The British government's action plan to reduce violence and abuse against social workers must face up to the possibility that some violence against social workers might be a legitimate expression of rage and anger by powerless clients. There will always be some clients who have reason to distrust social work authority and who express their feelings in a violent or aggressive way. It is not my aim to justify violence against social workers, nor to blame individual social workers for poor standards of practice, but to recognise serious concerns about standards. Problems have arisen because social services departments have taken on greater responsibilities at a time of rapidly changing expectations, when the training and supply of social workers is hardly adequate for the job expected of them.
Social workers have an enormously difficult task.
Their resources are so very tightly controlled that only the most extreme cases receive services. Some clients are therefore reduced to outpourings of rage and anger to get heard. Dealing with the impact of poverty and structural inequality is central to the social work role. Social workers must recognise the effects of widening inequality over the past twenty years and challenge this trend. Unless social workers use their authority creatively to bring about practical improvements in the lives of their clients they cannot claim to be any more than gatekeepers of resources or social policemen.