2013-05-22T06:20:02-04:00 Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/author/index.php?author=hayley-meachin Copyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Hayley Meachin Good old fashioned elbow grease. tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.3014017 2013-04-04T19:00:00-04:00 2013-04-04T13:33:34-04:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/
Just in case the electorate missed the point, the Daily Mail was more than willing to hit them over the head with a hammer with its "Vile Product of Welfare UK" headline above a picture not of Mick on his own, nor of his some say equally culpable wife Mairead, but of Mick surrounded by the six children who died.

What concerns me is not so much that the Mail saw fit to take the stance it has but more why, in a civilised society, they feel so confident that they'll get away with it?

It isn't just an issue for Leveson, nor the fact that Mail editor Paul Dacre chairs the Press Complaints Commission's Editors' Code of Practice Committee. My fear is that the Mail feels free to run these types of stories treating children from poor backgrounds as lesser life forms because many people secretly agree that they are.

In the case of the Philpott children, the Mail has taken this message to heart, blaming the children for their very existence, tagging the whole family "vile products".

Large families living on benefits seem to pose a particular affront to moral sensibilities. A recent Channel 4 series 16 Kids and Counting celebrated large families. It seems as if large families born to working parents are viewed as The Waltons, whereas large families born to parents on benefits are described in negative terms of varying vitriol.

The Mail also predictably blames social workers, who "did nothing" about the household of two women sharing one man and multiple children. A Serious Case Review is currently underway, but Derby Safeguarding Children Board has indicated that there were no immediate child protection concerns.

Regardless of what their critics may say, it is not the job of social workers to act as the moral police of every family in Britain. Nor do social workers monitor the benefits system, that is the role of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Bridget Robb, interim chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, believes that the Philpott case should not be used to justify negative attitudes towards children who are being raised on benefits.

"Men like Mick Philpott challenge a lot of assumptions about good parenting and our tolerance about the extent to which the state should fund different lifestyles", Ms Robb said. "All statutory agents will be examining this case to see if anyone should or could have intervened more effectively, but extreme cases such as this are a bad basis for making policy decisions. The Philpott case should not be the focus for the debate on the welfare system".

If anything, Mick Philpott with his history of violence and exploiting vulnerable teenage girls has more in common with notorious serial killer Fred West than with your average person in receipt of benefits. I do not recall Fred West's finances being scrutinised as a contributing factor to his terrible crimes, but that was in 1994, when welfare reform was less of a concern.

Mick Philpott did not commit this crime because he was on benefits, but because of the narcissistic and controlling person he was. It would be a backwards step in our understanding of human behaviour if we start viewing people's actions through a prism of their income.

The Philpott children were much loved; they had siblings and extended family who will undoubtedly be suffering terribly from their loss. I hope that Mick Philpott's living children will be supported not stigmatised, as Fred West's children have been, by dint of birth through their grief.

If there is a lesson to be learned, it should be that the living Philpott children are supported to break the cycle and not go down the same road as their father.

The local community in Derby has also been devastated by the tragedy, particularly neighbours in Victory Road who witnessed attempts to resuscitate the children as they lay lifeless at the front of the house after being recovered.

The Derby Telegraph printed the eulogies that were delivered at the children's funeral. Please read them and spare a thought for these children who were so badly let down by their parents that they now lie side by side in six little graves paid for by strangers.

Duwayne, Jade, John, Jack, Jesse and Jayden were innocent, happy children and even if you don't like their names or their background, their tragic deaths must not be dismissed as irrelevant because their parents were deeply flawed individuals.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2900431 2013-03-18T19:00:00-04:00 2013-05-18T05:12:01-04:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/ World Social Work Day, but given the dire state of public services, many might reach a conclusion that there is little to celebrate. This year's theme of 'Promoting Social and Economic Equalities' does not sit comfortably with vulnerable people who are being told by social workers that they cannot have help because of funding cuts.

While social workers might in theory wish to be agents of positive change, rather than agents for administering damaging government cuts, there are limits on the extent to which most will feel able to draw attention to situations where service provision drops to dangerous levels. The reality for most is that they can blow the whistle on unsafe practice until they're blue in the face but it means nothing other than a fast track to constructive dismissal if those in power don't want to listen.

From Rochdale sex gangs to Mid Staffs hospitals, seemingly not a month goes by without another inquiry into failures of care. When such institutional failings are met with the unremitting march of public sector spending cuts, there is a real danger that we have entered territory in which anyone who needs health or social care is regarded as an expensive nuisance.

It's a dismal reality that social workers currently rank among those professionals charged with turning a blind eye to abuses inflicted on the most vulnerable. It begs the question, given that social workers pledge to fight social injustice, of why they aren't all currently lining up to speak out and refusing to implement service cuts, or indeed why they weren't at the front of a long queue in Mid Staffs or Rochdale to tell the world everything they knew, or at least suspected?

It all looks damning doesn't it, yet it doesn't tell the whole story. It isn't that social workers have stopped caring, but that there is little that can be done to protect service users' best interests when professionals are not only gagged from speaking out, but their concerns are largely ignored by those in power when they do.

As more and more people who use and rely on services turn to legal action to seek adequate provision from local authorities, perhaps it's time for a statutory legal duty on social workers as advocates, as part of a clear legal process, similar to that in place for mental health hearings.

Increasingly, members of the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) and its trade union arm, the Social Workers Union (SWU), report being forced to impose cuts and service rationing on vulnerable people, and facing unacceptable and seemingly insurmountable opposition from employers when they attempt to speak up on behalf of people who use services.

The Francis report into the failings at a number of hospitals in Mid Staffordshire was heralded as a watershed moment, aiming to enshrine a 'duty of candour' clause into the contract of every NHS worker. In other words, if you work here, you agree to blow the whistle on malpractice and abuse.

Yet there are no such plans for liberating local authority social workers who are constrained instead by a polar opposite doctrine - draconian confidentiality clauses which prevent them, on pain of dismissal, from speaking about their work.

Bizarre isn't it, that amidst all the high profile safeguarding deaths witnessed over the past 20 years, and all the commissioned reports - Laming, Munro, the Social Work Task Force, to name a few - the notion that social workers should have a similar requirement for candour has barely breathed a sigh. Perhaps one death isn't enough and it's only when multiple casualties stack up, as in the case of Mid Staffs, that honesty becomes the best policy.

Maybe such radicalism is stymied by the fact such moral imperatives won't ever translate into action if management isn't obligated to listen and councillors and ministers aren't required to act.

Equally, while the social work function remains unprotected, the professionalism imbued in our practising social workers is somehow lacking - with great power comes great responsibility, a superhero script once read, so perhaps we should be modest in our expectations of social workers until we give them the status their crucial efforts merit.

The current duty of confidentiality, aimed at protecting the privacy of vulnerable children and adults, is used as a stick to beat down already oppressed staff when they try to expose wrongdoing. It is also used by newspapers to say whatever they like about alleged failings by social workers, for while a service user with an axe to grind may speak out, the social worker is forbidden from proffering any defence. Nothing says guilty to the public quicker than a "no comment" from a local authority.

PCTs and local authorities must not wring their hands when things go wrong, when they could have been constantly challenging unjust centrally-imposed policies. How the cuts are implemented is important. Many local authorities have embraced a new mantra - "less for less" - saying boldly that with less money they have to provide a lesser service.

And there are choices to be made. Take, for instance, the issue of local authorities accepting a short-term funding hand out from central government in return for freezing council tax. Not all local authorities are prepared to play this cynical game of electioneering. Tory-run Peterborough City Council has broken ranks and proposed a 2.95% increase in council tax next year because of concerns a freeze will mean longer-term even deeper cuts. Any rise of 2% or higher necessitates holding a local referendum but if a council thinks it is a necessary strategy to limit the ravaging effects of deep cuts, surely many more should be making the same brave choice.

If desperately vulnerable people are being forced to go without, then no respectable council should impose the cuts without first putting the decision to a vote. Of course, this invites charges of wasting moneywasting money on holding such plebiscites but then councils can always retort that it wasn't their idea to devise such a cynical and anti-local system.

Lack of funding means that warm words from social workers are not always being translated into action, as disability rights activist Kaliya Franklin told delegates at a recent BASW event.

Kaliya has Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, which affects the way collagen works in the body, and while her Twitter name may be 'Bendygirl', she is keen to challenge stereotypes about the disabled.

Her local authority is Wirral Council, where adult social services manager Martin Morton blew the whistle on disabled residents in council care being systematically over-charged for their accommodation. Mr Morton repeatedly warned his bosses about the scandal but was ignored, then bullied out of his job having signed a gagging clause forbidding him from revealing the scandal to the media.

Ms Franklin said she wished she could say that she liked social work professionals more but instead told the event: "Nothing scares me more than social workers, other than spiders." Her experience of social workers had been "nasty, bullying me to the point of tears, telling me what I can't have and then going away again".

She explained: "Wirral is a great place for a disability campaigner, as they have used pretty much every dirty trick that could be pulled. Anyone in the Wirral with moderate care needs has had their care packages taken away. They even suggested they bring an electric wheelchair round, so that I could try out what I couldn't have. The whole assessment process just leaves you feeling confused and frightened.

