is the best way forward. Over the years the task has become increasing more complex and government targets and cumbersome databases has taken many social care professional away from the necessary work directly with families.

As care staff continue to battle with such difficulties another child somewhere is injured or killed and with it yet again bad press. Social workers are once again demonised. It is little wonder that the profession is not viewed enthusiastically by young people seeking a future career. Why would they want to come into a profession that exists in a culture where "you're damned if you do and your damned if you don't", Local authorities across the UK often struggle to keep staff at the sharp end and compete with each other in offering higher salaries and other inducements to tempt staff to join their workforce. This leaves some local authorities with inexperienced staff trying to do their best and often frontline social workers working long hours to try to fit it all in.

I applaud this article and I know from first hand experience that there are many people who have had their lives changed for the better by their involvement with social workers. There will sadly always be tragic situations which slip through but social workers and indeed their managers need support and understanding not criticism. And when things do go wrong and there is a need to find out why then I ask that that experience be one which looks to learn lessons for the future and not as a means to publicly denounce the profession as ineffective and seeking for heads to roll.