By Emma Maier, emma.maier@rbi.co.uk
Community Care's Stand Up Now for Social Work campaign is calling for more accurate and balanced coverage of social work.
But achieveing this doesn't fall solely on journalists and publishers. Social workers themselves must take their share of the responsibility. If anything is to change, social workers must be prepared to speak to the media.
Here's why.
1. The media can only be balanced if they have both sides of the story
If you don't speak to the media, their only source of social work stories will be serious case reviews, court cases and reports, many of which will not show social work in a positive light - to get a variety of stories about different aspects of social work it is vital for social workers to tell their stories.
When it comes to coverage of serious cases or failures, if coverage is to be accurate and accurate it is vital for social workers to put their side of the story across. If they do not, any accusations go unopposed.
2. 'No comment' does not mean 'no story'
You can't make a story go away by refusing to comment, in fact "no comment" will probably have the opposite effect. According to journalists' logic, if you're not talking you probably have something to hide, and it probably means that there is a story there. If you don't talk, the story will almost always go ahead anyway but without your comment.
3. If social workers don't promote their successes, no one else will
The media tends to focus on child protection to the exclusion of children's service more widely and adults' services. If coverage is to be more balanced, journalists need to hear about other areas of work.
4. Because getting the press team to do it isn't good enough
Journalists and readers and viewers want to hear what it is like at the frontline - even the most well-meaning press team can unintentionally strip out the passion and emotion and add in jargon and corporate-speak. It is always more moving to hear the story from the horses mouth.
5. Because most people don't understand social work
The average middle-class person doesn't come into contact with social workers as they would teachers or doctors. They rely on the media - be it The Sun, The Guardian, Panorama or EastEnders - to tell them what social workers do and whether they are any good. (Reports from the department for Communities and Local Government in 2006 and 2007 found that this is true across local service.)
If the media is where the public goes for that information, it is the media that social workers must use to paint a realistic picture of what they do. More on this 'business argument' for speaking to the press in this helpful guide from the Improvement and Development Agency).
6. To build a 'buffer zone' of public confidence
Other professionals are in the media all the time so the public understands the pressures they face, so when something goes wrong, the public is more understanding. This is less the case for social work. There is no such 'residual affection' because coverage is predominantly about failings.
If social work is to be more resiliant to the negative stories, we need to build a buffer zone of positive stories. To achieve that, social workers need to tell their stories and help the public realise that social work is a valuable profession.
7. Social workers owe it to their service users
Negative coverage of social workers often goes hand in hand with negative coverage of their clients. Service users will benefit from more accurate portrayals of them and social workers.
8. To get messages out to service users
It isn't only the public who don't understand social work. A lot of clients or potential clients don't know what social workers do and some are fearful. How much easier would the job of social workers be if clients understood the remit and limitations of social work and had realistic expectations. This will become more important as the personalisation agenda moves forward.
9. Because it is your right to do so
Police, teachers, medics are all portrayed in the media and popular culture. Why should social work be any different?
10. Because it is vital to the future of the profession
There are many issues that need resolving in social care. But negative public perceptions underlie almost every issue. For example, public perceptions of social work has a direct impact on recruitment and retention of social workers and on social workers' ability to do their jobs. Without challenging negative perceptions, reforms to tackle other issues faced by the profession may be doomed to failure.
The good news is that it is easier to do now than it has ever been. In the past we had to rely on the papers to stories or the producers to write issues into a script. Digital media - website, blogs, sites like YouTube and Twitter - mean that social workers and local authorities now have more channeles available to them then ever before to tell their stories.
You can even create your own soap, like the charity Beatbullying. But that's a topic for another blog. I'll write it in the coming weeks - if you have any examples of interesting examples, do let me know.
Links
Have your say on CareSpace, our discussion forum
Read what the Observer's chief reporter has to say
I have tried to stand up for my self in this profession but his has earned me a reputation as being 'difficult' and/or 'too polyanna'. It can become defeatist when it is not just the media protrayal and public perception of the role but also within the organisation
So which are all these numerous local authorities that allow social workers to talk to the media? In my experience it is strictly the remit of senior managers, and of course we are bound by professional confidentiality and can never provide 'real stories' with photographs and real people to interview.
David Behan tells us to stand up for ourselves and 'stop playing the victim' - i.e. something else we are doing wrong! Rather than yet more criticism, how about the occasional thank you and a proper professional wage for this complex, demoralised, highly scrutinised and amazing profession? Then we might begin to feel confident that, if we DO speak out, we will be given a reasonable amount of respect as skilled professionals and a proper hearing.
Some of us have been standing up for social work proudly for years. Unfortunately is does take time, and even more unfortunately tragic cases, to get to critical mass before more social workers join in and help us support our profession. Well done everyone who is taking this on.