In my column of August 21st, I made a serious misstatement about social workers, which has been brought to my attention by a former social worker.
In describing social work as "an increasingly insidious and dangerous profession", I was fundamentally wrong, says my correspondent, because social work is not a profession. Phil Mac Giolla Bhain, a reader with whom I've had previous correspondence writes: "Professionals - medics, lawyers, teachers, accountants - can sell their specialist skills on the open market to private citizens. The idea of a private citizen soliciting the services of a social worker to 'help' them in some way is bizarre. The above mentioned professionals are licensed by outside bodies (eg The Law Society, the Medical Council). Social work has no such body. There is no fitness-to- practise committee to deal with the social worker equivalent of Dr Moira Woods (although there are plenty of these). Moreover, there is no specialist knowledge base that constitutes social work. As a social worker you can make it up as you go along. I speak as a qualified social worker and a former social work lecturer. Medics assessing a head injury use the world-accepted Glasgow Coma Scale, which is scientifically verified and tested. There is no equivalent body of knowledge in social work."
Two letters have appeared criticising my column, one from a representative of social workers, the other from a spokesman for the HSE. Both sought to refute the central elements of my argument, concerning the treatment of fathers by social workers and the more general question of accountability. Declan Coogan, communications co-ordinator of the Irish Association of Social Workers, wrote (August 25th) that "many child-protection social workers ... work late into nights and travel great lengths to facilitate contact between fathers and children". Aidan Browne, national director, Primary Community and Continuing Care Directorate of the HSE, made similarly sweeping assertions, unsubstantiated by particulars. "In fact," he wrote, "our social workers are obliged to conduct their work in a professional, transparent and courteous manner. They are open to, and must comply with, professional, ethical, legal and agency standards and processes."
These assertions are contradicted every week by my postbag and the calls and e-mails I get from parents brutalised by social workers. Neither Mr Coogan nor Mr Browne dealt with the specifics of my column, in which I referred to several cases in which social workers were manifestly out of control. Neither did they respond to my reference to two reports which damningly contradict their assurances.
In "Strengthening Families through Fathers" (Family Support Agency 2004), Harry Ferguson and Fergus Hogan wrote: "There is something in the very nature of social work and how it is organised and done which is currently antithetical to adopting a more holistic, father-inclusive form of practice... [ E]ven in the context of examining 'father-inclusive' practice we still found a great deal of evidence of exclusion of fathers in the very same cases. If fathers are being excluded by some parts of the system in the midst of some of the best work that is going on, then we shudder to think what is happening in the worst case scenarios, which we suspect are extensive." Mr Browne painted a rosy picture of a pyramid of redress and accountability rising through a series of regulated and transparent procedures, at the top of which is the Ombudsman, the ultimate guarantor of justice. Yeah right. Earlier this year the Supreme Court found the Ombudsman had wrongfully denied a separated father access to his daughter's hospital records in a case spanning the terms of two office holders. Mrs Justice Susan Denham said the Ombudsman applied the wrong legal test in determining that the release of the records would be directed only where there was "tangible evidence" that it would serve the interests of the girl. The former ombudsman should have approached the request by acknowledging that a parent's entitlement to access the information is presumed and that its release is in the child's best interests. It was "unfortunate", said Mrs Justice Denham, that the father's rights as parent and guardian were viewed "so erroneously".
And so, at the very top of the alleged pyramid of redress which Mr Browne seeks to exalt, is precisely the problem I claimed infects social workers in their everyday operations: an inversion of the constitutional requirement that the rights of parents as guardians of their children be respected and protected. The social workers in this case are still out there defending the indefensible. Unfortunately, because this entire area operates behind the cloak of the in camera rule, it is impossible for many wronged families to obtain justice as the system, shielded from public scrutiny, closes in to protect its various elements. The only mechanism that works for parents is media publicity, as we saw in a high-profile case in Co Meath last year. The only hope of ending the arbitrary, vindictive and brutal rule of social workers, therefore, is for journalists to tell the truth. Watch this space.