Information For registered users

Welcome to the SWAN website.

If you wish to submit an article/ contribution for consideration from the steering committee please email the administrator (ioakimides@gmail.com) and request an “author’s status”. The  “author’s status” will give you access to the web-site’s text editor allowing you to edit, save and submit your articles/contributions/opinions/experiences for publication.

Hands Off Brum Services – Lobby 5th July & Meeting 20th July

Birmingham Council has announced plans to cut care services to save £33.2m by increasing eligibility thresholds. This will mean five thousand people in the city losing vital support. Cuts include the closure of six older people’s residential homes, increased charges for personal care, and the loss of skilled care workers as services become increasingly reliant on lower paid casual staff. A recent Panorama on the abuse of disabled residents at the Castlebeck unit showed the horrific results of providing social care on the cheap through privatised companies. Yet now the council is also proposing to privatise social work services using social enterprises. This will mean social work is turned into a business and workers forced to compete for contracts.

In addition many of those affected by cuts, disabled people and those with severe and terminal medical conditions, are also being forced to undergo‘work capability assessments’ and declared fit for work by the hated multinational Atos Origin which will profit from an outsourced £300 million government contract. This system has already led several claimants to commit suicide.

However, care service users and social and care workers are increasingly questioning why they should pay for a crisis caused not by them but by bankers. And so care staff and their unions in Birmingham are joining forces with disabled people to save our services and campaign against these discriminatory cuts.

In May a High Court judge ruled Birmingham council’s plans were unlawful under the Disability Discrimination Act and these cutback plans were put on hold. This is a fantastic victory but will only be the start of the fight back necessary. To build on this a joint campaign has been launched involving West Midlands SWAN, Disabled People Against the Cuts, Birmingham City Unison, Birmingham Against the Cuts and the Right to Work campaign.  We are planning a month of action in July against austerity measures in Birmingham to coincide with the first UK monitoring report of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Activities will include a lobby of the first full council meeting since the election at 5pm on 5th July, a public meeting on 20th July.

What you can do:

Tuesday 5th July from 5pm – LOBBY Birmingham Council – Lobby of the first full Birmingham council meeting since the election – assemble Victoria Square, Birmingham

Wednesday 20th July 630pm – 830pm – Public Meeting: Hands Off Our Care & Support Services – speakers from SWAN, Disabled People Against Cuts, Birmingham Unison, Birmingham Against the Cuts and Right to Work. Venue: Transport House – Unite (TGWU) Offices, 211 Broad Street, Birmingham B15

Pamphlet – Hands Off Our Care & Support Services campaign is producing a pamphlet about the cuts and what we can do to stop them – watch this space.

We invite you to join us in demanding better public services for service users, carers, support workers and social workers, not more cuts and marketization.

For more info email: handsoffbrumservices@gmail.com

Final programme for the 6th SWAN National Conference, with workshops

Social Work Action Network (SWAN) Conference 2011

Programme

Friday 15th April

11.30: Registration open

1.00 Introduction:

Professor Sue White – University of Birmingham (Critic of social work targets)

Michael Lavalette (SWAN National Convenor)

1.15 – 2.30:  Plenary: Challenging Cameron’s Big Society and fighting welfare cuts

Speakers: Bob Holman (community campaigner), Bob Williams-Findlay (Disabled People Against Cuts), and Helen Davies (Barnet  Alliance for Public Services/Unison activist)

2.35: Workshop streams

4.05: Break

4.30: Plenary: Social work and resistance across the globe

Speakers: Linda Smith (South Africa), Vassilis Ioakimides (Greece), and Miriyam Asfar (activist/researcher: Egypt and Arab revolutions)

5.45 – 6.45: Regional SWAN and IDYW network meetings

7.30 – late: Conference social (£5 for food & entertainment –see flyer below for details)

 

Saturday 16th April

10.00: SWAN AGM

11.00 Break

11.20: Plenary: led by young people (organized together with In Defence of Youth Work)

Speakers: Dami Benbow and Kalbir Shukra (activist/supporter of IDYW)

12.30: Lunch

1.30: Workshop streams

2.30: Break

2.50: Plenary with breakouts: Building Alliances to Defend Services

2.50 – 3.10 Introduction by John McArdle (Black Triangle Campaign), Karen Reissman (Unison/NHS anti-privatisation campaigner), and Education Activist Network speaker

3.15 – 4.10 Breakout sessions

4.15 – 4.40 Reconvene to feed back

4.45: Closing comments: SWAN Convenor

5.00 Conference ends

 

This programme with a full list of the workshop streams can be downloaded here.

