Public naming may be heightening anxiety levels amongst some social workers, Herts councillors told

THE public naming of professionals – following national tragedies such as the deaths of Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes – may be heightening anxiety levels amongst some social workers, councillors have been told.

And that, it was suggested, could be one of the factors impacting on the recruitment and retention of social workers.

Data presented to the county council’s children, young people and families cabinet panel on Thursday (June 8) revealed that last year around 9.7 per cent of social worker posts in Hertfordshire were unfilled.

And while that’s less than half of the 20 per cent social worker vacancy rate that was recorded nationally, it’s still equivalent to almost one in every 10 of the county council’s social worker posts.

At the meeting, children’s services officials outlined national issues related to social worker recruitment – and the steps that were being taken locally to address them.

Director of children and families El Mayhew pointed to both high employment levels in the county and a national shortage of social workers.

But she also highlighted factors that included the public naming of social workers, in cases where children have died.

She particularly pointed to the media coverage of the ‘really tragic murders’ of Star Hobson and Arthur Labinjo-Hughes – which she said had named social workers involved with the families.

And she suggested both the advance of social media and ‘the way media operates now’ has increased the anxiety social workers hold around ‘what might happen if something goes wrong’.

“. . . I think that does feed-in to that national picture around whether, for some social workers, that’s something that they can also cope with,” she said.

“In terms of knowing that is always there in the back of your mind – that could happen to any social worker. So I think that is also some helpful context for you to have.”

Asked if the role of a social worker had become substantially harder, executive director of children’s services Jo Fisher suggested that social work had always been a job involving complexity and managing risk – and that had not changed.

But she accepted that a lack of access to some universal services during the pandemic had led to children, young people and their families presenting with ‘very high rates of need’.

“. . . I don’t think that we are asking social workers to do a job that is substantially different to how it was previously,” she said.

“What we need to do is make sure social workers continue to evolve their skills and their knowledge base to address the evolving need and risks that children and young people face in the world.

“And I think we are good at doing that in Hertfordshire – and good at doing that as a profession across the country.”

At the meeting it was stressed that the challenges were a national issue and not specific to Hertfordshire County Council.

Data presented to the panel showed that within children’s service, at the end of April there were 76 vacancies for children’s social workers.

Meanwhile national data, published in February, reported that there had been 7900 children’s social worker vacancies.

To recruit children’s social workers, it was reported that the council has run targeted recruitment campaigns and increased its profile at careers events.

It has a number of apprentice roles within children’s services, encourages agency staff to become directly employed by the council and makes ‘market enhanced payments’ to eligible social workers, it was reported.

And, it was reported, it has also set up recruitment and retention groups to focus on what could could be done to encourage staff to stay.

To train new social workers, the panel was told the council has also set-up ‘front line’, which is an intensive 12-month training programme for those with a relevant degree.

And, they heard, there is a 14-month ‘step up to social work’ training programme for those who do not have a degree in social work.

During the meeting councillors were alerted to proposed government reforms to ‘better value, train and support’ children’s social workers – by increasing numbers, taking action on workload and providing national support to improve retention .

Meanwhile in addition to the focus on social workers, the report to the panel also highlighted vacancies in residential children’s home workers roles and in statutory SEND staff, particularly educational psychologists.

Data presented to the cabinet panel revealed that in February the county council was actively recruiting to 654 vacant positions – equivalent to eight per cent of the council’s workforce.