Social work requires ‘heroic’ image

The task of reinventing the image of social work should be handed to a top global advertising agency, the founder of children’s charity Kids Company has told CYP Now.

Writing for CYP Now, Camila Batmanghelidjh said social work was such an important job that the world’s best advertising firms should be competing to brand it “a brilliant, heroic vocation”.

The social work profession, which has been under fierce attack by sections of the media since the Baby P case, required its own “tsar who fights for and celebrates the worker on the ground”, she added.

Batmanghelidjh’s comments came in her contribution to CYP Now’s Alternative Social Work Taskforce, where a panel of six experts consider what should be done to address the burning issues facing children’s social care.

Robert Tapsfield, chief executive of the Fostering Network, said he was dismayed at the state of information systems available to social workers. “Good record-keeping is an essential component of good practice,” he said. “The often cumbersome and time-consuming integrated children’s systems must be reformed to help social workers do their jobs.”

Chris Hanvey, deputy chief executive of Barnardo’s, said raising the level of training and attracting a high calibre of candidates to the profession lies at the heart of improving standards.

Batmanghelidjh was equally critical of existing training practices.

“The social work syllabus lacks ’emotional competencies’ in its training,” she said. “Workers need to learn about emotional functioning.”