High Speed Internet WebMail. Christmas: a difficult time for social workers. The music is playing, the trees are being decorated and the televisions are filled with adverts showing happy family meals and presents being exchanged.
It is a time for family, for celebrations and for parties. I like Christmas. Resilience. Social Work’s professional space in Scotland. I have to admit that the idea for this blog entry has been around for some time.
For various reasons I have avoided writing it but after a brief Twitter discussion on Sunday I though it best to put some thoughts down. The idea of professional space has interested me for some time. Andrew Cooper’s paper, The State of Mind We Are In was the first that I read that made me think about the idea. This blog entry will in no way offer what Cooper’s paper offered but will give some insight into my thinking abut this issue. So what am I defining “professional space” as? So there was a large governmental organisation here that seemed opposed to central government. Social Work was seen as pioneering in this regard. Best Tweets in Mental Health (wk of 12/5/2011) App Review: Meditation Apps by Meditation Oasis for Social Work Practice « Social Work Tech Blog. Registration consultation for social workers - 12/7/2011. The Health Professions Council has today launched a consultation on setting the registration cycle for social workers in England.
Social workers are currently expected by the General Social Care Council (GSCC) to renew in three yearly cycles on the anniversary of their initial registration. However, the Health Professions Council (HPC), which is due to take over responsibility for the social care register in July 2012, expects professionals to renew at a set date every two years. If the GSCC’s register is transferred as planned on 31 July 2012, social workers in England will be required to register with the HPC for the first time between August and 30 November 2012.
The HPC is proposing that the end date for the registration cycle for social workers would then be 30 November in even numbered years. Last month it was revealed that the timing of the transfer could result in some social workers having to pay twice to keep their place on the register. What do you think? Related articles. A Day in the Life of a Prison Social Worker. Newborn Somerset baby was failed by council - social worker's warnings were ignored. A judge has criticised social services at North Somerset Council A judge has criticised social services at a district council for a “grave failure” which resulted in a newborn baby suffering multiple injuries at the hands of her inadequate parents, a court heard.
Social worker Sara Matty warned her bosses that the couple, from Weston-super-Mare, were incapable of caring for their child and urged that the baby be placed in a mother and baby residential unit. Bristol Crown Court heard her concerns fell on deaf ears, the baby stayed with the parents and, after just 23 days of life, she was taken to accident and emergency where diagnosis of a fractured leg was followed by the finding of fractures all over her body. The mother in her 30s and father in his 20s both pleaded guilty to causing cruelty to a child on the basis of neglect. Judge David Ticehurst ordered they should not be named in order to protect the identity of the child. A critique of the potential for notions of preventative work to reinforce the social control functions of social work. Compassion.
Social Work For Health › Allyson Pollock. Social Media and the Future of Higher Education. Social media are not going to enhance higher education- they are going to completely transform the relationship between student and teacher and shift the balance of power in the education system.Social media such as Facebook have already changed many of the aspects of how we relate to other people, who we can form relationships with and the types of things we share with them.
Many businesses are now using social media to interact with their customers in different ways and use them as brand ambassadors or answer their concerns and complaints in a much more direct way. Entertainers and writers are also using social media to interact with their public in more direct ways. CQC board member calls for chief Cynthia Bower to resign - 11/29/2011.
A Care Quality Commission board member has called for the resignation of chief executive Cynthia Bower over a failure of leadership at the regulator.
Kay Sheldon’s call came in a statement to the public inquiry into the Mid-Staffordshire Hospital scandal. “People who use health and social care services need a strong and effective regulator to support the provision of safe and high quality care,” said Sheldon. ”There are lots of good people working on some some great initiatives in CQC some of which I’ve been directly involved with. However it is clear that a change of leadership and culture is needed to ensure the organisation is effective and accountable.” As quoted in The Guardian, she said: “I do not see how the organisation can move forward in a robust, coherent or useful way without better leadership. We need a chief executive that can manage the organisation and currently we do not have that.” An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie. Social care inspectors have lost respect. A series of scandals have exposed a lack of understanding of social care in the ranks of both Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission.
The watchdogs need to learn from the wisdom of those delivering the service How the mighty are fallen! There used to be tremendous respect for bankers. Then they got too greedy. Rethinking Personal Budgets in Social Care. Reading Community Care, I saw that NLGN (New Local Government Network) have published a report stating that the ‘rush towards personal budgets’ must be slowed down.
I’ve tried unsuccessfully to find this report on the NLGN website but haven’t been able to do so am reliant on the third party reports from Community Care but I thought it raised a number of issues that are worth pondering. Probe launched after social worker revelations - Cardiff news - CardiffOnline. A probe has been launched into revelations that Cardiff council social workers fear a child could die because of staff shortages and high caseloads.
