Shobhana Ranade gets important Indian award for practical social work

Not everyone who makes a major contribution to social work is a qualified, accredited or registered professional of the current era, but have continued making an immense contribution across the decades. One such, Shobhana Ranade, has just been honoured (again, because she is a well-known and well-regarded citizen) with a significant award, the Padma Bhushan, by the government of India. Even while we develop social work as a profession, we should still be recognising as the highest quality of social work what people have done in practical everyday contributions to their community. The contribution and commitment of people who get stuck in to the very real problems in their communities, using the resources in their community, and contributing to education and personal development of individuals and social development by doing it: that's social work, and we should value it when we see it.

People such as Shobhana would be the first to value professional development and education for people working with others in social work. We should never denigrate the value of their contribution because they never had the chance to qualify in a profession that is growing at different paces across the world.

Inspired as a child by Gandhi, her particular focus has been destitute women and children; in her career, she has started a school, a child welfare centre and working for women's empowerment. 

She helped in starting the Gandhi National Memorial Society and a national training institute for women at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune in 1979. She also received the National Award for Child Welfare Service from President Giani Zail Singh in 1983.

Reports of the Awaard from the Daily News and Analysis, India: http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_award-will-encourage-me-to-continue-work-says-shobhana-ranade_1499302

and Mid-day Pune: http://www.mid-day.com/news/2011/jan/260111-Prime-Ministers-Office-Padma-awards-Pune.htm

A more extended biography and interview, but from 1999 at The Indian Express:

http://www.expressindia.com/ie/daily/19991201/ile01142.html

World-renowned academic Frances Fox Piven targeted in American political attacks

It’s not often that social work features in the well-known American political blog the Huffington Post. But this week it covers threats against the world-renowned sociologist Frances Fox Piven, apparently stimulated by vituperative attacks on her by one of the ‘shock-jocks’. Piven is a professor at Columbia University School of Social Work, and many social workers across the world will have been brought up on her social policy books.

We heard so much about right-wing abuse in the US in the recent spate of concern when Congresswoman Giffords was shot in Tucson, but it’s a shock to most of us outside the US who regard Piven as an academic of impeccable standing. But the report quotes just awful material which is claimed to have resulted from media attacks on Piven. And a more extensive and, it seems, unfair campaign against her.

We should all offer her our support and note that supporting social change is sometimes not an easy thing. Many social workers across the world also experience hostility and abuse for what they do.

You can read Peter Deier’s account of it all here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peter-dreier/glenn-becks-attacks-on-fr_b_812690.html

Social work and human rights: view from the Philippines

Interesting Filipino account of the role of socila work in human rights:

Social work & human rights Educators Speak by AMBASSADOR ROSARIO MANALO, Dean, HZB School of International Relations and Diplomacy, The Philippine Women's University

See the article on the web here:
http://www.mb.com.ph/articles/300109/social-work-human-rights
My comment: This is quite an erudite article, and there will be later lumps. It's particularly interesting because it provides some information about Filipino cultural ideas on social work helping, and emphasises social work as one way of furthering human rights.

#Sutton's #BigSociety vanguard tells us what the BS will be like: not a lot so far.

My local council, Sutton, is a 'Big Society Vanguard Council', so I thought I'd find out what the Condem's big society means when it's put into action. Stimulated by my local LibDem publicity sheet, I looked at the Council's Big Society website.

They're claiming four Big Society projects: transport, the 'Life Centre' for training young people in lifeskills, the Hackbridge environmental scheme and consultations about health care. I've excerpted what they're able to claim.

Not a lot, is the answer; all these are things they were doing anyway (the Life Centre, a valuable ideas, has opened but has been building for some time). Or, they've got to do it (like te GP consultations) so they'll brand it Big Society anyway. Indeed the Council leader claims on another bit of the site that Sutton is a big society sort of place with lots of community activity (it's a middle-class area, so not surprising). This virtually admits that they're not going to do anything special.

