By Mike McNabb
How many Daily Mail readers were at Community Care Live? The safe answer is "not many". The bold answer is "quite a few". Perhaps I am about to commit mass libel, but some social workers must read it, even in a covert operation by candlelight.
I was prompted to ponder this because if there was one topic I felt sure would come up at our Question Time session yesterday, chaired by BBC presenter Jeremy Vine, it was about how to answer the rough ride social work gets in that less than esteemed organ.
Away from the clandestine cabal that stuffs the Mail inside their Guardians - and perhaps some Mail readers secrete their copy of Community Care into their paper of choice - the liberal left was very much in evidence at Question Time.
Perhaps complacency is a feature of liberal thought, something that manifested itself most obviously in a question about social worker safety. One member of the audience who worked for a council bemoaned the lack of mobile phones, surely an oversight on the employer's duty of care. But another professional said the threat of violence was a reflection of the lack of respect social work garners in the UK.
A question that the liberal left needs to answer is why there are so few black people in senior social work positions. You would have thought the panel would have had a few ideas. They didn't. Still, if in doubt say something about glass ceilings. They did.
A different interpretation of liberalism came to the fore when discussion moved on to social workers' conduct and inappropriate relationships. Plenty of hands went up (ooh, er) and Vine capped it by seeking the views of "two people against the wall" (ooh, er). It all seemed very, well, appropriate.
And when the panel was asked whether they would be happy seeing out their later days in a care home the very thought aged many of them prematurely. No, they all agreed, no way. I wonder how most of them will feel in 40 years. Perhaps we could reconvene in the auditorium and ask: "Would you like the see out the rest of your days with individual budgets, hiring and firing of staff and arranging working conditions of those you hire or would you prefer to live in the care home?".
Moreover, "have you started reading the Daily Mail?".
Chair BBC presenter: Jeremy Vine
Shaun Bailey, co-founder of My Generation, a charity that helps disaffected and drug-addicted young people in west London,
Sue Bott, strategic director of the National Centre for Independent Living
Stephen Burke, chief executive of Counsel and Care, which gives advice to older people,
Naomi Eisenstadt, director of the Social Exclusion Task Force,
Mark Ivory, executive editor of Community Care,
Paul Snell, CSCI chief inspector,
Polly Neate, NCH
Howard Woolfenden, managing director of children¹s homes provider northerncare,