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OK Social Work?

A guest post by Jude Douglas

For years when I was working in statutory child protection I didn’t easily admit to being a social worker. There was a sense of shame for me personally about the control aspects of the work and also, people’s ideas of what a social worker was were hazy at best and often just downright wrong. So I just put my head down and did the job. Several years ago and about the time I was moving to broader level roles and when the debates about registration and professionalisation were really ramping up I decided that there was an opportunity to reclaim the title of social worker and own it, and put out there what we did. This was without a strong media interest in issues around social care – it’s still that way unless of course there’s a disaster – then there’s a baying of hounds for a while and the silence resumes.

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The ‘New Normal’?

A guest post by Mike O’Brien

The focus for the last few weeks has been on health (containing/eliminating the virus) and the economy – getting business going again. These priorities are what are seen to matter, even to the extent that last weekend one commentator argued that “the very basis of our society is business” (Sunday Start Times, April 12). Health matters, the economy matters, but is that all that matters?

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Coronavirus is a Crisis of Neoliberal Capitalism – A Social Work Perspective.

A guest post by John Darroch

As we experience growing social and economic harm resulting from the coronavirus outbreak it may seem tempting to put political questions aside. After all, this is a human crisis, and one which requires immediate action. But the scale of this crisis, and the harm we are experiencing, is a result of our economic system. The fear and stress that we are feeling about losing our jobs, about not having sick leave, about paying our rent, are not individual crises. They are not crises caused by our individual actions. Nor are they the inevitable result of a global pandemic. This is a crisis of capitalism.

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An Alternative History of Social Work or Is Registration worth it?

A guest post by Jackie Newton.

Jackie identifies as a feminist and a socialist. In this post she reflects on her social work practice journey over most of forty years (1978-2018) – in and against the state – with DSW, CYPS, Health at all levels, NGOs – in cities, provincial towns and rural settings.

Looking back, she feels that the radical potential of social work has been unhorsed by structural barriers set within the politics and economics of liberal capitalism. This  post questions what might have been and asks us to honestly consider where social workers can stand today.

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Social Workers Anonymous

This is a guest post by Bex Amos, social worker.

My name is Bex and I am a social worker. I first noticed my addiction to social working when I started experiencing the common symptoms of irritability, low mood, intrusive thoughts and insomnia. My diagnosis was indisputable when I started using risk-analysis assessments to measure the ability of parents to care for their own tamariki.  I now like to call myself a recovering social worker, but the road to sobriety is a long and painful journey.