Photography is my hobby..

The ways in which policy developments in the field of social work are influenced by events in practice.

Introduction.

Social work practice can be defined as aiming ‘…. to improve and facilitate the working of society, the environment of relationships and social institutions developed from relationships, in which human beings live.” (Adams et al, 2009:1). The aim of an inquiry is to bring to light what social workers did, what changed, who was at fault with every agency and professional who was involved or who came across the child is under scrutiny by the relevant panel. The faults are then identified and recommendations are made for change in policies from national to local authorities to ensure it does not happen again. The essay provides an evaluation of how issues identified in enquiries are then percolate into practice and inform developments in practice.

I will critically analysis policy developments in the field of social work through events in practice. The main focus will be on the Victoria Climbie serious case review alongside other cases such as Baby P and James Bulger. Major pieces of legislation have been introduced such as the Children’s Act (1989) and subsequent amendments (2004; 2006) following significant child abuse inquiries. A critical overview will be presented as to whether or not there is a clear and coherent relationship between the event and policy development; whether or not there is a direct cause and effect which can be traced back to the serious case review or whether there was already a movement happening within social services to address some of the issues which ended up precipitating the event.

The historical perspective will cover child social work, exploring the impact of one serious case review on another and identify whether or not the causes are similar or different. This will provide a context for analyzing whether or not the lessons have been learnt and changes embedded into practice, whether all the recommendation made at previous enquires have been implemented. The essay will explore why there were recurring instances of neglect and abuse. The focus here will be on the past enquiries, recommendations made, strategies, implementation and outcomes.

The main body of this essay will focus on the policy developments following the Climbie serious case review, a summary of the key elements of the causes and how some of what happened was inconsistent with policy frameworks. Furthermore the essay will concentrate on signs of potential neglect/abuse missed by professionals in their dealings with the families involved; whether or not it was the cause of flaws in assessment practice, deficits in management, practitioner training and development which culminated in the case. The essay will also identify the nature and effectiveness of the collaboration between different agencies including Multi-Agency-Risk-Assessment-Conference (MARAC) which were implemented on the back of Mary Russell who died at the hands of her husband. It highlighted the need for information sharing as there was a gap in this area of social services. MARAC was introduced to prevent abuse through improved information sharing and preventive action. The conclusion will outline key issues, findings and recommendations as to what would improve policy and practice and how to deal with recurring issues.

Historical Perspective

The purpose of a historical perspective is to gain a better understanding into the issues and agendas which influence and shape contemporary practice. The need for better inter agency work and co- ordination goes back to 1978 (The Warnock Report) which has recommended the need for social and educational professionals to work together to ensure the provision of effective services for the child (Oliver and Pitt, 2011). The Children Act (1989) and subsequent amendments to The Children Act (1989/2004/2006) recognised the importance on professionals working together from every department. The Children’s Act (1989) is now the main piece of legislation which authorities use to write internal procedures to inform their practice to ensure children are safeguarded from any harm and to promote their welfare. It makes provision for parents and families who are unable to provide the outcomes for their child or children; the frameworks aim to help to achieve the outcomes.

The legislation provides the statutory structure for professionals to follow when parents do not cooperate with statutory bodies. It is unfortunate that to bring about change in practice through policy developments it often happens following a significant instance of child death, serious neglect or abuse. Due to the failings highlighted in the serious case review into child exploitation in Oxfordshire of six children, the Government is currently attempting to introduce legislation to make Social Workers more legally accountable for their professional behaviours, missing the signs of abuse and neglect and also including misconduct, which will fall under the Criminal Justice and Courts Act (2015) in Part 1 of the Act section 20 as ‘willful neglect’. On the other hand the Oxfordshire Inquiry did not find any evidence to show that social work practitioners were at fault:

The Serious Case Review (SCR) has seen no evidence of wilful professional neglect or misconduct by organisations, but there was at times a worrying lack of curiosity and follow through, and much work should have been considerably different and better. (OSCB, 2015)

However, it is worth remembering that this is just one inquiry that did not find fault with social work professionals. Both The Victoria Climbie Enquiry as well as Lambing (2003) reported children’s needs were not taken into consideration due to a number of factors due lack of co-ordination, information sharing and rigidity in terms of working within individual agency boundaries to the detriment of collaboration which could have enabled more preventative action to be taken to avoid instances of abuse and neglect. Every Child Matters was the ultimate policy outcome of some of these developments and it provided a more coherent framework for working with children including taking into account the wishes and feelings of children.

