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Abstract

This discourse is a critical analysis into public and media tendency to indiscriminately

demonise social workers when even supposedly collective interventions go wrong.

Are social workers indecisive wimps who fail to protect children from death or

authoritarian bullies who unjustifiably snatch children from their parents?

Comments to Dr. Ignatius Gwanmesia at antichildtraffic@yahoo.co.uk

Tel. 07951 622135 United Kingdom.

How do you rate this analysis?

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An Objective inquiry by Dr. Ignatius Gwanmesia into the blame culture to social workers; Social workers angels or Villains?

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TABLE OF CONTENT

Contents Page

Chapter One (introduction)

Introduction/ background ………………………………………………….. …....3 – 5

Chapter Two

Systematic Failures.......................... …………….…………………………….…....6 - 9

Chapter Three

The Question of credentialism in social work …….…………………..……….10 - 13

Chapter Four

Social workers and the media .......................….………………….……………14 – 17

Chapter Five

The role of empowerment in the blame culture………………………………18 - 19

Chapter Six

Can social workers ever be free from targeted blame……………....……....20 - 21

Chapter Seven

Unrealistic expectations …………………………………………………..............22 – 24

Chapter Eight

Can best practice ever be the norm in social work practice?........……………25 - 26

The way forward ……………………............................................………………. .26

Chapter Nine

Bibliography…………………………………………………………….………………28 - 29

Chapter One

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Introduction and background

In contemporary Britain, with an ever-increasing aging population; a comparatively

wide spread child poverty and social exclusions, and an ever-increasing ethnic

diversity; the nature and extent of reciprocal social problems vis-a-vis changing

dynamics has made the vital need for social work intervention more acute. Indeed,

the role of social workers has become increasingly vital in a modern society where

changing patterns of employment and an increase in marital breakdown means that

families have become removed from the traditional family structure and may be

geographically distanced from family support. Social workers work with some of the

most difficult people in our society and under some of the most challenging

circumstances; be it in mental health, disability, elderly care or child protection, there

is consensus that social workers passionately do the job others rather shunt away

from. In the United Kingdom, especially in child protection, this passionate work by

social workers is set against “the presumption in law that children are better looked

after with their families except and until it is proved that they are better off from them”

Russell, (2010). Additionally, as the underpinning principle of the Children Act 1989,

that apart from cases where there is an imminent risk of danger or significant harm,

that no executive state agency including their professionals such as social workers

have the right to disrupt the parent-child relationship. DOH, (2000, p. 24). It is in the

complex process of juggling and balancing the legal, ethical and personal codes of

practices, set within a society that is readily predispose to apportion blame

indiscriminately that the social worker has turn out to be the convenient object

vilification. In the words of George Pitcher of the Telegraph, when social workers are

unfortunate human-enough to make mistakes as has recurrently been the case in

Harringey, media-generated public hysteria ensures that, “we resemble not so much

a rescue squad for future vulnerable children than a vengeful lynch-mob for the

crimes of the immediate past.” Pitcher, (2008). While in Harringey; to lose Victoria

Climbié was a misfortune; to lose Baby P begins to look like inexcusable

carelessness. Like Baby P who died after suffering multiple fractures despite

concerted visits from health services and social workers; Victoria Climbié died aged

eight in 2000; having been beaten for months, had 128 injuries, and died from

malnutrition and hypothermia after being forced to sleep in a bath. In both high profile

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cases, the social workers were accused of failing to prevent the tragedies despite

myriads of visits.

The issue in question in this discourse is ‘how one starts to reconcile the concepts of

misfortune and carelessness’ in social work child projection, and the rather

indiscriminate tendency for the public in general and the media in particular to

perceive, label and castigate social workers as “as indecisive wimps who fail to

protect children from death, or as authoritarian bullies who unjustifiably snatch

children from their parent” Banks, (2001, p. 17) How rational or ill-conceived is

society’s tendency to readily blame social workers or otherwise for not being the

panacea for our social problems? The fulcrum for my analysis is that social workers

are agents of the state; as such, they are the obvious and convenient target of

vilification for those aggrieved by the system. Thus, prevalently, it is the office of

social work rather than the person in social work that is the object of culpability.

Prevalently, it is the professionalism of the social workers that has ensured that

children are protected within the family or “removed from danger and given a better

life with loving carers. But those cases don’t make headlines.” Arnold (2009). Why

does society tend to judge social workers by their failures? Worst of all are social

workers not operating between the devil and the deep blue sea; where damn if they

do, and damn if they don’t?

