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SWAN Conference 2013

Posted : 9th July 2012 by admin

In 2012, while society becomes increasingly unequal and social protection is being severely eroded, the neoliberal consensus around austerity is starting to falter and fracture. Social workers and care employees work with parents who are forced to choose between feeding their children and paying the rent, young people who are out of work or forced to onto ‘workfare’ programmes and disabled people who are vilified as unproductive scroungers while having support for their independence and employment snatched away. Meanwhile, the immoral spectacle of Newscorp’s collusion with the UK government, rate-fixing by Barclays bank and reduction of the top rate of tax on the rich all highlight social injustice and feed the anger of people already enslaved to paying for an economic crisis caused by the global financial system. Social workers and care workers have also witnessed and participated in the fight back to defend the welfare state and the rise of social movements developing alternative visions of social care and welfare based on collective interest and mutual benefit. Join social work and care practitioners, service users, carers, educators and students in 2013 to defend, debate and create.

We will regularly update the SWAN website with information about speakers and methods for booking places as this becomes available.

In the meantime, please email swanconf2013 (at) gmail.com for further information on the conference.

SWAN North East inaugural conference – November 2012

Posted : 29th June 2012 by admin

The conference will run from 09:30 Coffee, 10.00 start to 4:30 finish in the Centuria Building, School of Health & Social Care, University of Teesside, Middlesbrough, TS1 3BA. Lunch is provided. There is ample on-site parking and the campus is a 15 minute walk from the station or a £3.00 taxi.

Please see the bottom of this article for a downloadable invitation to practitioners and students, as well as a flyer for the conference.

Please find below the online booking & payment form — fees are £20 Waged, £10 Students.

To book online click here.

Conference programme: Almost every week has seen new cutbacks to both social work and using community work services here in the Northeast. From academic articles to journalistic exposes and most importantly the day-to-day practice experience of practitioners and students, we see that the north-east is being particularly focused on for the most damaging and deep financial cuts and reductions in support to the public and the voluntary and charitable sectors.

The Social Work Action Network (North East Region) is a broad grouping of social work and youth & community work practitioners, academics students and service user groups which argues against a defensive and managerialist practice. We put the case in favour of professionals in our area coming together with service users and advocates to argue for a professional practice based on social justice and respect for the practitioners within social work, youth and community work and the people of the north-east with whom they work.

The conference is the first of its kind in the north-east after several years of successful Social Work Action Network conferences in the North West, Scotland and London we are beginning the process of helping social work and youth & community work practitioners and students to network to exchange ideas and in particular to look at how to build a practice engagement with the political realities of poverty, lack of opportunity and the lack of respect with which the service users who may be experiencing poverty and marginalisation are being treated by current social policies. Centauria Building where the conference takes place

Speakers include Dr Michael Lavalette, Prof Iain Ferguson, Prof Sarah Banks (SWAN & In Defence of Youth Work) and leading speakers from service user networks and trade unions, which will examine the effect of budget cuts on social services and how social workers and youth & community workers can respond.

Workshops are coving a wide variety of topics from ‘What is Radical Practice’ to a variety of progressive practice sessions including: working with asylum seekers, youth and other service user groups affected by current cutbacks, dealing with unrealistic caseloads and developing ethical practice at a time of sector cuts. There will be student led sessions looking at the student experience across the region.

For further information email swannortheast@gmail.com

Does Liverpool Care?

Posted : 18th June 2012 by admin

Report from SWAN Liverpool – Activists from SWAN and Liverpool Against The Cuts have recently established a campaign pressure group – Does Liverpool Care? to oppose Liverpool City Councils ‘Transformation and Modernisation’ of adult social care services across the city.

The campaign group, which comprises of service users, trade unionists, social work students, practitioners and academics, posed a series of questions at last week’s Adult Social Care and Health Select Committee. The questions, which have not yet been answered publicly by the committee, relate directly to changes introduced by the council as part of both the implementation of social care spending cuts. Campaigners held a lobby outside the meeting, before attending and managing to make their presence known to the committee. Prior to the committee meeting taking place, Does Liverpool Care? submitted a range of questions which probed for greater clarity around the spending cuts. The committee flatly refused to respond publically to those questions.

Campaigners are extremely concerned about the impact that the changes will have upon adult social care service users, carers and social care workers. Some of the changes which have been introduced are:

Removal of service provision for those assessed as having ‘moderate’ care needs;
Closure of day care centres for older people, people with disabilities and the imminent closure of mental health day services;
Implementation and increases of service user charges for various service;
Full scale ‘reassessment’ of need – We are concerned that reassessment will be used as a method to further remove services which people currently rely on.

The campaign group are also concerned that the council will also move to providing for ‘substantial’ needs only from next year, as well as privatisation of the few remaining in house services.

Does Liverpool Care? campaigners actively acknowledge that adult social care is experiencing a national crisis and undergoing a wide scale assault under the coalition government. Older people and people with disabilities are massively “bearing the brunt of cutbacks”¹. However, they demand that Liverpool City Council should be doing more to resist making drastic changes to adult social care in their pursuit of reducing the social care budget.

