Working from home could be contributing to social workers quitting

Remote working could be contributing to social workers leaving the profession due to feeling isolated, BASW’s chief executive Ruth Allen has warned.

Allen was speaking in wake of troubling findings from The BASW Annual Survey of Social Workers and Social Work 2023 highlighting increasing vacancies.

It found two-thirds of social workers have noticed more experienced practitioners quitting over the last year.

More than nine in ten say this is having a negative impact on the workplace and practice. Inadequate staffing levels also emerged as the biggest workplace challenge for the first time in the annual survey.

Speaking during a BASW webinar to discuss the findings last month, Allen suggested home working could be having a negative impact on the mental health of social workers.

“One of the issues around experienced people leaving [the profession] links to the post-Covid working environment where people are still working to a large extent online and working flexibly,” she said.

“That obviously gives people more choice, but also involves dealing with the isolation that can come as a result - and not working in a team, not working with colleagues."

Allen stressed such contact was important for social work to thrive and was especially needed by newly qualified staff.

“Authorities are working in different ways to bring people back into the office space and being physically with their colleagues. If you’re less experienced and need particular advice or information, in an office you can go to somebody more experienced – there’s that informal peer and group supervision context.

“There is something about the human connection and relationships with colleagues that is restorative and allows you to be emotionally available with the people you’re working with.”

A snapshot survey by PSW in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic in 2021 found 91 per cent of social workers said they were mainly working from home and 58 per cent expected this to continue. Only 6.6 per cent expected to go back to being mainly office-based.

However, according to Nicola McGowan, principal social worker for children’s services in East Sussex, many social workers were now finding working from home a positive experience having made the adjustment. 

Speaking during a Social Work England webinar about recruiting and retaining the children’s workforce she said: “At the beginning of Covid the issues about hybrid working were massive. People were just so distraught and feeling isolated.

“We've just done our latest survey, and actually people's feelings around their work-life balance are massively improved and our retention rate has really improved as well.

“The benefit of hybrid work is taking a long time for people to get accustomed to. It’s really helped those that have some childcare responsibilities to create a bit more flex into their day. I think that's really paying off for us.” 

Allen said it was vital to get more data on why people were leaving social work and where they were going.

Latest figures from the Department for Education show a turnover rate of 15.9 per cent among local authority children’s social workers in England for the year to 30 September 2023.

Nearly one in ten of (9.3 per cent) left the social work workforce altogether; 2.8 per cent moved to an agency and 3.8 per cent to another local authority.

BASW’s survey also reveals social workers' belief that the public have a low opinion of them could also be contributing to people leaving. Changing this was identified as the second most important thing they want BASW to focus on, behind campaigning for higher pay and better work conditions.

But Allen said there was evidence to suggest that the public's perception of social work is not as bad as those in the profession think.

This was underlined in research by regulator Social Work England last month. It showed that while only one in ten social workers think they are well respected in society, 44 per cent of the public believe social workers are respected. 

Allen suggested the public’s image of social work in the UK was skewed by a media “preoccupation” with child protection.

“I think we have to look at what’s happened in some other countries where the role of social workers is more widely in the public’s consciousness,” she said.

Allen added social work also suffered from not being as known as a profession by the public. “So often you are not seen and not heard for the difficulties you are having. Other public professions with similar problems see themselves more frequently in the media or in drama or in fiction.”

BASW’s chair Julia Ross said the BASW survey highlighted a sense of social work being “invisible” which needed addressing.

“There are risks in doing that, but there are risks in not doing it,” she said. “We will have a really long think about how we can make ourselves more visible because everything that we do is in the public interest, but somehow that is not always grasped.”

BASW member Omar Mohamed said there was a need for the public to be clearer about the profession’s role.

“Social workers aren't superheroes, and we shouldn’t be expected to be superheroes,” he said. “We need to be realistic about what social workers can and cannot do. Unfortunately, we don't have superpowers and yet we are expected to do a very tough job that can leave us feeling traumatised.”