"The people who oversaw this malpractice have had their rights protected, superseding the rights of the vulnerable."

Mr Morton, who is currently pursuing legal action against his former employer, recently told local paper the Wirral Globe: "Five years after I first exposed the abuse of vulnerable people in council care, I am unemployed and on anti-depressants, with my home in jeopardy and recurring thoughts of taking my own life.

"Meanwhile, those implicated in serious malpractice have been rewarded with six-figure pay-offs."

Public sector workers know that something is seriously wrong with our state systems of care, stretching all the way from teenagers in care homes to elderly patients in hospitals, but their work cultures prevent them from doing anything about it.

BASW would like to see the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) global guidance on promoting Effective and Ethical Working Environments for Social Work embraced by all UK social work employers. The guidance states that employers must acknowledge that social workers have the right to stand up for service users even when it puts them into conflict with management.

This would be an important step towards introducing a statutory duty on social workers to advocate as part of a clear legal process on behalf of the people who use, or need, services.

Post Mid-Staffs, has anyone really been punished or held accountable? While politicians may talk of duty of candour, the consequences for whistle blowers may still be grave, as management, even at the very highest level - such as Parliament - seeks to protect its own systems rather than the vulnerable.

To quote Kaliya Franklin, "without proper social care funding, we won't have any society at all".]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.2732749 2013-02-21T19:00:00-05:00 2013-04-23T05:12:01-04:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/
Since the coalition government was elected, the manifesto promise of the Big Society has morphed into relentless bashing of benefit claimants via the media. Whether stories originate from press officers or from journalists, the results are the same.

Strivers vs. Shirkers, benefit scroungers, large families fleecing the public purse, single mums, teen mums, are all headlines that fuel the increasingly hate-filled rhetoric against benefit claimants.

On 17 February, 8.6 million viewers of BBC's Call the Midwife watched a storyline where an exhausted mother of eight, refused adequate housing by the council, risked her life by having a back-street abortion to end her ninth pregnancy.

The story was set in the 1958, where contraception was not available on the NHS. Would such a story elicit any sympathy if set in 2013? The answer is a resounding no, if the case of 'Dole Queen' Heather Frost is anything to go by.

A day after this particular episode of Call the Midwife aired, Heather Frost, mother of 11 and grandmother of two, hit the headlines for having a £400k 'eco mansion' built for her by Tewkesbury council.

Putting to one side the rights and wrongs of large families being supported by the state, of all the negative adjectives aimed at Heather Frost, such as feckless, shameless, irresponsible, the claim that Ms Frost "treated her womb like a clown car" was perhaps the most offensive to her children. This said of a woman who is currently recovering from treatment for cervical cancer.

Have we become so numbed by the government's hounding of the poor that we no longer flinch at such unbridled venom?

As Councillor Derek Davies, lead member for built environment at Tewkesbury Borough Council, told Radio 4's Today programme, the only true part of this story is that that Heather Frost has 11 children that have to be housed as part of the welfare system that we have in this country.

When the Today presenter pressed him on the fact that it was true that the council was building a home for 11 children, his spirited riposte "and the alternative to that is?" had even the indefatigable Evan Davis stumped.

Make no mistake, it is no coincidence that as the government seeks to make cuts to benefits, we have seen a deluge of negative stories about claimants over the past year. In Heather Frost's case, it is likely that someone has gone through the planning application and noted a six bedroom house on the plans, rather than the resulting PR spin of a 'Dole Queen' demanding a mansion be built for her.

It is easy to place all of the blame for society's failings on the shoulders of a benefit claimant. I have lost count recently of the amount of times I have seen stories of claimants living the high life, posed by a photographer with a laptop in front of them or in front of a flat screen TV. No mention of the fact that may be one of their few possessions, or that it may be rented or bought at extortionately high hire purchase schemes, or if you look carefully, the rest of their surroundings are tatty. No, best just to make them look like a lottery winner; the naïve British public will buy that.

The Sun is even running a 'Britain's Bonkers Benefits' campaign, chock full of case studies of people who don't want to work. The Sun even ran the headline "I just want to wed a footballer" to illustrate the four million 'Brits who have never worked', featuring 26-year-old Jo Leigh who gets her boyfriends to pay all her bills. Morally dubious maybe, but the only snag with choosing Miss Leigh as the poster girl for benefit claimants is that she doesn't actually, er, claim benefits.

Don't assume either that because the subjects of these many stories have agreed to speak to the media and be photographed next to some consumer goods that they are boasting about their 'profligate' lifestyle. Even the savviest political operators can be naive about what the media can do with a little basic information.

The success of the Spartacus report demonstrated how well organised and eloquent disability campaigners have been in mounting a case for the defence, but there is no such solidarity movement for non-disabled job-seekers. In other words, they are fair game and they rarely have right of reply when they are placed in the middle of a media storm.

Speaking on ITV's Daybreak, Ms Frost denied having said that if she didn't like the new house, they'd just have to build her another one. She also pointed out that her current housing was temporary accommodation and that the family have been waiting for years to be re-housed. She is merely taking up an offer of housing that was made to her by the council, who have a legal obligation to provide adequate housing for these children.

Ms Frost is not the only single mum to have found herself at the centre of a media storm, recently Amy Crowhurst who hit the headlines ten years ago as Britain's youngest mum when she became pregnant aged 12, was castigated for an interview with Closer magazine where she allegedly claimed that getting pregnant so young was the best decision she had ever made, as now she was able to go clubbing.

When you hear her rebuttal on LBC radio, what Amy is actually saying is that she doesn't regret the birth of her children and is making the best of a difficult situation. The interview with Closer magazine was supposed to be a ten years on catch up, not a character assassination. "Am I the only one on benefits?" she asks, clearly baffled by her notoriety.

BBC Newsnight is not above such tactics either, as single mum Shanene Thorpe discovered. Innocently thinking that Newsnight were interviewing her about cuts to housing benefit, Shanene was subjected to an aggressive drubbing by political editor Allegra Stratton as to why she was claiming housing benefit in the first place when she could live with her mum. Shanene, who has a job and only claims benefit because her London rent is so high, rightfully demanded and received an apology from Newsnight for being so abysmally treated.

Cait Reilly, the University of Birmingham graduate who had the Government's 'Back to Work' scheme declared unlawful when she was forced to stock shelves in Poundland rather than being given proper work experience, was dismissed by the right wing press as another whinging lazy student, despite her confession that she hated being on benefits and is now working in a Morrisons.

All of these stories, whatever their individual detail, are merely vehicles for promoting welfare cuts. The recent appointment of controversial spin doctor 'Wizard of Oz' Lynton Crosby as Cameron's campaign manager means that it is extremely unlikely that we will see a rejection of 'nasty party' tactics on welfare reform.

Bridget Robb, interim chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, believes that the current tone of the benefits debate is unproductive and needs to change, commenting: "Welfare reform is necessary, but it will not be achieved by apportioning blame or by scare tactics. The Labour party is being too quiet on the issue of welfare reform, and should be defending the poorest in society from these underhand attacks. If the government is so confident of the 'fairness' of benefit reform, then why is it using such bully boy rhetoric against those on benefits?"

I don't know Heather Frost, I have no idea what life events have influenced her choices, but neither do you. We need to have a sensible debate on welfare reform, and soon.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2328561 2012-12-19T06:49:40-05:00 2013-02-18T05:12:01-05:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/ Shameless-style 'troubled families', busy making their neighbour's lives miserable, and draining the public purse of a reported £9 billion per year in consequent expense.

All well and good. Apart from one small problem - the 120,000 troubled families presented statistically to a willing media by the secretary of state for communities and local government, ‎Eric Pickles, do not exist.

This figure being bandied about in so many reports and press releases is cobbled together from research that was conducted eight years ago by the Department for Work and Pensions, and was based on families having five out of seven characteristics of economic, health and social disadvantage, including no parent in work and being on a low income.

This report was then interpreted in 2007 in a report from the then Cabinet Office-based Social Exclusion Task Force called 'Families at risk: Background on families with multiple disadvantages' to provide a figure of 120,000.

This cavalier attitude to statistics is further compounded by another report this week by 'troubled families Tsar' Louise Casey, laying claim to some astonishingly successful findings - in effect, that her and Mr Pickles' initiative has waved a magic wand over some of society's most intractable ills.

Although the scheme was only launched in December 2011, a year later we have the publication of 'Working with troubled families: A guide to the evidence and good practice', based on an evaluation of family intervention programmes from 2007 to 2012.

The current coalition government is claiming responsibility for the success of these family intervention programmes, yet it was not elected until May 2010 and its specific programme to address the problems wasn't launched until 12 months ago. Confused? You should be.

In addition, the report includes case studies of 16 families sourced by six local authorities and family intervention services who were interviewed by Louise Casey in person for her initial report in June 2012. At best, such a minute sample provides a small amount of anecdotal evidence of the initiative's efficacy. It also offers evidence of the existence of 16 families that fit the necessary criteria - just not the apparent 120,000 on which the December 2011 programme was predicated.

The government has also subtly changed its tack from using the term 'problem families' in June 2012 to the ostensibly more caring 'troubled' families tag of today's parlance, having had it pointed out that having problems yourself does not necessarily equate to creating problems for others around you.

