NIASW Report - July/August 2013

In another hectic month representing you and the social work profession, we have continued to investigate the situation of agency pay and are preparing to go public on a major issue. NIASW will be blowing the lid on the Northern Ireland-wide scandal of social workers being forced to work for £13,000 a year. So watch this space.

NIASW’s report wins backing: The NIASW report, ‘Reducing Bureaucracy in Child Care Social Work’, has been endorsed by the Social Work Strategy Steering Group at the Department of Health Social Services and Public Safety (DHSSPS) and will be incorporated into the Ten Year Social Work Strategy currently being developed. We are delighted to have been able to represent the voice of the profession at the very highest level and even more delighted that this voice has been heard. So those of you in adult services who have not made it to one of our consultation workshops yet, please make the effort – it really is worth it.

Innovation fund: The recently launched Innovation Fund is the first product of the Ten Year Social Work Strategy and is designed to capture all the creative solutions to two major problems: Reducing bureaucracy and improving social work assessment.

We will be making bids to this service and urge you all to do the same, to get money to fund the changes that you want to make.

Meeting NI social work leaders: As part of our on-going work to increase the profile of NIASW Carolyn Ewart has met with the new Chief Executive of NISCC, Collum Conway, the President of the Irish Association of Social Workers, Ineke Durville and a NAPO representative, Fiona Vaughn. She has also attended round table discussions organised by the DHSSPS with ministers Poots and Ford to discuss Early Authoritative Interventions.

Separately, we had an opportunity to meet and celebrate with social workers who have gained post-qualifying awards – a very well done to you all from NIASW – and to discuss the issues members raised with is us at the NISCC Registrants Committee.