Articles

The Social Work Action Network (SWAN) has been in contact over the last two weeks with the Social Worker of the Year Awards about their association with the multinational security services company, G4S. SWAN has grave concerns about G4S and finds the track record of this company totally incompatible with a commitment to human rights and social justice which are the root of social work. The following statement was drafted by SWAN West Midlands, has been endorsed by the Steering Committee of SWAN as our official position: THE SOCIAL WORKER of the YEAR AWARDS AND G4SThe Social Work Action Network National Steering Committee notes:- The annual Social Worker of the Year Awards were sponsored by G4S in 2011- The complicity of the British-Danish security firm G4S with abuses of Human Rights in the Occupied Territories and within the state of Israel in breach of the fourth Geneva Convention namely - its provision of technology for several military checkpoints in the occupied West Bank, supply of luggage scanning equipment and full body scanners to several Israeli military checkpoints in the West Bank, including Qalandia checkpoint near Ramallah, Bethlehem checkpoint, Irtah checkpoint near Tulkarm and provision of full body scanners to the Erez checkpoint in Gaza – all of which violate international law. Read More

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. ... Read More

Black to the Future: Con-Dem’s plan to reintroduce colour-blindness and disable mixed ethnicity children by Sarah-Kate Bennett and Jolyon Jones (2012): SWAN West MidlandsIn the last year alone cuts of £1.86bn were made to Children’s Services across the country [1]. The Con-Dem’s ‘great policy initiative’ for vulnerable children focused on early removal by the state and placement through adoption at minimal cost to the public purse. The adoption conundrum according to David Cameron, is that “people are flying all over the world to adopt babies while the care system at home agonises about placing black children with white families" [2]. This supply and demand analogy is all too characteristic of a government that continues to push for marketised solutions to nuanced and complex circumstances. Read More

The Social Work Action Network (SWAN) condemn the announcement last week of plans by Worcestershire County Council to put new limits on adult social care spending, which would see the rights of disabled people to independent living downplayed in the name of meeting ‘the financial challenge’. If plans are approved, from September all new service users and existing service users (if their needs change) will face a tight limit on funding, meaning that they may have to receive care in residential or nursing care - a new retrogressive precedent.  Read More