BASW Chair Blog: Member Updates

BASW UK Chair, Julia Ross reports back on last month's BASW Council meeting and provides an overview of the work currently taking place across the association.

My first three months with BASW have been such a roller coaster and a delightful one. There have been some excellent events within BASW – such as the BASW England annual online meeting and conference and joining colleagues in Northern Ireland influencing and contributing to the review of children’s social work – and momentous ones on the political front.

Our Anti- Poverty work stands out as an excellent example of what BASW does so well – bringing social work expertise and values together with a research and campaign focus. There is much we can do to lobby for effective policies that address the challenges of the cost-of-living crisis, poverty and inequality.

Council met all day on 19th October in what is now becoming an established ‘Hybrid’ way of working with members able to attend in person or online with technology in HQ to optimise inclusion for all. We do hope to have a face-to-face Council meeting and Away Day when we next meet in February, but always keeping the option for remote joining.  We hope knowing this will encourage more members to consider nomination when Council roles are next advertised.

Members can read the full meeting minutes on the BASW Council section of the website. Here are some reflections and comments from me on key discussions and decisions.

On Council business, we welcomed our new Executive PA and Governance Officer Jo Wathen. Jo has been working hard with Ruth (our CEO) to put into place stronger Assurance and Declarations of Interest procedures. They are undertaking a Governance Review of Council Rules, policies and Committee Terms of Reference and much more to come.

We said goodbye to Charmaine Malcolm who was completed her term as a Co-opted member and thanked her for her valuable contributions. I am delighted to give you the excellent news that we have co-opted Hari Sewell for a further year. We are also actively considering co-opting two student social workers on an annual cycle. We hope this will refresh and re-energise our Council deliberations and encourage future student membership, as well as being an excellent development opportunity for new social workers.

We are also finalising the processes, governance and support arrangements for Experts by Experience to join Council in fully participating, non-Director (at least initially) roles. More about that when we take final decisions and proposals from the EbE reference group and set in train the recruitment process after February Council.

BASW England ran their Annual Conference the same week as Council, the feedback was impressive. There was a huge surge of positive support for Vava’s speech and leadership and I was pleased to see the response to my suggestion that we all pledge to enrol one new member this year:

• Thanks Julia I intend to share BASW links with my team colleagues to support possible increase in membership's
• Thank you everyone for this very helpful and supportive event.  Together we can !!
• There has been a lot of courage today to promote social work and be part of the political situation.
• It is a delight to be interacting with members and presenters today.
• Glad I attended. This was brilliant. Thank you team.
• thank you to everyone involved, so good to feel part of a collective

Council received excellent update reports from NI and England. We will take reports from two of our committees every time now – hoping to promote further our ‘One BASW’ approach and connectivity across all parts of the association.

NI Chair Orlaith McGibbon called in at a huge distance from Bahrain, to speak of their recent NI Student Conference which was extremely well attended and their meeting with Prof Ray Jones who is leading the NI Children’s Review and which I was fortunate enough to attend.

This Review was one of several important publications in recent months including the Bill to establish the National Care Service in Scotland and Alexis Jay’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in England and Wales. As you would expect, BASW has commented and will be responding further to the implication of these major reports. The themes between these reports and the earlier Children’s Review in England (and the two Reviews by the national Safeguarding Board in England) will drive BASW’s determination to ensure national and UK social work leadership is fit for purpose and that social workers have the support they need for the very best practice.

In Council we were also delighted to receive and endorse the England Committee’s  ‘Support for Hillsborough Law’ report from England Vice Chair Katy Jackson. This supports the campaign being led by Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham and the families of tragedies such as Hillsborough Grenfell and the Manchester Arena for much greater accountability of organisations and individuals implicated in reasons for what happened and/or in the response to disasters.

I was delighted to receive a report and listen to the debate on Membership. It’s crucial that we increase Membership so that we can be an ever more strong voice of social work. To achieve that we will be streamlining improvements to our offer. We were also pleased to receive the report on Anti-poverty and the pledge to tackle this on all fronts.

Council also agreed my report on ‘Consolidation, Continuity and Change’. This covers four high level objectives that will be threaded throughout BASW’s work in the coming year and beyond. These are taking actions to double Membership in the next few years, tackling Poverty and giving voice to social workers on this, giving BASW a stronger voice in media, politics and elsewhere, and enhancing our Leadership in shaping social work practice.

Do please read Ruth’s CEO report in which she spells out her own annual objectives which also include working together to consolidate the One BASW approach from our four nations which must also be both separate and distinct.

Our new Vice Chair, Neeta Baicher presented her strategic priorities including introducing Duc Tran and his new team – Dean as Co chair and Deb Soloman as Vice Chair on Equality, Diversion and Inclusion Advisory Group. We’re on a journey with Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (and with more inclusion of Experts by Experience as described ablve) and we hope to make rapid progress over this next year. I am much looking forward to welcoming our Experts by Experience to a Council meeting soon as guests in February and as non-Director members of Council in May.

I have probably written too much and so it is time to stop. There is so much more to say from such a brilliant, talented and experienced Membership body. Thank you to all who have made and continue to make such a wonderful contribution to social work and all we do.