Did Aspect give evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on social work training?
We did. It focussed, as our evidence to the Social Work Taskforce did, on the crucial importance of putting systems in place to enable, encourage and require staff to speak out when they have concerns about unsafe practice or unethical decisions. It is now available on the Select Committee web site. We are grateful to Professor Michael Preston Shoot, Dean of Bedfordshire University, for being co-author of our evidence. We believe it is essential that social work, the media, and politicians move away from the blame culture which prevents the learning of lessons, intimidates those who wish to raise concerns and leads, for example, to Haringey social workers being pilloried and living in fear even before their case has been heard by the GSCC as Liz Davies illustrates. Aspect supports the evidence given by the Joint University Council Social Work Education Committee (JUC SWEC) which stressed, amongst other matters, the importance of not separating childrens and adult social services traini
