Heroes of a generation: how five social work students experiencing hardship took on the system… and won
Published by Professional Social Work magazine, 10 August, 2022
Matthew Davies confesses he nearly dropped out of his Master’s in social work due to financial struggles.
But he stayed the course and together with his peers achieved a monumental increase in support for future students studying to be social workers in Wales.
What is even more impressive about the campaign he launched with four fellow Cardiff University students is that none of them will themselves see any benefit – they all graduated this year.
But they have helped put in place a package that will ensure no other social work students in Wales will have to go through what they did to obtain their degree.
Increased support of up to £3,750 a year for undergraduates and £12,851 a year for postgraduates was announced by the Welsh government in July. The increases mark a substantial rise in the Social Work Bursary, which for undergraduates used to be £2,500 a year and for postgraduates £6,640 a year, failing to cover course fees let alone living expenses
The success is down to the combined efforts of the Cardiff Masters Social Work Group, BASW Cymru, the Social Workers Union and students across Wales.
The hardship faced by social work students first came to light during the pandemic.
Matthew said: “The cohort reps on our course put a questionnaire together. We wanted to see how people were doing. Right at the bottom, we asked if there was anything else worrying people, and 80 per cent of respondents said finances.”
Social work students are often holding down jobs alongside their studies. Meanwhile, healthcare students in Wales recently received a £227 million boost to education and training.
At a time when applications to universities across the UK are plummeting, and vacancies in social care are soaring, the need for newly qualified social workers has never been greater.
Matthew says: “I was working a job, leaving at seven in the morning and coming home at 5.30pm then doing several hours on assignments. I had to borrow money, was working weekends to pay my bills, then there was Covid, and the cost of living crisis. There were times when I was close to dropping out.”
Abyd Quinn Aziz, social work programme director at Cardiff University, said: “I remember one student coming to class in her work uniform, and I asked her, 'Are you going to work afterwards?' and she said, 'No, I’ve just come from a night shift'.
“I was regularly seeing students turning up completely wiped out. And this is a tough course. We work them hard.
“We have had people drop out, and people who didn’t even take up the offer of a place – nearly a fifth, in fact, turned down offers due to money worries.”
Rules attached to the old bursary meant students who accepted it were not able to apply to Student Finance. This meant one student, Jules, ended up doing two MA degrees concurrently, just to be able to afford to get herself through her social work MA.
She said: “I literally spent two years struggling to do two full-time masters programmes at once, because it was the only way I could afford to qualify as a social worker.”
Matthew and his fellow students alerted Social Care Wales, BASW Cymru and the Social Workers Union, joining forces with fellow students from Bangor and Swansea universities. They wrote letters to politicians and finally launched a petition which gained more than 400 signatures and was considered at government level.
Describing himself as “broke” as he completes his course, Matthew says: “As a group, we all said we wanted to be the last cohort who would qualify in these circumstances.”
Abyd adds: “It was the petition that clinched it. They knew it wouldn’t benefit them, but they did it anyway.”
BASW Cymru's national director, Allison Hulmes, said: “I would like to thank the Cardiff MASW students for their brilliant campaign - which has no doubt been a key driver in this recent announcement – and wish them every success in their future social work careers.”
SWU general secretary John McGowan said, “The Social Workers Union applauds the decision to provide social work students with enhanced financial support and the altruism of these future social workers who have uplifted the cohorts that will train after them. The recruitment, training, and retention of students is critical to ensuring the future of social work.”