Final list of speakers at SWAN conference 2011

Bob Holman

Bob Holman survived the London blitz then failed the eleven plus. However he made it to university. After being a child care officer, he was an academic for ten years. He left the chair in social policy at Bath University and, with his wife Annette, ran a project on a council estate. After a further 10 years, they moved to Easterhouse, Glasgow and, with residents, formed a locally-run project. He is the author of a book on Keir Hardie. A year ago, Annette nursed him through cancer. Now he is retired (ha ha) and helps look after two grandsons.

Bob Williams Findlay

Bob Williams-Findlay is a former Planning Officer with Birmingham Social Services and has trained social workers at the University of Birmingham as a Disability Equality and Human Rights Trainer. He shares many of the criticisms of social work practice vis-à-vis disabled people as expressed by Professor Mike Oliver.

His long association with the Disabled People’s Movement includes being Chair of the national civil rights organisation – British Council of Disabled People. Most recently he helped establish Disabled People Against Cuts as a campaigning group and has been an outspoken critic of both the Blairite “Social Care” agenda and Cameron’s “Big Society”.

Helen Davies

Helen Davies is a social worker for London Borough of Barnet, the Chair of the local Barnet UNISON branch as well as the local Trades Council. Helen is also a leading activist in the Barnet Alliance for Public Services campaign against the cuts. Barnet is a flagship Tory controlled local authority nicknamed “easyCouncil”, which is looking to privatise all of its services on top of the cuts to vital services.

Linda Smith

Linda Smith worked as a social worker for Child Welfare South Africa in the areas of community work and social action, child protection and child and family practice. Now a social work lecturer at the University of Witwatersand she has particular interests in social justice and human rights; radical social work; community work; anti colonial and critical discourse for social work; Freirian critical pedagogy and the roles of social movements in welfare and social change. Linda is currently completing her PhD on the subject of critical social work education and the imperative for social change. Linda is a trade unionist and a member of the South African Communist Party.

Vasilios Ioakimidis

Vasilios Ioakimidis teaches social work and social pedagogy at Liverpool Hope University and the University of Nicosia. His research interests include radical international social work. Along with Michael Lavalette he co-edited the book ‘Social Work in Extremis: Lessons for Social Work Internationally’ (Policy Press). Vasilios is a member of the SWAN National Steering Committee.

Miriyam Asfar

Miriyam Asfar is an activist and researcher. She will be speaking about the recent Egyptian and Arab revolutions.

Kalbir Shukra

Kalbir Shukra is an activist and supporter of IDYW. She has a history of youth and community work practice and teaching as well as community and union activity.

Dami Benbow

Dami Benbow is a student at Leeds University, is a former Deputy Young mayor and part of the Young Mayor network.

Karen Reissman

Karen Reissman is an elected member of Unison’s national health executive and campaigner against NHS privatisation. Karen was a mental health nurse for 25 years, before being sacked by Manchester Mental Health NHS Trust for ‘whistleblowing’ against the effects of cuts and privatisation. Karen is speaking in a personal capacity.

Jon McArdle

Jon McArdle is an activist with the Black Triangle Campaign in defence of disability rights in Scotland.

Disability activists fight back and win

http://www.birminghampost.net/news/west-midlands-news/2011/04/20/birmingham-city-council-social-care-cuts-ruled-unlawful-by-high-court-65233-28557053/?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4db29afca56ca2c1%2C0

http://www.communitycare.co.uk/Articles/2011/04/21/116716/judge-overturns-council-plan-to-raise-eligibility-to-critical.htm

Clearly this is great news and of significance for those who, like SWAN, are resisting cuts to social care services and welfare.