While I am in no way suggesting that all social workers are perfect, does not the

heavy focus on performance management risk giving the impression that social work

problems are mainly at the frontline? Following the tragic death of Baby P in

Haringey Council put out a statement saying that it "took immediate action and

sacked an agency social worker and disciplined two staffs after finding that about

1,000 referrals had not been dealt with” Brody, (2009). Rather than a systemic

affliction, the implication of the information provided Haringey's statement is that the

three frontline staff or social workers were at fault. So how can one rationalise the

habitual almost universal tendency to indiscriminately scapegoat social workers for

what are undoubtedly systemic failures? According to Tim Loughton (MP), these

“misconceptions are too often fuelled by stereotyped social worker characters as

they appear in the media, ranging from slightly alternative liberal busybodies to out-

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and-out child snatchers.” Loughton, (2009). In a rare instance of cross-party

consensus, both the labour and Conservative leaders acknowledge the undeserving,

un-envious and dilemma-prone plight of social workers. In the former, the Prime

Minister Gordon Brown asserted that “such deaths must never happen again”, but

the truth is that even if best practice were the norm, it would not be possible to

prevent all children dying from abuse. Similarly, Mr Cameroon for the opposition

noted that “Quite simply social workers are often identified as part of the problem

rather than an integral and helpful part of the solution. This situation has not been

helped by the relative lack of attention given to their professional development by the

Government compared to front line doctors and teachers, and the willingness of

some parts of the media to point a finger of blame when high profile cases go

wrong.” Conservative, (2007). In consensus, Dr. Gall, a social worker, noted that,

“The actual expectation of social worker’s’ role in the family is somewhat hazy and

many of their direct powers have been eroded over time, whilst personal

responsibility has increased”. CPCSW, (2007). Disempowered, lacking a strong

representation or trade union to safeguard their welfare, social workers have become

the soft target for blame.

As the example in California shows, not only is the vilification of society workers a

universal phenomenon, the charges are similar if not identical. However, unlike in

Britain where social workers are passive-enough to succumb to indiscriminate blame;

in California, nearly 100 Los Angeles County social workers were assertive and

empowered-enough to protest outside a county supervisors’ meeting in April 2009;

complaining that they had been unfairly blamed for the deaths the previous year of

14 children whom they had monitored. They arrived at the county office “toting

handmade signs that read so many children, so few social workers." Fiske, (2009).

Several spoke during the meeting about systemic problems with the child welfare

system that led to such deaths despite what they called their "heroic" efforts.”

Hennessy-Fiske, (2009). This could very well have been in the United Kingdom.

Indeed, akin to the case of Baby P in Britain, in Los Angeles, “the family of a boy who

died of multiple skull fractures had been reported 25 times to the Department of

Children and Family Services and the mother had a known history of

methamphetamine use” Fiske, (2009).

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Chapter Two

Systemic failures

As evident in the cases of Baby P and Victoria Climbié, tragic incidences of fatal child

abuse are routinely, followed by enquiries. Each time there is an investigation into

such failures, it produces pages of recommendations about improving services,

improving communications between agencies, setting up new systems to safeguard

children. The obvious question is ‘why these recommendations never achieve their

objective of safeguarding vulnerable children?

While the paths to these recommendations are paved with good intentions, needless

to say that the bureaucracy around child protection is becoming so unwieldy and

time-consuming that scare resources and time are wasted sitting at computers,

setting up and servicing the elaborate systems as oppose to focusing on the welfare

of vulnerable clients. Indeed the need for accountability and political correctness,

means that in the supposedly partnership collaboration in child protection, partners

are focusing more on the seamless working of the partnership framework than

actually addressing the real circumstances of service users. Despite the Children

Act 2004 making “it clear that all agencies are responsible for safeguarding minors”

Brandon, (2008). study by a team from University of East Anglia and the National

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children suggest that “it is partly due to

those squabbles over whether agency partners have met their criteria for services

that the child protection agenda are so woefully ineffective” Additionally, that where

social work practice has been compromised, research shows that, “what stops social

workers thinking and acting systematically is the triple pressure from families,

employers and bureaucratic demands. Work overload, a target- driven culture and

poor support make workers stressed and ill or paralyse them into inactivity.”

Brandon, (2008). Unfortunately for these overworked, unsupported and may be

inexperience frontline staff (social workers), such compromised practices have

developed into a recurrent and accepted pattern. Commonly referred to as ‘systemic

failures’, the lack of functional strategic structures and procedures to ensure that the

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various components in the child protection framework serve their purpose have

consistently resulted in ineffective, inefficient and inappropriate action or inaction in

service deliveries. While the social worker cannot be solely blamed, they cannot be

completely exonerated. With risk assessment central in predicting the likelihood of

children suffering significant harm, it defies believe that despite over 60 visits to the

client, Maria Ward; Baby P’s social worker and the other partnership members

consistently missed those tell-tell signs of neglect and abuse. While social workers

may not expect praises from the public and media, just as in any other profession,

they need to earn their epaulettes if they are to be complemented rather than

consistently demonised for practice failures.

So to what extent are systemic structures and strategies incentivising the prevalence

of child abuse? The obvious example is the British welfare benefit systems that

enable parents to use children as a means to an end in accessing benefit rather than

an end in itself. For example, apart from marginalisations associated with poverty,

policies that encourage the collapse of the conventional family structure have been

identified as partly responsible for creating the ideal environment for child neglect

and other social problems. While pointing out that in cases where children have

suffered fatal abuse none of the tragedies have involved families in a conventional

marriage situation, a commentator on the tragic death of Baby P questioned the

rational in encouraging lone parenthood or co-habitation; circumstances in which

“more stupid, infantile, drunk, drugged, dysfunctional morons breed unwanted,

unloved babies simply as a means to subsidised housing and welfare benefits.?”

Indeed, in United States as in Britain, Martin Guggenheim, a professor of law at

New York University noted that "Cases that lead to children coming into care or to

coming to the state's attention, even as potential cases for removal, commonly

involve a poor, single parent with limited resources, who sometimes [is] living in

inadequate conditions because that's what available."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/fostercare/inside/guggenheim.html.

