The government has announced the members of the Social Work Taskforce, including The Sun's agony aunt Deirdre Saunders.
The membership includes those with an interest in children's services and adult services, and a spread of different stakeholders - social work staff, directors, service user leaders, practitioners, and academics. But is the mix right?
Should more frontline social workers be involved?
Who would you have liked to have seen on the taskforce?
And is the appointment of The Sun's agony aunt a genuine attempt to represent the popular public and get the media on board, or is it a media stunt that could backfire?
My colleague has just suggested that if the social workers go out to collect information they could then write to Diedre and she could in her commonsensical way tell us what to do next! She clearly has both the common touch and the ear of the government, what more could we want to help transform our profession?
Why would there be a need to include front line workers in a Taskforce of this type? They would muddy the waters by suggesting that the task is impossible, that working with people takes time and money and that filling in forms and working to performance indicators hasn't helped any of the children we work with.
I am sure that all of us are looking forward to the pronouncments of this body but meanwhile I'll get back to ICS......
Oh f***! This is when things go completely trashy, right? This is horrible. Why not a service user? Why someone who is employed by an organisation who encourages his employees to sniff bicycle saddles for a living!
i dont get it either this was the paper that wanted blood over the baby p case, not that i need to remind anyone of that. i think the goverment is too bothered with pleasing the popular press rather than doing what is right. like fx7 says it should be someone with an idea of what social work is about. did i also read recently that Ed Balls called a meeting where there were many agony aunts invited to discuss some social matter. why Ed why?
Sadly Sharon Shoesmith was not burnt at the stake, but The Sun valiant efforts saw her named and shamed, consequently her position was untenable. She had to go. Salem had to come to town beating a path to Ms Shoesmith's home. What were the consequences.
Splendid job! We;l done, The Sun - all because you wanted burn this witch and rid her soul of evil.
Just remember the "it's The Sun what did it", and please kill an Argie on the way out.
I agree. I find it unbelievable. It seems to make a mockery of the profession. What other kind of professional review would invite a tabloid agony aunt onto a review panel.
I've put up a quick blog entry exploring the possible reasons/outcomes of the Deidre decision. It's available here.
The Daily Mail runs the predictable headline: "Dear Deidre, please prevent another Baby P tragedy" As if she, of all people, could fulfil this wish...this beggard belief
The Sun editor Rebekah Wade last night made a rare speech praising her own paper's campaign over Baby P - she said: "Campaigns provide a unique connection to the public especially when the subject matter is of a serious nature.For me, nothing can illustrate this connection better than our recent Baby P campaign. The public outcry was deafening. And we began our fight for justice with a determination to expose the lack of accountability and responsibility for Baby P’s brutal death. We delivered 1.5 million signatures to Downing Street and the collective power worked. Children’s Secretary Ed Balls was forced to use emergency legislation to ensure that those responsible were held to account. We received many many thousands of letters at The Sun about our Baby P coverage." Read her full speech here
As noted by other respondents this looks like another example of an action by a government which is increasingly undermining the professions. The people who speak to prospective social workers day after day are careers advisers, FE college lecturers and university admissions tutors for social work. Unsurprisingly, since they would have much to contribute to the debate about recruitment and retention, they are not represented.
More frontline social workers? What would we know about social work? No, the appointment of Dierdre Saunders is clearly inspired and anyone who suggests it's a populist concession to tawdry media-led witchhunters is obviously a middle-class elitist with a dubious value base who should be drummed out of the profession forthwith.
I look forward to the day when scriptwriters from Casualty and Holby City are appointed to the professional bodies of nursing, medicine and allied health professions to raise standards of practice. It can only be a matter of time before one of those nice actors from Waterloo Road is appointed to the General Teaching Council.
No, it is clearly so eminently appropriate to have celebrities on professional bodies that I am left with only one question: why can't we have Jeremy Kyle too?
No the mix of members is not right - service users deserve to be better represented as do front line professionals. How can the appointment of Deirdre Saunders be justified as anything other than cosying up to The Sun? The paper itself is idiotic and hatefilled and the Agony Aunt column merely a convenient way to print soft porn photos. Who's next - Richard Littlejohn?
