‘Social workers fail to tackle nuisance’

Outdated social work attitudes are undermining attempts to tackle antisocial behaviour, according to a coalition of local authorities and housing associations.

Tim Winter, national organiser of the Social Landlords Crime and Nuisance Group, said social workers had failed to embrace the new agenda of “tackling, not tolerating” antisocial behaviour and were often absent from local crime and disorder partnership meetings.

He said social workers put so much emphasis on addressing the causes of actions that they ignored the consequences for the community.

“I don’t think the social work world likes saying ‘stop, don’t do that, it’s wrong’, it would rather persuade,” Winter said. He added that he wanted to start a dialogue with social workers on the issue.