Greetings to all our social work members on World Social Work Day, today, 18 March 2025.

Today UNISON Scotland stands with all our social work members to celebrate and promote the social work profession.

This year’s theme is ‘Strengthening Intergenerational Solidarity for Enduring Wellbeing’, which emphasises the importance of caring and respecting across generations to build strong societies, sustain the environment, and share wisdom for a better future.

UNISON represents all those who are involved in providing a social work service, including admin staff, paraprofessionals and OTs. All are an important part of the social work team delivering services to our most vulnerable citizens.

UNISON Scotland’s Social Work Issues Group (SWIG) brings together members working in social work from across Scottish local authorities.

We have spearheaded a great many initiatives over past years to highlight the key issues for our social work members – overwork, too high caseloads, too much bureaucracy, high levels of staff absence and burnout, lack of supervision and support amongst others. We have continued to press strongly for increased investment in frontline services and other measures to address our members’ concerns. Where appropriate we work in partnership with organisations such as Social Work Scotland, OCSWA and SASW.

We have also been keen to highlight and promote the excellent practice that goes on out there despite these significant challenges. This includes our monthly webinars promoting radical social work, in which we ensure the voice of practitioners is always represented.

Please select this link and look at the UNISON Scotland Social Work pages on our website. Social Work – UNISON Scotland.

There you will find our Charter of Demands to End the Crisis in Social Work, launched at our Social Work Conference in October 2024, which sets out the actions that are needed now to support staff.

Other recent work includes our response to the “Future of Foster Care” consultation, Future of Foster Care Response – UNISON Scotland; our paper on Care Management and whether it is the right way to provide adult care services Care Management: Fit for Purpose? – UNISON Scotland; and briefings on the proposed National Social Work Agency. At present, we are collating members’ views to respond to the consultation on the registration of paraprofessionals.

From an international perspective, we issued a statement of solidarity with our colleagues in Gaza in February 2024 – Social Work Issues Group Statement on Gaza

On World Social Work Day, and on every other day, UNISON stands in solidarity with our social work members and thanks you all for the important work you do.

If you would like to know more about SWIG or would be interested in joining please Karen Davidson, Lead Organiser Social Work – karen.davidson@unison.co.uk