Social Work England has launched its first annual survey of the profession.
The regulator is asking England’s just over 100,000 practitioners to tell it what they think of its own effectiveness, the value of its professional standards, the perceived standing of social work in society and whether they would recommend the profession.
Its chief executive, Colum Conway, said the annual research would allow Social Work England to “refine, adapt, and improve” how it engages with registered practitioners each year.
“By recording comparable data year on year about social workers’ perceptions, we expect to also gather valuable insight into the context of professional practice,” he added.
What Social Work England is asking
The anonymous survey, which is open to registered social workers in England only, asks practitioners to indicate how far they agree or disagree with the following statements:
- “I am confident that Social Work England effectively regulates the social work profession.”
- “The professional standards are important to me.”
- “I understand how the professional standards apply to my work as a social worker.”
- “I feel that social workers are valued by society.”
- “I would recommend social work as a career.”
The question regarding social work’s perceived value in society comes after research for the regulator with 110 practitioners found just 11% thought the profession was well-respected within society. The generally negative outlook appeared driven by the perceived impact of negative media coverage on public perceptions of the profession.
On the back of this, Social Work England has launched a campaign, Change the Script, urging the entertainment industry to change how it depicts social work, including by moving away from a focus on showing practitioners taking people’s children away.
Meanwhile, separate research carried out for the regulator last year found that just 16% would recommend the profession to friends or family, down from 26% in 2020.
You can answer Social Work England’s survey here. It is open until 12pm on Monday 24 May.
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Sure sign the registration fee is going up.
I can’t wait to give SWE a piece of my mind! Not that it will change much… 🙄
It took SWE 12 months to inform me about a complaint from an irate parent regarding my practice. Then a further 1 year and 7 months for it to investigate the complaint. The outcome was no case to answer. I have no faith in SWE
A short time compared to many (I am not dismissing how awful this was for you). No wonder register shows so many leaving sw (voluntary removed) a reflection of poor state of sw. So many inactive sws due to years of waiting for investigation outcomes.
Because of his teenage child’s problematic behaviour in the community at home and in the community the parent was refusing to have the child at home. I kept on reminding the parent about his duty of legal responsibility for the child until the age of 18. The parent did not like this.
It’s a shame that Social Work England aren’t really valuing feedback from social workers. If they were, social workers would have received direct communication from the provider seeking feedback. Instead we stumble across the information in CC. Tokenism!
I agree with Michelle and David. They need more experience staff to deal with cases. Their present registration is not fit for purpose as it does take into account the different aspects of social work field, such as education in those they inspect at the universities which obviously should be addressed in a different way to those doing SW tasks, those in management, again different from the social work task including that part time staff, those who are doing less hours could not meet their demands for the restoration form of study hours, supervised hours etc because they are not full time workers. The whole system is very authoritarian and abuse of power with total no consideration for the feelings of others. They only able to check properly only around 5 to 20 % of all those they should be inspecting. They rest are tick boxes throughout and registered without checking them properly. A few of the staff are prejudice and discriminate. They constantly abuse their power. No proper complaint system as for those they inspect to air their grievances. I even questioned confidentiality and a few of them can be very unkind. These are not a true representation of good, genuine caring social workers that are we traditionally know. Being in the field for over 40 years, I am very disappointed. They are even economically with the truth when comes to application deadlines.
My truly sincere and genuine experience of social work England and leave me with a bad taste.
To be open and honest SWE and the principals are inaffective.Please do not misunderstand me I believe in the principals and the code of practice.If it where effective it would be beneficial to the work force and the children we are employed to protect.(My question is how do you regulate standards and practice from a distance when the issues take place in the workplace you do not have insight about the struggles)
I can only imagine the impact the last 1 year and 7 months must have been for the above social worker not only for himself but is family too.
Like social workers how can the public have any faith in a system which appears to have no direction. It would have also been frustrating for the parent to wait for an out come ,this gives a negative view to the public does it not.