The Guardian, 17^th June 2012, ‘Disabled and elderly see their day centres and key services disappear as budget cuts bite’ – http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jun/17/day-care-centres-close

Black to the Future: ConDem’s plan to reintroduce colour-blindness and disable mixed ethnicity children

Posted : 10th June 2012 by admin

The Adoption Reform Programme and more recently, the Queens speech, denote a rationale in which the adoption process will be sped up and under performing local authorities will be shamed with their published scorecards. Political rhetoric has moved at a frenetic pace with new policies and ministerial announcements being made on an almost bi-monthly basis. Ministers have blamed slow performing placements on ethnic barriers put in place by overtly politically correct social workers. This flawed argument by the government oversimplifies a diverse range of divergent (unique) needs required for Black Asian and Minority ethnic children, alongside those who are mixed ethnicity.

It has been over 30 years since ethnicity was made a secondary consideration. Children were once placed in any home, regardless of ethnic or cultural differences, and White British adopters were praised and regarded as the saviours of unwanted ‘Black’ children. Courageous anti – racist campaigners spoke out against the zeitgeist and brought the complex and nuanced considerations for Black Asian and Minority Ethnic Children to the forefront. Drawing upon the experiences of those placed transracially, it was shown that love was not enough [3]. Experiences of self – harm to desperately remove skin colour, highlighted the difficulties children experienced as they struggled to negotiate who they were in the midst of racial socialisation constructed by adopters and society. Terms such as colour-blindness were coined and amendments to legislation and policy guidance conceded that due consideration of a child’s religious, cultural and ethnic needs should be made [4]. What is now portrayed as political correctness by the current government, was in fact a response to the misunderstanding of BAME identity.

The recent adoption reform programme, introduces an intention to revise adoption guidance and reduce the number of BAME children in the looked after system. They will introduce their ‘flagship’ initiative, adoption scorecards [5]. According to the government’s research brief, the issue is further complicated by the rising numbers of mixed ethnicity children, who are deemed “too problematic to view as a meaningful group” (Selwyn et al., 2008: p.3) [6]. Whilst, it is true that the needs of mixed ethnicity children are more complex than originally understood, the government’s attitude suggests that if something is too difficult to fathom, then they will scandalously remove its importance. Furthermore, it displays a disregard for existing legislation and guidance, which instructs professionals to act in accordance with the ethnic and cultural considerations of the child.

The government continues to misinform the political arena with misrepresented statements about the cultural and ethnic needs of BAME children, particularly the needs of mixed ethnicity children. In this context the governments research brief states that these children do not experience “the same daily battles around culture or ethnicity.” This evidence is incorrect and the original study conducted by Caballero et al., (2008: p. 58) at London South Bank University actually states that,

“It would seem that mixed families, as with minority ethnic families generally, would benefit from policies and professional practices that focused on a broader and more nuanced understanding of diversity, and on further tackling negative assumptions, discrimination and prejudice based on race, ethnicity and faith.” [7]

The government’s attempts to disable the needs of BAME children, particularly those of mixed ethnicity, is not a move forwards but a regression back to an inadequate care planning for ‘looked after children’. The anti-racist movement and the alliances built with social work practitioners, campaigned relentlessly and wrote powerful articles to make positive change. Their work forged the underpinnings of an anti racist practice and values that SWAN works to defend. Unfortunately, such positivity is at risk of being lost to a government that denotes political correctness as something wrong, who fail to understand the complexities of combatting oppressive practices. Their equity is low and their construction of positive outcomes reveals an implicit bigotry. For this government, anything too problematic for an oppressive majority, is simply an irritation to their status quo.

The contradictions highlighted in this article uncover the shaky foundations on which the government’s adoption reform is based. A point further exposed by the OFSTED report entitled ‘Right on Time’ (2012: p. 32) which states, “There was little evidence of delay caused by an unrealistic search for a ‘perfect’ ethnic match.” The intentions of this government, will potentially have major implications for social work practitioners, looked after children and families who will be inadequately prepared to understand and support children as they negotiate their identity, ethnic rejection, racism and heritage. Children who will one day become adults who will struggle to find their sense of belonging in the world.

As a collective, we must not let this governments misrepresentations, play on words and over simplification cause vulnerable children to be placed in situations where they will continue to be pathologised because of the wrong frame of analysis, the wrong agenda and the wrong government making decisions on fragile futures.

—-

Adoption Time line

Adoption Reform Programme
When in the last year alone cuts of £1.86bn were made to Children’s Services across the country [8] the Con-Dem’s great policy initiative for vulnerable children is their early removal by the state and placement through adoption at minimal cost to the public purse. The Adoption Reform Programme has moved at a frenetic pace with new policies and Ministerial announcements being made on an almost bi-monthly basis. The declared rationale has been to speed up the adoption process. Here is a reduced timeline of some of these initiatives:

February 2011 amended Adoption Statutory Guidance issued

July 2011 Appointment of Martin Narey as the Ministerial Adviser on Adoption

October 2011 Publication of Adopters Charter

December 2011 Adoption Expert Working party set up with brief to provide recommendations to streamline the adoption process
December 2011 Publication of Children in Care and Adoption Performance Tables
March 2012 Announcement of Adoption Action Plan

April 2012 OFSTED announces new Inspection Framework of Adoption Agencies
(All these policies can be accessed through the Department of Education website.)

What are the Ministers saying?
Michael Gove on 23rd February 2012:
“One particularly sensitive element of the matching process is, as you all know, matching by ethnicity…I won’t deny that an ethnic match between adopters and child can be a bonus. But it is outrageous to deny a child the chance of adoption because of a misguided belief that race is more important than any other factor.’’