I cannot take Mr Balls and his government seriously when they pull such a stunt? Apparently, he wants to know what the public think. I suggest we tell him:
http://www.edballs.com/index.jsp?c=/p/feedback/
I never thought I'd say it, but bring back Alisdair Campbell. He wouldn't have stooped to this level to try and appease a trashy newspaper.
We'll soon be running a short interview with Deirdre, so keep an eye out on the home page. I'll post the link when it is available.
I'm also concerned about what message this sends to people about the function and role of social workers more generally if an 'agony aunt' is on the task force. Are we to be perceived as 'talkers' rather than 'doers'. Actually the more I have thought about it, the more irritated I become.
Having undertaken both Teaching (early years) and Social Work training (just to reassure some of you of my credentials before the cynics amongst you start to make assumptions and apply a label to me of a populist reader of the tabloid press) I feel I am in a relativey informed position to offer my opinion.
I actually support the action taken against Sharon Shoesmith in relation to the (very public) comments she made about 'social workers did not kill the child' in reaction to the criticism levied at the handling of the 'Baby P' case and her refusal to apologise to Baby P's natural father regarding the shortfalls that were concluded to have been present within her department's involvement in the case.
These comments were insensitive, inappropriate and irresponsible and fall severely short of the response that should have been given by someone in Ms Shoesmith's former position. Although Ms Shoesmith (or any of the Social Workers within her department) did not directly 'kill the child', she cannot, as head of Children Services, discharge the statutory responsibility that was placed on her to safeguard and protect the welfare of that child by ensuring her department took appropriate action reasonable to the circumstances. It can sometimes be the case that workers have done all they could reasonably have done in a case, but the outcome is still as tragic as that of 'Baby P'. However, practitioners and senior managers need to accept and be open to the fact that their actions will be open to scrutiny in such events. And if shortfalls are concluded, they must be accountable and accept responsibility and issue appropriate apologies for their shortfalls.
Clearly there were short-falls in the handling of the case by both social services and the medical profession for various reasons, some which my have been out of the control of individual professionals and some which may not. What is essential is that Social Services and the professionals that work under it's umbrella take responsibility and accountability for those shortfalls and work together to review what could have realistically been done different and what, on reflection, should change as a result. Not only were Ms Shoesmith's comments insensitive to the child's father, but also caused severe and irreversible damage to the public's confidence in Children Services (to whom all public sector workers are ultimately accountable).And it is most readily for the irresponsibility of these comments that I support the action taken.
Furthermore, the action taken against Ms Shoesmith serves to send out a strong message to professionals (and in particular directors of services) that unacceptable shortfalls in service delivery will no longer be tolerated and that individuals (and not abstract entities such as 'the system') will be held to account. It is no longer acceptable to all too readily put failings down simply to 'a lack of resources'. Many professions work within a framework where resources are limited, but some are more proactive in utilising and managing those limited resources in a far more organised, strategic and analytical way.
I have unfortunately been disappointed with the 'culture of mediocrity' that I often (but not always) come across within Social Services in the UK and am astounded at the lack of insight some workers within these settings have into how they could (or maybe: should) improve their practice.
And yes, I agree with Laming's assertions that current social work training in not adequate to meet the challenges and responsibilities required within such statutory social work roles and that the calibre of students needs to be raised for these positions.
To make reference to that well rehearsed model within social work circles: Prochaska and Diclemente's cycle of change, if one is at pre-contemplation stage (as Ms Shoesmith arguably was) they clearly are not ready to recognise there may be a problem which may require action and change. Maybe the action taken against Ms Shoesmith has helped contribute to create the ambivalence and dissonance that is needed to contemplate change then??
Let's hope so- for those who have been unneccessariy failed by poor practice.
vicky29, actually there is one person from a higher education institution - Professor Sue White from Lancaster University's Department of Applied Social Science
Yes, I noted that. But most professors don't go anywhere near students. Still, we shall see.....!!!
