Positive social work stories are not hard to tell. Those of us working in the field could rattle off many positive stories about ways we have helped and served individuals, families and communities and effectively advocated for systemic and structural changes that have improved access to services.
I can tell you from personal experience that media outlets, even at a community level, are simply not interested in stories about social work, or expanding the public narrative and perception of social work. I have attempted to pitch stories highlighting inspirational stories about social workers, to no avail, even though I have now been published in more media outlets across Canada than most paid journalists, so I know it's not my writing that was lacking. We live in a "if it bleeds it leads" culture of journalism and media.
A recent study from J-Source, a journalism site in Canada found that the majority of newspaper columnist are middle aged males. They did not include ethnicity, but they should have, as there is a notable lack of ethnic diversity. White privilege continues to reign supreme in media - writing, publishing, editing etc..
When we have such limited sources of news (and don't even get me started on media concentration in Canada, the worst of most places on the planet), it really shouldn't be a surprise that few new, fresh, or different voices are allowed into the exclusive club to create opportunities to highlight more positive stories about the diversity, importance and effectiveness of the work of social workers in our communities.
On that note, I've long been interested in writing stories about social workers who are interested in being featured on this blog. There are many of us who are doing inspiring and excellent work out there. If you are interested in being featured, contact me @ catalystbc7@gmail.com, or if you know someone who you think should be featured, let me know.
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Social work needs positive news stories – why are they so hard to tell? (UK)
Negative
media coverage causes high staff turnover and a barrier of mistrust – it's time to change public perceptions
It seems that most people only think about social work when the media
runs another story about a child dying at the hands of their neglectful
or abusive parents. Every time, the authorities are judged to have
failed and the social worker is usually at the front of the queue as the
blame is assigned.
Public services absolutely need to be held to
account and we should never tolerate poor practice, but these tragedies
make easy headlines and it is too simplistic to lay the fault at the
foot of individual incompetence. Lack of inter-agency co-operation,
absence of leadership, workload pressures, the distraction of
bureaucratic processes and inadequate training all play their part in a
complex system that will never be free of error.
How does this negative media coverage impact on the profession and subsequently the vulnerable children
and families we are trying to protect and support? I have worked in
statutory children's social work for fifteen years and have noticed the
following trends. The first and most obvious is high turnover of staff.
When frontline practitioners leave they take all their expertise with
them, and the critical job of child protection is left to some of the
least experienced staff.
Secondly, the negative perception of
social services and presumption of incompetence creates a barrier of
distrust and fuels hostility towards social workers. This has to be
overcome before a productive relationship can be developed with a
family.
Thirdly, working in a culture of criticism and blame
creates anxiety. Of course no one wants to make mistakes, we join the
profession to help, not harm.
But the fear of being subjected to the kind of vitriolic abuse that Sharon Shoesmith endured is omnipresent and can distort the ability to make careful, balanced risk assessments.
Risk
has to be managed and is rarely eliminated, sometimes decisions about
risk of harm to children becomes entangled with reputational risk to the
organisation. This can lead to risk averse practice which is not in
children's best interests. Good practice cannot thrive in a culture of
blame and fear.
One of the challenges facing the profession is how
to improve its image. An experience from my own career helps to
illustrate this point. Some years ago I changed from statutory child
protection to do a similar job at the NSPCC. Working for a voluntary
agency with a positive image automatically afforded me a professional
respect and assumed expertise that I had never previously experienced.
Service users were more willing to engage and colleagues in other
agencies were more responsive: this enabled me to be a much more
effective practitioner.
So how does statutory social work improve
its image and why is it so difficult, when other helping professions and
the voluntary sector do it successfully? We need to educate people
about what social workers really do. Only a small proportion of the work
involves removing children. Every day we support thousands of isolated
families in poverty and on the margins of society.
We prevent violence
in the home, enable people to parent safely while they manage drugs,
alcohol misuse, mental and physical health difficulties and much more.
We
also need more varied and accurate representations of social work,
positive storylines in the soaps with characters that are compassionate
and capable. The profession needs to promote its success stories, but
social workers are not forthcoming about sharing examples of good
practice. Perhaps it's just modesty, but I suspect it's because they
don't want to draw attention to themselves, only to risk falling from a
greater height if something on their next case goes wrong.
Positive
stories are more difficult to tell in social work than they might be in
health and education. Our involvement carries a stigma and it's natural
that people don't want it to be public knowledge. In social work we
make judgements that we believe to be in children's best interests.
Sometimes it doesn't feel like that to the child, and the family does
not always agree. It may be a good outcome to place a child with foster
carers where they then thrive, but for every child removed there will be
parents who lost the care of their child. We have to respect these are
not good
news stories for everyone involved.
The relatively new
College of Social Work (TCSW) has a leading role in
improving the image of the profession,
but it can't do it alone.
Individual social workers and employers can
do more, by continuing to strive to deliver good practice, and share
these examples with each other and TCSW. This won't be an easy task, but
we owe it to the profession and to our communities to take this
opportunity in 2014 and start changing
public perceptions.
Lucie
Heyes, the College of Social Work's Professional Assembly member and
media spokesperson, was awarded an MBE in the new year honours list
