‘No quick fix’ as social work chiefs launch PR offensive

How often does your boss launch a campaign to tell the world how great you are? Not often enough? As of this week, Scotland’s social workers can maybe feel just a little bit more loved as the body representing their bosses begins a year-long bid to change public perceptions of the beleaguered profession.

“Social Work Changes Lives” will be launched with a reception at the Scottish Parliament tomorrow, with the goal of improving understanding of social work services and social care, and redressing some of the impressions created by a series of high-profile child protection scandals.

In fact, the public focus on child protection is one of the key concerns the campaign is setting out to address, with one of the aims being to highlight the range of other areas in which social workers operate, including work with adults and children with disabilities, elderly care, early years work with children and work with those who suffer from mental ill-health.

The £50,000 initiative is a collaboration between the Association of Directors of Social Work (ADSW), the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) and Scottish PR agency Pagoda. Scotland’s 32 local authorities are also being urged to co-operate with the bid to shift public attitudes and widen understanding.
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Alan Baird, president of ADSW, is also director of social work at Dundee City Council. He has had to defend his own position recently in the wake of the killing of toddler Brandon Muir by his drug-using mother’s boyfriend. Social workers had been in touch with the family but the child was not on the protection register.

Baird also learned the difficulty of attempting to put social work in a positive light, when some newspapers criticised him in the wake of the case for a report to councillors in which he pointed out that his department had received more letters of praise than complaints last year.

Baird said the Brandon Muir case underlined the importance of explaining more about what social work can do and the limitations that also affect workers. “There are things that happen which we can’t possibly know about unless we are told. The scale of the drug problem is such that the demands are getting ever greater.”

The campaign, he says, “is the result of a commitment I gave last year to try and improve public understanding of the complexity and diversity of social work and social care”.

Baird added that many people were unaware of what a small proportion of the social care workforce qualified social workers actually made up, but that talking about their role could often leave people like himself looking defensive.

“We have got to be a bit more pro-active and take more responsibility for helping the public understand what we do. This campaign will work, for 12 months initially, to try and change the public’s understanding.

Social work is about much more than just the protection of children, Baird added. “It is about creating independence, mentoring people in their own home and improving the quality of people’s lives in a range of different ways. And it is not just about the public sector. The voluntary and private sectors all contribute to the lives of people every day.”

Organisers of the PR push hope to promote a range of stories demonstrating the variety of social work, its achievements and the people who benefit. It is backed by the Scottish Government and Adam Ingram, the children and early years minister, will speak at the launch.

“There is no short-term quick fix for this, ” Baird adds. “But we hope that getting good positive messages out for the public will also help reinforce the positives for social work staff, particularly at a time when demand is rising.

“It is not the key message but as a by-product it is important to continue to recruit younger enthusiastic and skilled people. We want to attract younger people into social work but it is difficult when in the press north and south of the border they are reading quite negative things.”

Last week the English Local Government Association warned that one in 10 child protection social work posts remained unfilled.

Laura McLean, a social worker from Renfrew, will also speak at the launch. She said welcomed the campaign as really positive’ for the profession. She said many people don’t see the variety of work social workers are involved in, or recognise the range of skills they need.

“There is a perception that we are either whipping children away or leaving them in terrible situations. There is a lack of understanding that we do have professional expertise and that decisions are largely taken based on what works. We wouldn’t make decisions without knowing what is happening in the life of a child and there is no set formula.”

McLean cites other work done to support families, or to track down people who are unwilling to accept social work involvement, as the kind of work of which members of the public are usually unaware.

While some people fear a letter from social work, others are very happy to be helped, she adds. “Some people have an immediate panic that we are coming to take away their children. In one domestic violence case recently we did have to remove a baby because the violence was so serious, but we subsequently got the mum away from a very violent man and got the baby back with mum – who was really happy to have had our support.”

Giving a higher public profile to such cases might help improve social work’s image, McLean says.

Another element of the ADSW’s strategy will be to build a network of social work champions’ who can be on call to contribute to debates and help redress the balance when social workers are under fire.

SNP MSP Christina McElvie is among the first such champions. A former social care worker with 19 years experience of social work in Glasgow City Council, she argues that much amazing’ practice is ignored, with the public and media only paying attention when something goes wrong.

She said of her role: “From my point of view it is about talking about the good things social workers do, endorsing campaigns, writing letters of support and speaking and blogging about some of the good initiatives that are going on.”

Politicians have to respond when there is a public outcry, such as that over the death of Baby P in the London borough of Haringey, but have a duty to be balanced, she said. “I have known staff involved in cases where things have gone wrong and they all end up basically tarred with the same brush. It demotivates and demoralises the workforce and good people can get fed up and burned out. But they are often the people we need to keep. Politicians have to be careful how they balance outrage.”

Ian Coldwell of Pagoda PR says much work done by social workers goes unreported because of the high quality of care.

“There is an expectation of high standards of care for the elderly, for example. Part of the challenge will be to find innovative ways of showcasing good practice in a way that the media can see a news angle.”

He believes that when departments are being criticised there is often a defence’ that is never heard, and that is where people like McElvie can help.

“Often, the particular local authority understandably can’t discuss a case readily, so there is a role for other commentators to explain the background – for example, the judicial process involved in taking a child into care or the involvement of other agencies such as health boards.”