Let's look at the latest statistics included in Ms Casey's good practice guide that are used to support the supposition that the troubled families scheme works. Findings on the reduction in family problems between entry and exit from various existing family intervention projects across the country (in March 2012) included:

• Involvement in Anti-Social Behaviour (-59%)


• Involvement in Crime (-45%)


• Truancy/exclusion/bad behaviour at school (-52%)


• Child Protection issues (-36%)


• Poor parenting (-49%)


• Relationship/Family breakdown (-47%)


• Domestic violence (-57%)


• Drug misuse (-39%)


• Alcohol misuse (-47%)


• Mental health issues (-24%)


• Employment/training problems (-14%)

Sue Kent, professional officer at the British Association of Social Workers, is concerned that inaccurate interpretation of research findings is being used to shore up an as yet untested government policy. She says: "At first glance, the reaction is 'Wow! This is great, this is positive social work, initiating change and evidencing success', yet questions remain as to the accuracy of the findings, how the service is delivered and at what cost.

The findings are not deemed accurate enough to become government statistics and not measured against control factors, but instead interpreted in a manner which suggests significant results."

Ms Kent's wider concern is that social workers already know what they should be doing, but crippling caseloads and lack of staff mean that they are not getting time to see families. The 'troubled families' initiative makes a mockery of the skills social workers would love to be able to put into direct use with families in need of on-going support, but find themselves prevented from using, because of deep cuts to the children's services teams in which they are largely still employed, coupled with endless tidal waves of often pointless bureaucracy.

Ms Kent continues: "We already know that high intensity intervention works, social workers have been saying this for years - this report is telling us nothing new. Given the opportunity, good social workers want to work directly with families to initiate change and get to a point where they are deemed successful and able to move on from such intense services."

Louise Casey herself says in the report: "We do not pretend that this is a comprehensive research report into family intervention." In which case, why provide inaccurate statistics in the knowledge that they will be replicated in the media as a resounding success?

It is simply too early to determine if such programmes have any long term impact, and in a climate of unrelenting cuts to services, the government should not rush to claim that victory has been snatched from the jaws of defeat.

When the wider provision of support for vulnerable children and families is under systemic assault from the decimation of central and local government budgets, some old recycled statistics and 16 isolated families do not merit a reason to be cheerful.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.2016625 2012-10-25T19:00:00-04:00 2012-12-25T05:12:01-05:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/
IDS wants to see child benefit capped at two children per family, believing that there is a booming industry of 'baby farming', where families are deliberately having children in order to milk riches from the public purse.

At present, all parents with young children are given benefit worth £20.30 a week for the first child and £13.40 for each subsequent child.

Lurid headlines about workshy families living in luxury paint a picture that few social workers who engage with them would recognise. In June, Eric Pickles trumpeted a £450m crackdown on a group of 'problem' or 'troubled' households said to cost the taxpayer £9bn. Social workers reacted strongly at the time to the notion of 'trouble-shooters' being sent in to households to 'eyeball' families. The report that this policy was based on, authored by 'Troubled Families Tsar' Louise Casey has subsequently faced claims of unethical inaccuracy by lecturer Nick Bailey, and pressure from the Full Fact organisation has led to both The Sun and The Daily Mail having to run corrections on the story.

Think about how much food you could put in a shopping basket for £13.40. That's before you even think about buying clothes or anything else that a child might need. Even if a family had ten children, that would still only be just over £100 per week extra, which doesn't go very far when you have multiple mouths to feed.

The reality is that child poverty is on the rise in the UK. The Child Poverty Action Group is currently predicting that child poverty will rise to 4.2 million by 2020. The Eye of the Storm report, published jointly by the Children's Society, Action for Children and the NSPCC,warned in July that the number of children living in vulnerable families in Britain is likely to rise to over one million by 2015. Six out of ten of these poor children are living with a working parent, another statistic that the government chooses not to publicise when it aims its sight on 'troubled' families.

BASW has previously warned about the dangers of bringing back Victorian notions of the deserving and undeserving poor, and this is yet another example, spreading the myth that people deliberately have children in order to fund an alternative lifestyle.

Bridget Robb, acting chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, is keen to point out that far from the workshy stereotype; many families are forced to claim benefits because of the impact of the recession.

"Political rhetoric is frequently targeting the poorest and most vulnerable. The traditional working class, without work, are increasingly being described by politicians almost as if they have no place in our society", she says.

"Where is the government's evidence base for claiming that people are deliberately having children in order to claim more benefits? Conservatives may be seeing their stance as a potential vote winner, but it simply is not a picture that we recognise. Our members are seeing more and more children and families sliding into poverty, and all more cuts will do is put more strain on public services that are already at breaking point."

Ms Robb also feels that by relying on rhetoric rather than evidence, the government is potentially placing children at risk, as there are numerous different types of families in society, and many people are likely to find themselves in family units with multiple children that they hadn't planned for.

"When people forge new relationships, both partners will often have children already, where will a cap on child benefit leave such families? Kinship carers, where a relative in a child's wider family choose to foster them, are also likely to lose out. The more children you have, the more they cost, so it is not as if the household income increases in real terms. This is yet another attack on low income families, and it will be the children who will bear the brunt of it. All this policy will do is punish children for being born," she concludes.

Social workers report that the recession is putting families under increasing pressure. The number of children being referred for care proceedings has reached record levels, and the NSPCC has seen an 80% surge in calls on neglect in the last 18 months. Food bank charity the Trussell Trust recently said that it has fed almost 110,000 people since April, compared with a total of 128,697 people during the whole of the financial year of 2011/12. We know from our members that demand for social care services is increasing. In our recent survey, 54% of the 1,100 UK social workers questioned said their caseloads were "unmanageable".

These are the statistics that should most concern the government, but it does not suit their political aims. Just as its 'troubled families' initiative lumped together outdated and inaccurate statistics about people who have ticked boxes such as having previously claimed disability benefit or having had mental health problems, and equated them to a 120,000 person strong threat to society, so too we now have these claims about families with more than two children being on the make.

When IDS talks of people 'cutting their cloth' according to their circumstances, he forgets that many people will have planned their families before the recession, when they could afford them, and will be no longer able to afford them without state assistance when they have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. What are such families supposed to do with these 'extra' children now?

Iain Duncan Smith has four children. He is lucky that he comes from a privileged background that equipped him to live a privileged adult life in turn. Not everyone is so fortunate, and who decides how many children are enough?

The government should instead focus on easily accessible family planning services, supported by good GPs and health care staff, and on helping poor children to escape poverty, rather than demonising large families.

We don't currently live in a country that practices population control, and the poor children that the government seeks to punish simply for existing are already here and a part of our society. We can't send them back, nor should we wish them away.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1933363 2012-10-03T19:00:00-04:00 2012-12-03T05:12:02-05:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/
A number of social workers have recently felt the royals' pain in an all-too vitriolic fashion, their names, faces, employers and addresses plastered all over a number of websites dedicated to exposing the ultimate conspiracy theory - that there is a secret plot to remove the attractive children of poor people and re-distribute them into a 'care industry' of potential middle class adopters. Money grabbing foster parents, paid for every child that a social worker 'snatches', are claimed to be a further by-product of the scenario.

The British Association of Social Workers has condemned such 'name and shame' hate sites for presenting real security risks to individual social workers who are trying their best to protect children in a challenging and resource starved system.

Some sites make malicious use of the social services abbreviation 'SS', comparing social workers to the Waffen-SS, Hitler's notorious secret police service. Worse still, they stamp this Nazi imagery on to pictures of named social workers, often taken from Facebook. Whatever people's view of social workers, few would surely condone pictures taken from someone's wedding day branded with Nazi insignia and posted all over the internet, coupled with the person's name and details of how to find and intimidate them.

Social workers are used to criticism; with the job, on occasion, necessitating entering a home to explain to a family that allegations of child abuse have been made against them, they know open-armed welcomes are unlikely. And of course social workers don't always get it 100% correct, especially with the sort of rising caseloads and diminished support BASW revealed in May through its State of Social Work survey of more than 1,000 frontline workers.

The fallibility of individuals is one reason why the system for removing children from care doesn't give social workers quite the uber-power many assume. When the stakes are so high, the decision to remove a child from a family home is extremely complex. As is the legislation underpinning such decisions, and the lengthy legal process that follows.

Yes, social workers make an assessment of a child's situation, but this then has to be scrutinised by managers and local authority lawyers before the child even begins their journey through the care system and the family courts system, whether that is temporary foster care before being returned home, or being removed from home on a permanent basis.

And then there is that stark reality facing social workers - the dilemma of whether to leave a defenceless child in a potentially abusive situation, or give someone the benefit of the doubt. What would you do?

I have read posts on these sites that rant and rave about an 'evil' individual social worker 'stitching them up' that then go on to say, "yes, I had committed assault, yes I had been on a drinking binge for three weeks, BUT..." I ask you, Reader, what would you do, if faced with facts such as these? Are social workers just supposed to let children stay in such situations in the optimistic hope that it is 'just a blip' and that harmony will soon be restored to the household?

The recent tragic case of Jayden Lee Green, who was given methadone by his heroin addict parents, has been referenced by some hate sites to support their claims that social workers unfairly take children away from good parents. Yet surely a case such as Jayden's supports the view that, sometimes, too much is done to keep a family together.

