Speaking up for vulnerable people is at core of social work, says Welsh Minister

If social work fails to speak out for people struggling on society’s margins it loses something “intrinsically important” to itself, the man responsible for social services in Wales said.

Speaking at the BASW Cymru Social Work Awards in Cardiff, Mark Drakeford said social workers had to speak up for those whose voices would otherwise not be heard.

And he maintained the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act due to come into force next April represented a “new bargain” between the state and citizen that recognised the assets and strengths rather than deficits that people have.

The Minister for Health and Social Services said: “We have succeeded in putting an Act on the statute book that will change the nature of social work practice in Wales and allow us to sustain a form of social work that is particularly important to us.

“A social work practice that aligns itself firmly with the needs, views and experiences of those vulnerable people who use social work services. That sees itself as an occupation that has a responsibility to speak up on behalf of those people and the difficult experiences they have and the way these experiences are made even more difficult by some of the decisions made around them.

“If social work isn’t a voice for these people they go without a voice and social work loses something intrinsically important to itself as an occupation and in the motivation of those people who set out in life to become social workers.”

Mr Drakeford added the state’s responsibility was “not to rob” people of their strengths and assets but to “reinforce them” to help individuals gain control over their lives.

“In making that happen we have this new bargain between the citizen and the state and the user and provider in which we recognise the expertise that users of services bring to this relationship.

"There are lots of other parts of public service including the health service that can learn from how social work has understood that people who use services are experts in their own lives and make a contribution to putting things right that need to be put right.”

Addressing around 100 social workers attending the ceremony in Cardiff’s Pierhead Building, Mr Drakeford thanked them for “providing the lifeline” for people when their lives had “lost some of those anchors the rest of us rely on”.