The Department of Health has launched its annual recruitment campaign in adult social care with a series of TV and print adverts.
Potential care workers in England are being urged to "help people get more out of their lives - and get more out of your own".
A social worker who allegedly had sex with a service user and took her and her family on holiday faces misconduct charges.
Leslie Healey is accused of forming a relationship with the woman in 1998, making a personal loan to her and/or her family of around £5,000 and acting as her child's godparent - therefore breaching professional boundaries.
A social worker who took confidential work documents away from her office on a USB memory stick has been admonished by the Northern Ireland Social Care Council.
Mary Nash admitted to taking the documents and failing to keep them secure. A NISCC conduct committee decided a five-year admonishment on her record was an appropriate sanction, as she does not pose a risk to the public.
The Daily Mail is pretty choosy when it comes to deciding which members of the caring professions to support.
Doctors, and especially paediatricians, are revered by the middle England tabloid.
Britain's social workers, on the other hand, find themselves on the wrong end of two (equally negative) conflicting stereotypes. They are either portrayed as woolly-minded incompetents or members of an SS-style militia intent on destroying families' lives.
A social worker was stalked for more than six years by a man she visited as part of a mental health assessment team.
The service user, Richard Jan, made numerous silent phone calls to social worker Shauna Bailey, attempted to torch her car and twice assaulted her, once beating her face repeatedly with a brick. Read more
This is an extreme case, but it raises interesting questions about whether stalking and prolonged abuse is a widespread problem. If so, what is being done to support social workers? Is abuse like this being properly recorded?
Have you ever been stalked by a service user? Have your say on CareSpace
by Daniel Lombard
The UK government has agreed to formally recognise Workers Memorial Day, an international day of commemoration for people who have been killed or injured at work, on 28 April.
The decision follows a campaign by Unison to improve safety for social care workers on behalf of its 350,000 members in the sector.
Social care workers will have to pay £64 to register with the Independent Safeguarding Authority after the new vetting and barring system is launched in the autumn.
Anyone who works with children and vulnerable adults in England, Wales and Northern Ireland on a "frequent or intensive" basis must register in order to comply with the law.
Hilton Dawson, the chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, has mounted a typically robust response to a debate on our CareSpace forum about BASW's involvement in the national college of social work. A social worker stole £33,000 over a year from a mentally ill man she was supposed to be looking after.
Jeanette Breedon, 50, was jailed for 15 months at Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester having admitted four counts of theft at a previous hearing.
I was surprised by the muted reaction on CareSpace to the latest decision to freeze pay for all council staff, including the lowest-paid workers.
Comments ranged from "I'm just glad to be in a secure job" to "I suppose we don't have much choice". Only one CareSpace user was up in arms.
| Community Care Inform is a subscription-based online reference tool from the publishers of Community Care magazine for social care professionals working with children, young people and their families.
For more information click Here. |
