The Social Work Task Force

Yes it's here again-a long hard look at social work and all that it stands for and all that it means. Ed 'Talking' Balls and Alan Duncan announced this new body in January with the intention of revitalising the profession and remaking the poor burnt-out husks employed in local authoritiy social work teams into shiny bright energised uber social workers who, with one deft tap of their harry potter wands will transform the evil cancerous weight of the hideous lumpenproletariat into well adjusted worker drones with only minimal needs for pharmacological intervention.

And they will be happy! And we know that happy workers make New New Shiny New Labour very happy indeed!

Am I dripping with that lowest form of wit dear reader? Indeed, for I hear that Deirdre the agony aunt from 'The Sun' is to take her place on that hallowed and august body. Er yes...you heard that right. Here's a good response from the Fighting Monsters Website which I include in full.

1 May 2009 (4 days ago)
Dear Deirdre

from Fighting Monsters by cb
Dear Deirdre
I suppose you are making an effort with your survey on the Sun website asking readers to tell you all that is wrong with social work.
Personally though, I find it insulting that you were given a place on the Social Work Taskforce that is to report on changes and improvements to be made to Social Work. Although apparently more front line workers are being included, unfortunately, Deirdre remains. And no, justifying her position because of a Sun petition is not a defence, it is even more of an insult. Let’s put this simply - I say this for the following reasons:-
The Sun organised a campaign which included false reporting of social work – victimised individual social workers and questioned the mental health of a social worker. Now, they are claiming ‘victory’ in successfully causing the dismissal of a social worker and social work managers. Fine with the managers, but honestly if I live and work in a country where red top journalism and over-hyped dishonest media campaigns can lead to dismissal rather than incompetence in the workplace then it isn’t doing very much for morale – don’t you think?
What experience do you have of social work? Seriously. What knowledge beyond what your colleagues report? Where has there been any will to engage - I see you pulled out of the Community Care Live event? Can’t take the heat, eh, Deirdre?
Fine, if the taskforce wants a media representative – there are many worthy journalists from Community Care or The Guardian who have consistently shown a knowledge and appreciation of the wider issues within social work but AN AGONY AUNT FROM THE SUN??? Who on earth is going to take Social Work seriously if they think that newspaper agony columns offer some kind of expertise in social work?
I don’t want to be trialled and judged by media – I want to do my job well and effectively and be supported by professional organisations and relevant government departments – not held up to some kind of media trial that you seem to be creating by surveys.
If the task force was REALLY interested in views it would have made the meetings for social workers actually more accessible rather than bunching them in with a few days notice and filling up within hours. I desperately wanted to attend one of the feed back days but my only possibility in London was about a week after I found out that they existed because the other date filled up within a day. Hardly feasible for the front-line workers who, you know, have work to do..
Well, I’ve made my views clear but lets try and get to Deirdre’s ‘survey’ and give her some of the opinions she so obviously wants from Sun readers.
For the record, Deirdre, your first question on that survey, you know where you get one answer and have to say if you have ever had contact with a social worker or you are a social worker.. you know, sweets, those two things aren’t mutually exclusive.
I am a social worker. My foster child has a social worker, myself and my partner have a supervising social worker, my father who is, himself, elderly (sorry Dad, I know you are reading this!) has a social worker. So what on earth made you think that no social worker can possibly actually USE the services of social workers for your oh-so-helpful survey.
Bleh. Oh well, I guess it makes a change not to see the pressing issues of infidelities or what to do if you’ve impregnated your next door neighbour’s daughter on your problem page (although I suspect that’s only in the online edition).
gene hunt at Flickr
Go and fill it out though, guys, and let her know exactly what we think.
Oh and Deirdre, if you do ever find your way here, I’d love to hear your defence.
Wow, I sometimes have grumps but don’t often have a full-on rant. Sometimes it feels quite good.
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The Real Gordon Beige!

I got this cartoon off Guido Fawkes poisonous blog.  I kind of hate that level of interpersonal filth that is Real Politics but this defines the man beautifully and let's face it, they all deserve each other.

Sunday Poem-Let us celebrate their moist interiors-Orchids!