These developments have given rise to the need for greater accountability (as reflected in the Criminal Justice and Courts Act). Maria Stratulis (British Association of Social Workers) supports the suggested implementation of punishment for failure to follow the code of conduct and greater accountability of social workers. However, she believes that legal threshold for this needs to be identified (Community Care, Online) so that there is transparent and consistent set of guidelines. Petitions on community care reform (known as ‘Stand Up For Social Work’) are currently going around to prevent this change. Social workers are already registered with the HCPC as professionals and should therefore be subject to sanctions for proven failure to safeguard professional standards. Police officers currently have to face similar consequences if a child dies and if it could be established that they were at fault through their actions. Every single serious case review has brought about change but the significant levels of abuse or death and most of these have left the social work profession with serious criticism.

The changes made from the Munro (2011) report was that safeguarding visits had to be conducted with the child alone, the child’s bedroom has to be checked as this is now part of policy because of the faults from this case. The Baby P inquiry has suggested to need for change in professionals workload and capacity, ways of working, resources, gaining and keeping staff, and relationships with other professionals and agencies. The Bichard Inquiry (2004) transformed the criminal checks, leading to the introduction of enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service. Legislation underpins professional’s practice. The Serious Case Review into the Death of Victoria Climbie brought about changes in The Children’s Act (2004) along with the implementation of The Common Assessment Framework. Munro (2011) wrote safeguarding to improve practice, which stemmed from the tragic death of Climbie.

Enquires led to much tighter definition of professionals roles and responsibilities across the criminal justice and safeguarding system; for example section 28 of the Children’s Act (2004) defines the statutory duties of not only local authorities traditionally responsible for safeguarding but also the Police, Probation, NHS bodies and Youth Offending Teams. It not only concerned the role of practitioners but also institutional responsibilities for safeguarding. This represented a very significant shift in the strategic commitment to safeguarding children (Government; 2006). It meant shared ownership of safeguarding agenda and commitment (including resources where required) to make a difference.

Main Discussion

Social work practice has been shaped by a number of different historical developments including a series of child abuse and neglect inquiries which go back to the 1960’s (as we have seen above). Some of these have been quite damaging to the profession in terms of highlighting significant institutional and individual failings as well as the loss of life or deep and lasting psychological damage on individuals. Social work competence at times has been at the heart of such failings. Child abuse inquiries have been frequent and critical of professional practice in terms of its capacity to safeguard children and prevent abuse within the community. Unfortunately professional practice has not improved to the extent that it is no longer beyond scrutiny and criticism. We see historical parallels in contemporary practice suggesting the profession has struggled to shake off its historical legacy. The case of Victoria Climbie is used to provide a case study that captures the complexity of these issues within the profession, recurring debates and themes in professional practice.

The Munro Report (2011) outlined the principles to effective practice, potential failings in the services and made recommendations for further change in service delivery. There were many flaws in practice identified including record keeping (not consistent with policy expectations) as the social worker who was involved in the Climbie case wrote the notes in green pen which fades over a period of time. Information needs to be recorded in order to share with other professionals involved and provide an audit trail of what information has been shared and with whom: ‘Practitioners need to work within their own agency’s arrangements for recording and sharing information and within any local information sharing procedures that may be in place… in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998’ (Oliver and Pitt, 2011: pp118). The young girl was never asked what language she spoke, only the adult was spoken to, and when Climbie did speak the social worker was not familiar with the language: concerns about this have been raised since the 1990’s. (Farmer and Owen, 1995; Brandon et al, 1999; Chand, 2005), demonstrating a tragic lack of progression in policy and practice development. There was clearly also a critical issue of cultural diversity in the failings along with ‘misplaced assumptions’ (Lord Laming; 2003): the assessment practice failed to adequately take into account cultural diversity. Garrett (2006) stated that although the report has contributed to policy developments, it has not explored the issue of diversity:

‘It is, perhaps, a little surprising that issues relating to ‘race’ and ‘place’ alluded to in ‘Laming’ have not been investigated, in any detail’ (pp 316)

Chand (2008) states that although there is a great deal of literature that has come about over the years that shows children from minority ethnic families face disadvantages in children services yet the findings have had little meaningful impact on subsequent reform of polices. In this instance (e.g. Climbie) the child said something that was not the same language as the social worker or the parent looking after her. This highlights an institutional failing in the sense that due to resources or caseloads the covering social worker conducting visits had not taken sufficient time to read the file, thus not understanding the context in which she had been conducting the assessment. The social worker would not appear to have been in control of her brief in terms of case management.

