choose social work
Join our campaign to champion your profession
‘We see you,
we support
you, we value
what you do’
Three ways you can support the campaign
The next time someone asks you what you do, tell them you’re a social worker – and that you’re proud to be one
01
#ChooseSocialWork
Recently, four of us from Community Care went to spend the day with a children’s services team at a London council.
I left the day feeling both completely knackered and genuinely in awe of the work that social workers do every day.
We saw first-hand the families that the social workers worked with, the support they gave and the decisions they had to make.
What has stayed with me is the amount of thought and reflection that went into every one of those decisions. The social workers were constantly interrogating their own thinking, and being challenged by managers to reflect on the factors that might be influencing them.
Community Care wants to counteract this negative media coverage and show the inspiring, brave, emotional work social workers do every day.
Our Choose Social Work campaign shares inspiring stories, from social workers, celebrities and people with lived experience, about the difference that social work can make.
We are publishing a series of letters, Dear Future Social Worker, to inspire the next generation to choose social work as a fulfilling, rewarding career.
And we will show the damage that negative media coverage can have on social workers, and explore the potential solutions.
We want this campaign to show that: we see you, we support you, we value what you do.
Please keep choosing social work.
Ruth Hardy-Mullings, Head of Content, Community Care
Say it proud
Watch full video
‘Every minute of every
day, there’s a social
worker somewhere,
be it children or
adults’, who’s
improving
someone’s life’
Emma Lewell-Buck MP
Read full interview
One of these factors is the negative media landscape that surrounds social work. There have been several tragic child deaths featured in the media over the past two years, like those of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes, Star Hobson, and, most recently, Finley Boden.
Every time a case hits the national press, whatever the reality of social work involvement, it inevitably affects morale and creates a heightened sense of fear of making a mistake, particularly in child protection work.
We know that this is a challenging time for social work, a sector that has had more than its fair share of challenging times. There are also the ongoing challenges with recruitment and retention: one in five children’s social work posts lie vacant, and the vacancy rate in adults’ services has risen sharply over the last three years. This causes more pressure and higher caseloads for the workers that remain.
‘Being a child
protection social
worker taught me
that reward will come
from seeing positive
outcomes, and that
you need to celebrate
the small wins’
Yewande, social worker and manager
Read the full letter
02
Use the #ChooseSocialWork hashtag across social media
to tell us why you chose
the profession
Share the love
03
Submit a letter to the
next generation in our
Dear Future Social Worker
series – email ruth.hardy-mullings@markallengroup.com
Inspire others