David Cameron on 9th March 2012:
“Every child deserves the love of a stable family – and that’s why I’ve made sorting out and speeding up adoption in this country a priority…So this government is going to tear down the barriers that stop good, caring potential adoptive parents from giving a home to children who so desperately need one.”

—-

References

[1] The Guardian 15th November 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/15/social-care-children-40-percent-cut
[2] Ramesh (2011) Adoption review to focus on black children in care. The Guardian
[3] Gorham, C. (2006) The Colour of Love. In: Harris, P. (eds)., (2006) In: In Search of Belongings: Reflections by transracially adopted people. London: British Association of Adoption and Fostering
[4] Children Act (1989); Small, J. (1991) Ethnic and Racial Identity Adoption within the United Kingdom. Adoption and Fostering Journal. 15 (4), pp 61-6
[5] Pemberton (2012) Ministers to launch controversial adoption score cards. Community Care
[6] Selwyn et al., (2008) Pathways to Permanence for Black, Asian and Mixed Ethnicity Children: Dilemmas, Decision-Making and Outcomes.
[7] Caballero, C., Edwards, R and Puthussery, S. (2008) Parenting ‘Mixed’ Children: Difference and Belongings in Mixed Race and Faith Families. York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation
[8] The Guardian 15th November 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/15/social-care-children-40-percent-cut

SWAN Ireland leaflets at union conference on regulation May 29th 2012

Posted : 29th May 2012 by admin

S.W.A.N. Ireland is a group of frontline Social Workers opposed to the current form and ethos of registration proposed by CORU on the following grounds:

1. CORU is charging Social Workers about 8 times more than Social Workers in the UK (£30) and over 3 times more than Nurses in Ireland (€88).

2. As it stands CORU’s framework is heavily legalistic and focused on reprimanding individuals as a way of “protecting the public”. This individualisation of social work is something we fear could deflect attention away from systemic failures such as cuts to vital community services or overly bureaucratic work practices which lead to poor outcomes for service users.

3. CORU’s registration process involves an intrusive set of questioning such as details of a person’s history of mental illness or whether worker’s probation has ever been extended. SWAN advocates that Workers do not cooperate with questions that compromise individual’s right to privileged and confidential information. It is not at all clear where this information will be stored and who will have access to it. SWAN believes that CORU must negotiate with IMPACT, a set of questions that are relevant and necessary for a reasonable registration process. CORU refuses to provide any guidance to Social Workers who seek advice as to the correct course of action to take, in any given ethical situation. CORU’s – Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics for Social Workers places sole responsibility on the individual social worker for their own actions.

4. Working in under-resourced services will result in the scapegoating of social workers. If CORU uphold a complaint against a worker, the service user may well, encouraged by the findings, use these findings to bring a legal case against the employer and the worker. A court may find that the individual Worker is responsible for all or part of any compensation and costs.

5. CORU has written Social Work’s code of ethics which can be used against us in “fitness to practise rulings”, in one part the code advocates prioritising the management of resources available to public services as opposed to people’s needs! In addition, unlike other professional registration bodies who offer services and supports to workers, CORU will not offer any professional guidance to the worker attempting to balance complex family and individual matters.

6. CORU has targeted vulnerable unemployed student social workers by insisting they register prior to qualifying. SWAN understands that unemployed social workers are not even getting accepted to the interview stage for a job unless they are registered. SWAN asks that IMPACT insist that CORU reduce their registration fee substantially for newly-qualified and unemployed social workers.

7. It took CORU over three months to reply to concerns raised by an IMPACT working group on CORU comprised of Social Workers. Thus we call on IMPACT to insist that we achieve a deferral of the registration until all matters are resolved in a meaningful way with UNION AGREEMENT.

8. IMPACT must be represented on the board of CORU but to date CORU has proceeded WITHOUT Union agreement.

IMPACT MUST SEEK LEGAL ADVICE ON:

1. The Health & Social Care Professionals Act 2005

2. The Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics for Social Workers Bye-Law 2011.

IMPACT must take a stand in the current climate to stop the government using bodies like CORU, shifting the blame onto workers for failures of the state to provide proper service. 500 Social Workers have signed a petition so far indicating their opposition to the extortionate fee set by CORU.

A Motion was passed at IMPACT Union Conference in 2011:

This conference calls on Impact to oppose attempts by the new health and social care registration body, CORU, to make social workers personally liable for systemic problems that are created by state and organisational policy. We also call on Impact to oppose CORU charging exorbitant fees for registration that are much higher than those charged to other professionals in other fields and to campaign for this fee, which is no more than a stealth tax to be paid by the employer of the Social Worker.

The leaflet is produced by SWAN Ireland. To get in touch find us on facebook (SWAN Ireland) or email: socialworkactionnetworkireland@gmail.com. Together we can act to defend our working conditions and make social work a profession worth fighting for.

Defending Adult Social Care update

Posted : 14th May 20129th April 2019 by admin

SWAN and Liverpool Against The Cuts activists held a joint public meeting last Thursday (10^th May) in defense of Adult Social Care. The meeting, attracted around 30 – 40 service users, social care professionals, students and carers. The campaign was launched to mobilise around the massive cuts to adult social care in Liverpool, which are some of the biggest cuts in the country.