Managerialism led to the development of bureaucracy with processes and flow charts which can miss the complexities in human relationships and is what professionals have to asses when working with children and families. Munro (2011) criticized managerialism at one level stating that human error occurs when physiologically people are under pressure so they try harder and this leads to making mistakes. Policies and procedures which are in place reduce people’s capacity to make professional judgements, and become another problem. Social services need to be managed in relation to whether or not the social worker has done their job right. After each inquiry a recommendation for policy is introduced progressively and develops a greater level of monitoring into the process. Professionals are put under pressure in order to comply with the regulations. In the 1980’s there was a need and drive to improve transparency and accountability, but equally critically the market forces were introduced into social care to achieve efficiencies. However the balance between reducing costs and continuing to provide a quality services does not allow this to happen.

Historically all these missed signs have ended up having an impact on the public, professionals and local authorities. This highlights the need for policy changes and better practice. Another principle into better practice that was identified by the Munro report (2011) suggested that audits have focused on the process itself as opposed to examining the nature and quality of practice that sits behind social work professional’s ability to work with complex individuals. Process driven managerialism overlooks the fundamental issue that the social worker does takes place in a relationship that would often involve a number of characters who may include those who are vulnerable in society. This results in the social workers being more at risk of missing the human interaction because they are driven by cost, time pressures, work load or management issues. This results in the likelihood of committing errors as things get overlooked. Defensive practice has developed which allows agencies to protect themselves against criticisms from the public of their practice. In the process failing to look at what may defensible practice in order to provide better safeguarding services.

The focus on the social work process through legislations and policy frameworks has distracted the attention from the quality of care and interaction with those who are of interest to the local authorities of which need to be looked after, or required support from social services. The focus needs to be redirected at the idea of regulating the profession and the extent to which procedures govern practice. There have been developments in research that show that early interventions and preventative work can minimize the damaging impact of neglect and abuse, in children and young person’s lives. (Home Office; 1998, Children and Young People’s Unit; 2001, Department of Health, 2003)

The Common Assessment Framework (CAF) uses a different set of procedures but also has to be consistent in order for the professional to be able to pick up early signs of potential failure. Assessment needs to be conducted within a structure that consists of three distinct strands: parenting capacity, family and environmental factors and child’s developmental needs. These are assessed by social workers, family support works and contact center officers. All information gathered needs to be shared with those involved and who have come across the child to ensure that any decisions made are fully informed. It also presents opportunities for professionals to pick up signs of abuse and neglect. As the CAF framework is holistic and looks at a number of different strands it improves professionals’ capacity to carry out effective assessments to prevent abuse as they are looking at the situation from different angles:

‘Assessments are to be undertaken in collaboration with the relevant agencies and involve children (wherever possible) and parents so that the overall assessment and subsequent plans and interventions include the contribution of them all’ (Cleaver and Walker, 2003: pp82)

The Munro Report (2011) outlines the implications of failings within the social services department highlighting that there was too much bureaucratic social work, the common assessment framework was one of the recommendations from the inquiry. The study conducted by Cleaver and Walker (2003) found that even after the implementation of the legislative framework social workers still had an increased work load. Professionals must bring their practice in line with the CAF.

MARAC (Multi Agency Risk Assessment) was a positive development. Prior to its introduction, it proved difficult to gain information from others involved from doctors for example because of patient confidentiality, member of the police force were unable to share information and kept it under police intelligence. Now it is very different; it is compulsory to gather and share information from everyone involved due to all the investigations conducted into a child death it is how professionals progress through safeguarding. The agencies are not good at information sharing as it has been part of the failings highlighted from serious case reviews.

Whilst MARAC was a positive change in practice, its contribution to safeguarding is subject to debate. One of the biggest challenges of the MARAC is understanding other professional’s roles and duties and how they fit and work together. The radical restructuring that these changes introduced has proved to be very challenging for the practitioners and agencies involved. However, this could have resulted in greater levels of collaborative practice or whether the new structures have proved to be detrimental to the provision of services to children and their families. (Oliver and Pitt, pp 106) The inquiry into the death of Baby P, the laming report concluded that better outcomes for children could be achieved if professionals pooled their expertise together and co-ordinated their services in a proactive and meaningful ways.

