Weeks after the biggest scandal in childcare services ever to be reported came to an end; another story of child abuse is making the headlines in England.

This case is a little different from Baby P’s case where qualified social workers failed to identify that the toddler was been brutally “tortured” by its mother and stepfather, this new child abuse case involves a nursery worker who was sexually assaulting children by touching and penetration, as well as posting photos of the children under her care on the internet.

Police arrested Mrs Vanessa George 39 after seizing a computer disc from a suspected paedophile in Manchester, after analysing the contents of the disc police found indecent images of children taken at Little Ted’s Day Nursery in Plymouth which then lead them to Mrs George, who has been working there for the past two years.

Mother of two, Mrs George is being charged with seven offences, including two for sexual assault by penetration and two of sexual assault by touching.

It makes me wonder why a mother of two does such things to other children. Would she like that done to her own children? What goes through these peoples mind?

What you have to say about these child abuse cases and how can they be prevented? Leave your thoughts in our comments section below.

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.”

A social workers job is to protect, help and support people who are facing difficulties in their lives. A qualified social worker help others overcome problems and improve their lives and at the same time be prepared to work with a wide range of social services users, including:

• Children
• Older people
• People with some kind of disability, physical or mental
• Young adults
• Homeless people
• Drug addicts

Social workers tend to specialise in working with single adults or with children and families. In both cases he or she should prepared to:

• Assess and Review a service user’ situation
• Build relationships with service users
• Make decisions when necessary, common in child protection cases.
• Offer information, counselling and advocacy
• Take part in team meetings, supervision and case conferences
• Work together with other professionals, such as Health, Law and other social care professionals
• Keep an accurate record of events.
• Contact and make referrals to other agencies
• Provide evidence of court hearings

It is crucial for the social worker to have excellent communications skills, the ability to relate to people of all ages, social classes and races and gain their trust as well as have a non-judgemental attitude.

These are only a few skills required for someone that is willing to work as social worker, on our next post you will find detailed information about what qualifications and skills are required to be a qualified social worker in the UK.