Speakers on the platform outlined the effects of the cuts to services such as re-assessment and a shift in eligibility banding for services resulting in only those who are banded ‘critical’ to be awarded support.

There were also speakers from other campaigns such as the Families for the Future group campaigning against closures to Sure Start centres in Fazakerly providing examples of how to fight back.

The undertone to this meeting was that we shouldn’t have to accept these cuts which attack the poorest and most vulnerable people in our society. A planning and organising meeting was agreed upon in order to carry on the fight to defend adult social care in Liverpool.

Posted by Francesca Byron

Raymondo’s Work Capability Assessment Survival Tips

Posted : 30th April 20129th April 2019 by admin

Support Allowance are gauged as qualifying for Employment and Support Allowance or ‘fit for work’.
“The Work Capability Assessment (WCA) has three stages. Firstly, the Limited Capability for Work Test determines whether or not you remain on Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), secondly, the Limited Capability for Work Related Activity Test determines whether you join the ‘support group’ of claimants or the ‘work-related activity group’ and thirdly, the Work Focused Health Related Assessment provides a report that can be used in any work-focused interviews that you may be required to attend later on.” (i)

WCA Survival Tips

(Some of these tips are repetitions or further defining of others. This is to add emphasis.)

1) Never answer a question without understanding what it means. (ii)

2) Wise up on the ESA eligibility ‘descriptors’. (iii)

3) From the moment you first apply for Employment & Support Allowance, consider
I. who will be best suited to accompany you to the ‘medical’ interview and
2. who to approach for evidence to back your case.
The person to accompany you will be your McKenzie Friend.(iv)

4) Realise that shame and embarrassment in relation to your condition may be the biggest barriers to your successful form completion. In the world of claiming ESA what was previously regarded as a ‘mark of shame’ often becomes a ‘badge of honour’.

5) Picture yourself on a really bad day, because otherwise the inconsistency of ‘it varies’ answers will too easily be interpreted as, “This descriptor is insignificant to this claimant’s eligibility.” Beware also of the inconsistent ordering of some of the answers in the ESA50, and recognise the relevance of minimum 24 hour working week realities to what makes your condition worse.

6) Realise that the ESA50 form content sets the scene for how you will be assessed.

7) Consider the possibility of a relevant helping professional completing the ESA50 on your behalf, but be the final arbiter on this. A relevant helping professional’s authoritative input may be especially helpful if yours is an invisibile disability or mental health condition, but if they take a rushed approach to your form’s completion while you may be inclined to attempt to avoid embarrassment in stating how bad your condition really is/can be, their input may well weaken your case..

8) Never attend the Work Capability Assessment ‘medical’ alone. This is something you must factor in when completing the ESA50.

9) Make optimum use of the ‘lead time’ from receiving the ESA50 application form to the deadline for form completion and return, bearing in mind that the ESA50 will be redirected to a different address than that given on the reply envelope before it reaches the Atos team who will be conducting your individual assessment.

10) Quote any documented evidence as much as possible in the body of the form, rather than relying on a covering letter and/or other attachments that are all too commonly ‘lost in the post’.

11) Keep copies of all your form content and documentation. Electronic copies of your form content can make editing form content easier for repeated testing situations.

12) Check out the building accessibility of the ‘Medical Examination Centre’ (MEC), realising that elevator access may not be operating at the times that the adjoining jobcentre closes. (Some MECs are open on Sundays, and when jobcentre staff go home at 4:30pm, elevator access may be denied.)

13) Realise that the ‘suggested route’ details/advice that Atos Healthcare admin issue of how to get from your home to the MEC may be unnecessarily complicated in order for you to be intimidated out of attending.

14) Don’t allow yourself to be bullied and intimidated by the inflexibility of ‘we’re only following orders’ Atos call-centre staff. In the event of your not being able to attend the MEC as a consequence of any ‘last-minute emergencies’, say, arising from the weather denying your McKenzie friend access to a car ride from home to the MEC, realise that a call to the relevant Disability Benefit Centre can trump such inflexibility. Remember, without someone to attend the medical, it will be assumed not only that you have no trouble getting to appointments alone, but also that you will be a less reliable witness than someone who can corroborate your version of what happened or did not happen at the medical.

15) Consider the ‘medical’ as more of an observation activity with you as the one being observed from the time you enter the waiting room, rather than an exhaustive and thorough medical examination.

16) Seek out, join, or form a support group for benefit claimants. This will help make your life feel more relevant between WCAs and help to counter the isolating influences of the reassessment process.

17) Keep abreast of changes to the law as it relates to your ESA entitlement.

Testing times for Raymondo
Raymondo recently underwent his third Work Capability Assessment. When he first applied for ESA he had been awarded 0 eligibility points at the medical three months after the ESA50 form completion. That 0 eligibility points score was turned into 21 eligibility points at the tribunal that he later attended with an advocate from a local disability charity, and the tribunal panel also placed him in the Support Group, ensuring no ‘back to work’ sanctions and such bullying, but not exempting him from the stressful experience of being systematically retested. It took the Disability Benefits Centre’s Assessments & Appeals Section of Department for Work & Pensions two months to wade through the ‘sandbags’ of correspondence to get to his tribunal outcome and pay the back money he was owed, and yet just six months after getting the back money, he was summonsed to re-apply for ESA, with six weeks before the deadline for receipt of the ESA50 application form. Diligent devotion to getting the form content as strongly in his favour as possible, and attending with a McKenzie Friend that he had become well-acquainted with in the intervening period helped ensure that he secured Support Group status for the second time. But his third WCA was conducted under a revised ‘simplified’ test that allowed fewer point scoring options toward the eligibility threshold of 15 points awarded him by the tribunal.