While social workers may get the system dramatically skewed in favour of

overprotection in readily taking children into care, there is no guarantee that such

indiscriminate and simplistic actions will not engender accusation of baby snatching

from campaigners of family preservation. Nevertheless, as would be expected of any

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professionals, social workers must bare part or all of the blame if despite their

schooling their risk assessments fail to identify circumstances as in the case of

Victoria Climbié and Baby P where the signs of abuse could easily have been

spotted by the man on the street. For example in the former case, Climbié “had been

beaten for months, had 128 injuries, and died from malnutrition and hypothermia after being

forced to sleep in a bath. At the public enquiry, it emerged that Victoria could have been

saved on 12 separate occasions if the relevant services had intervened”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/nov/11/child-protection-climbie-babyp. Akin

to Baby P, Victoria had been seen by dozens of social workers, nurses, doctors and police

officers but they failed to spot and stop the abuse. The irony in the latter case is that despite

recommendation by the Laming enquiry to address issues of systemic failures in Harringey

social service child protection; identical factors were responsible for the death of Baby P.

While scapegoating the social workers for tragedies that were due to collective failures may

seem unfair and on the extreme, their role or contribution in the tragedy cannot be

overlooked.

If the welfare of the child is as legally paramount as mandated in the Children’s Act

1989, then rather than under-protection (living children at risk of significant harm with

their parents), social workers should opt for over-protection where there is reason to

believe that parents actually pose a danger to the welfare of a child. Yes, this may be

in direct breach of the founding principle of the Children Act 1989 which rather that

children be brought up in their families. While some social workers may use such

legislations to justify the omission of duties as in the case of Baby P where the victim

was left with the parents with fatal consequences; the reality is that such laws are

relative and not absolute. Reflective social work intervention means that frontline

practitioners need to be competent-enough to take necessary actions based on their

assessment of presenting circumstances. At times, what are called systemic failures

in child protection, flourish not because the system cannot be change, but merely

because social workers and other professionals have accepted and become

socialised into the status quo. While social workers may feel scapegoat in most

cases of tragic child abuses, there are circumstantial evidence to argue that,

excessive workload, lack of supervision or inexperience are not reason-enough not

to spot blatantly obvious risk factors in circumstances where children are being

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abused. Additionally, although it would be damn irrational to expect social workers to

eradicate child abuse, their central role and responsibility as purposely trained

professionals in safeguarding the welfare of vulnerable children should ensure that

critical rather than simple assessment are operationalised in circumstances where

the lifestyle of parents are risk-associated as in substance abuse. It is such

consistent and methodical approach to interventions in child protection that would go

a long way towards enhancing the reputation of the social worker. Indeed, such

professionalism would also empower the social workers to be offensive rather

consistently defensive when things do go wrong. In attempts to shift blame to the

system, social workers and relevant critics need to understand that the system is not

an end in itself but the means to an end which can be changed, and should be

changed.

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Chapter Three

The Question of credentialism in social work

Within professional echelons, the lack of recognition of social work as a profession or

the similar lack of recognition of social workers as professionals, have hitherto

deprived social work and its practitioners of the respect, and prestige accorded to

professionals like doctors and lawyers. In my previous article about the conflict in the

power relationship between social workers and doctors in the British National Health

Service, I critically analysed the conflict between the empathetic social work model

and the rather sympathetic medical models in working with clients. The synthesis

was that despite the gross advantage of the social worker model compared to the

medical model, the professionalism of the medics always ensures that their opinions

prevail in most cases of child protection decision-makings. Thus within the context

where credentialism in law and medicine has empowered doctors and lawyer with

authority to the extent of autocracy, social workers with their diminished power status

are deprived of the privileged to even justify their practice. It is this and similarly lack

of professional recognition or acceptance that might be contributing to society’s

tendency to discriminate and denigrate social workers. Indeed, looking at the

amalgamation of modules in the social work curriculum, one starts to question

whether on graduation the social worker is meant to be a lawyer, educationalist,

psychologist, policy analyst or a medic. To some observers, it is the case of ‘jack of

all trades and a master of none.’ In deed compared to lawyers or doctors, in practice,

the roles of social workers seem very ill-defined. Apart from the academic

qualification, there is doubt as to the precise distinction between a social worker and

a support worker (careers). Compared to professions like medicine and law that

draw a clear demarcation about their fields and have defendable boundaries, “social

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work appears not so much a definite field as an aspect of work in many fields”

Flexner, (1915, p. 161). Indeed social work seems too polymorphously perverse to

be defendable. Consequently, while doctors who fulfil similar but not identical role as

social workers are prevalently commended and venerated as virtuous, social worker

may undeservedly bear the scourge of society as typical of the current blame culture.

