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Socially responsible: Where the media goes wrong when reporting on care

Community Care, the social care profession website and publication, is seeking a final week's worth of signatures for its e-petition on the Downing Street website, which calls on the Prime Minister 'to urge the Sun newspaper to back the social work profession rather than constantly undermine it'.

As its community editor, Simeon Brody, wrote in a comment piece for Journalism.co.uk in March, Community Care has been running a campaign to improve coverage of social work by the media called 'Stand Up Now for Social Work'. It will submit its plea to the government on June 1 and currently has just under 6,000 signatures.

The campaign started by drawing attention to the shortlisting of the Sun's Baby P campaign for the British Press Awards.

"What message would it give the country's 95,000 social workers and social work students if such a misinformed witch hunt were held up as the pinnacle of journalistic achievement?" Brody asked at the time.

In the event, the Sun did not win the Press Awards prize, but nonetheless the newspaper maintained the 'victory' of its campaign in its editorial content and when reporting the most recent Baby P news. It continues its own campaign to increase the sentences of Baby Peter's mother, her partner and Jason Owen.

• Jump to: advice for journalists on reporting social care

Survey suggests 'overwhelmingly negative coverage'
In addition a survey conducted by Community Care about the portrayal of social workers in the media, indicated 'overwhelmingly negative coverage of social workers'.

It suggested that of 345 relevant articles published in 13 national newspapers during the first quarter of 2009: 54 per cent were negative, 38 per cent objective and 8 per cent positive; 61 per cent were about a crisis or serious cases; 88 per cent focused on children's services and 12 per cent on adults.

"The Daily Mail and the Sun carried the most articles on social work, averaging almost one a day, and most were negative - 71.8 per cent for the Daily Mail and 61.4 per cent for The Sun. The Daily Mail carried no positive stories, while just 4 out of the Sun's 70 pieces were positive," it was reported.

The words most commonly associated with social workers in the press included 'failed', 'bully' and 'incompetent'. Thirty-nine per cent of articles surveyed failed to give all parties a right of reply.

The Sun misconstrued reports, says Brody
The campaign and survey findings do not mean that negative stories shouldn't be reported, says Brody, speaking to Journalism.co.uk two months after the launch of the campaign.

Undoubtedly, in the case of Baby P, or Baby Peter as he can now be called, Haringey Council made some serious mistakes, as highlighted in the BBC1 Panorama programmes, for example.

"I have no problem with social work departments being investigated where there are failings, and there were obviously very serious failings in Haringey," Brody says.

But, for Brody, it is unacceptable that the Sun 'seemed to suggest that social workers were making mistakes and just getting away with it and only through their petition would there be any accountability'.

"This is not the case - there is a system of accountability which examines social workers' actions in detail and responds accordingly," he says.

"Four social workers were sacked for their failings and the General Social Care Council (GSCC) is currently considering their fitness to remain on the social care register.
 
"The tone of the Sun's coverage also caused much offence - the social workers involved were hounded and turned into hate figures, 'named and shamed' when the full details of what they had or hadn't done wasn't known. 'Witch hunt' was the phrase used by many social workers to describe what happened."

For Brody a 'laying blame' approach is best avoided: "Yes, we can apportion responsibility for failings, but the 'blame' lies with the person who committed the crime, if there was one."

Journalism.co.uk asked Brody to provide some advice for journalists when reporting on social work and care:

The major failings of UK media reportage, in Brody's view:

• "Media reporting is often based on a misunderstanding or oversimplification of what social workers do and what powers they have."

• "Social workers aren’t just involved in child protection, they are also involved in the care of older people, learning and physical disabilities and mental health."

• "Social workers can't just take babies away - they need the authority of a family court to do that. Also, they can’t forcibly enter people’s homes without the backing of the police and a court order. Such decisions involve following a lot of procedures and cannot just be done on a whim."

• "A lot of stories still refer to something called 'social services' which doesn’t actually exist anymore in most areas. Social workers tend to work for either an adults' services department or a children's services department, which will also include education."

Facts that are often missed:

• "Important decisions will often be made collectively with other organisations, such as the police or health services."

• "The child protection register was abolished last year - it was replaced by the Integrated Children's System - a national database."

• "Obviously all child deaths are tragic but the rate of child death from injuries in the UK is lower than most European countries and much lower than the USA - this must say something about the skill and dedication of the vast majority of people who work in child protection in this country."

• "There is a full system of accountability within social care - social workers who have failed in their duty will be held to account by the General Social Care Council (GSCC)."

• "You can't blame social workers for taking children away too easily one minute, then complain when they don't intervene quickly enough - they feel like they just can't win. Yes, there are good and bad social workers, like there are good and bad police officers or nurses, but the majority are committed and competent."

Brody's advice to journalists:

• "Journalists might pause to think how well they would do as a social worker before sticking the boot in. Social workers have a massive caseload of 30 or more cases - how much time can they spend on each case in an average week? Don't portray social workers as feelingless robots or as part of some sort of faceless machine; they're just ordinary people trying to do a job."

• "Social workers often can't defend themselves because of confidentiality reasons - newspapers will run allegations from people who feel they have grievances against social workers who won't be able to set out in detail why they acted as they did."

• "People do makes mistakes and journalists make lots of them, but in social work those mistakes can have more serious consequences. People who make such mistakes don't deserve to be hounded like criminals."

• "Sometimes it's easier to blame individuals or poor practice when things go wrong rather than accept that there are systemic problems. Social workers do positive things too - report them."

• "There are organisations representing social workers - the British Association of Social Workers and Unison are among them - speak to them."

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magazines | the sun | baby p | community care | social workers | british press awards | simeon brody | stand up for social care campaign |

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