Deidre has sent this response to Community Care readers:
I'm not entirely sure whether the objection by some to the appointment of Deirdre Sanders based on the fact she's an agony aunt or that she is an agony aunt for The Sun. If it's simply the former then I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. The use of agony aunts in this way is not new. Here's a story for 1999 that proves there really are no new ideas - just recycled ones. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/392553.stm. I see no harm in Deirdre and her ilk being involved in The Social Work Taskforce per se. After all, many of her ilk have often been involved in government initiatives down the years. Claire Rayner springs to mind, as does Miriam Stoppard, the Mirror's agony aunt. I also see some validity in Deirdre's argument that agony aunts have a connection with thousands of ordinary people. But surely she shouldn't be given a place on the Taskforce ahead of those working in frontline social work? She may have something to contribute but it's doubtful anybody is better-placed to highlight the significant issues facing social workers than social workers themselves.
One last point: I may disagree with the approach taken by The Sun in the Baby P case but Deirdre has a point about Haringey's conduct - at least initially - following the conviction of Baby P's killers. The lack of an apology from Sharon Shoesmith and the grossly insensitive comments about there being examples of best practice in the case were appalling.
Well that's all right then.
The Sun was completely right to villify the whole social work profession and to publish photographs of social workers, who might or might not have made mistakes, perhaps placing their lives at risk from their more extreme readers. This seemslike a witch hunt to me.
Heaven help us when the sun is "society".
I give up.
The lunatics have taken over the asylum. The Suns coverage of the baby P case was disgraceful and offered no insight or anaysis at all...............it was knee jerk reactionary cobblers. They saw an opportunity to put the boot in and took it, gleefully.
Now a representative of that paper is on the social work task force. Well, this just shows that the government has no real interest in improving services......it is more concerned with pandering to basest public opinion and making itslef look good in the media. I despair.
Deirdre bloody Saunders! What qualifications does she hold, exactly? For how many years did she study to achieve them?
As for the rest of the great and the good who make up the task force, how many of them have a social work qualification and how many of them have practiced as social workers in the recent past?
I didn't say it was ok, Sumag. I said I didn't agree with The Sun's approach. The point I was making is that when those who do make absolutely appalling mistakes, refuse to apologise and then start using phrases such as best practice to describe a case where a child has been killed by his carers then Joe Public is going to understandably feel angry. The Sun does not, of course, represent society's views entirely. But agony aunts do receive an extraordinary number of letters from ordinary people, experiencing problems and needing help. On that basis, Deirdre may have a little bit of knowledge to contribute.
Sally, the fact that a person recieves letter from people who think that their problems are better adressed by a newspaper columnist, whom they have never clapped eyes on, rather than a suitably trained and qualified professional, does not make that person any better suited than the local wino to address the issues facing social work.
It's strange that those who practice have to be suitably qualified and registered, yet the same distinction does not apply to those who will be telling us how we should practice.
Actually, this has intrigued me so I tried doing a little digging into the history of Ms Sanders.... (there isn't much out there, but what I did find was possibly interesting in light of this recent announcement).
Yes she is employed by the Sun, which obviously ran a very horrible and populist coverage of the Baby P affair etc etc.... But you cannot tar every employee of a company with the same brush etc. (Or where would any employee of Haringey, Doncaster, etc etc ever be????)
Deirdre Sanders has got 'form' for supporting the social work profession, and in raising it's profile. Way back in 1999, she worked with the ADSS for example to raise the profile of social services, acknowledging that many of her writers would benefit from social work involvement, producing a leaflet about what social workers actually do and highlighting the fact that many outcomes are very positive for service users... She has also been a trustee of the Family and Parenting Institute in the past, and contibuted to a meeting with the Associate Parliamentary Group for Parents and Families in November 2006, for example, along with other respected organisations such as Relate.
Now I'm not saying that this makes her an imminently suitably qualified member of the taskforce- however, I'm saying her appointment may not be all bad news. If nothing else, she does know what the common everyday perceptions of social work are, and also as a journalist, may have ideas as to how to raise the profile to the general public, given that it is difficult to go public with all our successes, due to confidentiality rules etc. Plus, however much we all hate it, she does command a lot of respect out there on the street, so is in a better place to be a positive part of changing those views than we who are starting from the position of 'most hated people in Britain', like it or not!
