Politicians have created an ’emotional’ environment around social workers leading to a misconception that all social work is failing, a new book suggests.<\/p>\n
Dr Joanne Warner, of the University\u2019s School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research<\/a>, has researched details of a number of high profile social work cases \u2013 including that of the tragic death of baby Peter Connelly. She concludes that social workers are being unfairly stigmatised, along with many of the families they work with.<\/p>\n Dr Warner\u2019s book, The Emotional Politics of Social Work and Child Protection <\/i><\/a>, argues that when a child dies in situations where social workers have been involved, the emotional response to the perceived crisis from politicians and media creates a dynamic for reform. This is based, she says, on the premise that the responsibility for the death lies solely with the social work profession, leaving politicians free to promise to \u2018make this child\u2019s death the last\u2019.<\/p>\n Ignoring factors such as adverse living conditions, in many cases caused by poverty, this \u2018emotional politics\u2019 has led to lower thresholds to remove children more quickly to place them in care, something that is not always the right response, suggests Dr Warner.<\/p>\n Dr Warner pointed to the example of New York, where the child welfare system reached \u2018crisis point\u2019 because children were being placed in care too quickly. What worked, she said, was a transformation in New York\u2019s system that saw parents supported more effectively and involving them in social care intervention.<\/p>\n In her book Dr Warner calls for politicians, or representatives of political parties, to be more involved in everyday social work cases and to \u2018engage\u2019 with the type of decisions that have to be made. She cites the example of Sweden, where representatives of political parties sit on child protection committees.<\/p>\n She suggests that radical ideas, such as in the Swedish example, are needed to help the UK \u2018break this destructive cycle of crisis and reform\u2019, with \u2018much greater public engagement in debates about parenting and the complexities of decision-making\u2019.<\/p>\n The Emotional Politics of Social Work and Child Protection by Dr Joanne Warner was published on 12 January by Policy Press.<\/p>\n For more on the book contact\u00a0Dr<\/i> Warner<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Politicians have created an ’emotional’ environment around social workers leading to a misconception that all social work is failing, a new book suggests. Dr Joanne … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7108,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[124],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2360"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2361,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2360\/revisions\/2361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/sspssr-news-events\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}