HOW MANY PEOPLE DID SOCIAL WORKERS REALLY HELP IN 2021? A t about this time of year, in almost every industry in the UK and across the globe, people are reflecting on their accomplishments as 2021 draws to a close. Sales figures are issued. Venues booked. Bonuses paid. And whether it’s been a good year or bad, there will be many hearty, back-slapping, fist-bumping acknowledgements of everybody’s best efforts. The early mornings. The late nights. The blood. The sweat. The tears. But in social work we don’t do this. We put in the long hours, work late, and burn out, but we never reflect on what it all means. It does pay off, though. You do make a difference. And here at Social Work News, we set off on a challenge to capture this in words - or to be more precise, in numbers. We set ourselves the mammoth task of accounting for every single adult
and child in the UK helped by social workers in 2021 - from the youngest infant, to the oldest care home resident.
Of course, merely totalling up numbers is a gross oversimplification of social work. People’s lives are so much more than numbers, but the numbers themselves are still astounding. TO TAKE LAST YEAR AS A STARTING POINT, CHILDREN AND FAMILY SOCIAL WORKERS IN ENGLAND HANDLED 642,980 REFERALLS. ADULT SOCIAL WORKERS SUPPORTED 838,530 ADULTS IN CARE HOMES, AND A FURTHER 231,295 RECEIVED SHORT-TERM CARE. THAT’S A SMIDGEN OVER 1.7 MILLION PEOPLE IN ENGLAND ALONE. Now consider the size of the workforce undertaking such monumental work. We like to think of social work as being
a significant player – on a par with doctors, nurses, police officers and teachers. But we’re not. Statistically speaking, we are but a minnow in the public sector pond.
With just 31,900 children and family social workers in England, our profession is completely dwarfed by nearly all others. There are almost 14 times as many teachers (461,088), ten times as many nurses (299,184), and four times as many doctors (122,446). In fact, pre-pandemic, there were more chefs working in London (38,000) than children and family social workers in all of England put together. That’s crazy – but not as crazy as the numbers of adult social workers. There’s just 19,500 of these, a figure so small it seems almost ludicrous. And yet, as we will endeavour to show in these pages, the volume of work they undertake is real David and Goliath stuff.
