The lack of a national voice for social work is a commonly-documented one, with even Ed Balls calling for social work leaders and practitioners to have a "credible voice" about their profession. But which organisation do you look to to do that?
Basw has a relatively small membership, but seem the natural choice - should they do more? Do you like to the sizeable Unison to speak up for social workers, or do they have too many other professions to cater for? And the GSCC say they are only a regulatory body who can't be vocal about the profession - is that correct? It would be good to hear your thoughts on who out of these or other bodies you think needs to be the voice of social work.
BASW above the others. I've been a little sceptical in the past but think they have a value and a desire as well as being in the position (as a professional body) to take up the role.
Unison has it's fingers in too many pies. Although I'm a member I have to say I don't have a vast amount of faith in their confidence in social work or knowledge of it for that matter.
I see the GSCC as more of a quango dominated by lay members and as you say, a regulatory body with no independence.
Yes CB, I also agree that BASW should be playing the role more effectively. I am a paid up BASW member and I want more for my money. More SW's need to join up to enable them to be a more representative body and they need to provide more a union type service.
Unison, I lost faith in unison about 8 years ago and have not been a member since. I do not believe they have the infrastructure or competent enough regional reps to be of much use.
Totally agree re GSCC.
I agree that it should be BASW. One solution to poor membership could be to make membership applicapable with GSCC redgistration. At lest BASW have a social worker at their head.
It has to be BASW. Unison represent too many different local authority jobs and care jobs among which social workers are the highest paid group of members and therefore are inevitably going to get a raw deal as much of the union's efforts are put in to supporting those in lower paid jobs (and quite rightly that they should but it doesn't help the social workers). The GSCC wouldn't know how to support social work if it tried. As said above, it's a regulatory body and by that very title it's role is as big brother with a big stick. It was created to justify the new degree and demonstrate to the public that social workers are answerable to them.
I think the use of the term "credible voice" is crucial. It does rather seem that the social work profession’s main concern has to be to promote a better image of itself above all else. This is hardly surprising given the attacks made upon it by the tabloid media. This has however been going on for a very long time - I remember headlines like "social worker killed my baby" from the 80's. In fact it could be, and has been, argued that social work as we know it today has been defined by these attacks in the past (the recent attacks feel slightly nostalgic). The temptation therefore is always for social work to defend itself in a slightly whiney way - "but we're all working so hard and trying to help people the best we can so why are people being so mean to us?". This does not give the profession a credible voice.
The only way for a profession to have a credible public voice is if it stops talking about itself and starts talking about the things it is concerned with. The only time I have ever heard anyone "representing" social work in the media has been when talking about social work itself. Now think about media coverage of medicine. It's not always positive but you do however hear doctors talking about what's happening in the NHS, new treatments, public health issues and so on.
The real question is therefore not so much about who should be speaking up about social work but more about what they should be speaking about. The irony is that if social workers started speaking about the things that will make our society a better and more just place (i.e. allegedly the issues of greatest concern to social workers), then it would almost certainly attract some vitriolic attacks from the tabloid press. The basic reality here is that the image of social work is never going to be improved by trying to persuade the tabloid press to be nice to us. The image and credibility of the profession can only be improved by it engaging in debates about making society a better place and this will mean taking flack from the tabloid media.
It could however be that social work has been so damaged and fragmented by previous attacks that it has lost the will to say anything important.
Not a bad idea. Being serious a similar approach might not be a bad idea.
Given that social workers themselves cannot define a common language let alone have an agreed definition of what social work is, surely it's a little too grand to have a single spokesperson?