During the first part of my time as Chair I had the pleasure of working alongside Luke Geoghegan, who was elected to Council at the same time as me, as Chair of the Finance and Human Resources Committee. After being re-elected with me in 2016, Luke stood down having become our new Head of Policy and Research, where he is developing a tremendous programme of work together with Policy and Research Officer, Godfred Boahen. Between 1998 and 2008, Luke was the Chief Executive at Toynbee Hall, the first Settlement in London’s East End, where Clement Attlee worked before the First World War. I feel a strong connection with the East End Settlements now myself, living near to them and being a frequent visitor to Oxford House and St Margaret’s House in Bethnal Green. This is a companion post to my previous “From Attlee to eligibility criteria”, in which I looked at the balance in social work between collective and individualised approaches. Here we focus on the former, beginning with an exploration of how the Settlement Movement helped to develop social work as community work.
Not quite a joint blog post this time, but it was inspired by conversations I have been having with social care consultant and BASW member, Colin Slasberg. These linked with the activities of the Austerity Action Group, a talk I heard given by Professor Jonathan Dickens about social worker, Clement Attlee, and something I said in a recent interview with Professional Social Work editor, Shahid Naqvi. So I might be the only one hitting the keyboard here, but a lot of people have influenced this post. Including a Labour politician who has sadly recently passed away.
BASW is standing with our American colleagues, the National Association of Social Workers, in condemning President Trump’s policies that led to the practice of separating migrant families at the US-Mexico border.