BU Professor defends social workers in Independent piece
Bournemouth University’s Professor Keith Brown has spoken out in defence of social workers in a piece on The Independent’s website.
In an article that accesses social workers following a recent BBC documentary on the subject, Brown believes that blame is being unfairly laid solely at the feet of social workers.
‘Baby P: The Untold Story’ gave an account of the failures across multiple agencies that contributed to the death of Peter Connelly in 2007. Yet, the subsequent blaming of individual social workers is unfair, and endemic of a much larger cultural phenomenon.
While Keith acknowledged that individuals did make mistakes, he explained how “when things go wrong, rather than blaming our structures or policies, society wants to blame the individual”.
As the Director of BU’s National Centre for Post Qualifying Social Work, Brown questioned the wisdom of ignoring such systemic failures at a time when austerity has resulted in widespread cuts to public services: “Why are we blaming the individual worker when we know that the system itself is underfunded and stretched?”
While shocking cases such as that of Baby P’s are highlighted by the media, the UK’s system of social care are struggling to cope with demand. One social worker, who spoke anomalously to the paper, described how the blame impulse made it ‘terrifying’ to be a social worker, and said that said that society must take ‘collective responsibility’ in protecting vulnerable people.
