The site is aimed at social work practitioners, educators, students, social welfare service users and campaigners who are concerned by the increasing marketisation of social work, the stigmatisation of service users and the impact of the Government’s austerity measures on social work and social care.
The site will be an important resource for all these groups, with new website features including: integration with social media such as twitter and facebook, an improved discussion forum, links to relevant articles from around the web, resources to download such as our pamphlets and the Practice Notes series, and regional webpages run by local SWAN groups around the UK. The site will continue to carry reports on SWAN’s activities and critical analysis of trends in social work policy.
SWAN National Convenor, Michael Lavalette comments: “social work is facing immense challenges. The massive cuts in services are having a negative impact on people’s lives and livelihoods. In the workplace managerial control, huge workloads and a target setting culture make it difficult to work in ways that match our value base. We didn’t come into social work for this!
The new SWAN website will provide resources and space for frontline workers, service users and all those interested in social work to debate the problems we face and consider ways forward. The Practice Notes series will provide practical solutions to a range of issues, whilst the web resources will give a concise summary of media articles that relate to social work which will help SWAN website users keep up to date with social work debates.
We think the new SWAN website can provide essential resources for all those interested in social work’s future.”
Information about the website:
• Full Facebook and Twitter functionality built in to all articles
• New improved discussion forum – https://socialworkfuture.org/index.php/forum/index
• Downloadable documents and Powerpoint presentations
• Practice Notes and pamphlets: https://socialworkfuture.org/index.php/resources/practice-notes
• Conference 2012 information: https://socialworkfuture.org/index.php/conference-and-events/conference-2012
• Regional SWAN webpages: https://socialworkfuture.org/index.php/about-swan/regional-swan
• Contact SWAN at https://socialworkfuture.org/index.php/about-swan/contact-us/1-national-swan
Please contact ‘National SWAN’ by clicking here if you would like more information.
