As Social Work Week approaches, I find myself reflecting with pride and gratitude on my 20-year journey across local authority and NHS settings\u2014two decades dedicated to adult learning disability services, safeguarding adults, and most recently, modern slavery across integrated care.
Throughout these years, I\u2019ve been guided by the core values of social work\u2014human rights, social justice, and respect for the dignity and worth of every person. Whether supporting individuals with learning disabilities to lead fulfilling lives or working to safeguard adults at risk, these values have shaped every conversation, decision, and partnership I\u2019ve ever been part of.
For the past 10 years, I\u2019ve brought the social work perspective into clinical commissioning\/ Integrated Care Board (ICB), helping to embed person-centred, strengths-based practice into our health and care systems. It\u2019s been an incredibly rewarding experience\u2014bridging the gap between health and social care and ensuring that the voices of people with lived experience guide our work.
A particular area of passion has been leading on the modern slavery workstream within the ICB. Modern slavery is a complex and devastating form of abuse, and social work is uniquely positioned to identify, challenge, and disrupt exploitation, while providing trauma-informed support to survivors. It\u2019s a powerful reminder that safeguarding is everyone\u2019s business, and that integrated approaches are essential to protect the most vulnerable in our communities.
As I look back, I\u2019m immensely proud of what we\u2019ve achieved and equally excited for what lies ahead. Social workers are leaders, advocates, and change-makers. We bring empathy and evidence, collaboration and courage, to every table we sit at.
This Social Work Week, I celebrate all my colleagues and peers across sectors who continue to make a difference quietly, consistently, and with heart. Here\u2019s to the next chapter of bringing social work values into every corner of our health and care.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Social Work Week approaches, I find myself reflecting with pride and gratitude on my 20-year journey across local authority and NHS settings\u2014two decades dedicated to adult learning disability services, safeguarding adults, and most recently, modern slavery across integrated care. Throughout these years, I\u2019ve been guided by the core values of social work\u2014human rights, social… Read More »Social Work Week<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[81,82,83],"class_list":["post-2287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-news","tag-social-work","tag-social-work-week"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kasafeguarding.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kasafeguarding.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kasafeguarding.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kasafeguarding.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kasafeguarding.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2287"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.kasafeguarding.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2289,"href":"https:\/\/www.kasafeguarding.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2287\/revisions\/2289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kasafeguarding.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kasafeguarding.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kasafeguarding.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}