Nowhere have professionalism and credentialism undermine the ethics and values of

social work as in the partnership framework in child protection. Here, the autocratic

and dogmatic relationship between doctors, police and social workers, has resulted in

passivity of the latter in the supposedly democratic decision-making processes. Indeed,

Limbery, M. (1998), has identified a number of inter-organisational and inter-professional

problems with social workers attached to a GP practice based on varying systems of

accountability and remuneration. There is social consensus that doctors perceive themselves

as occupying a higher professional hierarchy. Beyond the partnership with medics, the

effectiveness of the multiagency approach in social work intervention is compromised by the

reality that “professionals who historically worked in a highly individualised and non-

collaborative culture may find effective accommodation of the ideology of partnership and

empowerment problematic” North et al, (1999); Callaghan et al, (2000). While this

hierarchical relationship “may be antithetical to the very concept of teamship especially in

child protection, the irony is that liabilities for collective failures within such environment

plagued by power differentials are disproportionately borne by the social workers.

Elsewhere, as when faced with skewed reporting from the media, compared to other

professionals who seem predisposed to fight for their rights at the sign of such bias,

social worker have visibly been passive in either fighting for their rights or being

assertive-enough to defend themselves or their profession.

Further attempts and opinions to rationalise this chronic passivity are highly

polarised; ranging from feminist arguments to the rejection of social worker as a

distinct profession. Where social work is accepted as a profession especially in child

protection, critical scrutiny suggest that the seeds of incompetence or inefficiency in

British social work interventions or processes in child protection are sown at the very

formation of social workers where the emphasis is on family support rather than child

protection. Similarly, The National Children’s Bureau (NCB), in consensus with

Professor Harriet Ward (Director of the Centre for Child and Family Research

Loughborough University) noted that “social work training has focused too much on

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the acquisition of skills, and too little on the acquisition of knowledge. Thus within the

collaborative partnership working in child protection where veteran partners are able

to skilfully articulate their arguments; social workers may be left in a limbo; unable to

either defend their practice, promote their profession or critically debates policy

issues. In life you don’t just jump from passing your test in automatic cars to excel in

debating thesis with professors on driving manual cars. Yet society indiscriminately

expects disempowered and inexperienced social workers to exude competence in

deliberating matters of practice and policies in parity with veterans and academics

like doctors and similar autocrats. Such gross disproportional power or academic

differentials are bound to impact negatively, not only on the confidence and self-

worth of the social workers, but the way they are perceived and treated. As such

scapegoating social workers when things go wrong may be directly or indirectly

linked to professional power differentials.

Pertaining to the rejection of social work as a profession, if being professional in its

broadest significance simply denotes the opposite of the word amateur, then social

workers are professionals since “they devote they entire time on practice as opposed

to amateur who is only transiently or provisionally so engaged” Flexner, (1915). The

current “level and duration of training of social workers is now similar to that of

teachers and nurses, and its content (combining values, knowledge and practice

skills) similar to that of doctors and psychologists with whom social workers work

closely. Although this intensive training will never give the social work equal

professional credentials to medics or lawyers, it may change the low image of the

social profession and give the social worker the parity in pay and status which at

present, according to Skills for Care, are among the lowest of the professional

occupations. Within the context where social work was inextricably associated with

caring; and where caring is perceived as work for women, there is logical reason to

suggest that, in a patriarchal society that is institutionally sexist, social workers may

be victims of inherent sexual segregation. Compared to professionals like nursing

with strong unions, the lack of representation or strong voice in debates shaping the

role and future development of social work means that the media will always only

portray the profession through sensationalised misrepresentations. As such, social

work is in desperate need of a strong organisation or trade union body responsible

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for public relationship that would help minimise the current blame culture. Indeed,

within the current social work climate of managerialism, the profession needs to

market its good practices; making sure these are appropriately represented to the

media. Without a concerted and effective framework to communicate the

achievements of social work to the media or to the general public, the

misrepresentation and vilification of social workers will remain the norm.

Regarding accountability in social work, the consistent and indiscriminate vilification

of social workers when things go wrong within a multiagency partnership suggest

either a lack of equality in the power relationship or compromised accountability

framework to ensure that blame for failures are apportion to the responsible

individual or agency. While the Children Act 2004 stipulates that each children’s

service authority in England must establish a Local Safeguarding Children Board for

their area with representatives from the authority and all relevant partners of the

authority such as, health authority, the Children and Family Court Advisory, police,

probation and Support Service and secure training establishments; the NSPCC

makes it succinctly clear that child protection is the duty of each and every one of us.

Yet when things go wrong, blaming social worker becomes the ultimate convenient

option in our selfish tendency to shift and apportion. To safeguard against the

demonisation of individuals as was the fate of Arthurworrey in the Climbié saga, ‘Lord

Laming emphasised the need for a clear lines of accountability. Specific in the

prevention of the scapegoating of social workers, there is vital need for the public as

well as the media to comprehend “the balance between doing everything possible to

prevent child abuse, and the reality that it is not possible to eliminate it”

http://www.scie-socialcareonline.org.uk/profile.asp?guid=91af6f7b-c5b6-482e-9942-

d2e0b2a082c3. More importantly, society needs to move away from the culture

which assumes that there must be someone to be culpable when tragedies occur.

While the Director of Children’s Services currently holds the ultimate safeguarding

responsibility and the statutory lead member on the council accountability framework,

the effectiveness of this set up to provide support for social workers is ill-defined. As

such when things do go wrong anarchy supersedes strategic accountability. The

result is systemic failures or is it?

