Society and Social Work Training and Practice
| Published date | 01 April 1980 |
| Author | Harry D. Orriss |
| Date | 01 April 1980 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X8005300211 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
HARRY D.
ORRISS
SOCIETY
AND
SOCIAL
WORK
TRAINING
AND
PRACTICE
A survey
of
aproblem area
between Police and social workers
As a one-time social worker and mental welfare officer, I had more
to do with doctors and policemen than any other broadly social
sector. From all I learn from my contacts with social workers and
others, things are little changed today. In the nature oflife and living,
they could hardly be otherwise. Parliament may pass new laws; the
social work profession may be better and more extensively trained;
medical research finds new treatments; the Police learn new
techniques and use more sophisticated technology in responding to
crime and the human condition; but people's circumstances, fears,
hopes and problems stay much the same. Human nature will never
alter, no matter how much the environment and social fabric does.
Better training has its part to play, and this broadly is what I would
like to look at in these particular contexts.
Until the Younghusband Committee on social work training
reported in the late Fifties, only child-care workers ofsocial workers
employed by local authorities had general and specialist social work
training; moreover were required by law as contained in the Children
Act, 1948, to have it and meet the professional training criteria
required by the Home Office.
Probation and After-Care officers are also fully formally trained
within Home Office criteria.
As for mental and social welfare officers of the pre-Younghusband
and Seebohm eras, these were largely untrained in any formal,
definitive sense, and learnt their-vocation in post. Not ofcourse the
best, much less the ideal, way, but some excellent staffemerged from
their "baptism under fire", or their exercise in "trial and error"
pragmatism.
The Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work
- several pre-Seebohm training councils telescoped into one - are
charged with overseeing social work training, its curricula and
Certificates of basic and post-qualifying Certificates.
Since new social services departments emerged in
1971
in the
Seebohm mould, the UK social workers have trebled in number at
PoliceJournal April 1980 /70
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