Baby P: Social work campaigners launch ‘anti witch hunt’ petition

By Louise Hunt on November 17, 2008 in Child safeguarding, Children, Family support, Inspection and regulation, Workforce

The campaigning body Social Work Action Network (Swan) has today launched its own petition to condemn the “witch hunt” against the profession fuelled by the Baby P case.

Swan said it was responding to “an unprecedented campaign in sections of the media against social workers in Haringey”.

More than 200,000 people have so far signed The Sun newspaper’s online petition, launched last week, calling for the government to sack all the social workers involved in the Baby P case and the council’s director of children’s services, Sharon Shoesmith. Other petitions have appeared on social networking sites.

The Swan petition has already been signed by social workers from across the country.

Witch hunts don’t address issues

Swan representative Dr Michael Lavalette, senior lecturer in social policy at the University of Liverpool, said: “Such witch hunts don’t address any of the issues raised by the Baby P case – indeed they serve to cover up the real causes of the terrible tragedy: budgetary constraints, marketisation of care, social workers with excessive case-loads, child poverty, inequality – these are the issues we need to look at to reduce child harm.”

Swan, which formed in March 2006, is an organisation of social work academics, practitioners, students and service users.