"What's a blog?" asked my social worker friend, who incidentally is 34 years old. OK, she is a bit of a Luddite at the best of time, but I was surprised to learn this. Surely blogging - an online diary as-it-happens, if you want one definition - is the way to go. No need to wait to be quoted in Community Care! And social workers, by nature, love to gossip and, yes, admit it - whinge. Dealing with the very stuff of human life, warts and all, how could they not have a lot to say? 

Where are you social work bloggers? Anyone out there?

Good question Muriel! We host a mix of blogs at www.communitycare.co.uk - from social care experts and the journalists on the team - but when we try and link up to other social work blogs, there don't seem to be many around! I'd love to hear if people are blogging out there. 

Maybe they're too busy doing real work to spend time blogging

Are you telling me that social workers don't want to challenge the usual negative view of their profession that thrives online in forums such as fassit and the venerable John Hemming's blog? It's about time they did. The coverage of the recent Nottingham baby story makes you realise social work is crying out for a voice to redress the balance - and rather than the usual BASW or ADASS, why not frontline social workers, who, as you say do the "real" work?

 I noticed a lack of social workers blogging and was quite surprised by it. Maybe everyone is hiding behind pseudonyms! I have been wanting to start a blog for a while and can be found at www.fightingmonsters.wordpress.com but it's fairly rudimentary to date and is intended to be for my own purposes, at least until I get the hang of it/can spare enough time to devote to it:)

I'd also love to hear from others in the field though. 

Hi cb

I like your blog - if you would like we could create a mirror to your blog from this site. The first sentence of your blog would appear in CareSpace and when people click on it, it will take them to your blog. Would you be interested in that?

Simeon 

Thanks for the link!

And that would be great.. It certainly helps to keep the motivation levels up if there's an audience ..

 ok - I'll try to set that up later this week

Actually it was quite easy to sort out - you can check out the first blog mirror here
 

Thanks, that's great!