 

LADY’S SLIPPER ORCHID

 

 I recall Dion Fortune’s phrase somewhere:

That orchids nurse hatred for people

 

But I feel,  

staring at your fabulously

 Silly Flower

That nothing so hilarious

Could nurse hatreds and contempts.

 

That in your full-booted truth

You are just as you need to be.

 

Though extinction be your neighbour

Along with yew and limestone,

You continue;

 

A miracle by this footpath,

Smiling brightly

In the sun and rain.

 

Cypripedium calceolus  I salute you!

Should Family Courts be open to Journalists? Er...like...Yeah!

Ok back to business after that brief family and friends jokery. And the business today is law and the family. Should journalists be allowed in to report on the shennanigans going on behind those oh so closed doors in Family Courts? Whoa a moment! What the hell is Family Law anyway? Why do journo's want in there? And finally what's it all about Alfie?

First a quickie rationalisation of what the law is-Obviously a means by which a small and privelidged cadre of pseudo-professionals create a lengthy and elitist training to preserve an illusion of technical skill and allow the charging of astronomical fees that people must pay in order to settle their affairs within a clearly defined and boundaried social context. Jesus you people are so damn cynical!

Law reflects society, that's why a law predicated on norms and values of 100 years ago would obviously prejudice the rights of women and ethnic minorities because those prejudices were embedded in the society. So when some fanatical goon-bob says Shariah law allows him and his pals to stone some unfortunate woman to death during the half time period of a local Afghani footie match, that's because stoning to death is a value with meaning in that person's clearly well-adjusted and intelligently constructed mind.

John Rawls Theory of Justice states that laws result from combining concepts like liberty and equality resulting in justice with fairness. Rawls theory is well worth exploring and has some compelling Philip K Dick-like resonances-eg that the law should be made with a veil of ignorance as to the makers place in the society. That is, if we don't know whether we'll be at the top or the bottom we'll make damn sure it supports us all equally. Of course the prevalent 'death wish/dirty harry' counter argument is that you don't give the punk a lawyer, you take him out back and blow his goddam brains out muttering things like 'that'll teach him' as you stride manfully to the dry cleaners. Anyway, I'm wandering!

Children, until quite recently were seen as somehow part of their parents property and children's rights are a fairly recent concept. The 1989 Children Act was a major attempt to bring together and blend all the up to date relevant legislation relating to children and clarifying adults responsibilities rather than their rights towards children. This was a major shift in the legal perspective with it's 'no order' principle and with 'the child's wishes and feelings' placed central to the process.  When we are making arrangements between ourselves in relation to our children after the break up of a relationship, that is the realm of private law. When a public body seeks to take action in relation to caring for or securing the wellbeing of a child such as social services that is the sphere of public law.  In complex cases an officer from The Child and Court Advisory Service (CAFCASS) is appointed to make investigations and recommendations to the sitting judge.  This might range from which parent a child should live with to whether a local authority should take a child into care.

Family courts are the theatres of public and private law where the dramas of family life and child protection are played out daily and where there has, to date been an extraordinary level of secrecy, note I say secrecy not privacy.  Nobody should ever be able to nose around in the most private affairs of children and families but against that, society needs to know just how some people behave when they are divorcing, how they will sacrifice their child's well-being and relationship with the other party for advantage in the disposal of assets.  The world of private law is not one in which you see people at their best.  Or rather the best sort it out to the benefit of their children and you don't see them in the courts..

Also society needs to understand what some parents actually do to their children.  How children are abused, tortured, undermined and neglected by those who are supposed to care for them.  Maybe then the Daily Mail readership might not be quite so smug about the failures of social workers when they know the kinds of things they have to deal with.  Likewise the rest of the gutter press and what might be loosely termed their readership.

Children are all our futures and everybody's responsibility.  Let's get those courts opened up.

Speak to us of Children (From The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran) A tribute to The Jamesons of Kendal. My mum and dad-in-law!

And a woman who held a babe against her

breast said; Speak to us of Children.

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong

not to you.

You may give them your love but not your

thoughts.

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not

to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with

yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as

living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the

infinite, and He bends you with His might that

His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the Archer's hand be for

gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He

loves also the bow that is stable.