I can't avoid the suspicion, since presumably they've had extra money to be a vanguard, that, in the tradition of well-run voluntary and local government organisations everywhere,as soon as there's some funny munny about they've looked round their activities and rebranded some of the 'Big Society'.

We'll wait to see, and I'll carry on reporting.

Amplify’d from www.sutton.gov.uk

We're now working on Integrated Transport Packages across our district centres.

Our 'Life Centre', opening in October 2010, will use world class facilities to become a hub for the whole region and a catalyst for change.  We will put young people in virtually real situations

We will teach a whole range of people the skills for community investment. We will illustrate the rewards of volunteering schemes and social action

Sutton's Hackbridge project

will build on our "Community Forums" to provide a national model that will develop the community skills to resolve issues with the government agencies, local councils, partners and the private sector.

This project will trial the arrangements set out in the Government's White Paper, working with GPs to commission local services and supporting the integration of health and social care. Read more at www.sutton.gov.uk

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/anh06

Social services should invest in workforce development and training

And another follow-up: tweeting a comment on the Sunderland news item, (you remember, Texans being employed in Sunderland children's services) led to this Tweet from one who knows a bit more than I do:

444blackcat johntucker

 

@MalcolmPayne know sunderland fairly well been in trouble for years with its finances this will be to save money there arelots of nqsw

 

My comment is: it's clear Sudnerland thought this was financially advantageous, as John says, and indeed they said they could get lots of newly qualified social workers, but the commentators on the news item wondered (and I shared their questioning) why it was not possible to support newly qualified British people to become more experienced and avoid the need to recruit people from abroad. I think any local authority does better if it builds a loyal staff using training and staff development. That costs money. And it's never a good ploy to assume that vacancies are a temporary gap: that way, you end up employing (and possibly exaploiting) expensive agency staff, rather than spending enough money to build stability in your workforce.

It's tempting for a local authority to go for short-term options that are cheap at the time, without spending enough money on the long-term options that build a better department. And probably in a time of pressure on finances it's even more tempting.

 

My message is that local authorities that want good services have to avoid the temptation to go for cheap, quick solutions and invest in their future workforce for the longterm. Staff development and training every time.

On being out of order, even when low profile

My post on 7th January about a University of Washington academic moving to a senior social services post has a follow-up. Opponents have stirred up an old controversy about an unserious email she sent a few years ago that people thought may possibly have been a bit racist. Opinion varies (you can tell that from the press report and comments on it).

My comment is that this is of course just a silly media nonsense got up by politicking. But it goes to show that senior people everywhere are going to be watched and assessed by all sorts of people, not just their sorts of people. And modern electronic gadgetry can let us do things too quickly before thinking carefully about it. Of course, we should be generous to social worker Beth Mills, in taking up a high profile job, but even if we are low-profile at the moment, we should all learn that being out of order is likely to come to haunt us. At that point we cease to be low profile and become high profile. Avoid the stress: caution is a good watchword, even if it leads to a boring life.

The full report on the Lexington Herald-Star Leader.
http://www.kentucky.com/2011/01/20/1604247/controversial-e-mail-by-gray-appointee.html#more

Sunderland recruiting Texan social workers: why and how?

Sunderland City Council are proud of having filled their need for experienced children's services workers by recruiting them from Texas. The motivation seems a bit suspect though:

And the Children’s Services boss claims recruiting the new members of staff from America will be financially beneficial to the city, saying the employing of permanent staff to fill the 11 posts will save council tax payers in Sunderland £320,000 over a two-year period.

From: http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/local/council_takes_on_u_s_staff_1_2939704

I wonder why Americans are so cheap. The Council says they can easily get newly qualified workers and since wages are not low in the US and the pound is not doing specially well, my comment would be that the Council must be avoiding some other employment-related costs. Is it perhaps that newly-qualified workers are too expensive for it because it does not like the costs of training and support for its staff. Or has it been employing expensive agency staff will nilly, rather than building a loyal local workforce?

