Following pressure from a number of concerned groups including BASW, the UK Border Agency has been forced to suspend a dental x-ray pilot scheme to determine the age of child asylum seekers.
BASW has welcomed the advertising of a vacancy for the position of chief social worker within the Westminster government.
BASW has highlighted the pressures facing social work teams in the wake of Torbay’s children’s services coming under the spotlight for the fact that two out of five children at risk are not being...
The Northern Ireland Association of Social Workers has welcomed the publication of a strategy for the profession but again emphasised the need for more to be done about excessive bureaucracy and...
Commenting on Cafcass figures showing that the number of local council care applications has passed 10,000 for the first time.
Social work’s global manifesto for promoting social and economic equality, the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social Development, was officially received on behalf of the United Nations in New...
The important role of independent social workers in family court proceedings won support from a high court judge at a Family Justice Review Public Summit.
The Department of Health (DoH) is inviting BASW members to comment on how better to support families who are worried that a loved one is at risk, and also those who are coping with the aftermath of a...
A Public Law Summit on the Family Justice Review (FJR) heard an upbeat assessment of the potential for an “effective, powerful College of Social Work”.
BASW has welcomed aspects of an Ofsted report into the causes of delays in the adoption system, a document that found adoptive parents to be happy with the overall service offered by professionals.
BASW has restated its reservations about the dangers of integration as the UK’s largest merger of local authority and NHS care services prepares to go live.
BASW has set out the four cornerstones for improving the effectiveness of serious case reviews, following sharp government criticisms of the serious case review (SCR) into the case of two boys who...
Social workers should resist “becoming de-politicised and part of the status quo” and must not be afraid of reclaiming community work even though it has a reputation as “too radical”, a leading...
Welcoming this morning’s announcement that dementia funding is to be more than doubled by 2015.
Social workers should be given a more integral role in supporting teams of workers who assist with natural disasters and humanitarian emergencies.
Disillusioned by the “process bound approach” of working for a local authority, a social worker has told BASW England’s World Social Work Day event how setting up as an independent social worker had...
The social work profession was unable to exist in the Soviet Union and has only been able to establish itself over the past two decades, BASW Cymru’s World Social Work Day celebration in Cardiff was...
Social workers and students at BASW Cymru’s WSWD event in Cardiff Bay have heard how the increasingly widespread problem of human trafficking can only be tackled by integrated thinking and a detailed...
Mental health officer Sandy Watt won the Scottish Association of Social Work’s (SASW’s) Social Worker of the Year award for 2012, a reward for his 20 years as a “model professional”.
Social workers must recognise the key role their profession can play in the ongoing fight for social justice, attendees at a Westminster launch of the Global Agenda for Social Work and Social...
As social workers mark World Social Work Day today, the British Association of Social Workers (BASW) issues a warning about a twin threat to both the profession in England, and to service users.
The philosophy of social pedagogy is largely alien to the UK’s care system, yet as social workers mark World Social Work Day, it is a good time to consider how much we could learn from how the...
Some asylum seekers in Scotland are being left destitute and social workers must play a role in ensuring their wellbeing, delegates to SASW’s World Social Work Day conference have heard.
World Social Work Day (WSWD) offers a chance to link social workers throughout the UK with colleagues around the world who are working, and have worked, to support those in need, delegates to the...
Social workers should absorb BASW’s revised Code of Ethics, published in January this year, and use it in all aspects of their work, professionals at a Scottish Association of Social Work (SASW –...
Social workers have been warned by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC) to ensure they do not do anything in their private lives that could call into question their suitability to practise.
Plans to integrate Scotland’s health and social care services by 2014 must learn lessons from similar efforts elsewhere in the world where successes and failures highlight the perils of attempting to...
BASW Cymru has described plans to legislate to legally enshrine the role of social workers in specific tasks, including adult and child protection work, as “an extremely welcome and positive step for...
BASW has expressed concern that senior figures in social care aren’t “prepared to rock the boat” and tackle the culture revealed by a Which? report.
Practitioners from across the public and voluntary sector gathered in the Long Gallery of Parliament Buildings, Stormont – home of the Northern Ireland Assembly – to celebrate World Social Work Day...
The Scottish government has written to the Scottish Association of Social Work (SASW – part of BASW) to indicate that it will press on with plans to abolish prison visiting committees but will...
The Scottish Association of Social Work (SASW – part of BASW) has reiterated its concerns about wholesale restructuring of health and social care after it was criticised in the Scottish parliament by...
Early intervention with families of infant children living in high-risk child protection situations has a proven impact on outcomes and can dramatically reduce public spending on future offenders.
BASW Cymru has urged the Welsh government to offer the people who use social services the additional safeguard of ensuring that the employers of social workers are legally required to give adequate...
A former pub and club bouncer who went on to become a social worker has been recognised with a prestigious lifetime achievement award for his work with disadvantaged people.
Most children in care believe their lives are better for being removed from their families but want more support in making the transition to adulthood, according to a report.
Securing post-qualifying qualifications can help make social workers more resistent to burnout, initial findings from research into building resilience amongst social workers in Northern Ireland has...
BASW has responded to the latest government plans to reform the adoption system in England by insisting that a child’s right to the best possible outcome should not be sacrificed in a “knee-jerk”...
Ofsted has now revealed that adoption breakdown will be factored into inspections, despite no reference to this issue when it announced that only local authorities who place children for adoption...
BASW has endorsed the views of Graham Hodkinson, director of Adult Services at Wirral Council, in which he emphasised the importance of social work in the local authority’s future performance.