We must heed warning signs of beleagured staff running on empty warns children's services leader
Published by Professional Social Work magazine, 11 April, 2022
Good will among children’s social workers is “running low” after two years working in the pandemic, warned the new president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services.
Steve Crocker called for urgent action to support a beleaguered workforce propped up by costly agency staff in his inaugural speech.
His warning came in the wake of government figures published earlier this year showing a seven per cent annual leap in the vacancy rate among children and families social workers.
Crocker warned “we are blindly sailing into the eye of a storm without heeding to the warning signs”.
He described the workforce as “our greatest asset”, but claimed “working round the clock” during the last two years to support children and families had taking its toll.
He continued: “Our staff and everyone working with children and families continues to run on good will, which is now running low.
“In particular, we need a more sufficient and stable social work workforce. ADCS is ready to work with government to achieve significant national change which must include addressing the challenges associated with agency social work head on.”
Crocker criticised the “profiteering” in social work recruitment which he said didn’t happen in other sectors such as the police, health and teaching.
He suggested an environment of scrutiny and government interventions in which practice takes place was partly to blame.
He said: “To really tackle this, we need to recognise some of the drivers of instability, the unintended consequences of authorities under Ofsted and DfE [Department for Education] pressure due to performance dips and the impact of knee-jerk reactions when things go wrong as well as understanding what works well in other aspects of the public sector.”
The vacancy rate in England was 16.7 per cent among children and family social workers on 30 September last year, the highest in five years.
More than 15 per cent of staff were employed via an agency as many local authorities struggle to permanently fill posts.
Social workers employed through agencies can earn significantly more than permanently employed local authority workers.
Crocker said boosting the number of social workers must be backed by increasing other children’s services roles such as speech therapists, psychologists and youth workers.
He said additional pressures caused by Covid, “lifestyle changes in the workforce” and a “restructuring economy” made things feel “uncomfortably fragile”.
Another key focus was the mental health of children, said Crocker, who called for a national review of support services.
“The alarm has been sounding for some time on the growing mental concerns amongst children and young people, longer waiting lists, more children reaching crisis point.”
He said services needed “radical reform” and were “too rooted in clinical diagnostics, adrift from the child-centred, whole family and relationships-based working” that was the norm elsewhere.
He described as “bizarre” that the number of beds to treat the most traumatised children had declined when poor mental health had increased during the pandemic.
Crocker added: “Would I go as far as to say children are being failed? Yes I would.”
He also shared concerns of the Competition and Market Authority and England’s Children’s Social Care Review about private providers of children’s social care placements
“Let me be clear, profiteering through public money on the basis of meeting children’s care needs is unacceptable,” he said.
“I am hopeful that the independent review of children’s social care will make strong recommendations on this front.”