BASW UK holds ‘Social Work Stands Against Poverty’ event in Parliament
BASW invited parliamentarians, members, and colleagues from the anti-poverty campaigning sector to join us to learn about the ‘Social Work Stands Against Poverty’ campaign.
Attendees heard from multiple speakers including:
- Shadow Children’s Minister, Helen Hayes MP
- David Simmonds MP
- Omar Mohamed, BASW member
- Jonny Adamson, Communications Officer for BASW UK
- Dr Ruth Allen, BASW UK Chief Executive
- Julia Ross, BASW UK Chair
We were pleased to welcome along parliamentarians to the event, including Catherine West MP, Cat Smith MP, Paulette Hamilton MP, Peter Bottomley MP, David Linden MP, Virendra Sharma MP and Andy McDonald MP.
Social worker Omar Mohamed spoke about his own lived experience of poverty and how it has impacted on his work as a social worker. He said:
“When I was about 13 years old I was living in a garage with my mum and my two younger siblings. It took me an hour-and-a-half to get to school, the garage had mould in it, the health issues caused by the mould made it difficult in terms of my asthma. It was difficult seeing my mum extremely stressed dealing with paying bills and buying food. That made me stressed as a child and it became really difficult to live like my peers.”
“Poverty was never put on a child protection plan. It was never [seen as] the thing that was the reason and root cause of all the difficulties I was facing as a child.
“Becoming a social worker, I told myself I would never be like my social workers, that I would definitely see poverty as the root cause of the problem and be able to address that, empower and advocate with people when it comes to tackling poverty as the root cause. But even as a social worker today I find that difficult and so I can only empathise with my social workers in terms of why they didn't help. Because how can social workers help? We have structures and policies in place that don't support poverty as the root cause.
“There is so much more we can do in the policy-making arena to really support children, families and adults across this country to tackle poverty, because poverty is the problem and it's not something we can magically wave away - we need to actively fight it and it needs to be something that is done collaboratively.”
Helen Elizabeth Hayes, Labour MP for Dulwich and West Norwood and Shadow Minister for Children and Early Years, said:
“The elephant in the room in any discussion on the challenges facing the most vulnerable children is poverty - 4.2 million children are now living in poverty in the UK, an increase of 600,000 children in the last decade, with sharper increases amongst lone parent families and families with more than one child. Poverty bears down on families with crushing weight, it makes it harder for parents to meet the needs of their children, it increases the prevalence of violence in the home and it worsens parental mental health. Poverty stretches families to breaking point.
Hayes highlighted BASW’s 2022 annual survey published earlier this year showing three quarters of social workers responding believe the families they work with are being driven deeper into poverty.
She added: “It's no wonder that the increasing level of need is straining social workers and children services department across the country. Social worker vacancies are increasing as caseloads are rising. More than 5,000 social workers left the profession last year, the first time in many years the number of people leaving the sector outnumbered new starters. This is a worrying loss of skilled and experienced staff, but unsurprising when half of social workers feel unable to manage their workload and have experienced abuse while at work.”
BASW UK also launched the latest version of its Anti-Poverty Practice Guide which was available for attendees to view along with a briefing pack including our ‘Spotlight on Poverty’ factsheets that have been created as part of the campaign.
Commenting, BASW CEO, Dr Ruth Allen said: “BASW has been campaigning on poverty really since the 1970s. Social work is absolutely embedded in relieving people of their social and practical problems as much as their emotional interpersonal problems. Poverty is so marginalising and alienating and we have prioritised it as a key area of campaigning and we will continue to do so.”
The anti-poverty practice guide is just one part of BASW’s anti-poverty campaign and, as the country moves ever close to a General Election, BASW will keep campaigning to ensure that poverty remains on the political agenda.
