Frontline’s “This is the Work” campaign

Frontline is England’s largest social work charity. Everything we do aims to make life better for children who need a social worker, to help keep them safe from harm and to give them every possible chance to fulfil their potential, through developing excellent practice, leadership and innovation. Recently, They have launched the latest stage of our ‘This is the Work’ campaign. 

The Campaign is aiming to challenge myths and negative perceptions of social work, build awareness of and appreciation for the profession, and actively target and inspire more people to consider social work as a career choice.  

Unlike other frontline services, stories of social work remain mostly unseen and unheard. In their place are all too many myths and misconceptions about what social work really is, and damaging portrayals of social workers themselves. Nearly 60% of the people we spoke to in a survey last year believe social workers have a negative reputation, and two thirds of our respondents felt social workers are portrayed negatively in the media. 

But through our research we learnt something else – that people want more to be done to explain what social work really is, more done to celebrate what social workers do, and to tell those stories of hope and of helping children realise their potential. And that’s what this phase of the campaign is all about.

We want to tackle head-on some of the myths that still persist about social work, myths which damage both the morale of social workers and the trust of the public. And which can prevent people considering social work as a career. We also want to give an insight into the positive power of social work and social workers to make a real difference to children and families who rely on their support. 

To do this they have  created a new film, featuring six of there  social workers responding to just a few of these myths, how they feel about them and what the truth really is. They will be sharing this across our social media channels and on there website.