As a social worker in one of the areas that may be effected by this internal migration policy, I hope that these London authorities will do the the honourable thing and transfer the money they save by not having to meet social and health care needs of these families. Somehow I doubt this will happen. Cameron’s Big Society is looking more like Bad Society every day.
Local government is funded by local council taxpayers with a grant from central government using a complicated formula which depends on a range of factors including levels of social deprivation. Therefore richer councils are proportionately less dependant on central government than ones with higher levels of social deprivation and need. As central government is planing on significantly cutting the money it gives to local government, it can been seen that poorer areas will lose out more than richer ones. Then you have these very same richer areas exporting their poor families to areas that already have high levels of social deprivation, thus increasing the strain on already hard pressed services. This is a disaster waiting to happen.
I cannot help but feel that the CSR as an attack on the very nature of public service. It is clear that this government hates public servants and is hell bent on getting rid of them. This has nothing to do with the deficit. It is driven by ideology. The Tories have always hated the idea of a big state. They would rather that the poor and vulnerable did not exist. If they must exist can’t families and local communities just sort them out without costing the taxpayers any money. If you think I am overegging the point slightly, then you just have to look and the cheering on the coalition benches as the Chancellor was outlining his spending plans. You would have though some humility and respectful silence would have been more appropriate given the devastating effect of his plans on the poor and vulnerable. It was a sickening scene which shows that the MPs are completely out of touch. I am looking forward to their numbers being cut by 40%. Oh wait, that isn’t going to happen. So much for us all being in it together. The fact that the LibDems have been complicit in this whole sale destruction of public services fills me with shame. I will not vote for them again.
I have of late been thinking about my desire to write. Why do want to post on my blog or add tweets to my Twitter feed? Why do I desire to write journal articles and even write books? I am certainly not very good at it. I am not a prolific blogger. You have to look to Fighting Monsters for that. I don’t how s/he has time for it, being a very busy social worker, AMHP, BIA and foster carer, but the posts are of good quality and thought provoking.
Someone said to me recently, that there could be an arrogance to writing. You have to believe that you have something worth saying. Sometimes when I read stories in The Daily Mail or The Sun about social workers, I wished that the journalists in question would have some self doubt and spared us all from their ill informed ramblings.
Anyway, back to the point, why write? When I read well written thought provoking pieces, it stimulates and shapes my thinking. Very few people develop in a vacuum. There are a few people that seem to be capable of developing original ideas apparently out of nowhere, but most people need others in order to bounce ideas around. If I am so inspired by the ideas of others, others may find my ideas interesting (or not). I find writing hard work, it takes time for my thoughts to come together and then they may not be all that coherent. I look at what others have written and say to myself I wish I could have written that or I could write like that. I clearly long to express myself in writing but I get frustrated at my lack of creativity. I do not come from a very creative family so I guess I could say that it is not in my genes. My partner disagrees with me there. He is always encouraging me to express myself creatively and gets hurt when in my frustration I lose my temper. But the drive to express something from within is so strong, however, I am not always sure what it is I am wanting to express. I seem to want whatever I create to be perfect first time and quickly get disillusioned if the creative process does not happen as smoothly as I think it should. I am too concerned about the end product rather than the process of creating it. The creative process has value in of itself. It is not justified by the quality of the end product. If this was the case, this year’s Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy would have looked very different and lacked a certain soul. It is often the case that the best motorbikes and cars are not the ones that are most efficient, it is the ones that are often flawed but designed and built with passion and soul.
The value of writing is not always in the quality of what is written, it is in the expression of something, some idea or thought which may spark off another thought or idea. Some may argue in the current age of reality television, celebrity, blogs and twitter feeds, people are saying far too much and that we all should shut up. I am not sure I want to hear any more about Jordon and Peter’s separation or see them slagging each other off on the front pages of the red tops. There are far more important things to report on in this world than this. Is the arrogance of these so called celebrities regaling us with the inane details of their lives, the same arrogance of wanting to write? I think not. What I am talking about is the expression of something, of sharing something that may be useful, something of value to others. The sharing of ideas and perspectives that can enrich. The putting of a point of view that can create understanding and mutual respect. The arrogance of writing has a certain humility. In writing you are not sure that you have anything interesting to say but you are saying it anyway. It is about making our society a better place. It is about improving the way we care for the vulnerable in our society. This is a world away from someone making lots of money by telling us what they had for breakfast!
