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Social Workers successful in halting “Cheap Labour” Scheme

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With the news of the recent launch of a recruitment campaign from the HSE/Tusla for Professionally Qualified Social Workers[i] and the news that this recruitment campaign is open to current social work students[ii], it is clear that the cheap labour scheme (or “new graduate scheme”), which was proposed by the Child and Family Agency in early 2014[iii] is, in the words of their CEO Gordon Jeyes, “dead in the water[iv]”.

When student social workers and SWAN members heard of the proposal to introduce a “graduate scheme” to social work in early 2014 the response was one of anger and defiance. A national campaign was launched with students, educators, practitioners, unions, student bodies and affiliated groups coming together to collective resist this scheme. This included a demonstration outside the Dail[v].

Throughout the campaign SWAN Ireland maintained that the introduction of the scheme would:

  • Represent a move to ‘drive down’ salaries within the social work sector and would install a new layer of ‘cheap labour’ within the profession.
  • Would be likely to prompt other social work employers to also reduce starting salaries for newly qualified social work professionals.
  • Risk undermining the morale of the new agency by unilaterally seeking to undermine the terms of condition of employment.
  • May prompt many newly qualified social workers to seek employment beyond Ireland.
  • Fail to recognise that fully qualified, CORU registered social workers should be entitled, as part of the workforce, to salaries negotiated over a number of years. 
  • Dilute the significance of CORU accredited social work training programmes and ignore the fact that students will have already completed lengthy placements as part of their training.
  • Convey the bogus idea that students emerging from social work programmes are all ‘young’, ignoring that fact that many newly qualified social work professionals are ‘mature’ and have accumulated a number of years of relevant experience even before commencing social work education.

The steering committee of the Social Work Action Network Ireland would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all those social workers who stood up for their beliefs and fought this battle. We would like to sincerely thank groups such as IMPACT trade union, We’re Not Leaving, the Young Workers’ Network, the Union of Students Ireland and many others, who supported student social workers in this campaign. This outcome shows that by working together we can be successful in our struggles!

 

To join SWAN email: socialworkactionnetworkireland@gmail.com with the subject title, “Join SWAN”.

Facebook: SWAN Ireland

Twitter: SWAN_IRL

 

ENDS


[ii] Additional Campaign Information: “Candidates (Undergraduate Degree / Masters) on a recognised professional social work course due to graduate in 2015”.

[iv] Jeyes was speaking to social workers at a meeting in 2014 when he stated that the scheme was “dead in the water”.

[v] Video of national demonstration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQahPuTRRf4

AGM and motions carried at SWAN Conference 2015

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SWAN AGM 2015 minutes
Chaired by Kerry Cuskelly, SWAN Ireland

1. Welcome:

Apologies included Peter Beresford, Mark Baldwin, Marie Porter, Bob Williams-Finlay, Rich Moth, Simon Cardy.

2. Report from National Convener Michael Lavalette:

Topics covered – local groups, access to funds, Rotherham, international work, Critical and Radical Social Work journal and SWAN pamphlets.  work for the coming year to focus on policy responses and development of international SWAN network.

3. Report from Treasurer and Membership Secretary Iain Ferguson:

Summary of income and expenditure handed out to all AGM attendees.
Membership – Roughly 4 or 5 people are joining every week. Setting up a standing order is encouraged.
Proposed action for the coming year – new SWAN postbox needed, website needs to be upgraded, financial help available to help with “start-up” of SWAN groups, steering committee to decide if accounts need to be audited or not, new treasurer/membership officer needed in 2016.

4. Report from Jeremy Weinstein on the Mental Health Charter:

Meetings throughout the year re the charter, invitations to some conferences to speak because of the charter.
300 signatories to the Charter so far. A submission was made by the charter sub-group to the Royal College of Psychiatry in respect of a document they were writing on adult inpatient care. SWAN and MH Charter encourage attendance at the Psychopolitics conference on June 10th in Liverpool Hope University.

5. Motions:

Support of Palestine UK Social Work Network/Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions of Israel from Michael Lavalette. Motion was carried with two abstentions and two against.
No confidence in Chief Social Worker for Children and Families in England by SWAN national steering commitee. Motion was carried.
(copies of motions are available for download below)

6. Election of Steering committee:

National Convener – Michael Lavalette
Deputy Convener – Shelly Ferguson
Membership Officer/Treasurer – Iain Ferguson
The three officer positions were filled and each person was elected unopposed.
All remaining people who put themselves forward for general membership of the steering committee (17) were elected by agreement of the AGM attendees.

7. AOB:

Proposal for the development of an anti-racism charter (akin to the mental health charter). This will be developed initially by the steering committee. This proposal was passed by full agreement of AGM attendees.
Proposal for SWAN to donate £100 each to two funds, the Glasgow Homelessness Workers fund and the Barnet Workers fund. This proposal was passed by full agreement of AGM attendees.