Just some thoughts..... Maybe I'm just trying desperately to ease the uneasiness also rumbling in my gut, but....
Deidre's appoinment undoubtedly raises questions about the credibility of the taskforce and whether her place would be better given to someone else.
But maybe she does have an important role in encouraging people to access social services. If so, the situation isn't entirely gloomy. In that 1999 article that Sally mentioned above, Deidre was quoted by the BBC saying:
"People have got misconceptions about social workers because of a few high profile and very scary cases. They are under enormous stress, dealing with difficult cases which the rest of us would not be able to cope with.
"Social services tries to get their lives back on track. People think they will get into trouble if they approach social services, but 99.9% of the time social services work is supporting families."
I agree, queenb. If the entire taskforce was made up of chat show hosts, agony aunts and the like, there might be a problem. We are talking about one member who will contribute her views alongside a host of social work experts. I think it may be useful to have the perspective of someone not directly within social work.
This woman works for an organisation that pilloried our profession. She contiues to work for it. She has not spoken out against the way that individual social workers were hounded by that organisation. Unitl she does so what she might have 10 years ago is irrelevant in my opnion.
There are numbers of people, celebrities, other agony aunts who could be seen to be more independent and more knowledgeable about this job if there was a need for the press/unconnected perspective.
EmmaM: Deidre's appoinment undoubtedly raises questions about the credibility of the taskforce and whether her place would be better given to someone else. But maybe she does have an important role in encouraging people to access social services. If so, the situation isn't entirely gloomy. In that 1999 article that Sally mentioned above, Deidre was quoted by the BBC saying: "People have got misconceptions about social workers because of a few high profile and very scary cases. They are under enormous stress, dealing with difficult cases which the rest of us would not be able to cope with. "Social services tries to get their lives back on track. People think they will get into trouble if they approach social services, but 99.9% of the time social services work is supporting families."
It seems Deidre has forgotten this in her willingness to receive the Sun's shilling.
Aren't you my more angry that there is only one social worker on the taskforce?
Look how local government staff have been treated on pay over past few years by councilors, senior managers and government. Do you think they are all going to unite and employ more social workers, pay more, improve conditions? Particularly in a deep recession?
Unison and Basw should hold a joint open inquiry into social work and challenge the findings of the taskforce. Use it to mobilise social care staff to demand real meaningful change.
Read Deidre's response to her critics here
............those working in the professions in the public sector can get cut off from what are seen as commonsense values in the real world..............
Well, that's just nonsense, isn't it?
Also, all these pamphlets and honoury appointments............................meaningless.
Where did she train to become an expert capable of providing good quality input to the task force? How long did she train for? How often is she assessed to ensure that her training is up to date and relevant? What qualifications does did she actually study for?
"Sanders personally distanced herself from the decision to run the Baby P campaign. "It was made by a different part of the newspaper. I am not privy to editorial decisions made at The Sun," she said. She also claimed her problem page represented "another side" to The Sun - dubbing it a "social services unit run by News International [Rupert Murdoch's company that owns the paper]."
Well that paragraph sums it up. She has been able to see what the Editor has done and has not spoken out against it. She isn't going to say anything against the campaign in the Sun is she? She'll continue to take the Murdoch shilling.
AND she thinks that answering a letter from "worried of Woking" is the equivalent of social work, so that will help inform the task force!
I would laugh if I didn't think this was serious.
"We speak, and the word goes out beyond us, to consequences and ends which we had not conceived of." - Gadamer
Let's get one thing straight - the summary dismissal of Sharon Shoesmith was not in the public interest - we had a right to hear the facts - we could have learned some vital lessons in safeguarding children and that this evidence could have been heard within the disciplinary context and this would have established whether Ms Shoesmith is a culpable party in this matter.
The Sun's campaign against her was clearly a witch hunt - people did not just write into The Sun to complain of this evil woman, The Sun actually invited people to write in and tell them the politicians how evil she is.
