The other day I met a social worker. I know, big news for a social work
journalist, eh?! But, given that we meet outside work, the surprising thing was she admitted to me that
she was a social worker in the first place. I have seen people get
verbally harangued by ordinarily reasonable strangers at parties for
simply admitting that fact. 
This week is National Care Leavers' Week.
Organisations such as the Care Leavers' Association, Voice and the National Care Advisory Service are hoping to raise awareness of the issues (still) facing young people as they leave care - like finding suitable accomodation, beginning employment/training/further education and receiving continued emotional support.
by Adam McCullochJason Owen, the lodger at Peter Connelly's home who was jailed following the child's death, has won his appeal against his indeterminate sentence, according to the BBC.
More on this story to come on the Community Care website.
Adult social work teams across England are enjoying high levels of morale, a top civil servant has claimed.
Glen Mason, director of social care performance and leadership at the Department of Health, told Community Care that despite adult directorates struggling with average vacancy rates of 12%, the mood across the country was positive.
Yesterday I went to a screening of Hell's Pavement, Andy Kemp's impressive directorial debut about a young girl growing up in foster care.
Authentic, provocative and based entirely on true events this docu-drama style film stays with you, as uncomfortably as it is intended to. The team behind Hell's Pavement - many of whom have personal and/or professional experience of foster care - want to ignite national debate about the UK care system.
Be brave, be open and be on TV. That was the message from Kim Bromley-Derry this week when he said, with a lively grin, that social workers need a Police, Camera, Action style show all of their own.
But the ADCS president was making a serious point. He asked his audience at the National Children and Adult Services conference in Harrogate to consider how cop shows like Police, Camera, Action had "demystified" police work, and improved the force's public profile.
Barry Sheerman, chair of the children, schools and families committee,
said so after Balls appointed Maggie Atkinson as children's
commissioner despite opposition from MPs. That was on Monday.
Cornwall Council's chief executive Kevin Lavery has done a video interview with the BBC (towards the bottom of the article), responding to the damning report issued by Ofsted today about the council's children's services department.
Is Lavery's PR as "inadequate" as Ofsted says his department is? Take a look...
An aid to children's secretary Ed Balls has already been in contact with BASW chief executive Hilton Dawson following their heated exchange this morning.
Children's secretary Ed Balls has accused social workers of of "barking up the wrong tree" when they blame excessive bureaucracy for keeping them away from the front line.
At the National Children and Adult Services Conference just now Balls was asked by a member of the audience whether he was going to stand back and stop imposing "heavy handed, bureaucratic responses" on social workers, which stop them spending time on the front line.
Kim Bromley-Derry believes the fault lies with managers when it comes to disgruntled social workers. In a recent article in the Telegraph flagged up by Community Care blogger Simeon Brody, the chair of the Association of Directors of Children's Services said it was "not uncommon" for over-worked social workers to become vindictive.
Disabled people will be allowed to keep their disability living allowance but pensioner's attendance allowance may still be replaced under plans announced by secretary of state for health, Andy Burnham.
Speaking to the national children and adult services conference in Harrogate Burnham also promised to bring in age discrimination legislation for health and social care at the same times as other sectors
Full story to follow.
Lynda Bellingham, Oxo mum, Strictly Come Dancing star and one of ITV's Loose Women, is standing up for social care.
The actress grabbed the microphone back at the end of the National Children and Adult Service Conference session on the dementia strategy to tell the audience: "I want to start a campaign for all of you to make people appreciate all the work you do. I think you're wonderful."
Care services minister Phil Hope certainly put in the miles for this year's National Children and Adult Services Conference in Harrogate. On Wednesday he had planned to speak at a number of events. He managed to give an interview to Community Care and take part in a double act on the Adult Green Paper.
Ring-fencing remains the difficult question for social care. At the National Children and Adult Services Conference in Harrogate the thorny issue of the £150m funding for the dementia strategy - what some people describe as the "missing £150m" - was raised. Care services minister Phil Hope assured the audience that it was there in primary care trust budgets but that it wasn't ring-fenced because "PCTs and local government didn't want ring-fencing".
Care minister Phil Hope has announced that the government will be appointing a national clinical lead for dementia.
Speaking at an event discussing the implementation of the government's dementia strategy as part of the NCAS conference in
More details are to follow.
The under-representation of people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds in senior social care management positions came under the spotlight at the National Children's and Adult Services conference today.
"The lack of diversity in the senior echelons of social care management is really striking, especially at events like this," said Dyllis Faife, programme director for personalisation and transformation for adult social care in the east of
The DH wanted to create a debate around its Green Paper on the future of adult social care and debate it has created - just not the one it was hoping for.
At the National Children and Adult the Services Conference in Harrogate, the famed double act of care service minister Phil Hope and David Behan, director general for social care at the DH, presented an update in which Behan admitted at large proportion of the 15,000 responses to the Green Paper were about proposals concerning attendance allowance and disability living allowance.
