Social work and social care are under more pressure than ever. SWU Ambassador Dr Neil Thompson offers a framework for making sense of it – and makes a case for the kind of leadership development our field actually needs.
Let’s face it, social work and social care are not in the best of places these days. There have always been difficulties and challenges – that is the nature of the work – but the modern scene takes us well beyond the familiar. The problems and the barriers to progress have multiplied, and they will not resolve themselves.
John McGowan and I set out some of the reasons for this in our book How to Survive in Social Work (Thompson and McGowan, 2024) and I explore similar themes in my Facing the Challenges video (Thompson, 2025). The feedback on both has been very positive – but the underlying issues remain a serious concern. We still have a long way to go.
More recently, working with SWU, I have produced a report that examines the situation through the lens of my 3Ps framework: where there are People, there will be Problems – but there will also be Potential. It is a simple idea but a powerful one, and it has fitted every stage of my career – as a social worker, manager, educator, consultant and writer. It keeps three things in view at once: treating people as people, taking problems and their consequences seriously and never losing sight of the potential and how to realise it. It also sits naturally with what trade unionism is all about.
The report (Thompson, 2026) sets out the challenges facing all of us in social work and social care and offers the 3Ps as a practical way of making sense of a complex picture. There are no magic solutions on offer – but there is plenty of food for thought to take the conversation further and deeper.
Read the full report at https://swu-union.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/SWU-Neil_Thompson_-_People_Problems_Potential_2026.pdf.
The leadership gap we cannot ignore
One concern the report draws out has been on my mind a good deal over the past year or two: the state of leadership development in our field. Many managers in social work and social care have had little or no training in management and leadership. Others have had a great deal – but, in my experience, much of it has been ‘generic’. By that I mean it was designed with commercial enterprises in mind – businesses, rather than public or personal services. Having reviewed a wide range of such training and spoken to many people who have been through it, I have reached a clear conclusion: too much of it is simply not fit for purpose. It does not recognise – let alone address – the distinctive challenges intrinsic to our work, moral distress being just one example.
These are demanding times and they call for strong leadership. But while the development on offer to our managers keeps overlooking the very concerns that define our work – concerns that business-focused training was never built to handle – the people in key positions will remain poorly equipped to wrestle with the complexity they face. Unless we change our focus and make room for learning and development that makes sense in our world – our professional world – we will keep struggling to make real inroads into the challenges ahead.
Read the “Managing Change in Social Work and Social Care: A Guide for Leaders” at https://swu-union.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/SWU-Neil_Thompson_-_Guide_to_Managing_Change_2026.pdf.
This is precisely the gap I established the Neil Thompson Academy to address: leadership and management development designed for our field rather than borrowed from the commercial world. If the picture I have painted here rings true, it is well worth exploring what is now available.
Dr Neil Thompson introduces his two new reports for social workers: “People, Problems, and Potential” and “Managing Change in Social Work and Social Care”.
References
Thompson, N. and McGowan, J. (2024) How to Survive in Social Work, 2nd edn, London, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
Thompson, N. (2025) Facing the Challenges (video): https://vimeo.com/1047476534/c6bda4515e?share=copy
Thompson, N. (2026) People, Problems and Potential: A Framework for Understanding and Addressing the Challenges Facing Social Work and Social Care, Birmingham, SWU.
Dr Neil Thompson is the Director of Studies at the Neil Thompson Academy, providers of online learning, social care-specific Chartered Management Institute qualifications and an online Centre of Excellence for leaders of all kinds. He is a SWU Ambassador and a Visiting Professor at the Open University. His recent books include Anti-racist Practice (2nd edn, 2026) and Values-based Practice (with Bernard Moss, 2nd edn, 2026), both published by Routledge. The Academy website is at www.NeilThompson.info.