The newer test had been proposed by the last Labour DWP Secretary Yvette Cooper as more and more people won their tribunals in order to get what was rightfully theirs. (v) So the then DWP Secretary who is now Labour’s Equalities Spokesperson decided that the law needed to be changed. (Atos and its staff seem to be above the law, but tribunal panels have to abide by it.) The ESA tribunal panel consisting of judge and doctor had awarded Raymondo 15 of his eligibility points on account of the time it takes him to execute tasks. The ‘simplified’ WCA has completely removed that relevant descriptor which has been a major bugbear of Raymondo’s ‘working life’. So how did he manage to overcome that difficulty?

“All of the above tips have helped me since I won my tribunal,” says Raymondo. “This most recent time though, there was the additional factor of the destruction of a mainstay descriptor and the potentially additionally isolating factor of stigmatisation.” But Raymondo’s preparation this time around was increased.

With enhanced relationship with a legally qualified advocate and disability rights activist who he first contacted as a friend of a friend, he felt less embarrassed about ‘telling it like it is’ than he did when originally going through the form in an interview with a vocational support adviser with whom he lacked a true rapport and who was too blasé and ignorant about the nuances of ESA compared to Incapacity Benefit. Getting it out as an electronic document in his own time helped enormously for shaping the document to text boxes for copying and pasting onto the actual form. And his anticipation of the changes brought in by the revised test cued him to take a real diagnostic battery of tests with Camden Learning Disability Services before undergoing his third WCA. The report from that test helped explain and outline how, say, slow mental processing speed made him more inclined to experience ‘information overload’ and accident proneness in real world work situations. He also emphasised that as a genuine jobseeker from November 1977 till early 2009 he only acuired only 17 MONTHS total waged employment, 11 months of which had been for less than ten hours per week.

Now a member of Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group that meets 40 minutes bus ride away, Raymondo realises that while he is still very poor and has extremely limited career prospects in his 59th year, he has much to contribute to helping make the world a fairer place, and has been helped to feel more human through being a member of that group. “Those like Liz Sayce of Radar who talk of ‘integration of disabled people into the workforce’ as they smash Remploy communities with factory closures get paid for giving government-for-market-forces-by-market-forces what it wants. ‘State-subsidised’ Remploy factories are more sustainable and sustaining than transporting sweat shop produce around the globe from China where 600,000 die per year from intolerable working conditions that operate under the name of ‘competitiveness’.

“I might not get paid as much for helping people to the truth, but being a member of Kilburn Unemployment Workers Group and Social Work Action Network London activist gives me a greater sense of purpose while making new friends.”

NOTES AND SOURCES

(i) http://www.tameside.gov.uk/esa/wca

(ii) Dorothy Leeds (1998) Secrets of Successful Interviews. The fact that the vast majority of ESA claimants who win their tribunals do so with advocacy support indicates that those without advocacy are not sufficiently resourced with the relevant information and interpretative guidance.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200910/cmselect/cmworpen/313/31307.htm

(iii) Beyond a Yahoo! Search for “ESA descriptor points”, you might consider subscribing to the services provided by Benefits & Work Publishing. A year’s individual person subscription to Benefits & Work Publishing costs currently less than £20 per year and allows you unlimited access to their guides written by legal professionals into how the ESA descriptors might be interpreted.
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/join-us

(iv) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mckenzie_friend

(v) http://benefits.tcell.org.uk/forums/even-harsher-new-esa-medical-approved-benefits-work-13th-april-2010

Statement on social care plans of Worcestershire County Council

Posted : 29th April 2012 by admin

This is an abandonment of a crucial right that disabled people have fought for and won: to be socially included rather than ghettoised or institutionalised. Furthermore, if plans are approved, instructing social workers and social care workers to implement such proposals may be asking them to ignore their Code of Practice; the General Social Care Council has made it the principal responsibility of all social care workers to protect the rights of disabled people and other social care service users.

Under their proposals, Worcestershire County Council identifies five future ‘choices’ for service users with reduced council funding:

Choice 1: to top up and meet the cost of desired care from alternative sources such as personal or family savings. This is an option only available to a comparatively wealthy people. Disabled people and other social care service users are highly unlikely to have such savings when facing huge restrictions and reductions in benefits, while concurrently experiencing entrenched discrimination in the job market. This is at a time of exceptionally high unemployment and when Remploy factories providing (albeit imperfect) employment to disabled people are being closed.

Choice 2: take a direct payment to arrange more flexible care arrangements. This is an example of the good intentions of personalisation being used as a flimsy veil for cuts. The cost of buying services individually in the market means that costs are highly likely to be greater than those purchased by councils via economies of scale; the possibility for people to arrange more effective care costing less than their present packages, is slim.

Choice 3: change the type or volume of care currently received. This is straightforward – for many people this will mean less care or support or poorer quality provision.

