By Gavin Mackintosh-
A social worker has been suspended for six months, after a conduct hearing in which she admitted lying about statutory visits to two children under the care of social services.
The unnamed social worker blamed a heavy workload for causing her stress, after retiring from maternity leave, the eye of media has learned. She said the stress left her ” deeply upset” by her manager’s ” deskilling and devaluing * approach to managing performance, which included criticising staff.
EMAILS
The eye of media.com also heard how the unprofessional social worker circulated a group email to every member of her her department, notifying them of instances of work not completed within the time scale required. The deceptive social worker claimed to have done this to avoid criticism from a manager her colleagues said was preoccupied with ” box ticking”.
The lying social worker gave the false impression in a record that she had visited children when in fact she had not. The fact she knew that the visit requirements were central to the duties of a competent social worker emphasises the level of her professional misconduct.
The panel concluded that the social worker’s actions were *dishonest, and her efforts to deflect criticism of his performance marked a ” significant breach ” of her colleague’s trust”.
PUBLIC CONFIDENCE
Her professional misconduct contributes to ” undermining public confidence in the system “, the panel said.
Social workers are known to often be burdened with plenty of workloads, but this cannot justify faking required visits that did not take place.
If the workload was so much as to prevent her enough time to complete important visits that are core to her profession, she should have spoken up instead of faking the visits.
The suspension will allow her time to build on what she had achieved so far and demonstrated that she would not commit further misconducts in future.