By Emma Maier
As Joanna Lumley will tell you following her recent success over settlement rights for Gurkhas, individuals can make a difference. And you don't have to be famous either. From universal suffrage to the rejection of animal testing on cosmetics, many legal and societal changes have been a direct result of people power.
Public perceptions of social work are no different. Negative media coverage and low public esteem may seem ingrained. But they can be altered - if enough social workers speak out.
Our Stand Up Now for Social Work campaign is working to improve media coverage and public perceptions of social work. We have got numerous supporters on board, from Unison and BASW to Adass and government representatives. Not to mention individual social workers.
I'm pleased to say that we have had some success - we've had positive experiences speaking with journalists from the national media and there are some positive social work stories in the pipeline.
But to make a really siginficant change we need all social workers to act. It doesn't have to be anything huge - if everyone does something it all adds up.
So what will you do? Please take a moment to make a pledge to act and then send your first name, town and pledge to comcare.campaign@rbi.co.uk or share your pledges on CareSpace, our discussion forum.
Need some ideas? Below are some suggestions...
- Ask 10 people to sign Community Care's petition for improved media support for social
workers at: www.communitycare.co.uk/petition - Ask your MP to sign EDM 692 in support of social workers
- Take the time to explain to people you meet what your role as a social worker involves, so as to promote public understanding of your profession
- Next time you see an inaccurate story about social work in your local paper, write a letter to the editor to correct the error
- Ask your director what he/she is doing to Stand Up Now for Social Work in your local area
- Talk to colleagues and your director about how you can better share positive images of
social work in your area with the local media - Offer to talk at the local school careers day to explain to students what social workers
do and how rewarding it can be, so as to promote better understanding of the profession
Send your pledge along with your first name and town to comcare.campaign@rbi.co.uk or share your pledges on CareSpace, our discussion forum.
How come Community Care never mentions SWAN (Social work activist network) in its evaluation about the voice of social workers.
We are holding a conference at the University of Bath Thursday and Friday 10th and 11th September 2009, “Social Work in a time of crisis”. For further details email me at phillwheatley@live.co.uk
In addition SWAN has local regional representation
(SWAN) http://www.socialworkfuture.org/
We have contacted SWAN in the past in relation to the Stand Up Now for Social Work campaign and we think that SWAN is a really helpful initiative.
There is a clear need for a "voice" for the profession - media coverage would be much improved if there were a high-profile body that the press was familiar with and could go to for speedy response on social work stories.
There are a number of contenders, and SWAN is among them. Though at the moment I would argue that the press is less familiar with SWAN than the likes of Unison or BASW. SWAN, like the profession as a whole, needs to raise its profile.
The starting point is for social workers to take the initiative and start talking up their vital role in society. That's why we're asking for social workers and organisations like SWAN to make a pledge to act today.