Professional pride based on quality

With nearly twenty-nine years of service, I must be nearing the twilight of my career. On looking back at my career I still feel a great sense of pride and passion in being given the opportunity to work with children and young people, who after all are our most valuable asset and our future.

I have spent most of my career in the residential boarding sector, working in a number of local authorities run boarding schools. Fortunately all of these schools have been excellently run establishments, and I have no regrets in working in any of them. There is however a dark cloud covering this otherwise perfect career.

The dark cloud has grown steadily as I have watched a job that I feel passionately about beset by bad practice and adults who would seek to abuse vulnerable children. However, before you think that I am into a session of staff bashing, I am not. There are thousands of professional, caring, committed and safe childcare workers, who deserve to be judged by their good practice and not by those people who have abused their position of trust.

Over the years we have looked at many ways of bringing this about and creating a safe and professional child care service. The two aims that have remained consistent in working to achieve this have been a national registration scheme and a relevant and affordable training scheme that is accessible for all levels of workers.

The GSCC

In order to achieve these aims, I have always felt that there should be a central body which can set standards and monitor practice, thus giving a fractured service cohesiveness and a sense of identity. I was therefore greatly heartened when the General Social Care Council was formed and started to address these issues.

During the last year I have heard very little about the work of the G.S.C.C.. However, I was not surprised at this, as it takes time to set up systems and a framework to meet the aims set out.

On November 6th I attended a conference given by the G.S.C.C. and hosted by Capita, to outline the achievements that had been made in the last year. I took three of my senior staff with me to the conference and all of us approached the afternoon with a sense of positive optimism, though this optimism took a bit of a dent when we went to speak to Community Care who had a stand and found out that they only circulate the magazine to qualified workers.

Now I don’t have a problem with this, except to say that as the conference had been advertised through Community Care, only a very small section of the estimated 1.2 million workers that the G.S.C.C. oversee would have been made aware of the conference, thus disenfranchising many workers who might have wished to take part or have an interest in the findings.

In my view, during this period of development and change it is vital that the G.S.C.C. communicates with all workers and allows them to feel that they have some ownership of their career structure. I recognize that the conference could not accommodate vast numbers of workers and therefore it may have been better to offer it to managers who would disseminate the information. However, I feel that there could have been a better balance of grass root workers, and this might have been achieved had the G.S.C.C. advertised the conference in a variety of publications.

Questions

Despite this oversight I enjoyed the conference and was greatly encouraged by the fact that the care sector now seems to have a viable body that can determine and oversee standards. I still have concerns, though, which I expressed on the day and they remained largely unanswered :

1. When I asked about who would be registered initially and what the time scales for their registration would be, it would seem that qualified social workers will be registered first and then other groups would be registered subsequently. This process was also expected to take a number of years. My concern is that large numbers of workers will remain un-registered and therefore premeditated abusers will be able to move freely within the service, especially when the Criminal Records Bureau have been found wanting. It will also mean that many workers will not have an identity within a global service, thus increasing the chances of bad morale and bad practice.

2. I made the point that training for many Care staff is still very patchy at best and very difficult to access at worst. I also made the point that outside of the N.V.Q. Level 3 base line qualification and level 4 for managers there was very little else for care staff to access. It is my belief that training should be multi-faceted and that there should be diploma in residential care. 3 Finally, I made the point, that whilst I welcomed the new Code of Practice and the standards that the G.S.C.C. were setting, I felt a bit like a child who was having expectations put upon him by his parents, though I was not sure who my parents were. Since it was unlikely that I was going to be registered for some time and therefore would not be recognized, and my instructions via training were patchy at best, the consequence was that I felt rather like an unwanted child.

A Safe Workforce

I would not want anyone reading this article to think that this is an exercise in giving the G.S.C.C. a hard time. I do not apportion any blame to the G.S.C.C. for the shortcomings that I have pointed out. They will only have a certain amount in their budget with which to effect any changes, and it makes sense to start making changes in those areas where it will be least problematic to do so. However, I do question the Government’s commitment to protecting vulnerable children and young people.

In order to create a care service where workers can only practice if they are registered with a governing body, which has continuity, cohesiveness and the powers to ensure that only good and safe practice takes place, where applicable, accessible and affordable training is offered to workers at all levels and there is a central data base that can track all workers, a substantial amount of investment is required from the Government.

It seems to me that once again, where children are concerned, we have accepted a framework and model, which falls far short of what of what they deserve and parents should expect.

We are now in a situation, after many years of campaigning for a safe and professional care service which is accountable, where the only vetting that we have is through the Criminal Records Bureau which despite warnings has been woefully inept, where thousands of workers will continue to practise for the foreseeable future unregistered, unregulated, untrained and with no sense of identity, and that does not rest easy with me.

Despite my scathing attack on the present situation, I still feel that we must put our full support behind the G.S.C.C., as they are the official body overseeing the care sector. The G.S.C.C. will only achieve their aims if they have the full support of the work force and workers can identify with them.

Two suggestions

In giving support to the G.S.C.C. I would like to take this opportunity to make two suggestions.

First, communication is vital. There should be regular communication with as many workers as possible and not necessarily through managers. Staff must feel that they have involvement and ownership in the framework. They need to understand why certain decisions may need to be made. The communication should be multi-faceted, using news-sheets, questionnaires, conferences and regional working parties, thus involving staff at all levels in creating a professional care service. In my view if this route is not taken, staff will not identify with the model that the G.S.C.C. is creating and will become frustrated and isolated.

Secondly, there should be a working group set up to look at all of the issues surrounding those staff who will not be registered or trained in the early stages. It is not enough to say that this is the only feasible route to achieving the desired goals. In reality this may be the case; however, inevitably many workers and groups will feel disenfranchised and we run the risk of losing many experienced and good workers or damaging morale, which would have a detrimental affect on the service. I would suggest that this is in the Council’s best interest, as I feel sure that if they do not look at these issues, those groups who have not been included will fill this gap.

Is social work a part of social care, or vice versa?

Although I said two suggestions, I have a last minute observation to make. I had occasion to ring the G.S.C.C. this morning regarding obtaining copies of the Codes of Practice. I found the G.S.C.C. to be very helpful, but I did have a concern when I listened to the recorded message. The message asked me if I was interested in a career in social work or was interested in social work training to “press line one”.

I carried on listening but there were no further instructions about seeking a career in social care work - just the message for social work training. Perhaps I am being pedantic or there is a very good reason for this, but as one of that majority of workers who does not have a social work qualification, I felt very unwanted. If I was someone who was seeking a job in social care work I would contact the governing body. However, after hearing this message, I would be inclined to go no further, as I would be under the impression that this was not the body that oversees that work. I would suggest that this is not a good way of making staff feel that they are part of a career structure or bringing new staff into the system.

If I may be so bold to suggest, perhaps this should be a line for general enquiries at all levels, or there should be another dedicated line for all other workers. By having this line, the G.S.C.C. run the risk of giving the impression that only social workers matter and this could an extremely damaging affect on trying to create a strong and cohesive care service.

Action

I am not sure if anyone from the G.S.C.C. will read this piece. If they do, I hope that they take it the way that it is meant, because I am committed to seeing a good, safe, sound, and professional care service and I believe that the G.S.C.C. could achieve this. I do feel very strongly that we still need to continue to lobby the Government as they could and should do a lot more. Finally, for all of those people reading this piece, it is time for you to stand up and be counted and make your voices heard.