The inaugural conference of CISWA-UK, the Confederation of Independent Social Workers, which took place on 24th June in Birmingham, heard from a range of prominent speakers, all of whom extolled the virtues of independent social work. It was an up-beat occasion attended by ISWs, legal professionals and representatives from the voluntary sector.
Dame Gillian Pugh from the Family Justice Review team, expressed regret that the team’s report, published last month, had unfairly singled out ISWs for criticism when discussing the issues of delay and cost of independent experts.
This was heartening to hear, for the absence of any evidence based data regarding the role of ISWs in the family court system is entirely lacking. In it’s place anecdote and in some cases prejudice has dominated the debate. Dame Gillian made it clear that the Family Justice Review team were in no way suggesting this was the end for independent social workers and they had a valuable role to play in the future.
In her speech, Dr Julia Brophy, Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University, made it clear that the lack of objective evidence about the role and value of ISWs in the family courts made some criticisms about their use unreliable. Conversely Dr Brophy made the point that evidence regarding the lack of a core assessment in 40% of s31 care applications was well established.
Dr Brophy, who has been commissioned by CISWA to undertake research into the role and function of ISWs in the family courts, urged policy makers to await the findings of her evaluation before implementing changes to the family justice system.
Judith Timms spoke eloquently about the issues affecting children in the family courts and how their rights risked being eroded further as a result of Cafcass’s policy of so called proportionality.
Indeed, a theme frequently repeated during the conference was the incremental erosion of the role of the Children’s Guardian since the inception of Cafcass. Indeed, many of the experienced and skilled Guardians previously working for Cafcass are now practicing as ISWs.
Professor Eileen Munro provided a fascinating presentation setting out her vision for the future of child protection social work. In it she advocated for the removal of bureaucracy and meaningless timescales so social workers could be set free to undertake work with families rather than sitting in front of computers.
It was noted from the floor that this is the way in which independent social work practitioners have been operating for many years and if this opportunity could be opened up to local authority workers then this has to be good for the children they are working with.
Mark Willis CISWA-UK Chair
