Ordinary people try to say lots of things but who listens
Tickets for Believe in me available from 16 July. Come and help change things for the better
Believe in me- Stafford Gatehouse Theatre, 25 September 2008
Tickets available from the Stafford Gatehouse Theatre from 16 July by phone only to keep them free to you. [ BASW is kindly paying the ticket bill]
Box Office number 01785 254 653
Website for directions
www.staffordgatehousetheatre.co.uk
Believe in me is a unique event.
Initiated by a social worker, Rachel Bramble who had observed over two decades the growth in both social work and the media but with no meeting ground and negative outcomes for the public. She decided to gather together a motley group of people to discuss where to go next, bearing in mind the ageing population of the UK.
Central to ‘ Believe in me’ is Phoebe, the seventeen year old daughter of Rachel Bramble who will not only talk about what it’s like to spend your whole life as a social workers’ child, but also be a hostess for the day encouraging members to work positively together.
‘Believe in me’ is about action as much as discussion. Rachel believes that there is common ground between the groups and has initiated four action groups to not only find this common ground but work towards positive collaborations for the future.
Group A is made up of service users They will consider what impact the relationship between social work and the media has had on them and how things could be improved.
What kinds of services would they like from social workers and how they would like to be reported by the media.
Group B is lead by Professor Sue White and John Hemming MP who will consider whether current policies has caused bad social work practice and what can be done about it.
Group C gives Rachel Bramble the initiator of ‘ Believe in me’ the opportunity to launch her model A.E.R.O [ Aspirations, Encouragement, Realism and Openness] which she uses as a social worker in a school in Staffordshire. Joining her will be Professor Mark Doel and David Kidney MP [ Stafford MP] who will consider how the philosophy of A.E.R.O could go beyond school and permeate throughout social work and into the media.
Group D is lead by Professor Keith Popple, media workers and academics. Their brief is to consider why media workers have difficulties reporting and making programmes that involve social workers and why there has never been a TV soap with social workers as the central theme. The aim by the end of the day is to find a way to get that soap on TV.
Believe in me is as much about outcomes as discussion, throughout the day attendees will be encouraged to share not only their experiences but also ideas about how things could be changed for the better. For those who do not like to speak out publicly there will be chances to record their commitment to a better future.
‘Believe in me’ is free to attend no refreshments will be provided to keep the event simple. There are plenty of shops and eating places within a few minutes walk from the Gatehouse Theatre, which also has its own café.
The Theatre is a fifteen minutes walk from Railway Station.
Proposed programme
10 am Intros – By Professor Michael Preston Shoot our chair, troubleshooter and host for the day.
10,05am Phoebe talking about her life as the daughter of a social worker
10.20 am Rachel Bramble- The Mouse and the Lion- The relationship between social work and the media and discussion
10.45am break [don’t forget your refreshments or pop across the road to Brambles]
11.15 Action groups choose one of the four
12.45 Lunch – chill and chat [Plenty of food places within a few minutes walk or join the Stafford regulars in the Gatehouse café]
1.45 Action groups – choose a second
3.30 Finale in the main theatre- Outcomes of groups and thoughts for the future
Note Students from Wolgarston High School will be feeding back their views of the action groups.
4.15 finish.
Samples of reasons why attending ‘ Believe in me’ 25 Sept Stafford Gatehouse Theatre
“I am a social work academic with 12 years practice experience in statutory child care and a further 14 years experience as a researcher and educator in child welfare. My research is ethnographic in nature and involves spending substantial amounts of time observing practice. My last research project was concerned with studying the impact of the implementation of various electronic systems intended to facilitate information sharing in children's services. My current study is examining the impact of performance management on everyday practice. Over the last five years substantial policy change has taken place and social workers now spend a good deal of their time entering data onto computers and feeding audit trails. This takes them away from 'the day job' and the 'real work' and I believe introduces substantial latent error into the child welfare system. Whilst no system, however controlling, can ever stifle the ingenuity of individuals, social workers are often working against the odds managing repetitive data entry requirements of poorly designed IT systems, and subject to precipitous time scales for decision-making which are centrally imposed. I do not think these are the optimum conditions of possibility for wise and compassionate practice and that is why I am attending this conference.” Sue White Professor of Social Work
Department of Applied Social Science
Lancaster University “How society deals with families and family law is a key foundation to the way in which society operates. A key element of this is how social workers deal with children at risk. If the government pressurises social workers to do the wrong thing then it is the government that is at fault rather than the social workers. Although adoption targets have been scrapped we still face problems with the Common Assessment Framework and other managerial pressures. I am attending this conference to put the case for traditional British social work practise, which places the emphasis on the family rather than the state. This requires a more accountable system where bad practise is weeded out.”
John Hemming MP
“I'm supporting 'Believe in Me' because I believe in the kind of positive social work which this initiative is promoting. There is a lot of positive social work happening and Rachel Bramble's AERO' model is in a fine tradition of creative and positive social work. We need to find ways of getting positive experiences of social work better known - find ways of getting people talking about it. Social workers have often been hostile to the media (understandable, because the media is often not too friendly to social work) but we must find friends in the media to promote positive social work. People know what teachers, doctors and most other professionals do, but there's a lot of ignorance about what social workers do. There's an urgent need to develop a more universal social work, one that has general public support. 'Believe in Me' can play its part in this and deserves our support.”
Professor Mark Doel
Research Professor of Social Work in the Centre for Health and Social Care Research Sheffield Hallam University
lets get social workers into schools and get that soap.