The first of its kind
As the specialist regulator for social work in England, we are in a unique position to bring people together to learn, connect and engage on the values and principles which form the backbone of excellent social work practice.
As Chief Executive and a registered social worker, I share Social Work England's commitment to hearing and sharing as many views as possible from across the social work sector.
Social Work Week 2021 is the first event of its kind in England. It is a chance for everyone with an interest in social work to examine its growing importance in society as a regulated profession. It has allowed us to bring people together with different experiences of social work to debate virtually why it matters, look back at the profession's work in England over this most unusual of years, share lessons learnt from our first twelve months of regulatory activity and cultivate new relationships.
It also gives us a space to collectively reflect and consider our own personal roles in enabling long-term change. We are collecting extensive insights and feedback from the week which we will be analysing as part of our ongoing work to build a rich picture of what is happening in the sector. This will assist us as a regulator to stay informed, authentic and collaborative, firmly rooted in the principles and values which are the foundation of modern social work practice.
The week itself was brought together by a working group of internal and external contributors, including stakeholders across the workforce, our regional engagement team, our National Advisory Forum, made up of people with lived and learned experience , and other colleagues from across the organisation. Personally, I have been involved in hosting several sessions during the week, including a review of what we have learned over the past year and a panel session where we fielded some great questions from the sector.
An ambitious but exciting schedule
It was an ambitious task to run a virtual week of activity, but significant planning went into developing a programme of events reflecting the rich diversity and impact of social work practice with topics including co-production, COVID-19, Black Lives Matter, care leavers, mental health, antisemitism, neuro-diversity, homelessness and practice education. Early feedback and the conversations I have seen on social media under the hashtag #SocialWorkWeek2021 tell me it has been a great success.
That said, we are still only 16 months into regulating over 100,000 social workers and our engagement will continue beyond Social Work Week 2021. Our team of regional engagement leads are registered social workers working in localities across England and who are committed to continuing to build relationships with everyone who has an interest in social work.
- Find out more about Social Work Week
- Recorded sessions from the week will be made available on our YouTube channel in the near future.
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