Proud, yes : Happy, no

Social work can be a thankless and often gruelling job so it’s perhaps surprising, but also encouraging, that 88 per cent of staff who took part in Community Care’s latest survey declared that they were proud of working in social care.

Further, 94 per cent said social care was a profession worth fighting for. These results might suggest that morale is running high. Sadly that is not the full picture. Respondents raised serious  concerns about budget cuts. There was also a warning over the erosion of social care’s professional identity as staff increasingly become cogs in the larger multidisciplinary machine.

Community Care’s Stand Up For Social Care campaign aims to highlight the unique contribution of social care staff in these teams. This week we hope to spell this out to the incoming care services minister Ivan Lewis when he speaks at Community Care LIVE in London. We aim to ensure he gets the message that he has a fantastic resource in the social care workforce but one that cannot be taken for granted.

More than a quarter of our respondents said they were considering quitting the profession. If action is not taken to address their concerns this government could find itself with a big hole in its plans for care reforms.

● See Professional pride intact as social workers struggle with effect of cuts