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Chapter Four

Social workers and the media

As the case of Baby P has shown, social workers often receive a disproportionate

share of blame in highly publicised cases even though a team of professionals from

health, education and police is usually involved, and major decisions about children

can only be made by the courts. How many times has the press engendered public

hysteria simply because social workers dare to be human-enough to make mistakes?

What did they think they were doing? How could they have made such blunders?

Why does it go on happening are spiteful chorus of that routinely follow omission of

duty by social workers. While some critics and media proponents may argue that

audiences “are complicated filter mechanism that are selective in their interpretation

and application of mass media messages.” Fiske, (1986). Allen (1994, p. 6), the

public hysteria engendered by the media coverage of Baby P tragedy despite

obvious bias, is suggestive of public gullibility in its consumption of media messages.

From a semiotic and structural perspective, despite the fact that mass media

information are “partial, motivated, conventional and biased” Allen, (1994, p. 38), the

Sun Newspaper’s coverage of the Baby P’s tragic death is evidence that the public

prevalently perceive media messages as “pure information, as an unmediated

signifier”. While this tendency and the lack of media literacy may collude and

reinforce “the power-wielding ability of the press to instigate public hysteria”, Banks,

(2001, p. 17); Trowler, (2001), the correlate between the mass media messages and

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their knowledge of social practice is open to conjecture. With television and the

newspapers as typologies, the medical model perceives the mass media as the

syringe, the message as what is injected and the audience as the patient.

Accordingly, the influence of the media on social attitude to social workers or the

social work profession is a factor of dosage, (the quantity, frequency and extent of

exposure to mass media socialisation), and the resilience, (audience’s selective

ability rather than passive attitude to media messages) Allen, (1994, p. 37). As was

typical of the Sun’s concerted campaign for the dismissal of Maria Ward (social

worker to Baby P), irrespective of public resilience, prolonged exposure to biased

media message will eventually impact significantly on our response to cases of

seemingly preventable child abuse. Akin to the media treatment of Arthurworrey in

the tragic death of Victoria Climbié, the Sun’s resolute blaming of Maria Ward

following the sadistic death of Baby P was sensationalised with hysteria-engendering

headlines including; 'Blood on their hands'; with the unequivocal inference that

without any vestige of doubt, the social workers were solely guilty. Having achieved

its objective of being the judge and jury, the Sun then launched a crusade; calling for

every worker “who had been involved in the case to be sacked and prevented from

working with children again” http://www.journalism.co.uk/6/articles/533768.php. Nor

did it end there; in complete disregard for confidentiality, the paper encouraged

readers to contact the newspaper if they knew any of the social workers involved.

Despite the awareness of subjective reporting by the Sun and the rest of mass

media, the resulting lynch-mob attitude towards Ward, gives credence to the

assertion that, “the hypnotic power of the mass media deprives us of the capacity for

critical thought.” Marcuse, (1972).

As an analyst, I never seek to be judgemental or partisan but to provide different

perspectives to controversial issues to enable people arrive at more objective

conclusions. In this analysis, I am in no way seeking to exonerate the Social workers

of those omissions of duties that ended in the preventable lost of priceless life; but to

ascertain whether the devil is as black as painted. Simplistically, the conviction of

Baby P’s parents was testimony of “Blood on their hands” not the professionals who

are alleged to have made the mistakes. Within certain context would not the Sun

have been charged with attempting to pervert the cause of justice or liable? Spitefully

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unfortunate for the social worker Maria Ward, she was no super star to instigate the

time and cost-intensive legal action for deformation of character or liable. As

predominantly passive consumers of the media message, needless to say the public

had already sold out their ability for objectivity or selective consumption of messages

visibly infused with bias and vested interest. The fact that as a fallible human being,

some omission of duty by the social worker added to the general lack of collaborative

partnership with the police and medical services in the protection of Baby P is

reason-enough not to accord the social worker the angelic status. On the other hand

it does not also provide cause for indiscriminate and subjective vilification. At its most

extreme, the Sun’s attack on Ward was extended to make authorities question her

mental health state. If as in the latter instance the system was so incapable and

gullible-enough as to put a lunatic in charge of the asylum, why blame and demonise

the lunatic for the resulting chaos and tragedies? Mind you I am in no way

consenting to the subjective and irrational equating of social workers with

psychopaths. Nevertheless, in a society where medical conditions like mental illness

are being criminalised, associating the social worker with mental illness was

synonymous with prejudging and convicting the social worker with criminal offence.

Similarly, cognisant of the fact that the police officer involved in the case scarcely

received any blame, while the mention of the doctors in the media was routinely

balanced by acknowledgement of the complexity of their job; social workers must feel

that they “are fair game when it comes to media witch hunts in a way that other

public servants, such as police officers, teachers or nurses are not.”

http://www.journalism.co.uk/6/articles/533768.php. Although, ever since the Laming

report child protection became a multidisciplinary process involving health

professionals and police officers as well as social workers, the media’s singling out of

social workers for vilification suggests that the media are either ignorant of the

partnership structures in child protection or they are intentionally selective as to

where they apportion blame. From a credentialism perspective, compared to the

doctors involved in both the Baby P and Climbié cases, the low status and less

articulate social workers were isolated and vilified, thanks to media-audience

manipulation.