In reality, taking a child into care costs a local authority money, it isn't some sort of ingenious council money spinner. In the landscape shaped by the death of Baby Peter Connelly, most child protection social workers worry that not enough children are being removed from abusive situations, not that they haven't hit their child snatching 'quota' for the month.

The secretive nature of the family courts, where they are closed to the public, no jury is present, and judgements are very rarely published, fuel the conspiracy theories. The principle behind having a closed court, like many child protection procedures, is for the benefit of the child. Not the parents, the child. Given the sensitive nature of the personal details revealed in the family courts, supporters of the closed system would argue that this protects families from Jeremy Kyle-style exposure.

Solicitors, lawyers and judges involved in making decisions about children are also being targeted on hate sites. Such legal professionals are just as involved in care proceedings as social workers, yet social workers face the brunt of the 'blame'.

Families must of course have a right to protest, but these sites achieve nothing more than spreading hatred and inciting possible violence - or at the very least intimidation and harassment. Posting inflammatory comments can also cause more harm than good to those who feel they have been wronged. Families involved in protesting should be aware that IP addresses can easily be traced, and that abusive comments made online could potentially jeopardise any on-going care proceedings.

It is also concerning to see people offering assistance to such vulnerable parents, with dubious individuals using the hate sites to offer their services in 'helping' to win back their children. There is clear evidence of people claiming to have legal training and qualifications, for instance, when they have nothing of the sort. Families who believe they have been wronged should of course seek legal redress, but must be cautioned to seek legal representation from qualified and registered solicitors, and legitimate advocacy services, not from con men.

Social workers are hardly in a position to defend themselves, not because they are frequently guilty of wrongdoing but because confidentiality clauses in their employment contracts, aimed at protecting the privacy of their clients, forbid them from speaking publicly about their work. This clause fuels conspiracy theorists, and leads to one-sided media stories about how children were unfairly taken away.

Without the case notes to accompany such stories, it is impossible to judge the truth, yet social workers can be judged guilty even in circumstances where they may have saved a child from an abusive home. We never get to hear about the thousands of children who were saved by social workers from being the next Baby Peter, or from the children who were glad that they were removed from their parents.

This respect for confidentiality should work both ways, yet increasingly it doesn't.

Families, don't be taken in by these sites. Social workers, remember that Facebook can often be seen by strangers, and be careful of how much personal information you reveal online. No-one should be intimidating decent hard working professionals, and posing significant threats to their well-being, but the sad reality is that just as Kate Middleton might think twice about removing that bikini next time, so too social workers need to think twice about what they divulge to the world.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1736768 2012-08-03T08:08:01-04:00 2012-10-03T05:12:02-04:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/
When the 17-year-old Shafilea went missing on 11 September 2003, it was her teachers who reported her missing seven days later. Her parents, Iftikhar and Farzana Ahmed, did not bother to do so. Because they killed her.

In February 2004, Shafilea's corpse was found on the banks of a river in the Lake District, 70 miles away from Warrington. The coroner ruled that she had been victim of a "very vile murder". Following the inquest, Shafilea's parents attempted unsuccessfully to have the verdict of unlawful killing overturned and replaced by an open verdict, arguing that the coroner's view was 'biased' because the family were Asian.

The eldest of five children, Shafilea was mercilessly abused by her parents because she wanted the same basic freedoms enjoyed by any young person, the right to dress how she wanted, choose the friends she wanted, and have a part time job to earn some money to go out and enjoy herself.

Shafilea's parents disapproved of their daughter's 'westernised' ways to the point of murder. Her death has been tagged an "honour crime".

This term, used to describe incidents like the recent shocking footage of a 22 year old woman being publicly executed in Afghanistan, reportedly because two men could not decide who should 'have' her, is disputed by many, who believe that giving certain crimes a cultural label is to minimise them.

Put simply, child abuse is child abuse, regardless of the ethnic origin of the abuser.

Social workers are used to being dismissed as woolly liberals, but they are not the only professionals who face accusations of allowing political correctness to blind them to reality.

Everyone who seeks to protect children from harm, whether working in health, education, social care or law enforcement, must not allow the quite proper defence of diversity - including faith, culture and ethnicity - to ever be confused with condoning oppressive and abusive behaviour

Shafilea Ahmed was killed because her parents were bullies and murderers. The fact that her refusal to follow their rules and expectations about her behaviour provoked their violence should not negate the terrible tragedy of her murder, or any murder.

I grew up in Warrington, a large industrial town between Manchester and Liverpool, with a strong tradition of rugby league and a big pub culture. I have fond memories of my teenage years there during the 'Madchester' years, and can only feel sad that in contrast to my own upbringing, Shafilea spent her life under virtual house arrest.

It has been reported that Shafilea's parents ran the house like a prison, insisting on strict traditional standards of behaviour for Muslim girls. They were affronted and ashamed by Shafilea's attempts at freedom, forcing her to live a double life.

Shafilea's sister Alesha, whose evidence led to her parents' eventual conviction told Chester crown court that they had grown up in a "restrictive" Pakistani culture and that western culture was "more free".

Joanne Code, her teacher at Great Sankey School told the court that Shafilea had worn a 'stunning' blue dress to a dance, but had to change into baggy clothes before being picked up by her father. On another occasion, her sister said that her parents were furious that Shafilea had forgotten her coat, and so was standing in the street waiting to be picked up after her shift at a call centre, dressed only in a T-shirt, which they considered to be immodest. They also disapproved of her friends, who were mainly white girls.

Warrington has a 97.9% white population, only 0.8% of residents in the town are of Asian origin. Of course Shafilea's friends were going to be mainly white.

Cheshire police, aware of previous incident shortly before her disappearance when Shafilea had drunk bleach rather than be forced into marriage with a cousin in Pakistan, suspected the parents' involvement from the start.

In a public appeal for information, Coronation Street actress Shobna Gulati read poems written by Shafilea, found by police when they searched her bedroom. They detail her despair at being trapped between these two cultures, saying: "Desire to live is burning, my stomach is turning, but all they think about is honour". The lyrics go on: "I was like a normal teenage kid, didn't ask too much, I just wanted to fit in. My culture was different, but my family ignored."

Honour crimes in England are on the rise. Recent research by the Iranian And Kurdish Women's Rights Organisation (IKWRO) has found that more than 2,800 incidents of 'honour' based violence were reported to police across the UK last year.

Despite these growing numbers, IKWRO have stated that police officers, teachers and social workers still do not understand the problem and do not know enough about how to protect women and girls attacked or threatened by family members.

Forced marriage is closely linked to honour-based violence and honour killings, and comes under the government's definition of domestic violence. David Cameron has recently mooted plans to criminalise forced marriages, which has met with a mixed response, with critics claiming that it risks forcing victims underground.

More importantly, domestic violence resources are still being cut. Southall Black Sisters, an organisation which produced a number of guides with the Home Office to support women at risk of domestic violence, faces losing half its staff.

The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) is supporting IKRO's call for a national strategy to tackle honour crime, involving the type of guidance already present in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's The Right to Choose: multi-agency statutory guidance for dealing with forced marriage. The Association also believes that it is important to make sure social workers have easy access to information on 'honour' crime, and that it is not marginalised from mainstream documents.

Such guidance is currently under threat of being reduced, part of the government's pledge to cut "red tape" - a helpful move for professionals swamped by bureaucracy, but accompanied by the law of unintended consequences, as some crucial insights fall off the system.

The guidance describes honour based violence and forced marriage as human rights abuses and advises professionals to remind victims of their rights: "they have the right to choose who they marry, when and where, and the right to make decisions about their lives".

It also points out that the victim's family should not be informed that the victim has sought help as "this is likely to increase the risk", and that mediation as a response to forced marriage can be extremely dangerous, and can place someone at risk of further emotional and physical abuse. There have been cases of victims being murdered by their families during mediation.

BASW believes that professionals need more guidance on honour based violence, not less, and that organisations who are trying to help women affected by honour based violence should not be having their funding cut.

People were aware of Shafilea's problems, but she resisted involving the authorities with her family, as is common to abuse cases across all ethnic groups. Her teacher, Joanne Code, did her best to help Shafilea, ringing her at home and arranging temporary accommodation for her.

Mrs Code said Shafilea was 'adamant' she did not want social services to become involved, but the situation was "monitored". She told the court: 'I was concerned that if she said too much it might make life difficult for her. It was a very direct question I needed to ask her, I asked whether or not I needed to be worried about her welfare - which she replied "Yes".'

Although Mrs Code knew that the situation with her parents remained unresolved, she was powerless to stop Shafilea from returning home when she said she wished for reconciliation.

BASW professional officer Nushra Mansuri is familiar with the problems facing professionals who try to intervene with incidents of violence and abuse involving family members, but sees engaging with resistant families as being part and parcel of social work practice.

Ms Mansuri is clear that professionals must have the confidence to deal with sensitive issues such as faith, race and culture while undertaking their responsibilities to protect children.
She points out that many people in Shafilea's life attempted to help her, but that if a teenager is adamant that they do not want to involve the authorities, it doesn't necessarily follow that agencies should withdraw from being involved.

