Social workers deserve respect and support

UNISON GS Dave Prentis writing on Left Foot Forward blog comments on the Munro review of child protection set up by the Government last June. http://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/02/social-workers-need-support/

Dave highlights how social workers are caught in the vice of ever increasing demands for social services and unprecedented local authority cost cutting:

‘How ironic that just as Professor Munro shines a spotlight on the need for social workers to do less paperwork, many councils are making cuts of 25 per cent or more to administrative staff, who provide vital back-up so social workers can be out in the community. For every tragedy, there are tens of thousands of children and adults out there who owe their life chances to the diligence, support and professionalism of social workers. Social work and social workers deserve our support, too.’

UNISON is promoting an online petition with the following demands:

1.The right to a manageable workload with a reasonable number and mix of cases. In high risk areas like child protection, mental health and older people%u2019s teams we believe the government needs to publish a recognised benchmark that practitioners can use to raise the alarm when caseloads are becoming too high.

2.The right to be paid or have time off to compensate when excess hours are worked.

3.The right to raise professional concerns when workloads become unmanageable to the highest level of their organisation, for example to an elected member, board member or trustee.

4.The right to a minimum of monthly professional supervision from a qualified social worker of at least 90 minutes with more frequent supervision for newly qualified social workers.

5.The right to 10% of working time to be available for continuing professional development and related activities like reflective practice, mentoring colleagues, supporting students and peer support.

6.The right to a functioning IT system and adequate administrative support so that social workers can use their time on activity that requires their expertise.

7.The right to safe working practices, which address the high risks social workers are exposed to from lone working, threats and attacks.

8.The right to support to deal with stress and traumatic cases.

9. The right to management training and realistic limits on the numbers of social workers that any one manager is expected to supervise.

10.The right to a clear definition of respective roles between assistant practitioners and qualified social workers so that there is clarity about who is responsible for cases.