The current status of social work in Scotland. [2022]
Key points
• The social worker title is protected. Before practicing as a social worker you must pass a qualifying course and register with the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC). At 2021 there were 10,987 social workers registered with the SSSC. Of these, 6235 work in local authorities.
• Social work is a unique profession that takes a holistic view of the person and, through relationship-based practice, has a role to play in reducing health inequalities, ensuring public protection, promoting social justice, upholding human rights and in challenging discrimination. Social workers seek to build relationships with people through which they can better understand the individual or families’ circumstances and needs, and then through continued engagement and advocacy, secure for those individuals and families supports to live the lives they want to live.
• Social workers have a key role in protecting human rights. However, the statutory responsibility placed on social workers can create the circumstances where an individual’s liberty may be restricted. Social workers are duty bound to challenge practice and structures which are not consistent with equity, equality, and human rights.
• Functionally, social work in Scotland is delivered through three strands (specialisms): Justice, Children’s and Adults. However, people’s lives do not sit neatly in such strands, and the holistic approach of social work acknowledges, for example, that an adult with support needs may also be part of a family with children, on whom the adult’s support needs will have an impact. Or an individual might be moving out of childhood into adulthood, navigating the transition between the ‘child / adult’ structures of many public services. Or an individual might be serving a Community Order following an offence, requiring the supervision of a social worker, but at the same time they have other needs which require support, such as housing, substance use, parenting, etc. People’s lives are complex, and social workers are the professionals designated to work with that complexity.
• On 20 June 2022 the National Care Service (Scotland) Bill was introduced to parliament, its primary objective being to improve the quality and consistency of social services in Scotland. Within, there is a coherent case for realigning social work professional practice with an early intervention and prevention agenda, building on policy intent and universally supported within the Independent Review of Adult Social Care in Scotland (Feeley 2021) and The Promise.