Choice 4: access alternative low level community support in addition to council funded care. Like other ‘big society’ rhetoric, this is a dishonest suggestion as funding for the voluntary sector who might provide such support is being decimated or their energies are being consumed by shifting to bureaucratic, divisive tendering processes for short term grants. The general public may be struggling to make ends meet for themselves, rather than possessing the spare time to engage in civic activity or neighbourly support.

Choice 5: is for people to receive their care in a residential or nursing home. This is in stark contrast to the familiar language of aspiration used by local authorities to describe adult social care of ‘choice’, ‘control’ and ‘participation’ – where are these concepts in such a policy? It disregards Article 19 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People which states that a) people are not obligated to live in a particular arrangement and b) that segregation should be avoided. Aside from the right to live in the community, service users will be aware of the recent reports such as last year’s investigation into the Castlebeck-owned Winterbourne View care home and understandably be concerned of the treatment they may receive in residential homes, or be anxious about the minimal staffing and support in such institutions because of efficiencies driven by profit.

SWAN believes there is no possible justification for this kind of social care policy which is prepared to sacrifice quality of life and people’s rights at the altar of ‘current financial challenges’. It is entirely possible for high quality, comprehensive social care to be funded free at the point of use and paid for out of general taxation – we are one of the richest countries in the world and one which established our entire welfare state under similarly challenging economic circumstances. It is a matter of priority and will.

SWAN notes that Jack Ashley, the Labour Peer who campaigned for the rights of disabled people died recently. Among the parliamentary tributes to him were those of Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling, the two Ministers for Work and Pensions. Their fond comments were staggering in the context of their welfare reforms which are eroding the support for work and independent living from many disabled people and other social care users. The logic of austerity underpinning the thinking of these politicians is same justification being used by the Tory-led administration of Worcestershire County Council to vanish people’s right to independent living. SWAN wonders how such politicians reacted to Jack Ashley’s independent living bill, which proposed to sweep away the ‘feed and clean’ culture – a culture to which Worcestershire now seem to be proposing that we return?

SWAN encourages social workers and social care workers in Worcestershire and across the UK to work with service user led organisations and disabled people’s groups to oppose these plans as inimical to a social care based on human rights. This is one part of wider picture of social care austerity; SWAN supports the call for a cumulative impact assessment on disabled people and social care service users of all the Coalition Government’s relevant social policy, as suggested by the Common’s Joint Committee on Human Rights.

One cannot justify diminishing rights or unacceptable living standards because of financial cost. The true ‘cost’ of making these cuts will be a human one.

Welcome to SWAN Ireland!

Posted : 28th April 20129th April 2019 by admin

SWAN Ireland:

– see imbalances of power

– see power being held by a minority to the detriment of the majority

– see services being provided on a shoe-string budget (which are a life-line to those who use them)

– see long-term sustainable work being carried out and we know that this work is never acknowledged or given the credence it deserves, because it is “unquantifiable”

– in this “evidence-based” and “outcomes” driven world, we see the work that has the most positive impact on people’s lives, the building of and sustaining of relationships and communities, being slashed, cut and trampled on in favour of short-term, reactive, short-sighted “outcome-based”, “quantifiable” services

– see budgets being prioritised over people

– see people being treated as numbers, not people

– see fear; in communities, in workers, in being “the next to go”

– see oppression

– see managerialism

– see bureaucracy

– see an increasing void between social work and service users. We see a social work that is being used as a scapegoat

– see a social work that cannot currently do “social work”.

However, SWAN Ireland also:

– see workers going above and beyond the call of duty to work with a community instead of for the controllers of a budget

– see an uprising

– see a revolt

– see a reclaiming of power

– see mobilisation

– see the realisation in people that “we” are the powerful and “they” are the weak

– see social work as a powerful force in reclaiming that power

– see social work as having the potential to align itself openly and without fear to the service user and not the policies, organisations or budgets that currently define, control and silence it

– see social work as reclaiming it’s core values and ethics base and having the courage to put these to the fore, above policies and procedures imposed on it from others who don’t understand or want to understand it.

If you are based in Ireland and want to become active in the group please contact us at: socialworkactionnetworkireland@gmail.com.

We believe that the activity of social work in Ireland has potential and value. It can be relcaimed if we act collectively and in soldarity with service users.

Adult Social Care Campaign

Posted : 27th April 20129th April 2019 by admin

SWAN activists in Liverpool are launching a joint campaign with Liverpool Against The Cuts against the recent cuts to adult social care services across the city. Liverpool City Council are in the process of implementing a total overhaul of adult social care which they describe as a ‘transformation and modernisation’ of services for adults with mental ill health, learning disabilities, those with complex needs and older people.

Part of this ‘transformation’ includes closing 15 specialist day care centres, ‘externalising’ services and removal of service provision for some service users under the councils changes to Fair Access to Care Services (FACS) eligibility.

We are holding a public meeting on the 10th May in Liverpool City Centre and encourage as many people as possible to come along. Please download the attached information flyers below for further details and feel free to distribute the information across your networks!

Social Work and the Struggle for Social Justice in an International Context – The Irish Experience

Posted : 27th April 2012 by admin

This presentation is more of an “opinion piece” than an academic one. It is a small observation of one social worker striving for social justice in Ireland within a much larger societal and political context. My background I worked as a social care worker for around seven years in the areas of homelessness and intellectual disability. I qualified as a social worker in 2010 and have experience in the areas of child protection, fostering, medical and community development social work and am currently working as a mental health social worker.

