A man, or woman, on social media who claimed to be a social worker called a tweeter a “sick fuck” after a heated exchange over an incident in which a six year old boy was pushed off a balcony at the Tate Modern by a 17 year old boy. The teenager blamed social services for his actions.

Carer Raavi Gupta (Raavi can be a man or a woman’s name) also said that he/she did not have the necessary qualifications to practice as a social worker but had been acting in the capacity of a social worker for over a decade.

Gupta engaged with the tweeter after he posted an article about the incident,  initially telling the tweeter to stop blaming social services for the crime.

Social media users were quick to join the conversation around whether or not social services had been partly responsible for the teenager’s violent behaviour.

One tweeter said, “He can blame whoever he likes but we all know he is to blame. However if he was a dangerous schizophrenic or mentally ill he should not have been on a trip to the Tate. Safety of majority comes first. Eye witnesses report his behaviour was odd for some time.”

Another tweeter added, “Apparently he was with ‘carers’. Your point re his odd behaviour is important, as you would have thought that ‘professional’ eagle eyed security staff would have noted that and questioned it…. Regardless of witnesses, nobody really knows the historical content….”

The exchange between Gupta and other tweeters became more aggressive after one social media user accused Gupta of having treated vulnerable families poorly and incorrectly suggested that social services were not experiencing budget cuts:

“Your victims are out there recording everything, you are quite right to be extremely concerned, I wasn’t aware of any cuts? The last I heard there was more money being pumped in.”

Gupta replied, “My victims? I’ve spent my life helping people you sick fuck.”

The unprofessional outburst was noticed by several tweeters.

Gupta went on to call another man “a racist right-wing nut job,” after a tweeter said social workers were dangerous people.

During the outburst, Mr Gupta admitted that he/she did not have the appropriate qualifications to act as a social worker. Gupta also tweeted that he/she was making decisions “way above my pay grade” and then told social media users that if they were “vaguely decent” they should campaign for more investment into social services.

Another tweeter went on to the social work register to try to find Raavi Gupta but was unable to see the name on the list, further implying that he/she was not a qualified social worker. Raavi Gupta may not be the carer’s real name.

Researching Reform reached out to Raavi to ask which council they worked for. We did not receive a reply.

Under current law and policy, people can practice as social workers without registering with Social Work England, the regulatory body which oversees social work practice, as long as they use informal titles which are not protected.

This loophole allows unqualified individuals to care for some of the most vulnerable people in England, and makes it extremely difficult to identify and prevent potentially life-threatening conduct.

Many thanks to Eugene for alerting us to this development.

Further reading:

• Unqualified & Undetectable – The Child Protection Workers Running Wild Inside England’s Family Courts
• New Body Monitoring Social Workers Makes Malpractice Blunder.