#Respect4SocialWork: Professionals invited to join session to discuss challenges faced after child deaths

#Respect4SocialWork was launched last September in a bid to create a better understanding of the complex cases that social workers hold and to urge a more balanced view of what social workers do. All too often the life changing work that social workers carry out with families on a day to day basis goes unmentioned yet in the rare circumstances where there is a tragedy, social workers are in the spotlight.

The campaign, endorsed by Tim Loughton, the former children’s minister, BASW, Dr Ray Jones, professor in social work and Nushra Mansuri, assistant professor in social work, has gathered real momentum in recent weeks.

It follows the tragic cases of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson.

To mark this significant rise in support, WillisPalmer, which launched the #Respect4SocialWork campaign, will be hosting a virtual drop in session for social workers during Social Work Week on 17 March at 11am.

 Key speaker Dr Sharon Shoesmith, who backs #Respect4SocialWork, will kickstart the discussion and outline why she is supporting the campaign before the session is opened up to other participants to join in.

Anyone wanting to attend the session simply has to email here for the link to attend.

Arthur died in June 2020 aged six years old following months of abuse and neglect. Hospital tests revealed Arthur had abnormally high salt-levels and he was seen to have bruising in many areas uncommon for accidental bruising in a child. A post-mortem later revealed that Arthur had over 100 marks and bruises on his head, body and limbs including bruising of different ages. His step-mother Emma Tustin was found guilty of the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and his father Thomas Hughes was found guilty of manslaughter by a jury at Coventry Crown Court.

Star was just 16 months old when she was taken to hospital on 22 September 2020 after suffering a cardiac arrest and sadly died the same day. Her mother Frankie Smith has been found guilty for causing or allowing the death of a child while Frankie’s partner Savannah Brockhill has been found guilty of murdering Star following a trial at Bradford Crown Court.

A Joint Targeted Area Inspection of Solihull issued following Arthur’s death found that the authority failed to ensure that learning from significant incidents in Solihull was shared effectively with the wider workforce. Furthermore, inspectors found insufficient social work capacity in Solihull’s Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub to effectively deal with presenting need, a joint inspection has found.

A report commissioned shortly after the death of Star Hobson found social work vacancies at Bradford Council hindered the workforce’s abilities to adequately care for children and young people.

A national review into the deaths of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes and Star Hobson will be carried out by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel and will examine the circumstances leading up to their deaths.

Chief social workers Lyn Romeo and Isabelle Trowler have offered their support to all social workers following the death of Arthur. In addition, Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi addressed parliament and made it clear that social workers, police officers, teachers, health workers and others go to work each day “to try to make things better and to do their best at what are very difficult jobs”.

“Those already serving our country’s most vulnerable children deserve our thanks, and I want to be extremely clear that no safeguarding professional should be the victim of abuse. The targeting of individuals is wrong and helps nobody, but that does not mean we should not seek to understand what went wrong and how we can stop it happening again,” he said.

“When I was children and families minister, I was the champion of social workers, and I will continue to be the champion of social workers as Secretary of State,” he added 

However, it is inevitable that some of the social work profession fear that, yet again, social workers will be hung out to dry as the public wants to hold someone accountable for these tragic deaths. This could well have contributed to a rise in the number of professionals giving their backing to the campaign.

It is hoped the virtual drop in session will provide the opportunity for social workers to exchange views and discuss any challenges with like-minded professionals in the form of peer support.

WillisPalmer provides a monthly virtual drop in session for its expert social workers to exchange views and support one another, but the session on 17 March is opened up to any social worker who wants to come along, hear from Dr Shoesmith and find out more about the campaign.

Email Clare Jerrom at clare@willispalmer.com for the log in to attend.

Clare Jerrom is head of PR and marketing at WillisPalmer