College of Social Work backs Social Work Contract

The College of Social Work has pledged its support for Community Care‘s campaign for fair conditions for social workers.

The joint interim chairs of the college backed our Social Work Contract, launched in partnership with Unison, which calls for new rights to a manageable caseload, guaranteed professional supervision and compensation for excess hours worked.

Maurice Bates and Corinne May-Chahal (pictured) said the college was “fully committed to working with other organisations in the sector to support social workers”.

The endorsement of our campaign follows expressions of support from the Association of Palliative Care Social Workers, and service user charities Action on Elder Abuse and Rethink.

Bates and May-Chahal were appointed in July as the first leaders of the college, which is being established to promote the interests of the profession and provide a stronger national voice for social workers across the country.

In a joint statement, they said: “The College of Social Work supports the campaign to improve working conditions for social workers. The College is fully committed to working with other organisations in the sector to support social workers, enabling them to work as effectively as possible, so that they can continue to enable change and improve the lives of people and communities.”

Ray Jones, professor of social work at Kingston University, said: “I’m delighted to see the college of social work support Community Care’s campaign as it shows the college is getting into gear.”

He added: “It’s more appropriate for the college to support this rather than the Social Work Reform Board, which is working to implement the recommendations of the Social Work Task Force. This is because the college has the role of taking up the responsibility to champion good social work practice, and lobbying for support from employers comes into this.”

The UK government said it was committed to turning around the social work profession and restoring the confidence of social workers. A joint statement from the Department of Health and Department for Education pointed out that the ongoing review of child protection by Professor Eileen Munro would “help tackle the longstanding problems of high caseloads, low morale and a lack of public understanding about the difficult and demanding job they do”.

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