Recently in Media Category

Unison has launched a poster campaign to highlight the impact of the government spending cuts, with this image showing an easily-recognisable refuse collector and a librarian, roles considered under threat. But hang on, who's the woman on the left?

Apparently it's a social worker!

Seems that social workers are the only public servants who are impossible to portray without a label indicating who they are, and perhaps this goes to the heart of the profession's public image problem - there's a real lack of public understanding about their role as a result.

The gloomy message of Unison's campaign is matched by her funereal outfit of a dark suit and white blouse - one esteemed colleague felt she could even be mistaken for an undertaker.

You might not immediately warm to the portrayal, but when you start to wonder what the alternatives might be (stereotypes have included cardigan-wearing professionals with clipboards), perhaps the union has got it about right.

Tim Chittleburgh stepped aside as chair of the British Association of Social Workers in December 2009, the organisation has revealed.

According to a statement on the BASW website, the association is investigating a "serious complaint" about Chittleburgh's business affairs and he has voluntarily left his BASW duties while the investigation is carried out.

by Adam McCulloch

Rod 'Seacole' Liddle, former editor of Radio 4's Today programme and Guardian columnist has signposted a diary article in a trade journal by a Devon Council equality officer. From his preamble to the article 'this is how your money is spent' it is clear he is not impressed. From his comments and those of his readers it is fairly clear that there is work to be done to convince everyone of the valuable work done by people like the equality officer. 

Review: Panorama goes on the frontline with Coventry's child protection team looking at the challenges social workers face

BBC, Monday 2 November

*****

 

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.

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?

by Adam McCulloch

I don't think anyone could argue that The Sun has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Labour Party over the past few years, in fact since the turn of the century. So its pompous announcement last night that it was backing the Conservatives shouldn't really be heralded elsewhere in the media as some sort of surprise or knockout blow.

by Adam McCulloch

Working in social care journalism you can easily be fooled into thinking that all is doom and gloom here in the UK. The mantras of 'lack of resources', 'lack of training', and 'why can't we be more like the Swedish?' have become familiar. But this Guardian article adds fuel to the growing realisation that the Swedes (despite their relative wealth and low population) no longer offer a model that we should look at so enviously.
Meanwhile, a friend of mine living in Japan referred me to this Times article . To claim benefits in Japan you first have to sell your 'luxury items'. These include car, musical instruments etc. Also, as my friend has found to his horror, any illness that prevents you from going to work is subtracted from one's already meagre holiday entitlement.
Maybe the good old UK isn't so bad a place after all...

by Emma Maier

There was a time when former prime minister Tony Blair could easily summon an interview with almost any leading media outlet around the world. Yet there was one vitally important publication that remained aloof: Take a Break. Now, the weekly real-life magazine is offering the social work profession an opportunity it denied the former PM.

By Emma Maier

Ed Balls has been quoted several times in the media recently saying that the social work profession doesn't bang on his door like other professions. But I was in a room of social workers yesterday, and the consensus was that they are banging - the problem is that he isn't letting them in.