NIASW report – February 2014

As you will have seen in last month’s PSW, NIASW has been carrying out a major investigation into agency social work pay. We have been shocked by the discovery that hundreds of social workers are being forced to take on jobs earning just £6.75 per hour.

The only agency paying this rate is FIRST CHOICE SELECTION (FCS) recruitment agency. Our view is that this is simply unacceptable and we continue to work to bring this untenable situation to an end.

At a student careers fair in Queens University in December NIASW staff urged the students not to sign up with First Choice Selection; we understand that people need jobs but if FCS have no social workers to provide employers then they will be forced to review their pay structure. All the other agencies approved by the trusts pay significantly more so let’s work together to stamp out this situation.

Social work strategy
NIASW continues to be very involved in the Social Work Strategy 2012-22, led by the Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety.

NIASW Manager Carolyn Ewart is on the Steering Group as the Registrants representative and on the Implementation Group too. Anne McAllister represents NIASW on the Professionals Forum.

We are determined to ensure that the social work voice is at the heart of the strategy, a view supported by Noelle Barton, Implementation Manager for the project. We are therefore setting up the NIASW Reference Group for the Social Work Strategy, which will offer a way to ensure that your views are central to the end result.

Anne McAllister will lead this group, which will operate on a largely virtual basis; we will set up several face-to-face meetings throughout the year but appreciate how difficult it is to get time away from work. We would like to ensure that we have a wide spread of social workers from all levels within organisations, from every programme of care and with a wide geographical spread. Anne will then feed this information directly into the Professional Forum.

We already have some of you signed up so if you want to get involved please email Anne. It is a once in lifetime opportunity to influence the direction of social work, so please get involved.

Adult safeguarding in Northern Ireland
Adult safeguarding is a relatively new and developing concept in Northern Ireland. In recent years the number of reported cases has risen sharply in line with increased awareness of safeguarding in adult services. Recurring investment has allowed each trust to employ Trust Adult Safeguarding Specialists and additional support staff.

NIASW recently co-hosted an event with the Northern Ireland Adult Safeguarding Partnership (NIASP), the first combined initiative between our two organisations. This event, Adult Safeguarding, Sharing the Lessons from Complex Cases, was planned in response to an identified need to share the learning from complex cases across the region.

As the level of understanding and knowledge of adult safeguarding has developed, so the definition of a complex case has similarly progressed from situations involving multiple victims to a much more complex and wide ranging set of circumstances and challenges.

NIASP is in the process of considering the introduction of serious case reviews in Northern Ireland and this event was enhanced by the input from keynote speaker Margaret Flynn who has extensive experience of conducting such investigations across a range of situations and circumstances.

Trust Adult Safeguarding Specialists offered local experience and useful lessons learned around issues such as unexplained deaths, supported living for people with learning disabilities and financial abuse. The event concluded with an afternoon workshop which examined whether NIASP and NIASW should consider developing a process or system whereby learning from complex cases could be shared more easily among individuals and organisations involved in adult safeguarding.

It also examined suggestions for how this system could be developed and delivered.