Current context of Irish life

The global recession, the Irish experience of this, austerity measures, IMF “bailout” package, new government continuing to implement old governments plans under pretence of “new thinking”, increasing gap between rich and poor, widening of inequalities in Irish society, retraction of human rights and equality as important issues-free market, capitalist and purely economic issues at the fore-front of governments mind to the detriment of ordinary people’s lives, unemployment continues to be at record high, Ireland officially re-entered recession at the end of last quarter of 2011 (www.cso.ie). Counter discourse – Occupy Dame Street, Occupy University, emergence of “new” leftist political groups – ULA (United Left Alliance), People before Profit, the continuation and strengthening of Socialist Party and SWP, emergence of civil society groups such as The Spectacle of Defiance and Hope, S.P.A.R.K (Single Parents Acting for the Rights of our Kids), Anglo: Not our Debt, Claiming our Future, Unlock Nama, TASC (Independent Think Tank for Social Change), Politico.ie, Campaign against the Household Charge.

History of social work in Ireland

A very small amount has been written on the history of social work in Ireland (Kearney and Skehill, 2005). Social work in Ireland is just over 100 years old. The first social work qualification board was only introduced in Ireland in 1997. Before this social work qualifications were validated through the U.K. Social work in Ireland came about quite late in relation to other countries including Britain. There were parallels between the development of social work in Britain and Ireland but some points were unique to Ireland such as the fact that political struggles to become free of English rule encompassed the time of those who could be called “social reformers” and who otherwise could have turned to social work type reform as was the case in other countries such as the USA. The first social workers in Ireland were called “almoners” and worked in hospitals. Before social work developed as a profession religious organisations had a monopoly over the running and delivery of services that we would consider social work related e.g. in the fields of education, care of the disabled, lone parents, mental health etc. Specifically, the development of childcare services and services for women in Ireland can be seen to have been directly influenced by the overt hold of religious organisations on such services in the past (Skehill, 2004).

My two case studies – Spectacle and SPARK

As a social worker I instinctively tend to work from a framework of human rights/social justice/social change/critical theory. I consider myself a macro social worker, a radical social worker. I intrinsically believe in working from a community development approach (whatever my “job title” or my boss suggests!). My involvement in the two campaigns I am discussing evolved through my worldview as a social worker and my understanding of the absolute necessity of social workers to engage in macro or social change work.

The Spectacle of Defiance and Hope is a broadly based alliance of Community Organisations from Dublin and beyond. In 2010 a large number of groups came together to protest and challenge the programme of cuts that were imposed on the youth and community sector and draw attention to the savage economic injustices that were taking place in Ireland. The Spectacle is for an Ireland of true equality in the conditions of people’s lives. In December of 2010 the powerful Spectacle of Defiance and Hope event took place, in which community organisations from all over Dublin participated. In 2011 the second protest of creative resistance took place. It was modelled on the French Revolution. People and community groups all over Ireland were asked to contribute “Books of Grievances and Hopes”. Within the last two years large numbers of projects have been cut or closed in areas which experience frightening levels of inequality. The idea behind the Books of Grievances and Hopes was to provide a forum and an accessible format where people could express their grievances at what is happening to ordinary people in some sort of a coherent way. This was a way for ordinary people to express their anxieties, concerns, frustration and anger at the decisions of the last government which are being continued without any great change by the new administration. I was part of the organising committee for the 2011 Spectacle and for my small part, personally mobilised a number of projects in an area of Dublin that is one of the most dis-advantaged in the country. The three projects that I engaged with had never been involved in a civil society group or protest like this before. I was met with a huge amount of resistance by the people from these projects in the beginning as they told me they had never been consulted in any way before, they were mistrustful and were disparaging of how engaging in a process such as this could be of any benefit to them or to their community (which was very understandable and which I openly validated). Through many conversations and long facilitated sessions where the groups physically made their books of grievances and hope, they began to articulate and voice their excitement at realising that they “had a voice” and at “having an outlet and opportunity to voice their anger” at the government, at those who have ignored them and at those who have continued to oppress them. The groups I engaged are the “invisible” in Irish society. They are representative of some of the groups in Irish society who have been marginalised throughout the “Celtic Tiger” years and continue to be marginalised in the current recession.

Alongside this was, for me, the parallel of the current situation of social workers in Ireland. I could clearly see the similarities between the invisibility and oppression of the groups I engaged in the “Book of Grievances and Hopes” process and the invisibility and oppression of social workers as a group in Irish society. I believe that in order to be able to stand in true solidarity with the oppressed one must be critically conscious (see Freire’s work) and cognisant of one’s own disempowerment. I believe that social workers in Ireland are disempowered through many mediums such as managerialism, increasing bureaucracy, the continued shrinking space that we exist in professionally, the increasing individualisation of workers and the increasing distance between social workers and service users through these measures. Being cognisant of these parallels I wanted to try and begin the process of aligning social workers and service users. I am very active in the Irish Association of Social Workers (IASW) – I am the chairperson of a national special interest group for new social workers through the IASW, I am also part of the International Group through the IASW which is aligned to the European region of the IFSW which focuses on issues of equality and human rights. Utilising my connections with the IASW, I contacted all of their members and asked them to contribute to a “Social Work Book of Grievances and Hopes”. I did this through email and asked four basic questions which all social workers could answer anonymously (therefore making it safer for social workers to tell the truth about the reality of their working lives and their service users lives). I collated all of the responses into an actual book (some of the pictures are in the presentation) and invited all IASW social workers to attend the protest in December 2011. Approximately 500 people turned up to the Spectacle of Defiance and Hope protest in December. Some of the service users from the groups I engaged with and a small number of social workers attended the protest – this I considered an achievement! The plan moving forward is to display the books in a public space in order for all of the people who contributed to know that their grievances and hopes will be seen and heard in a meaningful way. A longer term plan is to figure out the way forward for The “Spectacle” as a concept and how best it can serve it’s purpose as a means of creative resistance to the increasing inequalities in Irish society.

