Photo: Community Care
Loading…Recent Research by Social Work England found that of 2,120 respondents, 75% disagreed that social workers are valued in society.
Despite this previous research to the regulator found that 74% of around 3,000 adults in England believed that social workers wanted the best for people. 62% of them felt that social workers have also had a significant impact on people’s lives.
So how accurate is the profession’s view of its public?
A Community Care survey of almost 800 responses found that most practitioners believed that the majority opinion of social work was correct and that the profession was indeed undervalued by society.
Only 4% said this was not true.
Media descriptions “the biggest influence on the image of the profession”
This section of Social Work England’s survey also garnered the most free text responses – 1,462 – of which the vast majority (88%) were negative.
Most of the respondents also said that the main reason for society’s bad opinion of social work was media portrayals of the profession.
“I think people have a huge misunderstanding of what social workers do,” said one respondent.
“Social work definitely has an image problem, which complicates our already difficult work. I blame the media representatives for this. I’ve never seen remotely accurate social workers in the media.”
Last year Social Work England started a campaign urges television and film producers “changing the script” for how they portray the profession on screen.
Celebrate those who have inspired you
Photo by Daniel Laflor/peopleimages.com/ AdobeStock
Do you have a colleague, mentor or social worker for whom you cannot help but thank?
Our My Brilliant Colleague series invites you to celebrate all the people in social work who have inspired you – whether they are current or former colleagues, supervisors, students, lecturers, mentors or notable figures past or present in the field that you have admired from afar.
Nominate your colleague or social work inspiration by filling out our nomination form with a few paragraphs (100-250 words) explaining how and why the person has inspired you.
*Please note that although you must provide your name and role, you or the candidate may be anonymous in the posted job*
If you have any questions, please email our Community Editor Anastasia Koutsounia at [email protected]