Ms Mansuri says:

"Yes, be respectful of people's different cultures when you speak to them, but a suspected child abuse case involving Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic families should not be treated any differently from any other, the best interests of the child must remain the focus.

"Many families, regardless of their ethnicity or cultural background, are reluctant to engage with the authorities, but professionals must be persistent when there are concerns about a child's welfare, and not allow themselves to be fobbed off. There is clear guidance on this issue, and it must be followed."

Shafilea Ahmed now lies in a grave in a Warrington cemetery. She would have been 26 years old on 14 July. We should not forget her.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1637241 2012-06-29T09:41:59-04:00 2012-08-29T05:12:05-04:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/ Leveson inquiry has highlighted, peril is just what many of its targets have felt over the years; with minority groups such as single mums and foreigners among the preferred victims for a 'Wapping Whipping' - in turn so often eliciting a response from the occupant of Number 10.

Despite the obvious need for greater disassociation these days, the link between this corner of the fourth estate and Downing Street has been in evidence once again this past week, as The Sun's spotlight begins to settle on our elderly citizens. No coincidence surely, that as David Cameron hints for the first time that benefits for pensioners, such as free bus passes, free prescriptions, free eye tests and the winter fuel allowance could become means-tested after the next election, we see The Sun turn away from the "benefit scroungers" it usually demonises, and starts to bash pensioners.

Despite pledging during the 2010 election to retain pensioner benefits, Cameron is under increasing pressure to reconsider in order to plug the funding gap on adult social care, and it seems his spin doctors are keen to get the message out there that older people are unfairly hoovering up resources.

This week The Sun ran two stories about the elderly. The innocuous sounding, "All OAP expats can claim £200 winter fuel allowance", was accompanied by a shot of two suntanned OAPs gleefully tossing salad by a poolside, an image which, judging by the clothes and the retro patterned sun lounger, was last used to illustrate a holiday brochure in 1973.

Beneath the hyperbole, the main thrust of the article is a test case whereby an elderly Brit living in "low-tax" Switzerland, won a landmark case against the Government last month. Iain Duncan Smith frothed, with a Churchillian zeal for taking the battle to the beaches: "We will fight these ridiculous EU rules. It is ludicrous we could have to pay more pensioners living in hot countries."

He was perhaps forgetting that the test case refers to a resident of the more than occasionally chilly Switzerland. What IDS was also neglecting to consider is that if you have paid your contributions, and are eligible for a pension, then you are entitled to get it, regardless of where you then choose to reside.

The Sun knows this, but it does not want readers to know this, because then people might get a little more upset that the government is attempting to hack benefits to which people are fully entitled, to the bone.

On 26 June, the elderly again got it in the neck from The Sun in the story headlined, "Wealthy OAPs to lose cash in benefits plan", this time illustrated by an image of a suntanned elderly couple wearing white clothing and beaming out from the deck of their yacht. Just your average UK pensioner then!

Championing David Cameron's call to "slash hand-outs for rich OAPs", the story juxtaposes a rising benefits bill with millions seeing their incomes fall. The paper hails Cameron's apparent refusal to guarantee benefits for pensioners as "a major boost for The Sun's Ditch Handouts to the Rich campaign".

Looking at recent media activity, it seems to suit the government to avoid the thorny topic of high income tax avoiders, gambling banks, and rogue city traders, and instead focus their political rhetoric on those more vulnerable.

The wider media, not just The Sun, also seized on a recent story based on a report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies stating that pensioner households would lose less on average than working-age households, both with or without children, from George Osborne's tax and benefit changes.

Therefore, the report concludes, the care funding reforms suggested by last year's Commission on Funding of Care and Support, headed by Andrew Dilnot, estimated at £1.7bn in extra public support, could be funded by curbing entitlements to pensioners.

In other words, make the elderly pay for their care even more so than they do already. At present, anyone with assets of more than £23,250 has to pay for residential care costs, which forces many people to have to sell their homes. Dilnot recommended raising this threshold to £100,000 worth of assets, hence the need for an extra £1.6bn in funding.

Of course, not all OAPs are poor, Rupert Murdoch being a case in point, but to suggest that the majority are yacht-going socialites is ludicrous. The reality is that many are struggling to survive.

For every OAP wilfully refusing to retire and hogging a job that could go to a young person, as The Sun suggests, many more are unwell, with complex illnesses. They aren't getting better, but advances in medical science mean that many elderly people are living longer, with even less support than they previously had available. Michelle Mitchell, charity director of Age UK, has pointed out that "the number of pensioners in poverty remains at 1.8 million".

The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) has repeatedly stated that the government needs to grasp the nettle of funding for care, condemning their reluctance to do so following the Dilnot Commission. BASW has for many months been concerned about news of cuts affecting both those working in, and being served by adult social care.

As recently as the end of March, the minister for care services Paul Burstow was claiming that over £1bn extra had been put into adult social care. BASW Manager Ruth Cartwright wonders where this money has gone, and goes as far as to accuse the government of being complicit in "a gigantic cover up of what we all (and particularly service users and their families) know to be the truth - that many of the most vulnerable people are suffering because of cuts to provision of care and support".

The truth is now out. A recent survey by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services reveals that £991m was slashed from care budgets last year, with a further £890m being cut this year, with more to come in future years, while demand and need for services increase.

As a press officer, I know only too well how difficult it can be to engage the media in positive stories about the elderly, unless they are stationed by a cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday, but the government must resist road testing " elderly benefit scrounger" messages in The Sun and instead have a proper debate about where the additional funding will come from.

Equality for all should not mean all are equally abused by the media.

We are already in the ridiculous situation of disabled people having to defend themselves from accusations of being lazy, even if they are missing limbs. Single mums were slung in the stocks by politicians and journalists long ago. Our young people are troublesome and workshy. Students are spongers. Now OAPs are in the firing line. Who will be next?

Let us not forget the wise words of "First they came...", the famous statement attributed to pastor Martin Niemöller,

"Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me".]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1521104 2012-05-16T11:06:19-04:00 2012-07-16T05:12:04-04:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/
The public, quite rightly, expect social workers to protect children from harm, and often perceive a social work complicity when a high profile death hits the headlines, making assumptions of gross neglect or incompetence on the part of the professionals involved. Witness the resulting media coverage of the role of social workers in the appalling cases of Victoria Climbié, Peter Connelly or Khyra Ishaq.

The stark and disturbing truth is all too evident from a survey by the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) of more than a thousand social workers.

The study finds, quite simply, that child protection social workers do not have the time to see children.

Politicians have made moves in the past towards promoting more understanding of the pressures on social workers that make the simplistic equation, child death = useless social worker, less plausible than it once was.

The Conservative party, when in opposition, produced a manifesto of sorts for the profession - No More Blame Game - which formed part of a barely perceptible shift in attitude amongst politicians, as have a range of limited central government initiatives aimed at raising social work standards since the coalition came to power two years ago.

Yet despite clear signals that ministers do have a handle on the issues that have made the social work profession so unfairly maligned, their remedies are often desperately inadequate.

Indeed, much of current policy is actually only serving to transform a profession that was once on the back foot into one that is now flat on its backside.

Cuts to back office and support staff mean that a social worker's time is spent inputting data, acting as receptionists or carrying out office cleaning duties - one even reported having to clean the toilets, and another described being asked to hoover the office - instead of visiting children and families.

Combined with crippling caseloads, described as simply 'unmanageable' by 54% of respondents, and vacant or unfilled posts as a result of cuts (seen by 77% of social workers during the past year), and the extent of the problem starts to become clear.

Throw in soaring referrals to social services and the situation goes beyond a mere problem and enters the realm of the simply impossible. Figures released in April by the Children and Families Courts Advisory Service, (Cafcass), show the annual number of applications from local councils in England to take children into care has hit a record high, exceeding 10,000 for the first time. Resources have not increased to meet this demand; in fact, they have been cut.

I recently spoke to Frank, a child protection social worker for over 20 years, who said that while the system had never been perfect, he had never seen things as bad as they are now, and that he and his colleagues were astonished that there had not been another "Baby P" in their area - a reference to the death of Peter Connelly in Haringey in 2007 and the high profile convictions of his mother and two men the following year.

When asked what people think that social workers do all day, he said: "I think that most members of the public assume that social workers spend their time visiting children at home or at school, spending time with families. They'd probably be really shocked that we spend most of our time sitting at computers inputting data into various systems."

After much covert texting, Frank agreed to meet with me and a journalist to blow the whistle on the worrying state of social work - the BASW survey revealed that 53% of social workers believe a lack of support for them as practitioners could have potentially tragic consequences for the vulnerable people who rely on their services.

Although dedicated to his job, Frank currently has over 50 children in his care, and copes by prioritising those who seem at most risk of harm. The rest are seen "as and when". He told me he has sleepless nights worrying about the children, praying that none come to harm, as he knows that he has no chance of visiting them regularly.

Peter Connolly died aged 17 months. His post-mortem revealed that he had swallowed a tooth after being punched, had a broken back, broken ribs, mutilated fingertips and fingernails missing, and countless bruises, scratches and bite marks.

The case caused a national uproar, not least because Peter was seen by no fewer than 60 times by health or social workers over an eight-month period.

