World Social Work Day

Janet Daby Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Janet Daby (Lewisham East) (Lab) [V]]

I thank the hon. Member for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner (David Simmonds) for having secured this significant debate. I am not used to being so high up on the call list, but I very much appreciate it.

For as long as I have been involved in children and family social work, I have only ever known children’s services to be under immense pressure. I say this because unless a person is part of this area of work, the crucial role of children and family social work can be easily misunderstood, and not enough politicians understand children and social services. That is probably why there are so few of us taking part in this afternoon’s debate, which is disappointing. These services have been undervalued and not invested in for many years; they have been cut year on year.

I became a children and family social worker in 1995. I first worked in the emergency duty team, then went on to work with children in need before moving to work in a looked-after children’s team. The red tape and bureaucracy have increased, and the majority of social workers’ time is spent at the office, completing reports and filling in forms, as legislative and policy changes have been made. Obviously, those changes have often been in the best interests of the child, but they have meant that social workers have been increasingly kept away from spending more time with the child.

In my seven years’ experience of working for a local authority, there were five reorganisations. This can be really distressing for staff—having to be re-interviewed and, in many cases, seeing their posts being deleted, changing, or even moving buildings. When support is removed and cuts are made to admin posts or specialist workers’ posts, all of this adds to the caseload of the social workers. Where social workers’ posts are cut, caseloads increase, and what is often overlooked is where the children are in this: the child is supposed to be paramount, but less time is spent with the child.

All of this needs to be rethought, and there needs to be a whole new way of thinking about how to do children and family social work. Every time the Government make cuts to local authorities and the NHS, children’s service provision is affected—the cut is passed on to the child. Fewer social workers and managers and increased caseloads mean less time and less interaction with the child, and less support for them and their families. Cuts also mean a lack of resources and longer waiting lists, causing delays.

I have nothing but admiration for social workers—children and family social workers and social workers across social care sectors within our society. They have one of the most highly stressful jobs. They must be valued, and to value them we must invest in them.

For someone starting in their role as a social worker, it is about supporting families to be healthy, to be happy and to stay together as well as is possible, though sometimes that is not possible. I remember the case of a complex and lovely young person; I had been her social worker for more than three years, but when she turned 16, I was told I had to transfer her to the young persons’ team. She protested vehemently and was vile to me verbally due to the loss, but I completely understood. I knew she was hurting and did not want that level of separation. That is a concern because as legislators we should be flexible. We need to have her and other children’s best interests in mind, and sometimes that means being flexible with our services and ensuring they are not lost while we are focusing on what is best for our institutions or sometimes for the team.

There was another boy I worked with; he was five years old and I worked with him for three years. I remember when I became the senior social worker, he said to me, “If you are becoming the senior social worker, does that mean you’ll still be my social worker?” His case shows the lack of flexibility sometimes within the service. I should have been able to carry on being his social worker, and he should have had continuity of the support he was enjoying at that time. Social services should not be built around institutions; they should be built around the child. We need to ask us ourselves whether the welfare of the child is really paramount, or whether we need to rethink how we do children and families social services. We really need to get this right, because we want children in need and in care to grow up to be well adjusted and to have a bright future.

As I have already stated, the social work profession has always been under immense pressure, but the pandemic has made that even worse. The social work profession is in crisis. Working conditions have got worse compared with what I knew them to be before. The British Association of Social Workers found that 77% of social workers who responded to the survey on working through covid-19 felt that the lockdown restrictions had made it much harder to safeguard adults and children. Many respondents felt there was a definite increase in people being referred to social services. Capacity was already stretched, but the past year has brought it to breaking point. Social workers must be protected from burning out. They have valuable views on how services can be transformed for the better, and they must be part of framing a more effective service for the future.

There were also calls for more capacity to focus on tackling violence against women and girls. That issue has come up in the public spotlight after the tragic events of the past few weeks, but it is something social workers are constantly dealing with. Social work practice frameworks must reflect the areas in greater need of attention, and local social services must have the ability to specialise in the problems affecting their communities—for example culture-specific discrimination or gender-based violence.

With problems in staff retention and growing caseloads, social services remains in crisis. Earlier this week, on the Justice Committee, I spoke to the chief executive officer of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, who said that we need to rethink and to reinvest in children’s services. I absolutely agree with her.