As the Coalition settled in, it was announced that the General Social Care Council, the English workforce regulator, would be abolished and its duty to register social workers passed to the HPC (Health Professions Council) – probably with a change of name to acknowledge the wider role. I wrote to the Minister and wrote a piece for the Guardian objecting to this loss.
This was not a quango that was created on a whim to be dispatched on a whim but the culmination of years of work by representatives of professional associations, companies, organisations and local authorities. The Care Standards Act 2000 and wider UK law brought four Councils into being, all of which have proceeded to register people practising in social care beyond just social workers – all except England.
Residential child care workers in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are required to register to practise. The primary purpose put forward for the Councils was to protect the public, although the Social Care Association and the Institute of Childcare and Social Education would argue that a central function of any worker in this sector is to protect the people they serve from harm. We congratulate these Councils for their diligence. The secondary (and in our view) more important purpose was to raise the status of the social care worker in order to recognise the importance of what they do.
SCA began in 1949 as the Houseparents Association, the forerunners of residential child care workers, and the prospect of registration to practise was a culmination to much of the work. In England the task was much bigger and more complicated with a total workforce of more than 1.5 million people, only 8% of which were social workers.
We still need to be regulated to validate the critically important work we do. When the social worker has done the visit and gone home, it is provider workers in residential child care who continue to deal with the stresses of that young person’s life through the twenty-four hours of the day until the next contact. Many young people who have benefited from excellent support from a residential child care worker will say how the experience changed their life for the better.
ICSE and SCA exist to support residential workers in their job from practice guidance to legal help and insurance and employment support. We particularly want to assist people to practise well and to be ready and able to challenge shortcomings before they require a Serious Case Review. Members describe the benefit of having face-to-face contact with people who live and work in the same sector in which they work, and the occasional need for that to be off-line and away from the main employer.
We believe registration is still needed, and we think you should have the support of a professional association. Let us know your view and think about joining ICSE/SCA. For as little as £50 a year.
Nick Johnson is the Chief Executive of the Social Care Association, which incorporates the Institute of Childcare and Social Education.