Commentators on the Sunderland Echo website are thinking the same way. One writer asks: is the Council offering internships for the newly qualified workers so that they can learn from these wonderful Texans (or from anyone else) so that it does not have to do this again? And is it really offering good support and supervision according to the advice recently issued by the Social Work Reform Board? In which case, why can't it retain and train up local qualified social workers, says another commentator?

My comment again: I'm all for social workers gaining experience of other cultures and countries, but I'm also in favour of local authorities providing systematic support and training for staff of all levels of qualification and building skills in the social work profession. That's every employer's responsibility, and local authorities have a record of ducking it.

Ugandan life experience contributes to UK social work career

A Ugandan website, describing the career of social worker, Dorothy Nababi Sebuliba, and her impresive academic qualifications and contribution to chkild and adolescent social work in the UK, draws attention to the importance of early life experience and family traditions in forming the skills and commitment of social workers, even when they move to another country to work. Because of her life histroy, Dorothy is a 'gift' from Uganda to the UK, and UK social work is richer because of it.

From the New Vision  website:

“MY late father used to often tell us that his contribution to our education was our inheritance and the rest of his possessions were for his brothers and sisters,” says Dorothy Nababi Sebuliba.

The senior mental health practitioner, who is based in Warwickshire in the UK, is a graduate of Makerere University, with a degree in social work and social administration. She also has a post-graduate diploma in psychiatric social work from Manchester University, funded by a scholarship from Save the Children Fund.

She has a masters’ degree in child and family mental health from the University of Leicester, UK.

Read more: http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/220/744042

Valued social work expertise to influence government in Singapore talent development

A minister proposes a 'Talent Development Scheme' in the Singapore Government Monitor so that gound-level expertise of social work can be rotated into and out of ministry policy-making. What an opportunity for influencing government to the benefit of clients. You could wish all governments wanted some social work expertise in making decisions. Reading the speech also leads me to wish that social workers everywhere were so well-regarded. I also like the recognition that social work is not a business and has long-term objectives. Seeing that Singapore is such a successful economy, do you think our government would be prepared learn something from them?

Here are some excerpts from the speech:

...I want to underline the importance of the work you perform. There are still things we can do to upgrade our performance and standards...FSCs need to be proactive, anticipate needs, identify vulnerable families and collaborate with other local stakeholders...Families who approach the FSCs should be able to expect a certain level of standard and professionalism that encourages them to trust and rely on you. Similarly, for the Members of Parliament and other grassroots leaders who refer cases to you, they need to know you and your qualities, and they need to feel that they can trust and rely on you.  I know it is uncomfortable, but we have to find ways to measure and incentivise quality. This is of course not easy in social work. You are not running a business, and the impact of your work often takes a long time to be evident.  

...I am also acutely aware that within MCYS and NCSS, we do not have enough social workers with real ground experiences involved with policy formulation, professional supervision and setting standards.  I am therefore considering the establishment of a Talent Development Scheme. This scheme would directly employ some social workers. They would consist of people who are already in the profession, and through a process of peer review, are considered leaders and good mentors. In addition, we could offer scholarships to top students. We would then have a central pool of top notch social workers, who would be seconded to the ground and work on the frontlines. But in the course of their careers, they would be able to be rotated to ground work, policy work, supervisory duties and perhaps even academia. That would give leadership within the entire social service sector in Singapore, which will be beneficial to the ground, to the FSCs, to the ministry and NCSS. We will have people like you, with real experience, active in making policies and setting standards. 

But the key point that I want to leave with you is that everything that we do in social work rests in your hands, your conscience, your academic qualifications, and your experience and expertise and, ultimately, the strength and quality of your heart. 

