Another bug bear here at Researching Reform is the lack of robust training for social workers, who are tasked with working on some of the most complex social and psychological difficulties in the world, and now it seems, the Department for Education agrees with us.
In a memorandum the Department submitted to Parliament’s Education Committee, key concerns surrounding the effectiveness of children’s social work reform agenda were highlighted, including the view that too often social workers were poorly trained and not ready for frontline practice.
Other problems identified in the memorandum were the defensive nature of social work practice and an inability to provide innovative and confident practice leadership locally.
That a lack of resources, low morale and high turnover rates were also mentioned is significant – these obstacles to good practice not only have an effect on the way families are treated but directly impact on the culture inside the system. And whilst there are excellent social workers who care, they are still in relative terms, few and far between, unable to make a large scale difference to the sector as a whole and often struggle to achieve best practice due to the current economic constraints.
The memorandum has been submitted as part of the Education Committee’s inquiry into social care reform, and they are looking to gather more views. If you would like to share your thoughts, you can do so here. The deadline for submissions is midday on Friday 4th March, 2016.
There are two reasons why the basic training for professional social work became worse after 1971.
The introduction of generic Social Work practice in 1971 coupled with the on going failure to provide training for the actual work for those in a statutory setting,
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http://www.childrenscreamingtobeheard.com/children-screaming-heard-conference/
this speaks the truth
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After Victoria Climbie died, an investigation by Lord Laming found a chaotic shambles. The professionals involved in this tragic case, social workers from Haringay and Brent, as well as doctors from 2 hospitals failed this child. To my mind despite recommendations and further reveiws into other cases where a child died and more recommendations most of which have never been implemented, social workers are still failing the children. They are still missing serious cases of abuse that result in the death of the child and are taking children who are on their books into care for fear that if another child dies they will be blamed. (Apparently if the child is off their books it’s not a problem according to a Surrey social worker filmed for a documentary!). That should not be the criteria but it seems to be that.
The low figures of actual serious cases cannot justify the huge levels of children being taken away from their homes because the social workers cannot decide who is being abused. I believe they think they are rescuing these children from a terrible life but since the children are taken away it’s not proved. What is proved however is the terrible outcomes for the majority of children within the care system, not from being abused by their parents but from being traumatised from being taken away from their families or from being abused whilst in care!
The threshold of what seems to constitute abuse is getting lower, or is it higher? Many more children could and should be left in the care of their families but social workers fail the family assesments without speaking to ONE person who actually knows the person they are supposed to be assessing! Ludicrous! They have a tick box mentality but no common sense. Experts have been known to assess parents they have never met to support social workers!
It would be better if children were supported to stay at home with their families in all non criminal cases. If the parents are incapable and the extended family love and want to care for the children they should stay within their family. Social workers should have a redefined role to assist families not tear them apart. Relationships between families and social workers would improve and ultimately society would become not so disfunctional.
Where possible all children within the care system should go back to their families! There should be plans to set this in motion as soon as possible. Social workers are currently failing the children by keeping them in the care system when a large percentage could return home or live with extended family. I’m sure that once a child is in care social workers learn who really wants the child, even if they get it wrong initially! They could start slowly it doesn’t have to happen in one fell swoop! If only social workers gave the same support to families that they do to foster carers there would be a brighter future for all the children concerned.
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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Another section that social workers are failing the children is forced adoption. Having just read Natasha’s Twitter feed on “Adoptive parents and the misuse of section 20” one has to wonder at the social workers reasoning and what criteria is required to assess potential adopters. No doubt the same reasoning & criteria that led adoptive parents to rehome kids from bulletin boards in America to peadophiles!
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I see the Government has not changed it’s stance on forced adoption. Natasha’s tweeter feed informs us the law is to be changed to facilitate more adoptions! In years to come we will hear from those adopted children relaying their experience. Let’s hope it not what we already know about forced adoption but I suspect it will be more of the same. The government washes their hands of the kids taken into care despite an obligation to keep them safe, to have them adopted to God knows who simply because it cheaper to do so, never mind that adoption is known for trafficking children! History repeats itself and lessons are not learnt by the Government. Pity the children!
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I agree this is attempted social engineering in the same territory as attempted in Nazi Germany, Russia and China. and destined for the same failure failure, criticism and review in the future rather than stop now and prevent . This seems to be the work of Sir Cyril Taylor adviser to several generations of Tory Governments who has campaigned for several hundred thousand children to be removed from the direct control of their family environments.,
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Art, it seems the government is incapable of innovative thinking, or are they? Child snatching is financially rewarding, at least while going through the family court. 40% back in taxes alone, employment for professionals. It’s the upkeep of 92,000 kids that the problem! Adoption Tsars then come up with the bright idea, never thought of before, “Let’s get the kids adopted!”
Seems it’s not only adoption that can pave the way to trafficking but foster care is too!
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Because the policy was initiated under Labour before austerity it is difficult to argue that it was part of Tory obsession with reducing the size of the public sector to appears the big corporations and the new on line markets which have devastated some town centre joint with the supermarkets big and small.. Hopefully there will be an independent investigation into how the police developed at some point. Sir Cyril Taylor the long term adviser on education and children to various government.. The queen who rarely give talks/ spoke at one of his Anglo/USA universities as have USA presidents which suggests the hand of USA security services but I have no proof in this respect, has advocated removing a huge number of children from their parents into residential education with ” normal children” as he advocated at the first meeting of the UK peoples Tribunal and which seemed to have been endorsed by those promoting the UK people Tribunal. The Coalition seemed to recognise the need to tackle the cycle of anti social behaviour in some families in response to the summer of rioting with the idea of intense working with families through voluntary effort and paying organisations premium if they could get breakthroughs in such things as school attendance. Adopting children was apart of the overall strategy and the problem with all social engineering solutions is that the tend to discount what is in the genes, the strengths of culture traditional tribalism and that it often easier for the poor to earn more through crime and the black economy as we see with the attempt to convert the indigenous Afghans from growing the poppy to growing wheat,,,, once government controlled the civilian populations through bread and circuses now we have drugs the TV and the Internet. The poet and playwrite TS Elliot argues that human being cannot cope with too much reality and another made the point that when you look into the abyss the abyss looks back into you…. we love to identify the problems we kid ourselves that throwing more and more money at a problem will solve it or that politicians talk and quizzing at Westminster can affect what people think and do….the Germans the Russians the Chinese, the Catholic church the Muslims have tries that built empires which have failed… The UK with its empire did a better job than most but still failed and caused harm and injustice. I am not an advocate of doing nothing for the more the dark side is fiving free reign the more difficult the light has in countering but we all have to be realistic
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