A rise in domestic violence has been symptomatic of past recessions. One explanation of the 60% rise in safeguarding referrals received by adult directors since the downturn began last autumn is that the abuse of vulnerable adults follows a similar pattern.
The failure of the children's, schools and families committee to endorse the appointment of Maggie Atkinson as England's new children's commissioner reflects wider unease over the role.
The BBC is reporting cuts in day care services for adults with learning disabilities are to be given further consideration by Dumfries and Galloway Council.
It will be interesting to see how many more stories like this will follow in light of the recession.
National care charity Counsel and Care have responded to the government's refusal to raise the Personal Expenses Allowance to £40, as recommended by the Department of Work and Pensions Select Committee.Looks like the Department of Health still doesn't know when it will publish its response to the consultation on reviewing No Secrets, the guidance on protecting vulnerable adults, despite the consultation process finishing on 31 January.
The first ever public relations officer at the British Association of Social Workers has pledged to help practitioners "speak up about the reality" of frontline practice.
Sam Crisp, who joins the association from an education charity, promised to focus her efforts on building BASW's profile and strengthening the voice of the profession.
The Care Council for
It's certainly useful, providing (bilingual) guidance on work practices, qualifications, training and careers. Students can find out about the social work degree and funding opportunities, and there is a section where service users and the general public can get involved in the work of the Care Council.
Didn't hear it myself but looks like Radio 5 examined the tensions between safeguarding vulnerable adults and the roll-out of personal budgets/direct payments in the Donal MacIntyre programme yesterday.
Would your employer take action if you or a colleague borrowed money from a service user? What if you took up lap dancing in your spare time? 
This is a new daily round-up of interesting items we've spotted on issues around children's social care.
At Community Care it's important for us to get out and meet people in the sector to inform our work as journalists, and conferences are a great way to do this. This week I've attended two in just over 24 hours - the first in London, the second in Edinburgh - and found myself transported from the press desk to the speakers' platform on both occasions to talk about our campaign, Stand Up Now for Social Work.
Would your employer take action if it found out you were working as a lap dancer in your spare time? What if you invited a service user to pray with you? Or used hypnosis with them?
Researchers from Sheffield Hallam University have been exploring the professional boundaries guidance for social workers, based on reactions to twelve hypothetical scenarios.
by Daniel Lombard
By Mithran Samuel
Interesting interview in The Herald with head of Scotland's care regulator, the Care Commission, Jacquie Roberts, in which she emphasises how how much adult care services will have to change to deal with the demographic changes of the coming decades, particularly in rolling back institutional care.
by Daniel Lombard
If social work and tabloid newspapers have always been uneasy bedfellows, the row over Deidre Sanders' continued involvement in efforts to improve the profession has reinforced the feeling that it was never going to be a match made in heaven.
The General Social Care Council's invitation to The Sun's problem page editor to its annual conference left dozens of CareSpace users outraged.
While some defended her appearance and status as a Social Work Task Force member, others took the view that the values of her employer were so fundamentally incompatible with social work's as to render the partnership unworkable, and launched an online petition calling on the GSCC to withdraw its invitation.
Amid the shock and outrage surrounding the recent sexual abuse case in Plymouth - where nursery worker Vanessa George was found to have abused children in her care - it's inevitable that questions will be asked about how we safeguard children from such abusers. If indeed we can. After all, George had passed all security checks, had no criminal record and was well-liked and trusted by parents and staff.
by Bronagh MiskellyIt's day one of the judicial review of Sharon Shoesmith's sacking from Haringey Council over the Baby Peter scandal.
By Ruth Smith
Today, if you're a destitute asylum seeker in the UK and ask the government for help, you will receive just £35.13 a week, down from £42.16.
By Ruth Smith
Not enough is being done to support the growing number of people with Down's syndrome who have dementia, say campaigners.
by Bronagh Miskelly
The detail of the Consrvative Party's policy on funding residential care for the elderly will require a lot of examination(although some comments are already emerging).
However, whatever the outcome of that investigation and whatever views experts offer, we must welcome the fact that the Tories have finally entered this key debate.
by Bronagh MiskellyLo and behold, the final report of the Social Work Task Force has been delayed again - this time until the end of November. Taskforce members remain tight-lipped about what recommendations will be made.
Should there be a national career structure? And a national pay scale? Should the Newly Qualified Social Worker pilot become an assessed year in practice? Will anyone talk to us on the record?
For every serious case that casts doubt on child protection processes and the competence of social workers, there will be another - or, thousands of others - where a vulnerable child or family is transformed by positive experiences of social work and its workforce. Why, then, the negative perception of social work in the media?
The Social Work blog covers the challenges facing Britain’s 2m-strong social care workforce: everything from pay and working conditions to stress and the latest social work conduct cases. |
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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. |
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