AGM ends.

Mental Health Charter: submission on inpatient adult psychiatric care

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Please find below the full submission from the Mental Health Charter available for download.

Mental Health charter signatories will also be pleased to hear of the attention being paid to a recent open letter denouncing austerity and cuts to mental health services signed and supported by SWAN and Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) alongside a host of prominent psychologists, psychotherapists and allied professions. This letter was published by the Guardian on Friday 17th April 2015 and has been picked up and circulated by trade unions and other organisations:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/apr/17/austerity-and-a-malign-benefits-regime-are-profoundly-damaging-mental-health

The Mental Health Charter is still gathering support and making an impact among mental health service users, carers and workers. Please add your name by emailing mentalhealthcharter@gmail.com  – you can also make contact at this address with any coments or correspondence. We especially welcome endorsements of the Charter from individuals, teams and/or organisations.

Final programme for SWAN Conference 2015

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Also, leading Scottish social policy academic Dr Gerry Mooney who has written extensively on poverty, inequality and Scottish independence; Amal Azzudin of the Glasgow Girls, whose campaign against the deportation of a school friend was the subject of a recent television drama/documentary; and recent UWS social work graduate Thomas Timlin, himself a care leaver who is now Development Officer with Who Cares Scotland.

Remember you can still book for the conference here.

Award-Winning Spanish Social Work Leader will speak at SWAN Conference 2015

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The award was in recognition of her leadership role in creating the Orange Tide, a movement combining social workers and the people that use services. Across Spain they regularly gather in orange T-shirts on the streets with music and dance to the message of “No Cuts to Social Services”.Ana Lima Fernandez, President of Consejo General del Trabajo Social
 
Spanish newspapers and television have widely reported this social action and the Orange Tide has become a part of mainstream media. While the government clearly has a programme of cutting social services, at a time when they are needed, the cuts are not as drastic as would otherwise have been because of the visibility of the Orange Tide. According to Rory Truell, General Secretary of the International Federation of Social Workers, “The Orange Tide is the best current example of social work-led action. It is limiting a government inadvertently eroding the future of its people, and giving hope, an outlet and voice to people who are in desperation. The Orange Tide also provides support to social workers to continue to work as volunteers after they have had their hours cut or been laid off. It is an inspiration to social workers worldwide” (Guardian, 12 July, 2014).

The conference will bring together up to 400 social workers, academics, students and service users from across the UK, In addition, there will be delegations of social workers from Greece, Spain, Japan and the USA. Other speakers include leading Scottish social policy academic Dr Gerry Mooney who has written extensively on poverty, inequality and Scottish independence; Amal Azzudin of the Glasgow Girls, whose campaign against the deportation of a school friend was the subject of a recent television drama/documentary; and recent UWS social work graduate Thomas Timlin, himself a care leaver who is now Development Officer with Who Cares Scotland.

Flyer for SWAN Conference 2015

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Plenary sessions will include presentations on the following themes:
• Racism, antiracism and social work practice
• Radical practice today: voices from the frontline
• Global perspectives: radical social work in the world today
Call for papers

We particularly encourage workshops, presentations and papers on the following more specific
themes and topics:
• The disability movement
• Defeating sexism and gender oppression
• Debating Government reviews on social work education and adult care
• Challenging the “troubled families” agenda
• Defeating the policies of austerity
• Anti-racist social work practice
• Challenging managerialism
• Working with asylum seekers and refugees
• In defence of youth and community work
• User-led groups and community campaigns
• Building alliances – challenging the strategy of divide and rule
• Radical social work education and practice
• Other subject areas relevant to the main conference themes

Please send an outline of your proposal (up 200 words) with your name(s) and contact details to
SWAN2015workshops@outlook.com by Friday 27th February 2015.

Speakers announced for SWAN Conference 2015

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Gerry Mooney will be the keynote speaker at the conference. Gerry is Senior Lecturer in Social Policy and Criminology, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University. He was written widely on issues from class, poverty and social inequalities, social policy in Scotland, Scottish devolution and the independence debate through to issues in criminology, urban studies and industrial relations. Among other publications, he is co-editor and author of Crime, Justice and Society in Scotland (Routledge, 2015 forthcoming); co-editor and author of Poverty in Scotland 2014: The Independence Referendum and Beyond (CPAG, 2014) and co-editor and author of Social Justice and Social Policy in Scotland (Policy Press, 2012).

Details of his other publications can be viewed as his Open University webpage at https://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/staff/people-profile.php?name=Gerry_Mooney.
He has also authored a number of papers for the Open University’s OpenLearn site @ http://www.open.edu/openlearn/profiles/gcm8 and he is on Twitter @gerrymooney60
Gerry is currently researching and writing around territorial stigmatisation in Glasgow and also around social welfare and Scotland’s constitutional futures.