Some of the standard requirements such as 1.1,1.2 1.3 1.5 1.6, 2.2 5.5,6.5 3.13 3.7, 3.5 3.13 in my view are standard’s which are not encouraged by management and to attempt to work towards them brings repercussions for the worker unless you have been ear marked for progression. If an employees own organisation is not seen to value,and respect individual aspects of all how can you expect the public too?
More black,Asian and minorities social workers are needed to represent the community we trained to help acheve social justice for ,yet the work force is not afforded the same.
More black Asion and minority social workers are needed in the court system,in senior position’s,foster placements yet in my view the system works against this happening.
I have only known of black, Asian and minority social workers face capability procedures,perhaps attitudes,assumptions and prejudements need to be addressed before workable systems can be achieved.
It is worrying that the current attitude is( if it takes up time it is not worth the effort).This attitude in a professional service is worrying has it continues to leave certain sections of the community invisible.Work standards deteriate not improve.
In my view the whole system has no direction,an increasing lack of professional practice,lack of respect and dignity towards its workforce and service users especially if you are not the majority, with this more mistakes, more blame and no one taking responsibility, easer to blame the social worker.In my view nothing has changed but is getting worse for all concerned given there are practice guidelines they are manipulated without question.
The profession needs to reflect social workers from all sections of the community in all areas of the profession,however they should be aware of the struggles they will no doubt face both externally and internally.When they question their ability to safeguard children and vulnerable family’s it is not only down to them to deliver an inclusive and safe service.
It pains me to be so critical but these are my views,experience and observation has someone who as dedicated 43 years to a much needed service.
The professional standards guidelines for me is a bench mark.Social work is a humanitarian profession which has lost its way for both emoyees and those we should be supporting.
Refer to David above. Over 2 years and 7 months of an investigation that found no case to answer, and in response to my many complaints SWE responded with their apologies and thanking me for my patience, adding that they had to prioritise their Investigations.
I jumped through what felt like a hundred hoops to re-register after being overseas. The process made me feel inept and incompetent because they did not think my overseas experience was equivalent to uk practice.
When I asked on a number of occasions to speak with the disability champion to explore reasonable adjustments my requests where ignored.
I didn’t feel valued, empowered or that I expereinced inclusive practice – all the things that are benchmarks for social work practice
SWE is flawed in its concept and implementation. The comments reflect the lived experience of social workers reported for so called poor practice and then having swift resolution denied. I agree that the regulatory body should reflect the various roles that social workers work in, from statutory services through to charities. From field work to management. I also believe that as the regulatory body there should be more rigour in the expectation that social workers are managed by qualified social workers who are in management positions. The actuality of my recent experience within a statutory service was front line social work practitioners being managed by non qualified team and service managers. The regulator is doing nothing to address the brain drain from the profession and little to promote the profession. Too often social workers are the ones carrying the most risk whilst being less respected by other partners and certainly less well remunerated. And the regulator appears to be nowhere in that debate.
Wow! SWE is not coming out well given the above comments. Are you actively listening SWE?
Whilst it is important to gather the views of its own workforce, I have no doubt that the responses would be even more damning were SWE to ask education, the health profession, and the families it is supposed to serve, about having to work alongside its deeply inadequate system.
As a person with lived experience that collaborates with HEI’s I have come across allotvof prejudice from academics on various Social Work programmes.
A lack of transparency around involvement and inclusion on specific programmes. Social Work England quality standards are a joke interms of service user and carer involvement.
I was accused of being negative when I would not provide feedback about a Social Work Apprenticeship programme that I had not been involved in.
The balance of power with Social Work academic needs to be equal if coproduction is going to be meaningful.
Pressures of the role and the politics, lack of support when I needed to reduce hours to care for sick relative basically forced me into semi retirement. After 40 plus years I’m now looking forward to ending my career in social work and dreading needing any involvement of a sw in the future
SWE should really take this approach advised by its regulator – https://www.professionalstandards.org.uk/news-and-blog/blog/detail/blog/2024/04/04/customer-care–personalised-care—it-s-just-not-good-enough.–more-compassion-is-needed-in-complaints-handling