By Charlotte Webster-
The Uk government’s drugs strategy appears to have completely overlooked the role of social work in supporting individuals and familied affected by substance use.
Professor Sarah Galvani, (pictured) social researcher into substance use at Manchester Metropolitan University, has queried the exclusion of social workers in the government’s fight against drugs.
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The role of housing and employment support in promoting recovery, alongside a strong focus on expanding specialist drugs services, in prisons and the community, was reflected in the annnounced government strategy to address frug addiction, but no reference wa smade to that of social care.
Galvani, whose research cebtres around substance use and social work, said: “Social work and social care services appear to have been completely overlooked in terms of their role in supporting individuals and their families where there is substance use.
“The focus appears to be primarily on the specialist workforce with little understanding that social care services, be they social work or social care, work with people using substances who never reach services or who drop out or whose lives and families are negatively impacted by their use.”
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She welcomed the whole systems approach taken from Dame Carol Black’s review of drugs services that provides the basis for the strategy – but Galvani said the absence of focus on social care betrayed a lack of understanding of its role within government.
“Substance use can become an adult and child safeguarding issue as we know and social workers work daily with people using substances who are experiencing problems,” she added.
“The wider social work and social care workforce need training in substance use in order to feed in to the specialist services appropriately and to ‘hold’ those who do not want to receive specialist support. It’s not simply a case of referring on.”
It includes plans to increase the number of medical, mental health and other professionals by 800 and drug, alcohol and criminal justice staff by 950 over the next three years.
However, while the strategy references doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists and registered health professionals generally by name as being among the first of these groups, it does not mention social workers.
Black’s report revealed that half of all homicides and half of acquisitive crimes are linked to drugs. People with serious drug addiction occupy one in 3 prison places.alf of all homicides and half of acquisitive crimes are linked to drugs. People with serious drug addiction occupy one in 3 prison places.
The first part of Black’s research showed how entrenched drug use and premature deaths occur disproportionately more in deprived areas and the north of the Uk.
It read: ”it is highly likely that the pandemic has widened inequalities and that any recession would further drive trends in drug use and deaths in the wrong direction. So, the problem is almost certainly worse than when we reported in Part 1 and a major barrier to ‘levelling up’
This was despite the fact that Black recommended the creation of 52 new social worker posts over the next three years, and 78 over the next five.
Black’s review, published in July, said there had been a “significant deterioration” in the quantity, quality and morale of the drugs workforce due to service cuts in recent years, leading to high caseloads.
She added: “The only effective treatments for people dependent on non-opioid drugs are psychosocial interventions including cognitive behavioural therapy, yet people with professional skills in these areas are in very short supply. Dedicated social work teams for drugs and alcohol are also disappearing.”
The government accepted Black’s recommendation to rebuild the “depleted” drugs workforce.
“We need to rebuild the sector’s health professional workforce (including psychiatrists, doctors, nurses and psychologists) and improve the level of skill and training among drug workers and peer recovery workers, so that they are all well equipped to deliver the psychosocial and health interventions that drug users in treatment require to succeed,” the strategy says.
The government strategy recommends councils to focus this on reducing drug-related deaths, bringing more offenders into treatment, and expanding inpatient detox services and provision for those with complex needs.
It includes plans to increase the number of medical, mental health and other professionals by 800, and drug, alcohol and criminal justice staff by 950 over the next three years.
However, while the strategy references doctors, nurses, psychiatrists, psychologists and registered health professionals generally by name as being among the first of these groups, it does not mention social workers.
This exclusion is at odds with the recommendation for 52 new social worker posts to be created over the next three years, and 78 over the next five years, but which did not feature in the announced strategy to tackle drug addiction.
Professional Appreciation
Social work as a profession has lost a lot of its professional appreciation due to the large number of publicised misconduct or incompetencies of social workers. Disciplinary action for negligent or unprofessional conduct is a regular occurrence in the social work profession- it has affected public confidence in many ways.
The social work profession still offer society alot in the way skill and expertise by many of the unsung heroes whose professional output is not recognised by socirty at large.
The Uk government said it will provide an extra £293m from 2022-25 for councils to invest in drug and alcohol services. This will go first to the 50 areas with the highest needs, based on drug-related deaths, and levels of use and crime, before being rolled out to the rest of the country.
The government added that it would set grant conditions to ensure this money was spent on evidence-based treatments, potentially with a clawback mechanism if money was not used as intended by councils.
In the second report of her review, published in July, Black said there had been a “significant deterioration” in the quantity, quality and morale of the drugs workforce due to service cuts in recent years, leading to high caseloads.
She added: “The only effective treatments for people dependent on non-opioid drugs are psychosocial interventions including cognitive behavioural therapy, yet people with professional skills in these areas are in very short supply. Dedicated social work teams for drugs and alcohol are also disappearing.”
The government accepted Black’s recommendation to rebuild the “depleted” drugs workforce.
“We need to rebuild the sector’s health professional workforce (including psychiatrists, doctors, nurses and psychologists) and improve the level of skill and training among drug workers and peer recovery workers, so that they are all well equipped to deliver the psychosocial and health interventions that drug users in treatment require to succeed,” the strategy says.
The government’s figures appear to fall short overall of Black’s recommended expansion in the number of professionals over the next three years (800, as opposed to 1,113).
It said it would develop a strategy with Health Education England to expand the workforce and “define and improve the training and skills of all sections of the drug treatment workforce, including registered health professionals, drug and alcohol workers, and peer supporters”. This will include consideration of the role that can be played by social workers, though it is not clear how far this will include extra roles as recommended by Black.
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “We’re investing a record £780 million to improve access to treatment and increasing the capacity of services as part of our bold 10-year drug strategy.
“This will allow us to develop a world-leading treatment system, including expanding the workforce by over 1,500 staff to ensure people have more support and help to overcome their addiction.”
As part of this, the government said it would continue this year’s £80m boost to local authority-commissioned drugs services over each of the next three years, which is on top of the existing £670m-a-year public health grant, designed for the same purpose.
The strategy says councils should focus this on reducing drug-related deaths, bringing more offenders into treatment, and expanding inpatient detox services and provision for those with complex needs.
The government will also provide an extra £293m from 2022-25 for councils
to invest in drug and alcohol services. This will go first to the 50 areas with the highest needs, based on drug-related deaths, and levels of use and crime, before being rolled out to the rest of the country.
The government said it would set grant conditions to ensure this money was spent on evidence-based treatments, potentially with a clawback mechanism if money was not used as intended by councils.
It said it would expect the funding to cover interventions such as needle and syringe programmes, medicines to reduce harm and support detoxification and psychosocial programmes “to support people to understand their addiction, make changes and develop coping strategies”.
Treatment provider Change Grow Live strongly welcomed the strategy, including its plans for the workforce.
“The success of this strategy depends in large part on the people who deliver treatment and recovery services, from psychiatrists to caseworkers and volunteers, so we welcome new funding to attract people to jobs in the sector, to support better training for them, and to keep caseloads manageable,” said chief executive Mark Moody.
He added: “We also back the ambition to see the full range of evidence-based harm reduction and treatment services available for all those that need them in every community, starting with the most deprived areas, which are disproportionately affected by drug use.”
However, Moody said, “people who use drugs have been ignored and marginalised for too long by policymakers”, meaning the strategy was “just the start”.
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