About / Social Work Changes Lives
ADSW and the SSSC are developing a campaign to improve understanding of social work services in Scotland amongst the public and the wide range of stakeholders with which we work.
Recent media coverage of social work has presented the profession with challenges which must be addressed if we are to maintain the trust and the confidence of the public. However, we understand that there are no quick fixes and that we are dealing with deep rooted attitudes, which will take time to shift.
For this reason we are working with Pagoda Public Relations over twelve months to build the framework for a public relations campaign to improve awareness and understanding of social work which can be sustained longer term. Our partners in this process include the Scottish Social Services Council and the Association of Social Care Communicators.
The work, which will have a strong media focus, will be designed to support the objectives of Changing Lives. Inevitably, the success of the campaign will depend on the participation of social work services and communication teams in local councils.
Our approach
One of our aims is to maximise opportunities to showcase best practice in a way that reinforces a view of social work services which reflects the value and diversity of our work. At the same time we will use this opportunity to improve the way we co-operate on managing issues that present risks to the reputation of the profession.
On the positive side there are three key strands within the campaign, all of which require the involvement of individual councils.
- Real life stories: A case study-based approach designed to show how the successful involvement of social workers changes lives, for the better. This involves identifying compelling human interest stories which reflect the diversity of social work and communicating them in a way that safeguards the interests of the individual. We will depend on local councils to identify case studies through a PR alert system. These could be used locally and nationally through a range of media including features, broadcast material and in communication with opinion leaders.
- Social work champions: We will work with social work services locally to identify and support a panel of social work champions made up of prominent figures (including, where possible, former/current service users). The ‘champions’ will provide comment to support campaigns and initiatives and speak up for the profession in public and the media. We will support them with briefings on current issues.
- Celebrating social work success: As with individual case studies, we are planning to gather examples of achievements and best practice in terms of programmes and projects undertaken. We will seek to feature these in Scotland-wide media as the basis for news, features and broadcast packages. We are also planning to use this information in a programme of direct communication with stakeholders including MSPs. As part of this process, we will harness internal communication channels to give social work staff key facts and arguments to help them become ‘ambassadors’ for social work.
Alongside this we are also planning to improve co-operation on the management of potentially negative issues and using comment from ADSW and other bodies in these circumstances. This is particularly important where the local authority may feel constrained from commenting for reasons of confidentiality. As part of the overall process we would like to establish a PR contact point in each council with who we would liaise.
We will be assisting local councils by providing toolkits and assistance and a mini-website to allow people to share best practice and seek advice. A communications network of PR representatives from local authorities will be used to support the campaign.
| Downloads |
| Date |
Title |
Summary |
| 15/01/2010 |
Events Calendar |
Forthcoming social work events |
| 08/01/2010 |
Toolkit |
Campaign toolkit for PR network contacts |