Black History Month, what next……?

Black history month was well celebrated and recognised across the for parts of the country.

society understand the significance and richness of black history in all aspects of our human relationships. I have been reflecting on the next steps. Peeps always say that the greatness of a pudding lies in its taste.

It is about time that we to see how the society will change and shift their behaviours and way of thinking. My particular attention has been primarily focused on promoting and valuing equality and diversity within the field of Social Work.

We acknowledge that black Social Workers and some disadvantaged and marginalised social workers have faced a number of challenges in their practice. There is a greater need for us to understand the impact of the “imposter syndrome” how do we identify this in our work place, how do we tackle the challenges, how do we support our colleagues and how do we reframe the narrative.

According to Wikipedia “ Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon, impostorism, fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud".

We are keen to support and promote Social Workers to enjoy a positive state of emotional well-being but I have little confidence and reassurance that the need to promote workforce emotional well-being and morale is aligned and purposeful. There seem to be a misalignment. I stand corrected.

To achieve the desired outcomes we need to understand some of the basic needs that a Social Worker requires to be productive, enjoy a positive sense of emotional well-being, and be competent in their practice.

Managers and Supervisors need to reconsider how supervision is provided. The use of reverse mentoring, mentors and creating safe spaces is key for organisations, companies and Local Authorities to promote.

Reframing how we offer supervisor is important. Re- framing common thoughts and ideas about performance needs to be the bedrock of our practice.

Failure by a Social Worker to diligently undertake their role could be be more than incompetence. There could be cumulative factors to include discrimination, racism among many other factors that could be affecting a Social Workers practice.