A decade of austerity has heaped pressure on the
profession, but it’s important to celebrate its achievements.
A decade of austerity has heaped pressure on the
profession, but it’s important to celebrate its achievements
Social
workers have been at the forefront of a widening understanding about child
safety and protection. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
Published
onFri 7 Aug 2020 08.37 BST
Amid
the concentration this year on Brexit and coronavirus, and with a focus on the
NHS and its 72nd anniversary, another significant anniversary is passing by
with little recognition. It is 50 years since a unified profession of social
work was established across the United Kingdom, and 50 years since the creation
of integrated local authority personal social services in England and Wales.
Before 1970 there were eight separate membership
organisations for different specialist social workers, including child care
officers, mental welfare officers and what were called moral welfare officers. There were also separate
council children’s, welfare and mental health departments, with psychiatric and
medical social workers employed by the NHS.
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The 1970 implementation of the 1968 Seebohm Report’s recommendations brought together
this patchwork of competing services into one local social services department.
There was also the creation of one professional qualification relevant for all
social workers and the creation of the British Association of Social Workers, which provided a
unified professional organisation.
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It was a time of hope and promise that social work
and personal social services would have the opportunity to make a greater
contribution within the welfare state. It was an aspiration that, during the
past half-century, has led to demonstrable achievements, with social workers at
the forefront of five particularly significant changes.
In 1970 there was still a dependence on the big
19th-century institutions that incarcerated people with mental health and
learning difficulties in county asylums.
For older people there were geriatric wards in what
were the old Poor Law workhouses, rebadged as community hospitals. And for
younger people with physical impairment the only assistance outside the family
was to move into residential care homes provided by charities. Babies and young
children were still being cared for in residential nurseries of up to 40
children, and older children and young people were living in homes of 120
children or more and in cottage villages with their own school and sanatorium.
Social workers and personal social services in the
1980s and 1990s were at the centre of the closure of these big, isolating
institutions and led the move towards help within families and communities.
Second, prompted, prodded and pushed by disabled
people, it was social services departments that moved ahead with making cash
payments available to disabled people even before legislation made doing so
legal and legitimate. What is now called “personalisation” had its roots in the
actions and activities of social workers in the 1990s.
Third, social work moved ahead more quickly than
many other occupations in changing from “expert knows best” to working in
partnership alongside disabled people and others. There was an increasing
emphasis on enabling and facilitating in alliance with disabled people, who
were empowering themselves to have more choice and control.
Fourth, social workers shaped the 1989 Children Act, which enshrined the concept of
“children in need” and promoted working in partnership with parents and
providing help for families getting into difficulty. Indeed a former social
worker, Virginia Bottomley, was the secretary of state who oversaw the act’s
implementation. It is still the primary legislation providing the statutory
framework for children’s social services.
Fifth, social workers have been at the forefront of
a widening understanding about child safety and protection. Fifty years ago
there was recognition of what was called “battered baby syndrome” and a
concentration on physical abuse. Subsequent decades have seen child protection
concerns broadened to include sexual abuse within families and institutions;
awareness of the impact of neglect; recognition of emotional abuse; then the
focus on sexual exploitation and networked abuse.
Today, however, the time and tasks of social
workers have been skewed too much to child and adult protection and to
rationing diminishing help as a consequence of a decade of austerity. Risk
management and rationing have trumped building relationships and creating and
deploying resources.
One consequence of the continuing year-on-year cuts
since 2010 is workforce instability, difficulty in retaining experienced social
workers and a high turnover of top managers and leaders, especially in
children’s services. The frustration of not being able to practise well with
time squeezed – and the urgency to close work down so new referrals can be
taken on – hits morale and confidence. Some local authorities are bucking the
trend, while others are buckling under the pressure, but it is getting harder for
all.
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Despite the rhetoric during the coronavirus crisis
about the importance of key workers and public services, the government
continues to favour the big outsourcing companies and leave local authorities
stranded and struggling to fulfil crucial statutory responsibilities.
But if there is one overriding message from the
past 50 years for social workers, it is that by being professionally and
collectively committed and active, they can contribute to shaping positive
change.
·
Ray Jones is emeritus professor of social work at
Kingston University and a social worker who was a director of social services
for 14 years. His new book A
History of the Personal Social Services in England is published
by Palgrave Macmillan
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