In this spirit, SWAN has been building links with disability activists. Bob Williams-Findlay from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), spoke at the recent SWAN national conference entitled ‘Building Alliances, Defending Services’. West Midlands SWAN has been invited to co-sponsor a meeting with DPAC and Right to Work in Birmingham during the week of action against Atos Origin and welfare cuts in May.

Atos Origin are the private sector organisation who have recently won a £300 million contract by the Coalition Government to carry out ‘work capability assessments’ on all of those claiming Incapacity Benefit; their job is to remove welfare from as many people as possible. The week of action starts on Monday 9th May with a picnic and party in Triton Square (near Warren Street tube), home of Atos’ head office, at 2pm. Please find further details of the plans for the week below:

http://www.dpac.uk.net/2011/04/national-week-of-action-against-atos-origin-monday-may-9-may-15/

SWAN encourages all service users, social workers, educators and students to join in with this week of action.

Coventry and Warwickshire SWAN meeting – 25th March

It is against this backdrop that it has become imperative for workers, trade unionists, students, academics, service users and citizens to unite to discuss the impact of these draconian policies and to develop strategies for resistance. This meeting aims to raise awareness about these and other issues and to establish an ad hoc committee to organise and co-ordinate future activities and to represent the sub region at regional and national events.

Who are the SWAN?

SWAN is a broad based democratic social movement of people who believe in a just, equal and free society and who reject the logic that capitalism is the only basis for ensuring this. Indeed, in keeping with the values and ethos of the Radical Social Work tradition, the orientation of SWAN is towards a socialist alternative to the current rampant and inhumane capitalist order. As the SWAN manifesto states. “SWAN is a loose network of social work practitioners, academics, students and social welfare service users united in their concern that social work activity is being undermined by managerialism and marketisation, by the stigmatisation of service users and by welfare cuts and restrictions. We believe that good social work is a worthwhile activity that can help people address the problems and difficulties in their lives. Many of these difficulties are rooted in the inequalities and oppressions of the modern world and good social work necessarily involves confronting such structural and public causes of so many private ills.”

Who should attend?

Although, as noted above, historically linked to the re emerge of radical social work, SWAN is becoming a broad alliance of social workers, youth workers, community workers and other ‘human services’ workers that are concerned about the attacks on their respective professionals. So, the meeting is open to social work/youth work/community work students, trade unionists academics, practitioners and service users. ALL are welcome!

When and where is the event?

3-5 PM on 25th March 2011 , @Coventry University, Room RCG33, Richard Crossman Building, Jordan Well, Coventry CV1. Number 20 on the below location map: http://wwwm.coventry.ac.uk/university/maps/Pages/Campusmap.aspx

What

The event will be very participative so there will be ample opportunity for all to contribute. To frame the discussion, there will be two brief presentations from: Maggie Lewis, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, Coventry University and local SWAN organiser and Rich Moth, SWAN West Midlands Coordinator and member of National committee.

There is no need to book a place – just turn up! For further information email Gurnam Singh at g.singh@coventry.ac.uk or John Harris at j.harris@warwick.ac.uk

What is SWAN?

  

 

SWAN is a democratic, grassroots organisation – policy making and elections take place at the AGM during the annual conference’

Social Work Manifesto.

Social work in Britain today has lost direction. We need to find more effective ways of resisting the dominant trends within social work and map ways forward for a new engaged practice…

Get involved.

History.

SWAN developed from the Social Work Manifesto written in 2004. It launched a popular defence of social work in the aftermath of the Baby Peter tragedy in 2008. It continues to hold successful conferences and campaigns; the 9th national SWAN conference will be held in Durham in April 2014.

SWAN Conference 2014

Change the course of social work

 

The next SWAN national conference is the eighth. It takes place at Durham University on Friday 11th and Saturday 12th April 2014. We will regularly update the SWAN website with information about speakers and booking. You can find these pages in the Conference 2014 section. Please email SWAN North East at ioakimides [at] googlemail.com if you have questions about the conference.