Amal Azzudin will also be speaking at the event. Amal is a community development worker and campaigner for human rights and social justice. Amal has just graduated with a masters degree in human rights and international politics at the university of Glasgow. Amal was one of the Glasgow Girls, a group of seven school girls from Drumchapel High School in Glasgow that got organised and stood up against dawn raids, detention and deportation of asylum seekers in Glasgow. The Glasgow Girls story has since been turned into a BBC documentary, a stage musical and a television musical drama.

Meanwhile, any suggestions for workshops at the conference can be sent to the following email address: swan2015workshops@outlook.com

Accommodation in Glasgow can be found at the following link if you search by date and price: http://www.bedandbreakfasts.co.uk/G1-3SL/  

The cheapest option is the Euro Hostel http://www.eurohostels.co.uk/glasgow this is a good location, minutes from the train station to get the train to Paisley. 

PsychoPolitics in the Twenty First Century: Peter Sedgwick and radical movements in mental health

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Background to conference:
The work of Peter Sedgwick and in particular his classic text PsychoPolitics (1982) has a renewed relevance in the context of ‘austerity’, the privatisation of welfare provision and emergent forms of radical activism in mental health. This conference will provide an opportunity to explore Sedgwick’s ideas and assess his legacy in light of these contemporary developments. The original cover of Psychopolitics by Peter Sedgwick

The conference themes will include (but are not limited to):

• The politics of mental health
• Social movements in mental health; social movements and sociological knowledge on mental health
• Alliances between service user/survivor movements and trade unions/anti-austerity campaigns
• Alliances between disabled people’s and mental health service user/survivor movements
• Mental health practice and resistance under neoliberalism
• Contemporary applications of Sedgwick’s ideas
• Links between mad studies, disability studies and the work of Sedgwick

The conference webpages are at www.hope.ac.uk/psychopoliticsc21. The email for mailing list and further info is: sedgwickconf2015@hope.ac.uk

We invite proposals and look forward to seeing you at the conference.

Resources from SWAN Dublin event “Do We know what Human Rights and Social Justice Mean in the Ireland of Today”?

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for social work education and not being able to speak out against the increasing technocratic procedures being forced upon social workers, among other issues. It was clear that there is anger about this amongst social workers and their allies (some of whom were at the event), and as a result, SWAN Dublin will be looking to organise another event in the near future on this topic. Keep checking this page and the facebook page for updates. You can also join our mailing list by clicking this link: http://wordpress.us7.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=1f5781d331019ac241d0a313c&id=87eaabc530 

In the mean time social workers, get angry, get active!

‘Can Openers’ the debut novel by Mal Jones

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The novel can be purchased for £9.99 in paperback or for 0.99 as an e-book at the Rowanvale website. The book has already garnared a favourable review from the ResoluteReader blog, which states that ‘[r]eaders will want to keep reading though, not just because of the story, but because the world that the author has created is tragically believable.’

The publisher’s lay out the story in more detail:

[The novel] ‘raises concerns about the way the welfare system is run as a target-driven business, rather than as a caring and compassionate helping hand. This frustration is the motivation behind Can Openers, an intense dystopian thriller exploring our current systems and where they may lead us.

Every aspect of peoples’ lives are determined by a rigid framework set down by the authoritarian Dependency Department – a department that organises people by an evidence-based science. Believing the poor are feckless, and self-reliance should be encouraged, Frederick Smyth is approaching the peak of his career.

Currently the head of the district unit, Frederick’s ambitions of promotion are thwarted as a shocking and brutal murder turns his life upside-down.

This darkly comic novel is full of surprising twists that keep the reader guessing. Set in a near-future society where survival of the fittest is state policy, this novel is a stark warning of where our society may be heading.’

London ‘Crisis In Mental Health’ Day Conference, November 2014

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Speakers included stalwart supporters of SWAN, Peter Beresford, Professor of Social Policy and chair of Shaping Our Lives, and June Sadd, a mental health survivor and researcher. We also heard from a member of Unison’s NEC (in her personal capacity) and a worker from Unite Community and activists came from two important disputes, both challenging the effects of privatisation of adult services, Your Choice Barnet, following which we collected £150 for their strike fund, and St Mungo’s Housing who didn’t need a collection since they’d just won their dispute!


This gives some idea of the scope of the conference. What we learnt from it? That ‘mental illness’ has a deep impact on both service users and practitioners, that it effects those diagnosed with specific conditions and less obviously but equally corrosively on the wider community. This includes vulnerable women forced into giving up their babies for adoption, children coping with abusive family conditions, members of the LGBT community facing domestic violence. And we also learnt how people can survive and thrive, whether it’s music or campaigning or both, there’s a collective response that takes on the aloneness.

What SWAN learns from the event is the need to address more clearly the experience of those in the Black and Ethnic Minority Communities. We’re also beginning to network with other campaigns concerned with the impact of privatisation on mental health services and the voluntary sector.