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The public’s central role in the blame culture of social workers is evident within the

context where, despite obvious bias reporting; the Sun's Baby P coverage was

shortlisted for campaign of the year award. What does it say of our society in general

and our ability for objective consumption of media message when seemingly bias

media reporting, to the extent of a vendetta is upheld as the pinnacle of journalistic

achievement at the expense of those passionately willing and ready to come to our

help in our time of turmoil and tribulations? In rationalising the impact of the media as

a possible cause of social worker’s fallibility, I dare premise that, ‘the very fears of

media witch-hunts and professional infamy can lead to a heavy focus on blame

avoidance, with every step taken or decision taken with a glance over the shoulder

and a finger stuck fast in the rule book’. Similarly, in emphasising the demoralising

impact of negative press on the self esteem and confidence of social workers, family

court lawyer Helen pointed out that, “The media relies upon simplified and

generalised tabloid sensationalism to sell papers and grab audiences. The resulting

demonisation of individuals positively undermines the vocation and disincentivises

quality individuals from becoming involved’. http://www.fassit.co.uk/leaflets/No

%20More%20Blame%20Game%20%20The%20Future%20for%20Children's

%20Social%20Workers.pdf. The problem with media-induced bias in our attitude to

social workers is that, we become comprehensively oblivious to the rudimentary

ethical reality that ‘protecting children is everyone’s responsibility, not only that of

Social workers.

As in most cases of tragic incidences in child protection, public stereotypical

perception of social workers “as indecisive wimps who fail to protect children from

death, or as authoritarian bullies who unjustifiably snatch children from their parent”

Banks, (2001, p. 17) persist today thanks to media influence. Ultimately, until a

herculean revolution is affected to change the way mass media messages are

encoded and disseminated, the demonisation of social workers will always

reciprocate and satisfy the mass media’s mind manipulation and socialisation

processes.

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Chapter Five

The role of empowerment in the blame culture

In social work interventions, user involvement or the empowerment of clients either

directly or indirectly through advocacy to actively participate in their own welfare

delivery has primarily been fostered by sociological approaches such as the system

or role theories. According to Payne, (1995, p.178) such theories emphasise the

importance of the social origin of many of the problems clients faced, they are not so

incline to emphasise clients personal incapabilities, and therefore lead to an

assumption of greater equality between the welfare client and social workers. To

date, the formal training of social workers is ensuring that service deliveries are not

only ethically and legally compliant, but that reflective practice empowers the clients

to be proactive participants in decisions affecting their lives. However the increasing

assault on social workers by clients and their families gives rise to the question

whether by empowering service users the system is creating Frankenstein’s to prey

on frontline staff? While social workers are being demonised for incompetence and

omission of duties, the experiences of staff working especially with mental health

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patience give reasons-enough to be guarded in our seemingly simplistic or

indiscriminate judgements and criticism of social workers. Although the challenge to

mainstream social work services is to empathetically engage and work along all

marginalised and some of the most difficult clients to meet assessed needs, society

for yet unexplained reasons expect the duty of social workers to extend beyond

support and ‘enabling’ to ‘mothering’. Carr, (2004). Indeed, rather than empathy in

working alongside clients and their families to solve their problems, it is surprising

how society automatically want social workers to sympathise and mother service

users. Critical reviews of reactions to social work practice give plausible logic to

premise’ that, maybe it is the misperception of social practice as a mothering rather

than supporting or enabling profession that has engendered the indiscriminate

vilification of social workers for society’s failure. Forgive me if this premise seems far-

fetched; with parents in Britain being incarcerated for their children playing truancy;

despite the lack of direct involvement by those parents, blaming social workers for

crime or omission of duties beyond their control is not without precedent. Within the

current market-led system (managerailism) in which clients have become consumers

with the right to choice, social workers as managers are having to consistently

address issues of preferential unmet needs for clients and their families. Whether

due to resource or financial constraints, any inability to provide services based on the

client’s choice is increasingly being met with antagonism and at times aggression.

This situation is being aggravated by the statutory requirement to empower to be

proactive participants in decisions on matters affecting their lives as a significant

index of quality assurance in social care. However, in the power equation relationship

between the client and social workers, any empowerment of the client equates to a

reciprocal loss of power by the social workers. While the relative loss of power by the

social worker does not deprive social workers of the responsibility to oversee and

manage practice interventions, the current climate of claiming for practice

shortcoming in intervention is preventing risk-taking in practice. Thus, rather than

incompetence, some social worker are operating on the side of caution. While social

workers may feel constrained working in partnership with empower client, the reality

is that, by the very nature of their vulnerability, client empowerment can never be so

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comprehensive to deprive social workers from being in control. Thus any malpractice

or omission of duty will be isolated and glutted upon by the public and the media.

Chapter Six

Can social workers ever be free from targeted blame?

