Do we need more male social workers?
- Yes, social work teams need to reflect the communities they support. (68%, 604 Votes)
- No, it's your qualities as a social worker that count. (32%, 283 Votes)
Total Voters: 887
Loading ...Do we need more men in social work?
That is the question that the first episode of season two of The Social Work Community Podcast seeks to answer.
According to Social Work England data, 83% of registered social workers were female as of November 2022.
But how much does this matter – to the children, families and adults supported by social workers and to the way social work teams and services work?
Community Care’s careers editor, Sharmeen Ziauddin, spoke to two of those male social workers – Curtis Powell and Jason Barnes – about their experience of the sector, why they choose the social work profession and what they, as men, bring to the table.
The Social Work Community Podcast explores the issues that matter to social work practitioners in their working lives.
Sharmeen and fellow host Kirsty Ayakwah, our senior careers editor, interview experienced and inspiring guests, including frontline social workers who speak from the heart about their jobs, the sector and society.
It was nominated in the podcast category at this year’s British Association of Social Workers (BASW) Social Work Journalism Awards, following its first season, which ran from October 2023 to April 2024.
Other subjects covered in season two include:
- Agency or permanent: what’s the right choice for you?
- Behind the scenes of Community Care – a 50th anniversary special.
There will also be special episodes with some well-known faces.
Where to find the podcast
Although the podcast is available on major podcast platforms, Social Work Community members will get special early access to each episode.
So sign up to the Social Work Community to be among the first to catch each episode and to connect with fellow practitioners in a safe space.
The Social Work Community Podcast can also be found on:
Click ‘follow’ or ‘subscribe’ on your podcast app so you know when a new episode is published.
You can also listen to the episode here:
Listen to “Do we need more male social workers?” on Spreaker.
To whet your appetite for season two, check out episodes from the first season through the links below:
- What is the impact of negative media coverage on social workers?
- The pros and cons of being a young social worker
- Racism in social work
- Should social workers be on social media?
- The refugee who became social worker of the year
Meanwhile, don’t forget to sign up to the Social Work Community and do also follow us on Instagram.
Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole 
Hampshire County Council 
Lincolnshire County Council 
Norfolk County Council 
Northamptonshire Children’s Trust 
South Gloucestershire Council 
Wiltshire Council 
Wokingham Borough Council 
Children and young people with SEND are ‘valued and prioritised’ in Wiltshire, find inspectors 
How specialist refugee teams benefit young people and social workers 
Podcast: returning to social work after becoming a first-time parent 
Podcast: would you work for an inadequate-rated service? 
Family help: one local authority’s experience of the model 
‘We are all one big family’: how one council has built a culture of support 
Workforce Insights – showcasing a selection of the sector’s top recruiters 
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This is a reply from a trustee (and former Chair) of the responsible and respectable (prior to ‘austerity’ government funded) charity Families Need Fathers. We propose to change our name to Both Parents Matter to better reflect our sex/gender equality and diversity respecting stance.
Our first task is to ensure that children get a relationship that will benefit them with both their parents and wider family. Our second is to get the relevant clauses in the UNCRC applied in the UK. These state that children have a right to a relationship with both their parents unless there has been a ruling ‘by a competent authority subject to judicial review’ that this would be against their welfare.
Our experience of our people’s contact with social workers is mostly – but with notable exceptions -dire. The potential contribution of children’s ‘second parent’ is sometimes blanked completely. More often of the perception of what the situation is has been set, by the interaction of the (usually) mother and the (usually female) social worker before he (usually) is involved.
SW has taken many decades to firmly establish itself as a profession which makes very little effort whatsoever to attract (young) men into its ranks and consequently has remained fundamentally (and ironically) unrepresentative of the diversity of the communities it serves. It would be interesting to see more (any?) research which addresses the impact of this dynamic in terms of the effectiveness of SW and the engagement of male service users, especially within children’s services. What is it about SW which continues to lead to so few (young) men choosing it as a career option?
Stop fetishing ‘Masters’ degrees, stop blathering on about social work being a ‘profession’ and you’ll attract a truly diverse range of people into social work. Amongst many reasons for social work not attracting representative range of people from communities in which practice takes place is the conviction that social work is elitist. True or not the constant look at us see how professional we are projections stemming ironically from low professional self esteem and little confidence in social work actually being the thing it claims for itself is off putting. More women fewer men isn’t an equation, it’s just numbers based on who applies for training. The several women I know who applied did so because they saw part time working as their future status. Not many men work part time in any employment. As for more men in social work you’ll find that male nurses are not only welcomed and their training positively encouraged but the environment in which nursing takes place is more collegiate. Why chose social work over that. Acknowledging that most people drift into social work rather than positively choosing to become a social worker might have something to do with it to.
Jon if you hate being a social worker and you have such a low opinion of social workers you should take your negativity out and over to somewhere else.
Actually I don’t hate being a social worker and nor do I have a low opinion of most of us. What I hate and what I refuse to pamper sre the ‘professional social workers’. Why? Because in their anxiety to prove theirs is a profession just like the doctors and lawyers they are desperate to be associated with, they disparage social work more than they realise. Slavish endorsement of SWE as a regulator against all evidence of it doing anything of the sort just so they can pretend ‘regulation’ is the badge that confers on them professional
status is sad, laughable, lamentable, depressing and the perfect example of anxiety overdoing confident practice. Personally I accept that the many claimed qualities, skills and values that supposedly make social work unique are nothing of the sort. That doesn’t make me fret about how I might be seen by the ‘professions’ because I’m content and confident of the value of social work. I don’t need to pitch it against others to feel ‘seen’ or validated. Service user feed back and confidence of my colleagues are enough.
My negatives are about the inane and desperate searches to ‘prove’ social work is on a par with real professions. Professions worthy of the claim have unique characteristics. They are not magpies plaigarising psychology, occupational therapy, pedagogy, medicine, literature, philosophy, political theory and so on. The people who should take themselves somewhere else are the permanently anxious and the angst riddled status cravers. Just do the job I say.