Campaign launched to boost social care

Social care staff must stand up and be counted if the profession and its distinct values are to survive the massive upheaval in services.

That was the message last week from Community Care’s acting editor, Mark Ivory (pictured left), as he launched the magazine’s Stand Up For Social Care campaign before more than 1,800 people in Nottingham.

Speaking at the Affirming Our Value Base conference, organised by Nottingham Trent University, he said the profession needed to be clearer about its preferred direction.

Ivory warned there was a danger that staff could end up being asked to police service users rather than support them to make the most of their lives.

Referring to the merger of children’s social care with education and the closer alignment of adult care with health, he said: “Education and health are massive enterprises. If we don’t watch out social work and social care could be swallowed up.”

Bill Jordan, professor of social policy at Plymouth and Huddersfield universities, said he was concerned about the idea that social work was about “delivering” services.

“As far as I’m concerned TNT delivers things,” he said. “Social workers don’t deliver services – they either care or they don’t care.”

● More than 40 MPs have already signed an early day motion supporting the campaign.