Removing my own blinkers

Removing my own blinkers

I worked in local authority children and families Social Work for the best part of twenty years.  Just over a year ago I moved and became a lecturer and I still can’t quite believe the changes that this has made both to me and to the profession I work in. There are many personal changes that will at some point form a blog but for now I want to look at one of the professional changes that I have experienced. For the sake of brevity it will be generalised but I think and hope most people will see what I am driving at and as always I welcome any comment or views.

Statutory services like Children and Families and Mental Health have the primary role to play in some form of societal enforcement, when I was younger I remember the term “soft police” being used to describe these activities; the removal of children on emergency measures and the detention of adults with mental health difficulties are two obvious examples of the work of statutory services. Legislation does allow for others to make these choices but in all of my own time in social work it was always the statutory services who took these actions.

I had and have no problem with this. I have taken people’s children off them. I have instigated detention procedures. I have been out with the police in risky and dangerous circumstances and like a lot of social workers I have spent a lot of professional time in police stations, courts and prisons. That was my job (and might be again) and I accepted it and to some extent became inured with it. But most importantly and for the purposes of this blog entry I realise now that this was what I thought social work was.

Since coming here I have visited and learned about a variety of resources that provide services to vulnerable and needy groups. Charities, local organisations, and churches all provide us with student placements and I have visited and been involved in many of these. In the process of doing so I have came to realise that I was somewhat blinkered by my role in a local authority. I now feel that I can see a much broader and wider scope of services and I feel much more positively about what I have seen.

Excuse my generalisations but what I seem to be becoming aware of is that the statutory sector are involved much more in the delivery of the “soft police” services. Children and families work appears to me to be dominated by notions of risk and protection and in the current economic climate work is prioritised on the basis of risk. For some social workers the only thing that is allocated to them is child or adult protection. Services are delivered in conjunction with partners in this area and social workers seem to be spending more and more time with the police delivering services that are by nature short term.

Again, and I am generalising, the third sector seem to be developing along a different direction of travel. Some of the most innovative and exciting work I have seen in a long time is being ushered in and with the onset of personalisation service users are given greater opportunities for choice than they have had for some time. It seems that with this a blurring of a boundary has occurred. For me I am not sure where “social care” stops and “social work” begins.

Innovation and creativity are in a short enough supply. The economic crisis has seen to that. The guarantee of resources for statutory services is that they deliver high level risk and protection services. In doing so they must (and should) work to well developed and rigorously produced guidelines. These dovetail with an increased degree of personal regulation as demanded by the various codes of conduct.

This “top slicing” leaves any other service “up for grabs” and the third sector has not been slow at coming forward and moving onto the ground recently vacated by the statutory sector. While this changing of geography is all a part of public service we should be aware of the risks involved and we should I feel be having a greater and more public discussion and debates around its merits and risks.

Finally I have a nagging worry. If and it is a big “if” the statutory sector ever gets an increased period of growth what will it grow into? It seems to me that it has given up so much ground it has created a niche market that it might struggle to break out of. I know that this shift has been as a part of the various reviews around the country but I do feel that the statutory sector is in danger of becoming the “protection profession” Losing some of the ground may have some short term benefits but it remains to be seen if there is any long term thinking involved.