S.P.A.R.K. is a diverse group of single parents living in Ireland who have united together to protect their children from the radical policy changes introduced in Budget 2012. Their aim is to raise awareness of the many challenges one-parent families currently face and to identify the essential supports needed to allow them to have equal participation in society. They assert the rights of their children to be treated equally and demand acknowledgment and recognition of their family status. They oppose any economic, social, political or legal policies that have a detrimental effect on their children or them as single parents. They are asking for equality for their children regardless of their family circumstances. The main thing that stands out about this campaign is that it is run almost entirely through social media – facebook, twitter and google groups. To me, this represents a new way of organising compared to the more traditional approaches of meetings and physically bringing people together. The use of social media as an organising tool has allowed a group that could not possibly physically gather together regularly (due to the fact that they are all lone parents and have children to care for!) to mobilize in large numbers and at a rapid pace. The campaign only began in November 2011 and already has succeeded in hosting two protests, coordinated numerous media stunts and has secured a lot of support from most of the opposition TD’s in government through relentless and creative methods. My involvement in this campaign began at the end of 2011 at the time of the budget. The December 2011 budget in Ireland literally attacked a number of vulnerable groups in Irish society – namely young people with disabilities, young people attending schools in disadvantaged areas and single parents. The government hastily reviewed their attacks on young people with disabilities after an immediate and vocal backlash by the general public (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1208/1224308743063.html). The government were slower to reverse the cuts made to schools in disadvantaged areas but did so recently after continued public anger (http://www.wsm.ie/c/deis-cuts-primary-schools) . However, the one group the government continues to attack is lone parents. I don’t have the space here to go into all of the economic attacks the government has made on lone parents. These can all be found on SPARK’s website (www.sparkcampaign.com). The point I would like to make here is the importance of social workers building alliances with, and supporting campaigns such as this. Technically, I have no direct contact with lone parents in my day to day work as a social worker (as I work with older persons). But that does not stop me from understanding the connection between the framework I work from as a social worker (as I explained above) and the significance of standing in solidarity with SPARK. SPARK is a response to the way Irish society continues to view single mothers (as something to be ashamed of, as a drain on society, as leeches on our social welfare system, as second class citizens, as something to hide away from the “good” people in society (e.g. the Magdelene Laundry’s). SPARK is a response to the way women continue to be subordinated within our society (our constitution, the foundation of all Irish law explicitly states that a woman’s place is within the home, article 41.2.1). SPARK is a response to the continued invisibility of children and children’s rights within Irish society (a children’s rights referendum has been promised to the Irish people since 2006, article 40.1.1 gives all rights to the family with “family” being defined as a heterosexual married couple). SPARK is a response to the continued overt stranglehold the catholic church (or at least the church’s “values”, “morals” and insidious nature) has on the people of Ireland. SPARK stands as a representative for women’s rights, children’s rights and the possibility of one of the most invisible and vulnerable groups in Irish society creating a counter discourse to the pre-dominant catholic/conservative one that has ravaged our country for the past century.

References/Resources

Cite as: Cuskelly, Kerry. “Social Work and the Struggle for Social Justice in an International Context- The Irish Experience”.The Seventh Annual Social Work Action Network Conference (SWAN), Liverpool Hope University, March 2012. Unpublished conference paper. 2012.

Fight Back Teach-In: US

Posted : 11th April 2012 by admin

The following movement in the US was noticed and shared with us by Dr Maria Pentaraki of Liverpool Hope University:

“The fight goes on across the Atlantic too. Check the very interesting link of Fight Back USA: http://www.fightbackteachin.org/ One of the founders is Frances Fox Piven, an activist social work academic. A 1965 paper entitled “Mobilizing the Poor: How It Can Be Done,” introduced Piven and her co-author, Richard Cloward, into an ongoing conversation on the welfare state. She has played an important role in welfare rights campaigns as well as other anti-poverty activism. But she is also equally known for her contributions to social theory. In one of her seminal books “Regulating the Poor”, Piven and Cloward argued that any advances the poor have made throughout history depended on their ability to disrupt institutions.”

Greece 2012: Social Work in Austerity Greece 2012: Social Work in Austerity

Posted : 11th April 2012 by admin

“The following documentary film describes, by the social workers’ point of view, the situation in Greece.

Three social workers from different agencies -NGO, Semi-Public Agency and State Sector- describe the reality of the users and the one of the social services in the era of crisis, austerity and poverty that domain in Greece the last two years after the entrance of IMF….
It’s an attempt for spreading the “voice” of the “front-line” social workers from Greece but it is also an attempt of revealing the reality of the Greek people as well as the attempts and initiatives for resistance and solidarity”