I completed my first Best Interest Assessor (BIA) assessment this week. Those who have been following the Fighting Monsters blog will have heard of the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS). I was quite anxious about and lost some sleep over the weekend trying to remember what I had learnt on my BIA course. An Urgent Authorisation was made by the care home (the Managing Authority) last week, which meant that all the assessments had to be completed in seven days.
The care manager in the case gave me an outline of her concerns and the restrictions that this woman had been placed. I spent the weekend trying to decide, based on the evidence I had, whether this woman was being deprived of her liberty. You see, she wanted to leave the care home and return to live with her children. However, she could not be safely managed at home due to her illness. She was most insistent that she return home, becoming verbally aggressive to staff and her children when informed that could not return. Despite this, she did not make any attempts to leave the home and she did not need restraining at any time.
I assessed her at the home with the Mental Health Assessor (a Consultant Psychiatrist). It was clear that she had dementia and did not have the mental capacity to make a decision where she should live. She had an “impairment of, or a disturbance in the functioning of, the mind or brain” (Mental Capacity Act 2005 (MCA), section 2) which meant she was unable to make the decision in question. According to section 3 of that Act, she would not be able to make a decision if she could not:
(a) to understand the information relevant to the decision
(b) to retain the information
(c) to use or weigh the information as part of the process of making the decision, or
(d) to communicate the decision
The doctor judged that she had a mental disorder and that she lacked mental capacity because she could not do (a) and (c) above. I had to now make a decision as to whether the restrictions on her amounted to a deprivation of liberty. She was clearly not free to leave and return home. I considered the case of JE v DE and Surrey County Council. DE wanted to return home but was not free to do so. Unlike in my case JE (his wife) wanted him to return home. DE did not make any attempts to leave but repeatedly stated that he wanted to return home. In my case, if the family said that they wanted their relative to return home, the similarities with the DE case would have been profound, and I would have decided that she was being deprived. However, deciding what amounts to deprivation of liberty is not always straightforward. It is not helped by confusing case judgments and the government’s decision not to include a clear definition in the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards Code of Practice. A commonsense view would be that being made to live somewhere you don’t want to would be a deprivation of liberty. On the face of it the JE v DE would support that view. However, in several cases it has been said that the distinction between a deprivation of and a restriction upon liberty is merely one of degree or intensity and not one of nature or substance. Therefore, all the restrictions placed on my client had to be considered, their degree and intensity, her reactions to them as well as her family’s views.
When I considered all the facts of the case, I did not feel that she was being deprived of her liberty. Being told where to live is not, on its own a deprivation of liberty. There are numerous situations where people are required to live in places not of their own choosing but are not being deprived e.g. offenders with conditions of residence either on bail or as part of a community punishment, mental health patients on Guardianship Orders under section 7 of the Mental Health Act (MHA) 1983, conditionally discharged patients under sections 37/41 MHA’83 with conditions to reside where directed.
This process has highlighted to me, how complicated this area of deprivation of liberty is. It seems to me that the DOLS processes have added an extra layer of complexity to an already difficult area. Where there is confusion and complexity in law, it is ripe for lawyers to make loads of money. I am concerned that this will be at the expense of vulnerable people and local authorities as disputes over deprivation of liberty get dragged through the courts. I can only hope that we will end up with a clearer definition of deprivation of liberty and much more straightforward and transparent processes to help decide who is being deprived and who is not.
Last week I started half time secondment to Bournemouth University as a Lecturer in Mental Health Social Work. For the other half of my time I will continue as Forensic Lead for my CMHT as well as practice as an AMHP and BIA. I don’t know how I am going to fit it all in!
I will be teaching on various AMHP courses and be involved in BIA training. I would like to do some writing and research as well. One of the things that I would like to do early on is do some research on the work of Best Interest Assessors and how the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards are working in practice.
I also hope to have time to explore the blogosphere and twittersphere in more depth to see how social workers are using the internet in practice. I am interested in how the ‘net can be used to create a reflective space for social workers as well as a place for social workers to keep up to date with developments. If anyone as come across any good blogs, twitter feeds or websites relating to social work please feel free to get in touch.
I hope I am not the only one who is disturbed by the media coverage of Goody’s terminal illness. I found the picture of Goody crying splashed all over the front of The Sun today profoundly upsetting and not just because she is clearly in pain and suffering. This media circus cannot be helping her in her last days wind up her affairs with dignity and grace, not that she was ever dignified and graceful! It seems to me that this should be a time that she and her family are left alone in peace.