Just as the case of Baby P engender mass hysteria, so did those of Vitoria Clime,

Jasmine Beckford and the last not the least, Baby G. In the latter case in

Nottinghamshire; compared to baby P where the social workers were accused of not

rescuing the victim in time; “social workers were regularly being criticised in the press

for taking children away from their parents too readily.” The case of Baby G; “a

newborn baby removed from his 18-year-old mother despite no care order being in

place” Revans, (2008, p. 1) provided the ideal platform for critics and the mass media

to put down social workers and their seemingly irrational profession. In actions that

might have seemed cruel and inhumane, snatching away a baby by a social worker

seem to reinforce and confirms society’s negative perception of social workers as

“indecisive wimps and bullies, wielding too much power over individual and families”

Banks, (2001 p. 16) or are they? Assessed as potentially a liability to her unborn

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baby by reason of her mental state, the decision to take Baby G into care was taken

prenatal. Unfortunately, the social workers actually exercised their duty of care

without obtaining the perquisite legal papers and were compelled by the court to

return the baby to the mother pending satisfaction of the legal requirements. Without

doubt the social workers made a grave procedural mistake and attracted the usual

vilification. Sensationalised headlines like, baby snatchers, Bullies adorned front

pages of the tabloid to demonise the social workers. With procedural slip-up rectified,

Baby G was eventually taken into care. Despite the indiscriminate denigration of

social workers in this case, a year latter “a court case revealed that those social

workers were absolutely right in their judgement after the mother was convicted of

child cruelty.” Brody, (2009). So what is the emerging picture?; take way Baby G too

early and the social worker is labelled a baby snatcher, leave the child with the

parents as was the case with Bay P and Climbié and the social worker is seen as

incompetent. In this climate of ‘do you damn and don’t you damn’ can the social

worker ever be right? As typical of a profession whose practitioners are perceived as

not deserving of compliments or pads on the back for jobs well-done, apart from the

Nottingham Post, not a single national paper dare to correct the damaging

impression given in the original stories in Baby G that social workers did indeed

'snatch' children without good reason. As Tim Loughton MP and Commission

Chairman and Shadow Minister for children noted, “rarely do we read in the tabloids

about the families who have been held together through the dedication and

professionalism of social workers. But then no one is interested in hearing about the

plane that lands safely” Loughton, (2009). In an exceptional case; brought by X and Y

against Hounslow London Borough Council for negligence in failing to respond to a danger

by rehousing them and in which a family with learning disability suffered physical,

sexual, emotional abuse at the hands of local youths, the public and media

prejudged and found the social workers guilty of mal-practice. However, in passing

judgement, the judge actually renounced the press,; defended the social workers and

collectively charged the whole partnership of social workers and the local authority with

negligence, breach of the duty of care and communication failure.

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Chapter Seven

Unrealistic expectations

As consumers, services users have become major determinants of the shape of care

arrangement through their demand for choice, quality, and proactive participation in

decisions affecting their welfare. Particular to social work practice, the right to; and the

exercise of choice as a welfare consumer means that within the market system the

social worker as the manager and service coordination stands to blame irrespective

of the origin of compromised service delivery. Thus, to mitigate the presumed

indiscriminate tendency to be held to answer for failures or omission of duties, social

workers need to ensure that their practice is not only reflective, but legally and

ethically compliant. Although this will in no way completely eliminate the prevailing

stereotypical perception of the social worker as “indecisive wimps who fail to protect

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children from death, or as authoritarian bullies who unjustifiably snatch children from

their parent” Banks, (2001, p. 17) any practice shortcoming will not only exacerbate

their vilification but may fuel, justify and sustain the victimisation of social workers.

In my quest to rationalise the scapegoating or hate game on social workers, I

discover that dissatisfaction and conflict can, and do often arise in social worker

practice due to conflicts in expectations. Social workers are not agents of benevolent

agencies, although their Kantian approach to empathetic practice may insinuate such

virtues. As agents of the state’s welfare system; whose laws and codes of practice

they must obey; or agents of organisations with particular operational strategies, the

effectiveness of the social worker’s practice is reflective of the particular agency

strategic and operational framework. As is often the case in frontline practice where

the right to choice is central to empowerment; but choice is a factor of resource

availability, it is inevitable that professionals and service-users will have conflicting

priorities. Indeed, the reality is that the public and service users are not

systematically sensitised to the precise nature of the rights of clients to services. For

example, ethics and sympathy aside, in community care, the legal entitlement vis-a-

vis the legal responsibility of the welfare system to meet identified needs is qualified

by the terms ‘duty’ or ‘power’. While the former is an obligation (absolute), the latter

is discretional (relative). Under the current climate of increasing demand on welfare

services vis-a-vis diminishing resources; and while the state is not immune to the

global financial crisis, it is astonishing how societies expectations from the social

work profession are not grounded and informed by these realties. Social workers,

irrespective of the constraints to their practice are unrealistically expected to be the

panacea for societies’ problems. Until society becomes critically aware that social

workers are only agents of the welfare system rather than the system itself, efforts to

eradicate the scapegoating of social work professionals will be futile. Additionally,

services users and their families need to be aware of the limit to their service

expectation from services that are supposed to be supportive rather than mothering.

Client empowerment in social worker does not mean creating a monster of the once

vulnerable service-users and their families, but rather provide them with such choices

as would enable them resolve their problems themselves. In frontline practice, many

of the parents social workers deal with have been abused and neglected themselves,

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so they are in some ways just as needy as the children social workers intervene to

protect. It is hard to focus on “the child” in situations where everyone including their

parents or carers exhibits childlike behaviour and the social worker is the only caring

figure around.

