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Senior leaders, how are you protecting your social work staff this week?

We live in a country built on racism and white supremecy. As a social worker racialised as white I know I am only scratching the surface of the unlearning I need to do to work towards anti-racism. I'm sharing this post from a position of knowing the harm I have caused and can still cause through racism.




I'm sharing this because I will go to work this week, I will be in my local community and I will spend time with my children and although I will walk through those moments appalled and disgusted by the far right terrorism this week, I won't fear for my safety.


I sit with the privilege of my skin colour and know that any risk I might be aware of, is nothing in comparison to my social work colleagues who are racialised as black and brown, those who are part of the global majority.


As a profession, we are typically not the best with boundaries. It's not hard to find a social worker who has put themselves at some personal risk to do their job. Dangerously this can be normalised in our job. It's times like this we need to wholeheartedly challenge this.


So I'm writing this in the hope it may be seen or shared with senior leaders.


There will be expectations on social workers to go on home visits this week, to be out in the community, travelling, attending meetings and interacting with the public. The Islamophobia and abuse through extreme far right riots this weekend is real. It is not going to disappear once the working week begins. Anti-black racism is so prevalent in every thread of society that it will always impact our colleagues and the rhetoric of far right terrorism is widespread intent on causing harm to global majority communities.


I don't work for a local authority at the moment but if I did, these are the questions I would want answered:


  • Do the senior leaders in the organisation openly recognise and condemn the far right riots, racism, terrorism and violence and understand the impact on local communities?

  • How will senior leaders be safeguarding my Black and Brown colleagues and my Muslim colleagues this week and moving forward?

  • How can my colleagues ask for help if they feel unsafe, especially considering the negative repercussions associated with staff speaking up about racism?



If you are in an organisation that likes to use the label trauma informed, without also placing equal weight on anti-racism, then I question whether it is genuinely trauma informed. But if we wanted to talk about those principles, we could remind ourselves in organisations about the many benefits of helping staff feel as safe as possible, cared for and understood.


Racism is embedded in social work as much as any profession. I think we should be talking about it and taking action as much as possible and I repeat, I'm writing this with the recognition I am very much part of the problem and not the solution.


I have a letter template you can use here to request anti-racism training for your local authority. Training is not a tick box but it is a start, and whilst some local authorities are taking racism as seriously as they said they would in 2020, others are not. I see you, and your social workers see it too.


Finally, white social workers, anti-racism starts at home. If you aren't talking to your children and family about racism and anti-racism, you can start today. There are no excuses. We can't seek change at work and switch this off at home.



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I recognise my positionality as a white woman writing this blog post and whilst I don't expect anyone to take the emotional labour of educating me, I welcome being called in on any harm I have caused in writing this. This looks like me listening, not interrupting, not being defensive, apologising, learning and making changes.


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