On the web at: 

http://www.thegovmonitor.com/world_news/asia/singapore-outlines-scheme-to-grow-professional-social-workers-44821.html

Zimmerman tributes identify social work values

Gabe Zimmerman, the social worker killed in the Tucson shootings (see my story on 10th January), is collecting tributes in the press, which aside from a credit to him, demonstrates some of the values associated with social work:

National Public Radio says:

Gabe Zimmerman was known "as a conciliator with a deft touch when it came to working with difficult or angry people," Morning Edition's Steve Inskeep noted earlier. Zimmerman, who was engaged to be married, "devoted his life to social work and public service and helping people," a high school friend tells NPR.Giffords' spokesman, C.J. Karamargin, tells the Los Angeles Times that Zimmerman "put his all into his work, he put his all into his life." "Gabe was unfailingly patient with people. He presided over thousands of constituent cases," Karamargin tells the Times. "He was helping World War II vets get medals, people with Medicare benefits, veterans with benefits issues. These are the types of things day-in and day-out he did, and he was determined to just do the best he could. He worked hard, he really worked hard."

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2011/01/10/132804391/arizona-victim-gabe-zimmerman-devoted-his-life-to-social-work

The Arizona Star says:

He offered an example of how to live a life of public service. "He would go out of his way to help people in trouble," recalled Daniel Graver, who worked with him in Giffords' office. "People would come into the congressional office, he would listen to them and give them money for a cab home. Some days during a campaign I would harass him to take a weekend off from his job to work on the campaign. He said to me that if I didn't work, people wouldn't make phone calls but if he didn't work, people didn't eat."

http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/editorial/article_06f98f89-343f-597f-82ba-0c9c7591eaa4.html 

The headline in the Examiner, Tucson, is:

Loss of aide Gabe Zimmerman leaves Giffords office lacking vital humanitarian

Continue reading on Examiner.com: Loss of aide Gabe Zimmerman leaves Giffords office lacking vital humanitarian - Tucson Places & Faces | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/places-faces-in-tucson/loss-of-aide-gabe-zimmerman-leaves-giffords-office-lacking-vital-humanitarian#ixzz1BHmN2DM6

Social work with an education focus helps with finance problems

A report in the St Louis American tells of an initiative by social work students from Washington University:

In remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr., the Society of Black Student Social Workers  at Washington University’s Brown School will host the fifth annual “Financial Freedom Seminar: Recovering From the Recession, Reaching for the Future.” 

The seminar, free and open to the public, is designed for St. Louis community youth and adults interested in building wealth, repairing and maintaining good credit, purchasing a home or starting and expanding a business.

The FDIC recently reported that St. Louis has the highest percentage of unbanked African-American households in the entire country. “This devastating statistic implies that many of our community members are not effectively being connected to quality, financial education resources,” said Jessica Eiland, the event’s co-chair, a society member and a Brown School graduate student.

My comment: This great initiative shows how students can use their knowledge to contribute to serving the community, but especially the importance of helping over managing finances. Some of the more esoteric psycho-type social work needs to keep their feet on the ground. At St Christopher's Hospice, evaluations have shown that seminar-format educational approaches are a good way of getting people to accept help with financial issues - it's non-stigmatising, compared with a problem-based approach, because you say in effect 'everyone need to learn about these issues' rather than 'you've got a problem that we need to sort out'.

On the web: http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/article_2e0ae0a4-1dca-11e0-9652-001cc4c03286.html

Social workers should be part of corrections services

My comment on the following excerpted news report on the Californian corrections system: It's good to see some recognition that if you want to run an effective community corrections system, you need a good leavening of social workers.

The post originally on my UK policy and social work site: http://malcolmpayne.amplify.com

Amplify’d from thecrimereport.org

For the past decade, California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) has been operating in crisis mode.

The catalogue of defects seemed endless. “The recidivism rate [of 67 percent],” the report noted

The reasons for California’s prison crisis, according to the commission, “were complex, yet simple: too much political interference, too much union control, and too little management courage, accountability and transparency.”

In May, 2008, Schwarzenegger named Matthew Cate as his Secretary of Correction

Cate: One of the good things coming out of this bad economy is that [high paying] jobs like California’s corrections officers have become much more coveted.

Typically in California parole agents have been former corrections officers. We still recruit some of those people, but in the next academy class,  between 50 and 70 percent will be from the outside, either from law enforcement or social work backgrounds.

