Our last post reported on the government launching a campaign to encourage retired qualified social workers to go back to social work.

To aid the government campaign, social work agencies across the country started to go through their databases and send out letters and emails to retired but qualified social workers.

Barbara MaCarthur, an 82 year old who retired from social work in 1982 received one of these letters asking her to return to the profession. Macarthur is aware of the lack of social workers in the UK said:

“I knew they were desperate for social workers, but I didn’t think they were this desperate!”

The social work agency who sent Mrs. Macarthur the letters said that they were not aware of her age and the problem occurred because they used a database of previous employees to send out emails and letters.

There are many positions to be filled in the social care area, if you know any friends who are qualified social workers or you are one of those qualified social workers looking for work do not hesitate to contact Restart Resources.

As awkward as this title might sound, the campaign is for real and is happening right here in the UK.

At the beginning of the month, the government launched a campaign to lure retired social workers back to their jobs due to the lack of qualified social workers and the struggle of local councils to recruit social workers.

A report from the Local Government Association (LGA) called Respect and Protect revealed that 1 in 10 social worker jobs remained empty and 89% of councils had reported difficulties with social workers recruitment.

As councils across the country are having a hard time to recruit and retain social workers in their jobs, the government launched this campaign as a short term measure to try and encourage up to 5,000 retired qualified social workers to go back to social work.

Alan Warner lead officer for communications at the Public Sector People Managers’ Association (PPMA) said:

“Social recruitment and retention problems had been exacerbated by the negative publicity surrounding the death of Baby P, which had caused the public to lose respect for social workers, the public at large need to get behind social workers and support them.”

And added:

“We need to give people respect for what they do. If there is no respect then why would anyone want to do it?”

And concluded:

“There needs to be more information made available to the general public about what social workers do, and perhaps national awards to recognise achievements. There is no overnight fix for this; we just need a more balanced approach.”