The college’s interim co-chair Maurice Bates said issues such as the Munro report into child protection and budget cuts across the public sector mean that social workers urgently need to be properly represented.
"These are challenging times for both social workers and people they work with," he said. "The College of Social Work’s aim is to protect and uphold standards throughout these difficult times and ensure the voice of the social work profession is heard."
Children’s minister Tim Loughton told delegates that reforming social work to improve the lives of vulnerable children is a top priority for government.
"That’s why we launched the Munro review of child protection and why we are working closely with the profession, across central government, and with national and local agencies and local authorities, to implement a programme of social work reforms that achieve real results," he said. "The college is absolutely key in making these reforms work.
"We support the college in putting social workers at the heart of decisions about the future of their profession and giving social work the professional leadership and public voice it deserves."
Loughton added that he wants the college to help restore the confidence of social workers. "It’s so important that we allow social workers the freedom to be independent and to have the confidence to make better informed value judgments on the frontline," he said.
"I want the social work profession to be confident enough to make the wrong decision, not very often of course, but social work is not a science.
"I think if social workers were able to feel they could use their judgment rather than make sure they’re covering themselves in this risk-averse culture we’ve created, then occasionally they will make the wrong decision, but for reasons that we can understand and learn from."
Sylvia Chew, head of Haringey Council’s frontline child protection team, insisted that the college must engage children and young people in its work to be really successful.
"I hope that the college will give children and young people a voice," she said. "We need to engage children and young people who are in the child protection process so we can really learn what it feels like to subject to a child protection investigation, or a child protection medical."
