Tuesday, December 01, 2009

Predictable and pointless

A task force set up to investigate the state of social work in Britain after the murder of Baby P under the very noses of social workers has come up with some wholly predictable and pointless recommendations.

Basically, they suggest more pay and higher status for social workers.

Yes, really. The reason Baby P wasn't helped, apparently, is that social workers - as well as, presumably, the police officers and health care workers who also ignored Baby P's sorry plight - failed to act because they don't get enough money or social status.

The leader of this task force was one Moira Gibb - a member of the social work profession for some 25 years herself. It's like asking MPs to investigate the expense scandal (yes, I know they did - and I know they came up with the idea of more pay and status for MPs).

I'll tell you why social work is failing. There are two fundamental causes.

First is the feminisation of social work. I have no idea what the percentage is, but the majority of social workers seem to be female. The vast majority also happen to be left wing which is the second problem.

The way to solve the crisis in social work is not to throw yet more money at the industry, but to rebalance it. More men and more right wingers in social work.

Why will this help?

Because men (heterosexual men, anyway) are more likely to be emotionally dispassionate and right wingers are far more likely to be judgemental and be more balanced in that judgement. Left wingers are, by their own admission, non-judgemental - except when the person or thing they are judging conflicts with their left wing ideology in which case they come down on it like a ton of bricks.

Hence a married Christian couple who dare to expose their child to the "horrors" of Catholicism are much more likely to have their children taken away than a drug-addled single mum who has a succession of psychopath boyfriends with a taste for extra strong ultra cheap supermarket lager and a penchant for tattoos.

Social work, though, is a self-perpetuating industry. It's very existence depends on having the right social conditions in place to need a social work industry. It needs a drug culture, a welfare culture, a binge drinking culture, a domestic violence culture, a single parent culture and so on to enable it to grow and expand. Other peoples misery is the life blood of social work - social workers need it to justify their employment and pay.

The last thing they want to do is actually solve anything.

10 comments:

I Albion said...

Common sense,the average social worker,(and thats about all of them,)have none.

von Spreith. said...

Social worker

The type of person that, when you run in asking where the toilets are, sit you down for two hours going through the references. Discussing reasonable alternatives. Discovering if you really need to piss. Preparing you for the experience, and recommending various counselling options.

Then wonders if the bloody roof is leaking again.

Anonymous said...

How many social workers does it take to change a lightbulb?

None. They just set up a support group called "Coping with darkness"

William Gruff said...

Set up an organisation to find problems to solve and it will find problems which it understands all too well are not in its best interests to solve. Hence, social workers and probation officers driving about vainly looking for their delinquent 'clients'.

Rocket science?

PS: Excellent HC.

Anonymous said...

I am in my 60s now and we didn't have social workers when I was a child, how did we all manage?, but I do remember what we used to call the men from the 'cruelty'. They were almost all ex-police and ex- army and stood no nonsense and put the fear of God into suspected child abusers. We could use a few like that now.

AnnieOakley said...

Oh for god's sake - not the "women are too emotional" rubbish again.

Let me get my shotgun and we'll see if the "men are more athletic" meme is true!

PS - I am an encellent shot, and I don't miss my target ----- so there goes the 'women can't hit anything' one as well.

Start running.

Anonymous said...

Hey! Am I expected to comment and to claim myself non-judgemental! I wonder if it can be like that at all.
If men were more likely to be less emotionally dispassionate, the world could not have needed help all around. Actually, can we solve people's problems if they are themselves not willing to solve theirs? Probably we can't.
Social work does need a lot of creativity, spiritualism, catholic taste as far as learning goes and other such attributes as are obviously not hallmarks of the leftists; they are known for other reasons.
Atomic science can hardly be crucified for the acts of a few delinquents!

Stan said...

Annie Oakley - I didn't say that women are "too emotional" I said that men are more likely to be emotionally dispassionate. Your emotive response tends to confirm that. Oh - and I'm an excellent shot too albeit with more precise weapons than a shotgun.

Anon (social worker?).

"If men were more likely to be less emotionally dispassionate, the world could not have needed help all around."

Why? That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever! ... and men are MORE likely to be emotionally dispassionate, not less.

"Social work does need a lot of creativity, spiritualism, catholic taste as far as learning goes and other such attributes as are obviously not hallmarks of the leftists"

Maybe so - but the vast majority of social workers are leftists (they are typically recruited through left wing organisations such as the Guardian) and leftist culture dominates the social work management scene. What you say doesn't dispute my view that the social work system needs more right wingers - especially in the higher echelons.

DJ said...

"Atomic science can hardly be crucified for the acts of a few delinquents!"

Except they aren't delinquents - not in the sense that they appear to be anything other than examples of mainstream social workers, and not in the sense that, had they not been caught red-handed, their fellow social workers would ever have spoken out against them.

Stan said...

To be honest, I'm finding it hard to think of any "delinquents" in atomic science. I'm sure there are plenty of political delinquents who have used the products of atomic science for their own evil endeavours - but you can't blame that on the science or the scientists.

There are, however, plenty of delinquent social workers at every level from the top to the bottom. There are clearly some very delinquent senior managers in social work - as the Baby P case highlighted - and they can hardly be described as poorly paid.

Social workers have a very good pay and career structure - far better than most people in the private sector could hope for and with much better job security. The profession has repeatedly failed in every strata of society in which it operates. Rather than offer them more money and status it is time the people demanded that either social work as a profession starts delivering genuine results or the whole damn thing will be dismantled.

I make no secret of my disdain for the quackery that goes under the name of social science. Since it became accepted there is no doubt that social problems have got worse not better and, although I believe social work is not responsible for the problems of society, it is clear that social work does little to help them.