#Respect4SocialWork campaign urges greater recognition of social workers

Placing their own health fears to one side, social workers have been out visiting vulnerable families where possible and, with many early help services and other departments pared back, have become even more hands on helping parents access the support they so desperately needed.

Social work teams were inundated with requests for support including access to food banks or food vouchers in order to feed their families and for their child to have a school place, such was the immense pressure they were under at home.

Women fleeing domestic abuse and staying in a refuge with young children needed help accessing a GP and local services. Families living in poor housing with mice infestations required help contacting the housing department and fill in forms online, particularly if they had no internet access or low literacy levels themselves.

Plus, the enormous pressures of lockdown restrictions meant more families have required assistance with increased child and parental mental ill health, a rise in substance abuse problems, domestic abuse sky-rocketing and families experiencing increased poverty due to job losses or furlough.

Yet despite the phenomenal and life-changing work carried out by social workers during the peak of the pandemic, there has been little recognition or appreciation – unlike the much-deserved weekly applause for social workers’ colleagues working in the NHS.

“Most people don’t think about social work, they might have a marginal awareness of it when it may have cropped up on the news, but many of the public do not give social work any thought or attention until they need to draw on the services provided by social workers,” said Professor Ray Jones, emeritus professor of social Work at Kingston University and St George’s, University of London.

This is one of the many reasons why WillisPalmer has launched #Respect4SocialWork, a campaign urging greater awareness of the social work profession and a celebration of social workers. WillisPalmer is the leading provider of independent multi-disciplinary services for children and families in the UK.

Tim Loughton, former children’s minister is backing the campaign, and said: “The role of Social Workers in our society is unfortunately widely underappreciated – I fully support #Respect4SocialWork Campaign in the hope that it will raise awareness and appreciation of the importance of Social Workers and to highlight the tremendous efforts they make and impact they have in helping to improve the lives of so many vulnerable children and families who rely on their support.”

Over the course of the pandemic, WillisPalmer has repeatedly raised concerns about the plight of vulnerable children who, out of sight of many professionals especially teachers – one of the main referrers of child protection concerns to children’s services, may have been incarcerated with their abuser. 

As a result, we launched our Children’s Charter urging all professionals who came into contact with children to be vigilant for signs of neglect and abuse. WillisPalmer will also shortly be launching our Social Work in Schools services providing social work support to teaching staff and pupils.

We now feel it is time to celebrate the outstanding contribution social workers make to our society and urge a greater balance of reporting in the media, showcasing the thousands of positive outcomes for vulnerable children and families rather than honing in on social workers and using them as a scapegoat when the system goes wrong and a child or vulnerable adult is placed at risk or harmed.

You can find out more about the campaign here.

Clare Jerrom is head of PR and marketing at WillisPalmer