In a society where the public seem to relish in apportioning blame as a matter of

convenience, we tend to obviate the reality that social workers are not robots but real

human beings akin to ourselves; inherently fallible, emotional susceptible to negative

and irrational criticism; but with the human tendency to self-improve when

complimented for good practice. In the latter context, it is astonishing how little

society attributes the reduction in most social problems to the central role of social

workers and their agencies. Needleless to say many may accuse me of vested

interest in seeming to stand for social workers. As earlier declared, this discourse is

in no way a hymn of praise to social worker practice, nor am I partisan, but rather an

attempt to sensitize society, especially those who indiscriminately associate social

workers with negativities to the realities of the dilemmas of a profession that hardly

receives the eulogy it deserves. It is mostly only when the ravages of society have

taken their toll on individuals and things might have fallen apart irredeemably that

social workers are expected to step in and pick up the pieces irrespective of the

irrationally that might be inherent in the circumstance. Yet when the miracle fails to

materialise, the supposedly miracle worker (the social worker) becomes the villain.

How often in life do we rationally blame the mechanic for failure to restore a car that

had been dragged in for repairs in complete state of dilapidation? Yet we feel justified

and willing to vilify social workers for not effectively, efficiently and appropriately

achieving the care miracle? Where is society’s Aristotelian or Kantian ethics in their

victimisation of those who have chosen to do our dirty work? Where is our claim to

the power of independent thoughts and decision-making when we ourselves have

become victims of media subjective socialisation that has made us passive

consumers of biased opinions generated to serve particular vested interest? While

the stereotypical perception of social workers primarily as children snatchers owes a

lot to media misrepresentation and public socialisation, the Association of Directors

of Children’s Services (ADCS) reported that research has shown that “there is a

mismatch between the public perception of social workers and that of social work

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service users who report high levels of satisfaction with the service they receive.”

Loughton, (20090). Thus, while social workers do not clamour or expect praises from

the media despite the unsocial nature of their task, “is a balanced coverage too much

to ask?

Chapter Eight

Can best practice ever be the norm in social work practice?

Although social workers are readily indiscriminately demonised, the fallibility of

human beings means that no amount of self-development and reflective practice can

completely eradicate those factors that engender such public hysteria. For example,

it is only in a fantasy or utopian world that one can imagine an environment

comprehensively free from child abuse and child murder. Gordon Brown says deaths

such as that of Baby P must never happen again, but the truth is that even if best

practice were the norm, it would not be possible to prevent all children dying from

abuse. Even in cases where social workers are blamed for not foreseeing child

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tragedies, studies carried out by a team from the University of East Anglia and the

National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, show that “the wealth of

factors which raise or lower the risk of harm to the child was in most cases too

complex for death or serious injury to have been predictable.” Brandon (2008).

Similarly, although many families live in great adversity, which increases the risk of

harm to children, it is important to remember that most children do not suffer serious

abuse in these circumstances. This lack of consistency in profiling potential abusers

significantly constrained the possibility of social workers predicting circumstances of

eminent child abuse. With hindsight, the death of Baby P, Climbié or Beckford might

have been preventable; especially as they were already the subjects of a multi-

agency protection plan and had been seen on numerous occasions. Within the

contestable and controversial circumstance where taking abuse victims into care

would have saved the lives of Baby P and Climbié, could it be that the threshold for

removing children who are suffering chronic neglect is set too high? As the case of

Baby G who was taken away by social workers immediately after birth from her

mentally-ill mother showed, even when social workers bring these cases to court the

effectiveness of their intervention becomes a factor of legal and bureaucratic

wrangling. Indeed, in their desperate quest to be ethically and politically correct in

practice, social workers are discovering that, the very partnership framework they

expect to enhance the safeguarding of children welfare can actually collude to

hinder their practices. The safe comfort zone in social work practice is the realisation

that social worker despite its central role in picking up the pieces when things seem

irredeemable is not synonymous with the hymns of typical with other professions.

The way forward

Social work is a profession whose processes are continuously changing and

readapting its methodology vis-a-vis social dynamics. As such, the social worker, like

other professionals “should be allowed to make practice mistakes in a supportive

learning environment” Davies (2009) Guardian.co.uk. In a society that prides itself of

equal opportunity and the respect of human rights, it defies believe to image that

financial directors who almost brought down global finances through

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mismanagement are subsequently rewarded with mouth-watering bonuses while

social workers like Arthurworrey have been condemned and force into a life of

reclusiveness for daring to falter in their high level of crisis intervention. Similarly,

adopting a ‘safety culture’ will ensure that potential failures in relation to

organisational issues are both understood and controlled. While the media is blamed

for demonising social workers, the social work profession need to change in tandem

with social dynamics and use the very power of the media to defend, promote and

sell itself. Why should the media seek to promote social workers when they rather sit

back and watch other professionals market and defend their profession? Additionally

rather than be socialised into the status quo’s climate of learned helplessness, social

workers should realise that they have a duty to challenge structures and governance

that constrain their ability to deliver best practice. At partnership level, credentialism

and professionalism should not be allowed to dictate policies at the expense of

equally-righted social workers. These, in combination with reflective practice are

bound to impact positively of the way social workers are perceived and treated by the

public in general and the media in particular. In social worker intervention, the reality

is that social problems including child abuse can be prevented but near eradicated.

Chapter Nine

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