I enjoyed reading this article;
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6122296.ece
Anything coming from the keyboards of journalists working for the UK’s most revered newspaper must surely be worth listening to; or should they? If you read the comments below the link you will see that all is not as the writer suggests. And you can be sure that following the recent media witch hunt against care as a profession that next in line for ridicule are social workers.
At social gatherings I have heard it said many times that social workers spend all day reading the Guardian, or get paid for poking their noses into people’s lives and we could easily manage without them. Weknow the reality, but the point is this, does the general public? One of the biggest problems social work has is getting the right message across to people who have negative views about the profession.
The answer to this problem of course is to take the doubters on at their own game by a rigorous PR and media campaign and getting the likes of the ubiquitous Max Clifford on board. As it stands, social work is like a boxer who keeps getting up after a nine-count for another dose of pummeling from the blue corner. I don’t care how laddish, thuggish or insensitive a white van man is; you take him on the beat with a social worker dealing with a daily dose of child protection and that will be enough to sway his views.
Elaine from London sums up the above link very well in her comment: “I am a voluntary breastfeeding peer counselor. The woman that coordinates the breastfeeding peer support in our area does magnificent & valued work in a very difficult job.” If one wanted to be cynical, one could argue how valuable to society are the writers of the tosh in the Times. But I’m no cynic.