What do service users want from social workers? Social work academic and mental health service user Peter Beresford says that research points to four crucial qualities. He will be speaking about the future of adult social work at Community Care Live on 16 May.
The crucial importance of the social work relationship
Above all else the evidence highlights that service users value the relationship that they have with social workers. It is seen as the crucial starting point for getting help and support on equal terms; for working with rather than on people. Service users talk of relationships based on warmth, empathy reliability and respect. It is the antithesis of form-filling approaches to assessment, which reduce the contact between service users and practitioners to a formulaic and bureaucratic contact.
After improvements in local government training and recruitment, why aren’t there more BME social workers?
Like many readers, my heart leapt when I saw that Stephen Lawrence’s killers had been found guilty. The family’s campaign for justice, and the McPherson Inquiry they prompted, have changed forever how we treat racism.
We should welcome that progress. But a serious look at social work suggests we still have a long way to go before we have a level playing field for black and minority social workers – let alone service users.
Leicestershire Council uses the Whose Shoes? game to train adult care staff in personalisation. Pictured (from left) are Simon Carnall, Paul Lowis, Sarah Wigley amd Juliet Heaton
A board game that helps staff, providers and service users understand personalisation has succeeded in changing the culture in some organisations, reports Louise Hunt
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