As a @BASW_UK member I protest this reductive, dumbed down view of social work being given a prominent platform in association's mag. There are a number of really unhelpful assumptions here, the implication being if you don't subscribe, you're not doing social work? >>

I'm struck by how culturally and professionally unaware it is: Social work is all about having cups of tea and nice chats with people we are 'asked' to support. What message is this sending to students, NQSWs? To people who've felt the hard edge of state social work intervention?

Social work is indeed often a lovely thing. But it is just as often not. It's the cold reality of being deprived of liberty, of having a child removed, of seeing these things happen to ppl you care about. Please think about that before couching it in such breezily casual terms.

Social work may not be rocket science, but supporting people to achieve the outcomes that matter to them in the face of crushing ideological poverty, bungled govt pandemic response & austerity driven cuts is really hard, very often impossible.

Virginia Bottomly famously once said that social work could be done by any 'streetwise granny'. Well, here we are. It looks like she was correct.