We encourage social workers to apply for help to campaign in 2023/24.
The SWU Campaign Fund, in partnership with social enterprise Campaign Collective, has helped over ten groups of social workers campaign on issues that help the profession and those vulnerable groups social workers support.
Now, following a second successful year, applications are open for social workers to launch campaigns to challenge the problems they see and injustices they face.
In recent months, Scottish students secured a review into the options for reform of financing for social work courses. Meanwhile, in England and Northern Ireland, social work students are also re-igniting calls for more support.
Campaigners working on a media code for reporting of social workers have also been busy meeting the media industry. Following support from the press regulator IMPRESS, SWU wrote to all editors of national newspapers to promote the guidance and has held meetings with the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) and the National Union of Journalists. A rapid reporting mechanism for social workers concerned about media coverage has also been established.
Social workers unable to find work because of a lack of part-time roles has also been a focus for the Campaign Fund with research published in partnership with Community Care. Work is now needed to ensure warm words of support are matched by actual change in recruitment processes.
All campaigns supported by the SWU Campaign Fund are conceived of and run by social workers – much like SWU itself, which is the only specialist UK union for social workers and is run by people who are qualified in social work.
There is now scope for more campaigns to be launched in 2023/24 and social workers can visit https://swu-union.org.uk/swu-campaign-fund to find out how to suggest ideas.