SASW Responds to Herald Articles on Child Poverty
This past week, The Herald featured a report by One Parent Families Scotland (OPFS) which brings attention to how the social security system acts against family reunification.
While we entirely agree with many of the issues and recommendations highlighted in the report, we were dismayed by the framing in the Herald article which over-simplified the relationship between poverty and the difficult, yet vital, decisions about safety and risk that professionals must sometimes make with families.
In collaboration with Social Work Scotland, we have sent the following response to The Herald highlighting social workers’ commitment to supporting children and families: bit.ly/45VnMTn
You can also find the important report by OPFS here.
LETTERS
We must tackle root causes of poverty to keep children out of care
27th August
RECENT articles are right to highlight poverty as a major problem in Scotland; a root cause of much hardship, conflict and trauma. Poverty is a major factor in bringing families to the attention of public services. However, we were disappointed to read The Big Read article ("How Scottish children are ending up in care ... for being born poor", August 20), which over-simplified the relationship between poverty and the difficult, important decisions about safety and risk that professionals must make with families, day in, day out.
We agree entirely with much of One Parent Families Scotland’s report. The report is a shocking read about how the social security system acts against family reunification. It can be incredibly hard for parents and families to fight the challenges which arise from poverty – including poor mental health, addiction issues and neglect. Children and their families should have the support they need to navigate themselves to more stable waters.
Catriona Stewart’s recognition of the trauma of family separation on everyone in a family is accurate ("We need to talk about parents of kids in care", August 22). Our communities are living through critical and difficult times, and life for some families can feel extremely precarious. We all want families to stay together, and the balancing act between protecting children from harm and having the tools and resources to support families is an incredibly difficult one.
These two articles confirm the need for action in two key areas:
• Social security that supports families to remain together through challenging periods, and when separation of a child from a parent is necessary, then facilitates family reunification.
• Social work services that are made accessible as soon as some support is needed, not restricted to crisis response. By destigmatising involvement with social work, and giving social workers enough time to do the work they are trained to do, more families can be kept together, and flourish.
Social workers are committed to The Promise, and supporting children and families. That has been evidenced by their willing collaboration on an individual and collective level. But the bigger, and more fundamental issue here is that without the right action and resources to tackle poverty at its root causes, our society’s care system will have to continue responding to poverty’s effects.
Alison Bavidge, National Director of SASW (The Scottish Association of Social Work and Social Workers), Glasgow, and Ben Farrugia, Director of Social Work Scotland, Edinburgh.