Getting political attention for high workloads in Massachusetts

Massachusetts social workers are still campaigning over the inefficiencies and poor quality care resulting from high caseloads and inadequate resourcing of social work. they were able to give evidence of a lot of problems to a political audit panel. I don't hear a lot of this sort of evidence coming to political notice in other countries, or locally, but social services are under pressure everywhere.

Link to the Massachusetts press report

Social work strike in LA leads to promises of extra recruitment

For many social workers around the world, striking is unimaginable, partly because of the concern for professional responsibilities, but also partly because you can't imagine many governments being all that concerned if they couldn't offer their social services. However, in Los Angeles County, social workers have been on strike, partly for a pay rise, but the internet media coverage has largely been about excessive workloads. And it is broadly positive to the social workers, also unimaginable in social work-hating UK. One of the outcomes of the strike has been the promise to recruit hundreds of extra workers. Hard to imagine that happening in cuts-hit Britain, in spite of the occasional moral panic about child abuse. I see from photos of the strikers, however, that 'child safety now' is an important slogan. Perhaps this is increasingly the social work equivalent of doctors 'shroud-waving'.

Picture by  Mel Melcon, Los Angeles Times.

Press reports: LA Times; South California Public Radio

Revolting social workers: workload pressures are universal and we should express concerns.

Social workers are revolting again, it seems. Here is a press report about Whitinsville (a small town somewhere in Massachusetts), where there social workers are protesting about high caseloads. See: banners and marches.

Does this mean that the stereotype of social workers all being oppressive agents of the state is wrong? Or the stereotype that they're  all left-wing radicals is right? Or is it just producer interests dominating the local government concern for getting on with the job?

You can stereotype all such actions, and the press report from the Milford Daily News only gives the practitioners' side: obviously someone where has a good eye for press relations.

But whatever, professionals are entitled to make the case for adequate resources, and it's right that the public should be aware of their failure to pay enough taxes to support services that if they thought about it most people would think are necessary. It's a worldwide (and continuing) problem, but that doesn't mean that when it comes up (again and again and again) we should just accept the imposition of uncaring niggardliness in providing serviecs, which need to be thoughtful, flexible and responsive to need.

Link to the press report