As for Dear Diedre's statement "those working in the professions in the public sector can get cut off from what are seen as common-sense values in the real world where, if you get something wrong, you lose your job. It’s what would happen to me and it’s what would happen to most of our readers"
What planet is this woman living on? I have been spat at, kicked, punched, abused, chased by dangerous dogs all in the line of my duty of protecting children; for these reasons, I stopped this area of work years ago (but I really do admire most of my children and families colleagues for having to do such a dreadful job. I guess most of us have to such nasty sharp-end violence, and that this demonstrates that if anyone is cut off from reality it is her! As for the bits about losing one's job if you get something wrong - then all the country would be unemployed and unemployable.
As for The Sun getting things wrong - it does it all the time - it is a paper which always seem to be in the courts over allegations of lying and invading privacy - such is the moral compass and voice for the downtrodden masses.
Then Dear Diedre goes on to state "A big problem after Baby P was that Haringey didn’t even want to say sorry to start with, didn’t seem to accept responsibility"
Well in the climate of hysteria generated by The Sun, individuals and organisations get immobilised by the moral panic with which they are beleaguered - apologies - my guess is that no one in the Local Authority wanted to get in Sun's firing line, for fear a mob would be beating a path to his / her with a view to stringing him / her up from the nearest lamp post.
Dear Diedre concludes
"If our campaign was seen as a mere witch-hunt in the social work sector, it illustrates the communication gap we have in society"
This is exactly the problem - I have this to say The Sun's campaign against Ms Shoesmith was vindictive and vitriolic - it harked back to Cromwell's England when Major Generals, our own Taliban, wandered the burning witches or drowning them in ponds. The Sun is a very much like that - it breeds a climate of fear - sure, there is a communication gap between us and The Sun and this is for good reason. An entire city, Liverpool, has stopped this nasty little rag following its rather nasty little piece on Liverpool following the Hillsborough Tragedy.
As for Dear Diedre saying that she was not responsible for the editorial content with regard to Ms Shoesmith, this is bit like saying "I am not responsible for the gas chambers in Auschwitz, I merely stoked the ovens" These "no flies on me" kind of statements sound quite disingenuous.
And as a parting shot to all those those Sun apologists, what kind of filthy little rag has headlines "only ten days to go, Lads, before we can bare Lisa's boobs?" Surely, it encourages filthy old men to commit sexually illegal against young women.
couldn't have put it better myself. i've just picked myself off of the floor, having laughed so much i fell off my chair.
it is a joke but a sick one.
yes fx7 i can relate to what you are saying and i htink you speak a lot of sense. i dont have a problem with agony aunts per se but i dont think they can advise on the complexities of the job and also do not consider the sun to be the voice of the people its the sheep that leads the other sheep. what is next the daily mail being invited to join. we dont need more public bashing the people on the task force should be the pople that work on the frontline who really knows what works and what needs to change.
fx7:"those working in the professions in the public sector can get cut off from what are seen as common-sense values in the real world where, if you get something wrong, you lose your job. It’s what would happen to me and it’s what would happen to most of our readers"
and i would say that those in the ivory towers of fleet street cannot understand the problems real people face.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/search/searchAction.do
this link should take you to the latest proble page which deals with such thins as 'my fella has slept with a slapper' ' i can't stop sleeping in class' and ' i am scared noisy sex will wake my parents' and ' i am scared my girlfriend will think i am too small'. i am not for one moment trivalising the matters as they are obvioulsy important ehough for someone to write in ( if they did that is and its not all made up - call me cynical!) but i dont think this is the sort of thing that will make her an expert in adult protection or child protection or social work in general......ooohhhh am i being to hard on her i just feel cross i have had to work my arse of for three years to gain a qualification which will enable me topractice and someone with no backgroun in social work can put her two penneth in about it al.... grrrrr maybe i am tired!!!
She also claimed her problem page represented "another side" to The Sun - dubbing it a "social services unit run by News International [Rupert Murdoch's company that owns the paper
This was the part of Deirdre's response that I found most offensive and explains all the more why her presence is a mockery. She thinks that her problem page is a 'social services unit'. What does that say about her understanding of what really happens in social services units? Right, so we sit around answering problems that people call us with. Maybe if she joined a task force about the role of counselling it would make a smidgen more sense..