Politicians fell over themselves to assure the public that such a case should not be allowed to happen again. Launching a review of the child protection system in June 2010, to be led by Professor Eileen Munro, children's minister Tim Loughton said it would focus on getting social workers back to the frontline, where they could spend time "eyeballing" families face-to-face, rather than "shackled to their procedure manuals and computers".

Mr Loughton said "too many social workers are feeling undermined, overwhelmed and overburdened, and we can't afford for that to continue."

It was the right sentiment, but the government's actions since then - implementing a relentless agenda of cuts - have left pledges to protect frontline services in tatters. Cuts to support staff have left social workers exposed to more paperwork than ever; cuts to cleaning staff have added another layer of 'responsibility' that social workers should not have to bear.

This is plainly ridiculous, and a slap in the face for the profession. When was the last time you saw a judge, following proceedings in a family court, remove their wig and nip off to hoover the courthouse or clean the toilets?

One social worker described the situation in their team as "another serious case review waiting to happen". This is echoed by hundreds of comments made by social workers in the BASW survey.

Frank was equally honest, as he spoke to the journalist, carefully silhouetted so that he couldn't be recognised and, in turn, sacked by his employer for telling the public the truth: "It's as if management are more concerned about getting all the stats right, than about improving the quality of life of the child behind the numbers".

I thought about this again looking at pictures of five-year-old Tyler Whelan in this week's media, his mother's brutal boyfriend Elvis Lee having been sentenced to life for his murder after systematically kicking the life out of him.

Tyler died in hospital in March 2011 after collapsing at home in Peterborough. Details of the case would send shivers down the spine of any right minded person, not least because so many opportunities were missed to see what was happening to Tyler. No home visit was ever undertaken.

Discussing the failings in this case, Peterborough City Council said "significant improvements" had since been made to its social services department, tellingly stating that this had been achieved by employing an extra 25 social workers and by cutting workloads.

One social worker, unconnected to this case, told BASW's survey: "I recently left my job within a child protection team because even working 12 hour days and taking work home at weekends, I was unable to keep on top of my caseload, and could no longer operate in such risky, dangerous conditions. Many social workers feel they are sitting ducks, just waiting for something to go wrong."

It is dangerous. Social workers need time to build up a relationship with children in order that the children feel safe enough to talk freely. Without being able to do so, the risks to children rise.

They also need to be able to blow the whistle when they have concerns about poor practice, and be taken seriously, not bullied and punished by bosses for speaking out. One social worker told us they were coached in spouting positive platitudes to Ofsted inspectors, and warned by managers that if they spoke out they would face disciplinary action.

BASW has written to the Secretary of State Michael Gove to emphasise its deep concerns about the state of social work, and is also urging the All Party Parliamentary Committee on Social Work to hold an urgent inquiry into the risks to vulnerable children and adults of an overstretched social work service.

The Association is calling for urgent action to address the pressures, failings and dangers that social workers have highlighted in this survey, including three immediate measures, low-cost to suit the age, but designed to help, at least, to stop the rot:

1. let social workers get back to what they do best reallocating admin staff from other local authority services;
2. end the attacks on social worker morale with a ban on any further pay or allowance cuts;
3. act to reduce risk of unnecessary tragedies by placing a new onus on the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Ofsted in England, and CSSIW in Wales, to prioritise in all inspections the risks of high caseloads, including a focus on bullying.

Social work services were never beneficiaries of investment in the way other areas of public service were during the so called 'boom years', yet now they find themselves facing cuts every bit as deep as those in other sectors. They didn't have the good times, and now they're facing even worse times.

It can't go on. Even as you read this, children are being battered, burned, kicked and raped, and it is happening in their own homes, behind closed doors. Those doors are remaining closed, because social workers are sitting at computers filling in forms.

We cannot afford to wait any longer for urgent action from government. Lives that could be helped will be neglected, and lives that could quite literally be saved, will be lost, unless the response is swift, and total.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1502609 2012-05-09T19:00:00-04:00 2012-07-09T05:12:04-04:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/
The case of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring, where nine men were found guilty of 21 counts of sexual abuse over a two-year period, raises a number of disturbing questions, not least how has this happened and who is to blame.

Greater Manchester Police Assistant Chief Constable Steve Heywood, Rochdale council leader Colin Lambert and the North West's chief prosecutor, Nazir Afzal, have all admitted that there were failings in the way each of their respective authorities handled the case.

Indeed, the case flew largely under the radar until Nazir Afzal decided to pursue it upon his appointment to chief crown prosecutor.

This, despite the fact that, one young girl, just 15 when the abuse began, told the police what was happening to her in August 2008, was dismissed by the CPS as not "credible".

Leaving aside the cheap political capital being made out of this case by right wing conspiracy theorists, the main issue in this case, and indeed in many similar cases, is not race, but a lack of communication between the agencies that could rightly be expected to look after vulnerable young people.

The Manchester Evening News cites a police source says that Rochdale's Crisis Intervention Team set up to reduce teenage pregnancies, "came across 'innumerable' vulnerable girls but did not always communicate with police and social services".

Nazir Afzal told the Manchester Evening News of "multiple failures", from those supposed to be caring for these children who "enable them to be out at 11.30pm on a school day", to a failure of the education system, to "neighbours and community members who have seen them at risk and perhaps turned a blind eye", and to "the prosecution and police service which have delayed justice".

This is a picture that Sue Kent, professional officer for the British Association of Social Workers, recognises all too well.

Sue is a children's social worker and runs a group to share best practice in protecting young people from sexual exploitation.

She also recently contributed to a two-year study, by researchers Professor Sue Jago and Jenny Pearce at the University of Bedfordshire, based on responses from 100 Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs), the key statutory mechanism for agreeing how the relevant organisations in each local area will co-operate to safeguard and promote the welfare of children across the country.

The study found that only just over a third of respondents had a sub-group in place to examine the issue of child exploitation, and a specialist project providing services for young people.

Their report makes 11 recommendations, including a call to carry out a review of the court processes for child sexual exploitation, training on child sexual exploitation for LSCB chairs and directors of children's services, plus additional guidance for all child care professionals.

There are three areas that cause particular concern:

• Only a quarter of LSCBs in England are implementing the 2009 government guidance on safeguarding children and young people from sexual exploitation
• Young people, their families and carers receive awareness raising in less than half
of the country
• The prosecution of abusers is rare and, where criminal proceedings take place,
young people's experience of court can be intolerable

While not all victims in the Rochdale case were known to social services, many of them were, and the study concludes that a "disproportionate number of sexually exploited young people are looked after by the local authority, and a disproportionate number are placed in residential care, increasing vulnerability to sexual exploitation".

The report also identifies that "the high number, 54% of young people from the 'snap shot' polled, accommodated in residential care is worrying, as qualitative evidence and previous research shows that, unless (they are) specifically trained and managed to prevent child sexual exploitation, placement in residential units can increase a young person's vulnerability to abuse. Comparisons with national statistics of looked after young people suggest that sexually exploited young people may be 4½ times more likely to be accommodated in residential care".

Sue Kent points out that cuts in public services, coupled with a post Baby P fixation on the needs of babies and young children, are leading to even less services for young people.

She says: "Vulnerable young people are falling through the gaps in service provision, and often end up in chaotic 'private fostering' situations, where they are sleeping on people's sofas and not being properly supervised or cared for."

In the Rochdale case, the prosecution's main witness ran away from her home into another chaotic situation; where she encountered the gang who went on to abuse her. She told the jury: "Social services should have removed me."

Sue Kent agrees that there is not enough co-operation between social services, health, schools and the police when referrals are made about young people. Very often, connections are not made that should be being made, and could save young people from exploitation.

The Rochdale case could have been solved as early as August 2008, when police were called to arrest a 15-year-old girl for smashing up the counter of the Balti House takeaway in Heywood.

Sue Kent says: "A social worker may get a referral that a young person is hanging around with a group of men, but lack of resources means that these referrals are not properly responded to. Cries for help for young people are falling on deaf ears, as a result. The other big issue is addressing how these young victims are treated by the criminal justice system, which may put them off making complaints."

It is easy to turn away from the revolting reality of these types of cases, but the lack of foster carers in this country and the sheer lack of money in the system, means that children vanish into a terrifying underworld of exploitation, and nothing is done about it.

The local authority would claim that changes have now been made within Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council's children's services. Social workers are now based at Rochdale police station, and a dedicated group meets every fortnight to identify children who may be at risk.

According to the Manchester Evening News, at about the time the trial started, Rochdale council also began a campaign in schools to teach them of the dangers.

This is all welcome, and needs to be replicated UK-wide. We all need to lose our innocence about the reality of what happens to young people who are exploited for sex by adults, so that we can protect them from these predators.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1455416 2012-04-26T09:52:09-04:00 2012-06-26T05:12:01-04:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/
This week's excellent Panorama documentary on elderly care showed that not all older people in this country are so fortunate.

So concerned was Jane Worroll about the decline of her 78-year-old mother, Maria, after she went to live in Ash Court, a 62-bedroom private care home in North London, that she placed a video surveillance clock in her room.

The resulting footage was sickening, showing carers treating Maria, who has both Alzheimer's and arthritis, like a sack of potatoes rather than a person, roughly man-handling and not even conversing with her, as they attempted to wash, clothe and feed her.