The title of the 2014 SWAN Conference is yet to be confirmed. This is the first time that a national SWAN conference has been held in the North East of England and we hope it will be the biggest ever SWAN event. It will link up social workers (in practice, education, research and training), service users and carers, trade unions, user-led groups, anti-cuts organisations, pressure groups, the disabled people and women’s movements to unite to defeat the Coalition Government’s social policy direction. Just as importantly we will debate, promote and celebrate alternative models and visions of social care.

Call for proposals – SWAN conference 2012

We would particularly welcome contributions that consider: “Whatever happened to anti-racist social work?”, Transgendered issues in social work and social care, building alliances for resistance, social work and social movements, social work and women’s oppression – and any other relevant social work or social care issue.

Proposals should be 300 words or less and should indicate the aims of the session, the style of presentation and the content. Please include a cover sheet with your name, email and contact details. Please submit your proposal to both Laura Penketh ( penketl@hope.ac.ukThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) and Nigel Kelleher ( nigel.kelleher@liv-coll.ac.ukThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it )

Book here for the National Conference 15-16th April 2011

Conference registration costs:

£15 Unwaged/student/service user

£45 Waged

£65 With institutional support*/Solidarity price**

Free For asylum seekers

* This is for those whose conference booking will be paid for by their employer, trade union branch or other organisation.

** We are asking those who are waged and can afford to do so to pay the solidarity price. This enables us to charge a lower fee to those on low incomes.

Please contact us if you have any concerns about costs.

There are several ways to pay for your conference booking. You can pay online by PAYPAL or BANK TRANSFER, or send us a CHEQUE. See below for more information on these payment methods.

1. BANK TRANSFER

Log in to internet banking.

Click on ‘Set Up a New Payment’, ‘Make a payment’ or similar.

Enter the following information:

PAYEE:                           SWAN West Midlands

SORT CODE:                 08 60 01

ACCOUNT NUMBER:    20254551

REFERENCE:                (Add name of person registering for the conference here)

AMOUNT:                       (See ‘Conference Registration Costs’ above)

Once you have made this transfer please complete the Conference registration form by clicking here.

2. PAYPAL

You can also pay for the conference via PayPal. However please note this includes a small extra amount to cover Paypal’s charges (these extra charges do NOT apply to payment by bank transfer or cheque).  Therefore to book using Paypal please add the following amounts:

Total to pay

Student/Service User/Unwaged:

add £0.75

£15.75

Waged:

add £1.75

£46.75

Institutional Support/Solidarity Price:

add £2.50

£67.50

You do not need a Paypal account to do this.

Just go to: www.paypal.co.uk/uk
On the header tab select ‘Send Money’.

In the ‘To’ box enter: swanconference2011@gmail.com

In the ‘From’ box below enter your email address.

Click on ‘Personal’ then ‘Other’. Click ‘Continue’

If you already have a Paypal account log in and make your payment.

If you do not have a Paypal account follow the instructions on the ‘Send Money’ page. You will need to enter your credit/debit card and other details.

If you get stuck use Paypal ‘Help’

Once you have made this Paypal transfer please complete the Conference registration form by clicking here.

3. CHEQUE

Please send your cheque to the following address:

SWAN Conference 2011,

c/o IASS,

8th Floor Muirhead Tower,
University of Birmingham,
Edgbaston,

Birmingham
B15 2TT

Please make cheques payable to: ‘Social Work Action Network West Midlands’, and write the name and address of the person registering for the conference on the back of the cheque.

Whichever payment type you have chosen please remember to complete a registration form. You can either fill in the online registration form by clicking HERE or send a completed paper copy of the registration form – found on the Conference flyer HERE – with your cheque.

Thanks for your booking and for taking the time to complete the online registration form. If you have any queries or problems with the registration or payment process, please email us at swanconference2011@gmail.com.

