White paper should allow social work to rediscover its mission

Ahead of the paper’s publication the College of Social Work’s Owen Davies outlines what he’d like the government to focus on

The government’s care and support white paper comes at a critical moment not just for social care, but for the future of social work as a profession.

Care services minister Paul Burstow has promised that social work will be at the heart of the white paper. So it must be, if the people who use services are not to be deprived of the professional support they require to make the best of their lives.

In our white paper recommendations, sent to Burstow last month, the College of Social Work urges the government to act on the evidence from service users that, for many of them, the support of social workers is indispensable if they are to live the lives they want. The values, skills and knowledge of social workers can help to deliver the outcomes that service users seek.

Ministers must use the white paper to spell out their strategy for social work in care services for adults. This is because it is becoming increasingly clear that some local authorities do not understand social work or what it can do for the most vulnerable members of our communities. A toxic mix of cuts and muddled thinking about personalisation has led some to suggest that social work is an optional extra in adult social care.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Our recent summit on social work with adults heard from Peter Beresford, chair of user group Shaping Our Lives, that the evidence points entirely the other way.

We all want a world in which people are free to live as independently as possible and to have a personal budget if this is what they want. As people take on the risks that accompany greater independence, so the importance of the social work understanding of how to support appropriate risk-taking and how to safeguard vulnerable adults becomes a higher priority.

Ensuring that formal safeguarding arrangements work in the best interests of adults is a function that ought to be carried out by qualified social workers. They know how the law operates, they are familiar with the evidence about what works, and have a set of skills rooted in knowledge and values that arise uniquely from an education in social work.

The attacks on social work unleashed by the financial cuts suggest that some employers simply do not recognise its value to service users. Just as the government endorsed the Munro review proposal for a post of principal child and family social worker, we believe there should be an equivalent post in the adult and mental health specialisms. It would provide professional leadership locally to develop self-confident and effective social work that is respected in increasingly diverse and generalist council departments.

Social workers are being liberated from the straitjacket of care management so that they can build more creative relationships with service users. They can also trial new methods of working with service users to find ways of meeting their needs for care and support.

Community social work is making a comeback and the economic case for prevention rather than cure is stronger than ever.

These are exciting times for the profession. Most social workers say they always wanted to be advocates for users rather than “care management bean-counters”. The white paper is a great opportunity to allow social work to rediscover its mission and regain its self-confidence.

Owen Davies is public affairs adviser at the College of Social Work