Zimmerman Tucson shooting victim was a social worker

One of the people profiled by whdh TV as a victim of the Tucson shooting was a social worker:

GABE ZIMMERMAN, 30:
Gabe Zimmerman, the director of community outreach for U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, handled thousands of issues raised by constituents out of the congresswoman's offices in Tucson and Sierra Vista. Zimmerman was one of the Giffords staffers who organized many public events where voters could meet Giffords and talk to her about issues. Co-workers say Zimmerman, who had a master's degree in social work, cared passionately about helping people. Zimmerman's mother, Emily Nottingham, said politics was a good fit for him because it combined policy and making a difference for others. "He had a real interest in helping people and had a real caring for social justice," Nottingham said. Zimmerman, who was engaged, had set a wedding date for 2012.

On the web:http://www1.whdh.com/news/articles/national/12003232492888/sketches-of-victims-in-tucson-shooting

My comment: Sorry to hear of Mr Zimmerman's death. It's often said that the constituency work of Members of Parliament in the UK is like social work. I wonder how many MPs actually employ a social worker to to it, like US Representative Giffords? And Ms Nottingham makes another important point about Zimmerman's job, how personal help connects with social justice.

Ruth Morris: social worker makes Hollywood debut

Ruth Morris [is] the body double for a key, one-armed character in [a new film, 'True Grit',] the Coens' version of the classic Charles Portis novel about flinty 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), who hires crusty U.S. Marshal Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to track down her father's killer.Warm and outgoing, Morris was born with only one arm in a car in Houston 29 years ago. She was doing social work at Advanced Arm Dynamics in Irving when a nationwide casting call went out for a woman of about her height and body type with a missing left upper limb.Now studying for a doctorate at the University of Texas School of Public Health in San Antonio, Morris had done some stage work and was on the dance team at San Marcos High School.

From the web: http://www.austin360.com/recreation/ruth-morris-a-social-worker-who-helps-amputees-292398.html


My comment: Great to see the flexibility and range of skills that social workers can put to good use.

Moving between academic and management in social work

A Kentucky newspaper:

Mayor Jim Gray announced the appointments of three new city commissioners on Tuesday.
[including]...Beth Mills commissioner of social services...Mills also is returning to city hall, this time as commissioner of the department where she worked for more than 14 years. Since 2004, she has worked at the University of Kentucky as a faculty member and director of field education for the College of Social Work.

Read more: http://www.kentucky.com/2011/01/05/1586972/gray-appoints-commissioners-for.html#more#ixzz1AMVH21y4

My comment: Wouldn't it be great if British local authorities and universities made it possible for senior staff to move back and forth between academic and management posts? We should question some of the pressures that make careers that cross this line almost impossible.

Katherine Kendall, international social work guru, dies

Katherine Kendall died at 100 during December. She was a major figure in international social work as general secretary and then in honorary positions in the International Association of Schools of Social Work.

Scottish-born, she had an idyllic country childhood, moving to Chicago with her parents during the first world war. She experienced the depression of the 1930s at first hand, then moved into international work, being an early appointee at the UN. She was an outstanding secretary of the IASSW and occupied honorary positions in that organisation in retirement.

She also wrote many papers and books about various aspects of international social work and the history of social work.

You can find more at: http://www.ifsw.org/p38002204.html

Do scare tactics improve mental health spending?

Jennifer Stuber, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Washington, stood up for sensible ways of explaining the needs of people with mental health problems. She criticised a trade union newspaper for coverage of expenditure cuts in mental health services that stigmatised mentally ill people. 'Don't look now or you may be killed' was justified by the union as a way of drawing attention to the risk that mentally ill people may go untreated.

But mental health campaigners sided with Stuber's view that we need a more positive dialogue about people with mental health difficulties and alternative ways of raising concerns about the outcomes of expenditure cuts.

My comment: With cost-cutting a major feature of politics world-wide, we need to join with Jennifer to makke sure that campaigning does not demonise our clients, and damage the job we're trying to do.

News from Crosscut.com, a Seattle news service:
http://crosscut.com/2011/01/05/social-services/20515/Can-scare-tactics-sell-the-state-on-mental-health-funding-/