For

Baby P and the case of the Greek “home care” project: two faces of the same coin

What most of the colleagues don’t know –since the media where preoccupied with the aforementioned theme- is that on the same day thousands of Greek social workers and social care practitioners went on strike and took to the streets demonstrating. It was only the first time in 50 years that social workers massively challenged the victimisation of their service users and the deterioration of their working conditions. The industrial action was triggered by the decision of the Greek government to exclude local authority welfare projects from the National Budget and thus ask them to face the horrific dilemma: privatisation or closure.

The early signs of such a development became clear few years ago, when the government ordered local authorities to create their own “private entities” in order to manage the public funding related to the welfare projects. Both social workers and service users faced the consequences of such a decision straight away: unmanageable caseloads, extended working hours and significant delays in payments and salaries. As the practitioners’ Union reveals the majority of social workers have not being paid for over four months. And yet, despite all these fierce attacks, social workers remained on the front line working unpaid in order to meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of service users. As in the case of British social workers, Greek colleagues prove and justify their genuine commitment to social justice and equality on a day to day basis, constantly fighting at the front line against the grim consequences of neo-liberalism and managerialism.

“Social justice and universal public welfare” is at the top of their demands while they demonstrate with dignity and determination at the streets of Athens. However, the kind of justice social workers are fighting for has nothing to do with the disorientating and vitriolic abuse of the term that decorates the tabloid front-pages these days. It is a continuous battle to protect service users’ human rights, secure decent working conditions and contribute to the creation of an equal society. The 13th of November appears to be a day when an interesting coincidence occurred; it also the day when Greek social care workers decide to stand up and fight back.

Action by SWAN Hong Kong supporters against property developer

From South China Morning Post – 7th June 2011

‘Job offer gets bulldozed by social workers

Developer’s ad for counsellor to meet residents forced out of homes has led to petition on Facebook and fears applicants could breach code of conduct

Ada Lee

Jun 07, 2011

A controversial property developer has advertised for a social worker to counsel residents forced to make way for redevelopment projects – provoking a backlash by hundreds of social workers.

Richfield Realty, which is often criticised for being heavy-handed in acquiring old buildings from reluctant residents, took out the job ad last week. Besides providing counselling to the people displaced by the developer, the job apparently entailed keeping records of meetings with residents and handing the reports to the company.

Many social workers said the job description “twisted the meaning of social work” and promised to launch a series of campaigns against the company.

Peter Cheung Kwok-che, a social welfare lawmaker and president of the Hong Kong Social Workers General Union, said the job appeared to violate their professional code of practice.

“Would Richfield tolerate the social workers it hired to help the residents it’s trying to displace against the company’s interest?” he said. “There are some fundamental conflicts between working as a social worker and working for Richfield.

“We will not tell our fellows not to apply for a certain job, but they have to be careful if they apply for this one.”

The union will protest at the developer’s headquarters in Tsim Sha Tsui today.

Richfield has been active in Tai Kok Tsui, Quarry Bay, Mid-Levels and Ho Man Tin.

According to the code of practice for registered social workers, the primary responsibility of a social worker is to his clients.

The code also states that if a social worker finds his employer’s policies are jeopardising the interest of his clients, he should inform his managers.

Cheung said: “The code demonstrates to a large extent the value of social work. If a social worker is to work for Richfield, he’s walking a tightrope.”

A social worker found to have violated the code faces penalties ranging from a warning to being struck off by the Social Workers Registration Board.

By last night, more than 670 social workers had signed a petition on Facebook in protest at the Richfield job offer.

Lam Chi-leung, an organiser of the petition, said it would be inappropriate for social workers to work for the company.

“Social workers should stand on the side of the weak. They shouldn’t work for those who are damaging fairness in the city.”

Lam said the group would urge other social workers not to apply for the job by publishing an open letter in newspapers in the coming two weeks.

Meanwhile, there is another petition on Facebook calling for social workers to send “application letters” to the developer telling them why they would not work for it.

About 100 social workers had joined that group by last night.

Richfield Realty could not be reached for comment.

ada.lee@scmp.com’