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Two years ago, Jo Fox and I started a podcast, Helpful Social Work. As we begin series 3, it is timely to reflect on our purpose. Helpful Social Work aims to help social workers to learn, think and act with integrity so that people who need social work get help that will transform their lives. We […]

Today, 20 March, is World Social Work day. This year emphasises ‘Promoting Community and Environmental Sustainability’, which relates to the third pillar of the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development. The Agenda, created in 2012 after a global gathering of social workers, educators and development workers, sets out where we can and should make a difference to the

The government consultation on how the new social work regulator (Social Work England) will operate in England is open till 21 March. A few months ago, I discussed regulation in the Helpful Social Work podcast with Jo Fox. Here are some of my thoughts. The vision for Social Work England is for a regulator that “focuses on public protection and supporting practice excellence” (page

I am not a social worker because a regulator says that I am. I signed up to be part of an international profession, with a global identity and ethics, and with a shared purpose that crosses national boundaries. I studied with others who shared a commitment to this identity, ethics and purposes. I carried out

I am finding that more and more conversations in social work are ethical conversations about how we do good work in a difficult context. I hear a great deal about struggle. And I find myself wondering how we can aspire when aspiration may not seem realistic. Much of the work I do requires aspiration. It is about

The blogs that I have written in 2015 show the shape of my year: January’s was on stress following a survey by Community Care; for world social work day in March I wrote about the importance to me of having a college of social work; May’s blog was about the election and its implications for social work;

Last week I spent the day in a supervision workshop with 25 enthusiastic social care managers looking at how they can best enable practitioners to work well. Halfway through a discussion, one of the managers asked: ‘how do we keep motivating staff when things are so difficult, when there’s so little money and people are really

My Aunt is a Dominican Sister (Catholic religious order) in Cape Town. She recently moved into a newly built convent that is a fantastic example of supported housing. This gave me some great insight into how to do community living well. There’s a lot we can learn from the nuns. Co-production The convent was designed

In the safety announcement on planes, you are asked to put your own oxygen mask on before helping others with theirs. Social workers cannot help people effectively if they are overwhelmed themselves. I am really sad to see the results from the Community Care survey about the level of stress that social workers are experiencing.

Social work seems to be in two minds at the moment. Is it a strong profession, recognised and valued? Or is it a struggling profession, overrun by work and affected by cuts? I think it is a bit of both and that a tale about social work needs to tell both stories: a strengthening profession