Most appalling of all was sadistic scenes of 'carer' Jonathan Aquino repeatedly slapping Maria for absolutely no reason other than because he could. He has since been jailed for 18 months, and the other carers have been sacked.

The controversial quango that is supposed to monitor care homes, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) has been criticised for a weak response to the abuse after it visited the home twice following the assault and concluded that there were no on-going issues with safeguarding. Unsurprisingly, Jane Worroll described this CQC report as "just another slap around the face".

This is not the first time that the CQC and Panorama have crossed swords. Last year, the programme exposed a "culture of abuse" at Winterbourne View, a private hospital for adults with learning disabilities in Bristol. Again, covert filming revealed patients being slapped, taunted, dragged around and pinned down, despite senior nurse Terry Bryan repeatedly attempting to report his concerns to the CQC.

It is important to stress that neither of these cases involved qualified social workers, despite the determination of some newspapers to tar them with the same brush.

This trend of providing care on the cheap, using unqualified and untrained staff, is both worrying and growing. Some care worker roles are paid the same rate offered by fast food outlets, degradation of important work that is clearly reflected in the quality of care on offer.

Not all care workers are potential abusers, and most try their best to look after vulnerable people, yet they are frequently not receiving adequate training and support.

It is a problem exacerbated by two further aggressive and problematic issues. Firstly, the trend for cash-strapped local government to tighten eligibility criteria, in order to ration services and save money, means that people have to become much more "critically in need" (very ill and completely incapable, basically) than ever before, if they are to get any social services at all. There is no longer the space to offer preventative services; instead service rationing means support becomes akin to an emergency service, arriving just as lives collapse into chaos.

Secondly, the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) is hearing more and more concern from members that the personalisation agenda (totting up a sum of money for care that can go directly to the service user rather than automatically providing services through the local authority system) is being used as a cost cutting measure, rather than improving care services by facilitating more 'personal' and tailored services.

Last year, the Commission on Funding of Care and Support, headed by Andrew Dilnot, concluded that up to £1.7bn in extra public support was needed to reform the system of care funding, yet the government appears unwilling to accept this.

A recent survey of BASW members showed that 81% of social workers have come across abuse in an adult residential care home, with 55% having experienced extreme abuse. More than 70% think that residential care is not fit for purpose and 80% think the Care Quality Commission inspection arrangements are far from adequate.

How is anything going to change when it is cost, not care, that is prioritised? The imminent adult social care white paper is a crucial opportunity to implement Dilnot's recommendations, but the indications are, with the current government mind-set, that the chance will go begging.

Social workers have a key role to play in all of this, in directing the personalisation agenda, blowing the whistle on poor care home standards and generally standing up for the service user.

As parliamentary evidence gathering for the adult social care white paper draws to a close on 1 May, the government must buck the trend of a society that is only too willing to wash its hands of older people by listening to Andrew Dilnot and by reassuring concerned families that it understands the gravity of the problem. The use of additional public money in the current climate is clearly sensitive but it is small change given the state this sector is in.

Ministers should remember that most families and elderly people don't have a bank balance like Rupert Murdoch's and need the state to play a stronger role.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1365618 2012-03-19T19:00:00-04:00 2012-05-19T05:12:01-04:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/
Social pedagogy involves taking a holistic approach to a child's needs, progressively guiding them, rather than reactively addressing problems as they arise.

It is much more prevalent in north European countries, such as Germany and Denmark, than the UK, which tends to take a reactive, and often punitive, line to social "ills".

Unsurprisingly, these countries generally report much better outcomes for their children, particularly children who are "in care", or in other words, parented by the state.

Critics of the risk-averse UK "corporate parenting" model, which relies heavily on impersonal systems and procedures and less on relationships, claim that it de-humanises and stigmatises the young people in care.

Scandinavian countries, for example, despite a proportionally higher rate of children in care, do not seem to report the same disadvantages experienced by children in care in the UK, such as lower educational achievement and higher rates of both pregnancy and criminal offending.

Research such as Working with Children in Care: European Perspectives (2006), by Petrie et al, comparing residential care in England to Germany and Denmark, highlights that these countries view residential care as one method of raising children, rather than as a potentially problematic group to be managed.

The notion of "corporate parenting" of "looked after children" by local authorities was first legislatively introduced by the Labour government in 1998. The principle is that the local authority has a legal and moral duty to provide the kind of support that any good parents would provide for their own children.

This month a report from Roger Morgan, Ofsted's Children's Rights Director for England, found that almost half of all children leaving the care system felt that they were made too leave too early. 49% thought they had been prepared badly or very badly for leaving care.

Does this mean that there has been too much corporate and not enough parenting? While local authorities may be tasked with providing a similar level of care as they'd provide for their own children, they don't, for example, have to complete a risk assessment if they want to walk their own children up a hill, as over-regulation in the current system demands of residential care staff.

Unless you're Justin Bieber, being a teenager is tough. Cast your mind back to the stress of passing many of the rites of passage to adulthood, amid a whirl of hormones and peer pressure, and now imagine doing it alone, without a mum, dad or grandparents, and the only people there to help you are paid to do so. Now imagine being separated from that sparse and fragile, paid for, support system once you come of age.

For children in care, their "key of the door" milestone seems to be marked with rejection. This is something that the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) is urging David Cameron to change.

BASW professional officer Sue Kent has said the Ofsted survey highlighted the need for the state to take its corporate parenting responsibilities more seriously, pointing out that the average age most people with families leave home is 24 years old, yet most children in care get booted out of the system, with no support, at just 16.

Sue Kent has said: "Children in care should be cared about and not just cared for. Social pedagogy in residential care should replace the current concept of care for looked after children, as they deserve more than just clean sheets and good meals".

In Germany, for example, there will be times when young people in a residential home are not monitored by adults and will be trusted to be left alone, an extremely unlikely scenario in the UK. In Denmark, most looked after children are brought up in small residential homes, in an attempt at family life.

BASW believes that it is in the government's best interests to extend its responsibilities towards these children into their 20s, where necessary, perhaps by guaranteeing them work placements or helping with their education. This is not more 'nanny-stateism'; it would prevent more care leavers entering the criminal justice or mental health system, and be a positive benefit to society.

Instead, local authorities and central government are currently cutting spending on career services for young people, not giving the care system the same priority as child protection services in their budgets.

BASW has heard from members who work in local authority leaving care teams that their work is being absorbed into youth offending teams, which serves only to reinforce stigmas about children in care.

We as a society need to change how we view these children, and perhaps social pedagogy may be the way forward. Although Labour committed to a three year pilot scheme on the use of pedagogues, that ended in 2011, and does not appear to be championed by the current coalition government.

Until we recognise the benefits of investing in our looked after children, Europe will forever remain in the lead. ]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1309017 2012-02-29T05:16:23-05:00 2012-04-30T05:12:01-04:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/
Although the secretary of state for education was an obvious choice for Number 10''s press office to deliver the latest - albeit largely regurgitated - policy on adoption, his own family background does not automatically make him an expert.

The government is obsessed with the topic of adoption, repeatedly peddling the same lines to a media which is all too willing to unquestioningly digest reheated platitudes.

The government keeps repeating three main points: adoption takes too long; social workers are anti-adoption; and political correctness is preventing black children from being adopted.

In his speech Gove admitted that the government view has been influenced by the new adoption 'tsar', Martin Narey, who has been openly critical of social workers.

Michael Gove has taken a different tack this time though, eschewing outright hostility to social workers, perhaps inspired by the favourable reception received by BBC's fly on the wall series Protecting Our Children, which followed professionals in Bristol doing their utmost to keep vulnerable young people safe.

Gove placed on the record his gratitude to social workers, and his "admiration for the vital and under-appreciated work" they do, claiming, intriguingly, that government and social workers now enjoy "a more mature relationship".

The well-connected few may have the ear of government, but this argument won't hold much sway with frontline social workers, particularly when on the very same day it was announced that local authority staff will have their pay frozen for the third year running.

Listening to Gove laud social work, a 'but' seemed inevitable and, right on cue, the minister didn't disappoint.

"There is strong evidence that, in recent years, there has been too much reluctance to remove a child from circumstances of consistent and outright abuse and neglect - or to return them to those circumstances later," social work's new Number 1 Fan added.

Gove's assertion seems at odd with the evidence, however. Cafcass (the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) announced at the beginning of February that the number of children being referred to care in England has hit an all-time high, passing the 900-mark in a month and matching a trend seen since November 2008 when Baby Peter Connelly's mother and two others were sentenced for their involvement in his death.

Less "reluctance" than ever it would seem.

The government's preoccupation with adoption is ignoring the issue of adoption breakdown. The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) has previously argued that the government tends to romanticise adoption, and certainly Gove's hyperbolic assertion that adoption is "an inspirational example of humanity at its best" does not reveal the whole story.

While it is clearly welcome that Michael Gove's experience of adoption was such a positive one, the government is wilfully ignoring the fact that not every experience is happy.

As many as one in five adoptions break down, a figure that may be even higher but can't be more accurately detailed because there is currently no centralised mechanism for recording statistics. Adoption agencies and social workers have repeatedly asked government to start recording and researching the number of failed adoptions.

