24 weeks for social workers to shine

Get up, stand up. Don’t give up the fight.

So go the lyrics of the iconic Bob Marley. I mention it just to get Bob Marley on the site really. No that’s not true, I mention it because social workers have been standing up for their profession in the last six months. During our Stand up for social work campaign:

This article is part of Community Care’s Stand up for Social Work campaign. We’re standing up for social work by being honest, offering support and providing inspiration.

• 1 social worker has started a petition against jailing social workers for wilful neglect
• 1 social work academic resigned her job to highlight her concerns about standards on her social work course
• More than 800 have signed our open letter calling on David Cameron to reconsider the proposal to jail social workers found guilty of the wilful neglect of children on their caseload.
• 35 social workers have written articles as part of the campaign- from sharing their tips on time management to stories of overcoming burnout they have tried to strengthen their profession.
• 1441 of you took part in our research on social worker burnout (1359 included in the study)
• 18 have or are in the process of starting social work book clubs to create time and space for social worker reflection
• 2 have started student social work groups
• 2 have started local social work practitioner groups
• 4 have sent us their social work story
• More than 1300 of you are wearing Stand Up for Social Work badges
• 300 social workers helped set up a facebook page to save The College of Social Work which then transformed into the Social Worker’s Assembly.
• 1 principal social worker has pushed for her local authority to implement the standards for employers of social work.
• 1 university has held a day event to teach students about valuing social work.
• More than 50 Twitter users changed their profile photo to the logo
• There have been 100 uses of #standup4SW on Twitter
• 20 uses of #greatsocialwork on Twitter
• 499 of you downloaded our free guide on safe caseload allocation, 1875 of you downloaded our free guide on developing emotional resilience, 158 of you downloaded our research on burnout among social workers
• 1200 of you have signed up to our webinar on developing emotional resilience

But we can always do more.

Over the next six months we want more social workers to be visible, more social workers to be independent and comfortable in the limelight and in the media, more social workers to be proud of who they are and what they do.

These are your 24 weeks to shine.

Social workers care for the vulnerable, for social justice and for the dispossessed. But you must also care for your profession, your colleagues, your social work image and identity. Own it, debate it, shape it, take part and help mould it. If you don’t there is always the risk of losing it.

In the next six months, or 24 weeks, we will be running different weekly campaigns across twitter, facebook, our new Instagram account and of course on the website on everything from who is your social work hero, what is your social worker identity, to creating our own media awards for the best portrayal of social work in mainstream television, radio, and news.

Our aim is to make sure that every social worker out there does something, even as small as typing 140 characters on Twitter, to tell the world they are a social worker and they are proud to be so!

You can join our Stand up for Social Work campaign by:

• Sharing what you’ve done to make a difference today
• Changing your profile picture
• Taking part in our weekly campaigns