Category Archives: social workers

How mindfulness can help

The theme of this year’s Mental Health Awareness Week is mindfulness, and my local authority has piloted training in meditation techniques for its social workers

Not sure about mindfulness? Neither was Abigail Bryning.

While I was growing up my mum practised meditation and recently suggested I try mindfulness as a way to deal with stress in my job as a social worker, but I was a bit sceptical. She often listened to pan pipe music and I couldn’t imagine how that sort of thing could help with serious issues and be useful in my work.

Social work practice with carers ‘lacks clarity and consistency’

Carers’ assessments uncommon and seldom used to inform service users’ support plans, finds government-funded research.

Wednesday 14 August 2013 11:23

Social work practice with carers “lacks clarity and consistency”, resulting in carers’ needs not being assessed or informing service users’ support plans, research has found.

Though carers were involved in all stages of the personal budgets process for service users, separate assessments of their needs were uncommon and seldom conducted before service user support was planned, found the York University study on carers and personalisation.  Researchers based their findings on a survey of 16 councils, in-depth research in three of these and interviews with carers and service users.

Carers’ role valued but assessed narrowly

Carers were commonly involved in supporting service users who had cognitive or communication impairments during assessment and this role was valued by service users and practitioners alike.

Managers and practitioners said carers were routinely asked about their willingness to continue providing support at this stage, aided by prompts on service users’ assessments forms, and some practitioners used these to ask carers about their own support needs.

Social workers raise online grooming fears

Social workers are “way out” of their depth.

Many social workers lack confidence and know-how when it comes to dealing with online grooming and sexual abuse of children, a survey has suggested.

The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) said they desperately needed specialist training.

An online survey of 327 social workers found 74% wanted more support, while half felt concerned about dealing with online sexual abuse or behaviour.