The five-week inquiry by the Children’s and Young People Scrutiny Committee will hear from frontline social workers, as well as senior managers. Union leaders and other relevant organisations, such as the Care Council for Wales, will also be invited to give evidence at the private hearings. The committee will report back with its findings and recommendations to the Liberal-Democrat/Plaid Cymru executive body on January 10. Lecture discusses connection between animal cruelty and domestic violence. By Daniel Zayas, on Friday, November 11th, 2011 Christina Risley-Curtiss, a professor at the School of Social Work spoke at the fourth installment of the Fall 2011 Humanities Lecture Series.
(Cydney McFarland/DD) Almost 100 percent of Americans consider their pets to be family members. “This means they can be included in family violence,” said Christina Risley-Curtiss, a professor at the School of Social Work and an expert on childhood animal cruelty. “The Co-Occurrence of Animal and Human Violence,” a lecture at the Downtown campus Thursday night, was the fourth installment of the Fall 2011 Humanities Lecture Series. “I include these pictures because I think it’s important to see,” she said.
Risley-Curtiss’ lecture revealed various findings of the link between criminal activity and animal abuse. Reflection. What is a Deprivation of Liberty? – Thoughts on Cheshire West and Chester Council v P. I accept that this post is about something of a niche in the corner of health and social care but it’s an area I have some interest in as I’m a Best Interests Assessor.
This is going to be a long haul of a post so I’ll start this time with a glossary. Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards – particular additions to the Mental Capacity Act which were supposed to fix a ‘gap’ (known as the Bournewood Gap – see below) in UK legislation where people without capacity could be ‘deprived of their liberty’ in a hospital or care home without leave to appeal.
Bournewood Gap – while it sounds like the name of a service station, it resulted from the HL v Bournewood case which was taken to the European Court of Human Rights and determined at a man (HL) with learning disabilities had been detained unlawfully in Bournewood Hospital. This case meant the UK needed to change its law to be compatible with the Human Rights Act. Safety nets for mentally ill children are full of holes. Psychotherapists, teachers and social workers visit him every day. He has games, books and a television but no window in the psychiatric ward where he is being kept. An abandoned child is a sign of utter desperation and, often, systemic dysfunction. It’s not just about one broken family or a single, troubled child; it’s about crippling bureaucracy, impotent policy, lack of education and money, money, money. This boy’s situation is a scenario that plays out at hospitals all over the country every day. Hospitals have become dumping grounds for families of children with mental illness and nowhere else to turn for help.
“It’s a nationwide problem,” said Paramjit Joshi, director of psychiatry at Children’s National Medical Center, where the 10-year-old has been languishing since Sept. 15. His future has become a hot potato being tossed around among social service agency attorneys, hospital attorneys and his mother, who says she is unable to care for him. So how about D.C.? After D.C. Social workers failed to monitor elderly man murdered by son - 11/7/2011. Social workers failed to monitor the circumstances of a direct payments user who was murdered by his son, a serious case review has found. Mark Alexander was convicted of his father Samuel’s murder last September, seven months after the latter’s body was found under concrete in his back garden.
Samuel Alexander, 70, received little more “than a passive and remote degree of social work oversight” from Buckinghamshire Council and little was known about his circumstances or the amount of care his son was providing, the SCR found. The SCR found his care plan was subject to a “light-touch” review process “captured via vague and arms-length recording” and that he did not have any sustained person-to-person contact with an experienced and qualified social worker.
Join the discussion. Carlisle university student set to enjoy high life in Central America. By Kelly Eve Published at 11:24, Wednesday, 02 November 2011. Private Equity in Social Care. Empathy and neuroscience: powerful tools for social workers - 10/31/2011. Sensitivity. Is stigma a useful idea? Discussion about mental health always throws up the idea of stigma or the way that society judges people with mental health difficulties. But what is stigma and is it a useful thing to discuss anyway? Defend Social Worker Norbert Ferencz. Press release: new SWAN website launched on 25th October 2011. The Social Work Action Network (SWAN) is pleased to announce the launch of our new website: www.socialworkfuture.org on Tuesday 25th October 2011. 5 Concerns for Social Workers using Social Media. Best Tweets in Mental Health (wk of 10/17/2011) Personalisation , Personal Budgets and Demos.
Troubleshooting Families. Millionaire Cameron is riding in on his moral high horse to save ‘troubled’ families. So the government agenda of blame and simplistic thinking continues.