They have also urged more investment in support for families, many of whom are dealing with children who have serious and complex needs. Put simply, adoption is not the only option for children in care and is only suitable for a small number of children.

For most children in the case system, there are far more pressing priorities. BASW has praised England's Children's Rights director Roger Morgan for shining a spotlight on the real issues for children in care, with the release of his annual children's care monitor, a survey of 2,000 children in care.

The survey findings suggest that:

• more than half of children in care are given a week's notice or less of being moved to another foster home
• nearly a quarter are given no notice at all
• three-quarters of those in care with siblings reported they had been separated into different placements

Criticising the chronic shortage of placements in our care system, BASW's Nushra Mansuri has said that "these are the care issues that merit serious attention, more so than the government's current posturing on adoption".

BASW has accused the government of ignoring the complexities of adoption, and the legislation that underpins it, in order to pander to those who all too willing wrongly believe there is a politically correct conspiracy at work in our public services.

Sadly, there are more black children waiting to be adopted because black children are overrepresented in the care system. Black adults are over-represented in the prison system and the mental health system too, so perhaps it is time the government made a concerted effort to explore the underlying social and economic inequalities that affect the black community in general rather than simply honing in on the end result.

Racial identity does matter and, wherever possible, children should be placed with adopters from a similar background. This may not be possible in every circumstance, but it is not a factor that should be ignored or minimised.

Gove is right to point out that the welfare of a child is more important than the rights of their parents, but this should also apply to the relative rights of the same children and would-be adoptive parents.

While stories about delays for prospective parents can make for heart-rending reading, the rights of the child must come first, both legislatively and morally.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.1210221 2012-01-17T19:00:00-05:00 2012-03-18T05:12:01-04:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/
As the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) this week publishes a revised version of the longest established code of ethics, which has underpinned standards since 1975, many practitioners are wondering if it is even possible to uphold ideals of social justice in the current political climate.

A code of ethics is not simply about catching people out when they make mistakes, it's about enabling a social conscience, and providing protection for social care and health professionals when they are asked to collude with decisions that they think are morally wrong.

Social work is primarily concerned with the health and wellbeing of others, often when people are at their most vulnerable. Social workers are frequently placed in an influential role, and that position of trust must be acknowledged and respected.

It's a given that public opinion of social workers is generally low, that is until they actually come into contact with one, but social workers have ethics too, it's usually why they're prompted to devote their life to work that is frequently gruelling and thankless.

BASW's chief executive, former Labour backbench MP Hilton Dawson, has expressed concern that the current government is making it extremely difficult for social workers, particularly in local authorities, to remain true to their ethics.

This view is also propounded by social work academic Professor Michael Preston-Shoot. In his book Children's Services at the Crossroads, Preston-Shoot argues that councils' fixation with government targets rather than effective social work practice is compromising social workers' ability to operate ethically.

BASW is hearing from more and more social workers who are extremely uncomfortable about being pressured, as a result of cuts and lack of resources, to turn a blind eye to poor practice and implement unethical procedures.

To take one example, BASW's affiliated Social Workers Union has had social workers claiming that cases are being allocated to named social workers, to make it appear on administrative systems that someone is working on the case. Crippling caseloads mean that in reality these cases are sitting in a pile on someone's desk because no one has the time to actually work on them.

BASW is sending a copy of the revised code of ethics to all chief executives of local authorities, urging them to share it with staff, and to respect social workers right to blow the whistle on unethical practice without fear of repercussion.

BASW's code puts 'respect for human rights and a commitment to promoting social justice' at the core of social work practice.

As such, one social worker told me that they felt they had a moral imperative to show support for the Spartacus report that alleged that the government were ignoring the views of the disabled, saying, "yes, it's a political issue of course, but one that is also about basic human rights and social work values. It is important to be rooted and grounded in the lived in, daily experiences of many people with disabilities who are already struggling and in severe hardship. How much more will their lives be blighted by poverty if the current reforms are passed?"

For all its talk of the big society, the government's cuts to public funds and increasing redundancies are putting the social care system under terrible strain. More worryingly, this is accompanied by right wing propaganda that is hardening public attitudes to the most vulnerable in society, where having a moral compass is viewed as a woolly liberal weakness.

A recent survey of Social Workers Union members revealed 81% expressing concern at unmanageable caseloads - 56% said they are very concerned. BASW are not the only ones who have these misgivings, but they are among a growing resistance movement who are prepared to critique the government's damaging social policies.

Evidence is mounting that managers are being pressured to push cases through an administrative system, and crossing their fingers that nobody dies. Now, more than ever, the rights of social workers to stand up and blow the whistle on unethical practice must be protected.]]> tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.1162339 2011-12-22T19:00:00-05:00 2012-02-21T05:12:02-05:00

Hayley Meachin http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hayley-meachin/
The Leveson inquiry has prompted the kind of scrutiny into their activities to which they normally subject others.

There has been a sustained debate within social work about the nature of the media's coverage of the profession, prompted in part by prejudicial reporting on a number of high profile cases, most recently Baby Peter Connelly.

It is generally agreed throughout the sector that there is a problem with the image of social work, and a mini industry of experts who claim to have the answer is fast emerging.

My view, as a press officer for the British Association of Social Workers, and especially as a former local authority press officer, is that the question of how to improve media coverage of social work, like social work itself, is not so straightforward.

The Guardian's David Brindle has identified a 'mutual ignorance' that exists between social workers and the media. Social workers often don't understand what the media needs from them in order to tell a story more accurately (details, case studies, human interest, told QUICKLY) and journalists often do not have much knowledge of the world in which social workers have to operate (where nothing is done QUICKLY).

It is hardly surprising, as engagement with social work is, for many, infrequent at best, whereas people's familiarity with other professions is born of more real-world interaction. Most people have been to school so feel well placed to offer an opinion of teachers - a frequently ill-informed view maybe, often a historical snapshot based on their teenage experiences, but a view nonetheless. Doctors and nurses too are more a part of many of our lives than a social worker, much of whose time is spent with the most vulnerable and powerless.

As such, the public's opinion of social workers is often formulated for them by the media. A lot of people think that they won't ever come into contact with a social worker, and look down on those who do as somehow inadequate. They are often tainted by association, imbued with a similar negativity much of the public reserves for the service users that social workers are attempting to help.

In reality, people are closer to social workers than they think, particularly if they have elderly family members, but the confidentiality of the role makes social work a somewhat secretive profession, and we all know that nature abhors a vacuum.

Where social workers are not able to discuss cases publicly, the void where the facts might lie is swiftly filled by speculation. Many journalists and their readers may not know that social workers often have a confidentiality clause in their employment contracts, which can make them even more reticent to talk to media.

This lack of engagement is frustrating for journalists, but it is not the responsibility of individual social workers. They need support from managers and, in the case of local authorities, cabinet members and directors of social services, in order to give the media greater access to their world.

While examples to the contrary are increasingly common, on the whole journalists are not just making stuff up off the top of their heads. Journalists report the news. If controversial decisions have been taken in a particular case, a media controversy is to be expected. What is missing is the mitigation, the details that social workers might be expected to share in their defence, but are unable to divulge, about why decisions were taken, or to provide the context of a complicated case.

More importantly, journalists report what politicians say. A really simple way of improving the media's portrayal of social workers is for politicians to get behind them and start being supportive, not blaming them for society's ills. Of course many politicians say they are supportive, and sometimes, often on a podium in public, they can be. It isn't a matter of simply backing the profession in general, during periods of relative calm, but about staying with practitioners when sometimes unavoidable tragedies happen, and resisting demands for a scapegoat.

Social workers, like most public sector professionals, are constantly subject to initiatives, pilot schemes, and all manner of political grandstanding. They are tired, and they are fed up.

They don't want to be told to do more with less and, at the end of yet another exhausting day trying to help the most vulnerable members of society, they don't want to read headlines about how terrible they are, frequently fostered by a politician with an agenda - last week's prime ministerial 'problem family troubleshooting' initiative for instance was little more than an indirect slap across the face for social workers who, day-in day-out do their utmost to do the work Mr Cameron suggested his new recruits would undertake.

Admittedly, it is not just social workers who face this double whammy of negativity from both politicians and the media. Alastair Campbell's written submission to the Leveson inquiry echoes this view:

"There is not a public service worth the name whose professionals do not complain about the constant negativity. In polls, people overwhelmingly say that their last experience of the NHS was a good one. Polls asking general questions about the service as a whole mark it down below the ratings based on actual experience.

"That is the result of fairly relentless media negativity, which has an effect on morale and on the way that people treat those delivering the service. The same goes for teachers and social workers, in the latter case, with a negative effect on recruitment."

Self-regulation of the media industry does not appear to be working. In lieu of an alternative, perhaps a plea for an entente cordiale between the media and social work would be more realistic.
Would the media really prefer to see a society that has no social workers? Would social workers prefer that there were no journalists? Sometimes, probably.

But still, we all need friends and journalists are not the enemy. They are beleaguered on all fronts, increasingly under resourced themselves as time-honoured funding models edge closer to a post-digital collapse, facing cuts, public censure, subject to relentless and intolerable pressures.

Perhaps they have more in common with social workers than they realise.]]>