I do have to concede that it appears that Goody wants it this way. But just because someone wants something it does not automatically follow that she should have it. She has stated that she wants to raise loads of money for her sons. I think that she already has plenty enough to pass on to them so that cannot be the real reason. I do despair that someone who makes no real contribution to the good of society, has no talent and makes a virtue out of crassness and ignorance can make so much money. But let us set that aside for this discussion. It does appear to me that the media in general and Max Clifford in particular are using Goody as a cash cow which they are milking to death; literally!
However, it has to be said that if the public did not buy these magazines and newspapers in order to gorge on every salacious little detail of her suffering and, we are told, impending death, then there would be no cash cow for these grubby little men to milk. In what other context would it be perfectly acceptable for everyone to watch someone slowly dying in this way? It is not dignified nor repectful. I do have to say that the coverage of Goody’s terminal illness is ultimately a very sad indictment on modern British society. The age of the Victorian freak show is well and truly alive and well.
Oscar Wilde is reported to have said, “There is so much to be said in favour of modern journalism. By giving us the opinions of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the communinity”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. It seems even more apt lately given the recent bashing of social workers by the likes of The Sun and The Daily Mail.
As I walked down the sharp and slippery steps leaving the college for the last time on completing my degree, I looked at the rambling sprawl of non-descript buildings that made up the campus and said to myself, “I’ll do anything but social work”. Little did I know that within four years of that day, I would have obtained my social work qualification and was about to start my first job as a probation officer in Winchester.
Thus begins my social work career, one that I was not expecting nor wanting. I was hoping for something far more glamorous: certainly one with more money and status. It has been fourteen years since that first day as a probation officer and my passion for the profession of social work has grown inexorably. I get angry when it is used as a scapegoat for all of society’s ills by the populist press. I weep when I see social workers suffocated by the bureaucratic processes of setting up funded care packages, a colleague’s exhortation, “care management is a process not a profession!” ringing in my ears. I long for social work to be a confident profession once again, clear in its mission and its values, proud of its achievements and in charge of its destiny. I cannot imagine the medical profession allowing itself to be bullied by the media and dictated to by government, with an agony aunt from a cheap red top newspaper on a committee making decisions its future. Why do we as social workers allow this to happen?Just because we work with the vulnerable and the voiceless, just because we work in the gutter of society clearing up its mess, it does not follow that we should not be treated with the dignity and respect we attempt to show our service users, our voices listened to and our perspectives understood.
As ever, I can see the problem clearly: I am less clear about the solutions. I do wish that the General Social Care Council and the British Association of Social Workers be more public in its defence the profession in the way that the General Medical Council and British Medical Association seem to do for doctors. But, I feel that the answer lies with individual social workers finding a voice to say, “enough and no more!” and being proud of what they quietly achieve with their clients day in and day out, protecting society from itself.
I have been on Twitter for a while now and enjoying it! For those who have not heard of Twitter (where have you been – Stephen Fry has been telling everyone about it!) it is a micro blogging site where you simply answer the question, “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. You can see my Tweets on http://twitter.com/madmutt It is great for seeing what those who you are following are doing as well as keeping up to date with news and events that interest you. If there are any more social workers out there tweeting away …. get in touch and follow me!
The Daily Mail has launched another tirade against social workers over the last few days. This is following the adoption of two children by a gay couple against the wishes of their grandparents. Littlejohn today has called the social workers involved in the case “Monsters”. The Mail only reports the grandparents version of events and uses this to again bash social workers. There are several problems with the Mail’s approach.
It fails to mention the fact that this decision would have been made by a court on the recommendation of social services. The court made the decision regarding adoption not the social workers. A fact that the Mail fails to report because it does not make such a good story.
They also report this story safe in the knowledge that the social workers and the local authority involved in the case cannot answer back due to confidentiality.
It is interesting that social workers are in this case being criticised for removing children from their drug using mother, whilst in the Baby P case, they were criticised by the same paper and The Sun for failing to remove the child from his abusive mother. It is truely a case of being damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
The effect of the tirade by this paper and others, is to demoralise the profession that has the unenviable task of clearing up society’s mess. As a result, bright people will choose other professions or existing social workers will leave, putting already stretched child protection teams under more pressure, leaving less time per case and as a result more children will be put at risk. I would love to see reporters from the Mail and The Sun spend some time with social workers as they do their jobs and see if they could make the difficult decisions that we have to make on a day to day basis in order to protect the vulnerable in society.
