Education Secretary Ed Balls is actively encouraging professionals such as teachers and solicitors to consider a change of career and become social workers.

The move forms part of proposals brought in following the report released regarding the current state of child protection, after the awful and much highlighted death of Baby P.

Mr Balls will reveal a new ‘on the job’ social work qualification to the Association of Directors of Children’s Services.

The aim is to get 200 people including doctors, teachers and solicitors who are looking for a change in career to become social workers.

Roughly a third of social worker positions were left vacant in November 2008, this is obviously a worrying statistic and makes it clear that trained social workers are needed and soon!

It has become clear that in the case of Baby P, if the social workers on the case had been more thorough in their investigations, the outcome may have not resulted in such a tragic ending.

However, there is also the assumption that if these social workers had been trained doctors for example; they would have been better equipped to identify injuries and psychological problems within the Baby P household.

It could also be the case that if they had been solicitors with an understanding of the law, they would not have missed out on any instances of law breaking that may have occurred.

Taking all this into consideration, I think this is why Ed Balls wants people with this type of knowledge in the social working industry – to avoid any cases like Baby P’s ever being repeated.

What do you think of Mr Balls proposition, would we benefit from having professionals re-trained as social workers?