Early on in my social care career I proudly mentioned to someone I was chatting with, that I’d just moved from working in the national health service to working for my local council. When I told them that I now worked in social care, I was unprepared for the anger, hate and vitriol that was levelled at me and it made me question everything that I believed I stood for.
Now this happened at a time when social care was relatively well funded. Most of the care homes, home care, day care and social work teams were owned and run by the council. Staffing levels were generally good, people had access to a lot of in-house learning and development, good pensions and routes to career progression – including fully funded (with full pay) access to social work and occupational therapy training schemes at a local university. There weren’t explicit eligibility criteria for those wanting to receive social care and the amount that people paid towards their care and support was relatively small. It wasn’t by any means a perfect model of social care support and there was lots to be done to improve it, however It didn’t feel desperate as it can feel now.
Reflecting back on this person‘s response many years later, I began to wonder about whether or not the vitriol I experienced reflects a deeper societal fear. A fear that sometimes turns into hatred of people who access support from social care organisations and for the people who choose to work in social care.
In some ways my experience could be reflected in the number of times I’ve seen both adult and child safeguarding situations in the media and how it always seems to be the social worker, social care practitioner, or social care organisation that is hammered for the decisions they have made. Whilst healthcare members of the same decision making process in local care and support systems seem to go unpunished, or are certainly less admonished for their part in whatever tragedy has occurred.
Could it be that our personal fear of becoming vulnerable and in need of care and support, leads us to hate those who do access it and subsequently to look down on those who are paid to support them? Or is it anger at the realisation that we can’t look after ourselves or a family member and that social care isn’t ‘free’ at the point of delivery in the same way as health care is in the UK that makes some people behave with such venom?
Is there a wider societal issue around our perspective of anyone who is dependent on tax payers money to maintain their independence, that leads to a demonstrable hatred of vulnerable people? Certainly political discourse that describes people using social care support as scroungers, work shy, fakers – who are pretending to be disabled – creates a narrative that increases fear and hatred.
In a political world where hate and fear seem to take precedence over any other form of dialogue, I worry about how long it will be before that hate and fear turns into open attacks on vulnerable people and those who support them. Or is this already happening?
So what’s the answer to this hate and fear?
I think it needs to be much more openly discussed. It’s not enough to celebrate how amazing social care can be in enabling people to do things they just wouldn’t have been able to do without support from social care workers. We need to start asking people why they are so fearful, why they look down on vulnerable people and why these emotions turn to hate. We need to be honest with people about care costs and stop pretending that the personal cost of someone’s care and support won’t destroy a family’s life savings very quickly. We need to emphasise that social care isn’t just for older people. Social care is for anyone in any walk of life who may need care and support all of their life, not just at the end of their life. It could be needed because of an illness or accident that might happen to anyone at any time. We need to be truthful about how hard it can be to get funding for your social care and that years of central government cuts to councils have reduced social care to a Cinderella service where even Cinderella’s sisters would be ashamed about what is now available.
If we don’t confront the negative image of social care, the people social care supports and the people who work in social care, we will never be able to provide meaningful social care to everyone who needs that support.
So how did my experience of the vitriol levelled at me years ago impact on me? Well, for a number of years I was afraid to tell people that I worked in social care because I never quite knew what kind of reaction to expect. Would it be ‘Oh you’re such a hero for doing that’, or would it be – ‘How can you work in a system that feels as if it’s constantly punishing those who require social care support, their families and the people who you are paid to support?,’ ‘Why would you want to walk in the shoes of people that throughout history have been (and still are) oppressed’?
My answer these days as to why I work in social care is that I am still very proud of being a tiny part of the social care workforce. I enjoy meeting, having conversations with so many different people and doing my little bit to support and share the amazing things people are achieving as they live their amazing lives.
Jim Thomas
April 2025
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