Every Child Matters (DFES, 2003) was organized around five outcomes for children and young people: be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution and achieve economic well-being (Oliver and Pitt, 2011). The achievement of these outcomes is contingent on agencies working together to pool their resources and strategies. Joint collaboration is equally critical to success in making sure children and families receive the best services they can. The 1990s saw the rise of ideas around ‘inter-professional collaboration’ and ‘partnership’ but these developments remain problematic both in terms of practice utility and theoretical coherence: “although an understanding of partnership is taken for granted there is little theoretical clarity about the concept [and] the danger is that this lack of clarity will lead to an uncritical approach to partnership learning… and in practice” (Le Richie and Taylor, 2008, pp11)

Social Work practice is resource-led as there is not enough money to provide services for preventative work, so a threshold is imposed to manage resources. This introduces a performance/resource allocation gatekeeping function. The common assessment team apply procedures to reconcile needs with what’s available for those who meet the criteria of risk. Service delivery is largely organized around crisis management. If there is no crisis often there is very little help made available. Therefore crisis management informs professionals practice as opposed to prevention and sustainable change to promote better long term safeguarding practice.

The Social Work Profession welcomes the recommendations for policy change but translating key learning and principles into operational delivery often remains elusive. Benefit realization of policy changes end up being obstructed by workforce difficulties as well as lack of sufficient investment in service delivery. The Laming recommendations, for example, are not all in place and where this is the case many local authorities question ‘…the sustainability of Lord Laming’s proposal (Macleod et al, 2010: pp 19)

The lack of sufficient progress in practice development requires explanation. A research report (2015) conducted by the HCPC found that cause for disengagement from the professionals was due to workload pressures, poor management, blame culture and working patterns. However, the view from participants that what encouraged and motivated them was buddying schemes, being valued, good supervision and professional networks, alongside values of being a professional and supervision. Better engagement was promoted by the absence of a blame culture as well as the existence of a support network and supportive managers (HCPC, 2015: pp 45)

The research completed by NFER (2010) provides detailed insights into the consequences of being involved in child abuse enquiries. The Baby P case would appear to have been the most damaging to professionals with ‘…profound and longer lasting…’ (Macleod et al, 2010; pp9) with excessive media focus and attention even though issues around Baby P were not unprecedented. Two quotations (one from a social worker and the second one from a Team Leader) in the research serve to help us get a measure of the felt impact: ‘The social worker didn’t kill Baby Peter as far as I am aware, but to read some of the press at the time one could be forgiven for thinking that.’ The Team Leader explains: ‘It wasn’t just about that particular social worker, or local authority. It was about us as a profession. (ibid: 9)

Conclusion

Social work is a complex profession that often deals with vulnerable individuals and families in society in a situation where there are not clearly defined social boundaries with intricate personal human relationships. The professional has to make sense of the situation in this context to safeguard people and make sure policies and procedures are clearly applied. However, historical development show the profession has struggled to manage competing pressures and priorities which has often led to the death of children placed in care of Children’s Services. Enquiries have made recommendations for change which have not always been fully followed through and implemented due to a number of reasons including organizational culture and resource constraints. The essay has provided a coherent overview and evaluation of a number of enquiries, their intended outcomes and the development of social work practice. It is reasonable to conclude that whilst there is a clear link between child abuse enquiries and some progression in policy and procedures, the social work profession has not been able to eliminate the recurring themes in practice which lead to continued instances of child abuse and death.

References.

Adams, R., Dominelli, L. & Payne, M. (2009). Social Work; Themes, Issues and Critical Debates, United Kingdom: Palgrave Macmillan.

Bedford, A. (2015) ‘Serious Case Review into Child Sexual Exploitation in Oxfordshire: from the Experiences of Children A, B, C, D, E and F.’ Oxfordshire Safeguarding Children Board. [Online] [Accessed on 16^th April] http://www.oscb.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/SCR-into-CSE-in-Oxfordshire-FINAL-FOR-WEBSITE.pdf

Bichard, M. (2004) The Bichard Inquiry Report. London: The Statutory Office.

Brandon, M., Thoburn, J., Lewis, A., Way, A. (1999) Safeguarding Children with the Children Act 1989. The Stationery Office: London.

Chand, A. (2005) ‘Do You Speak English? Language Barriers in Child Protection Social Work with Minority Ethnic Families’, British Journal of Social Work 35: pp 1–15. Doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bch205

Chand, A. (2008). Every Child Matters? A Critical Review of Child Welfare Reforms in the Context of Minority Ethnic Children and Families. Child Abuse Review. 17 pp 6 – 22 doi: 10.1002/car.1001

Cleaver, H., Walker, S. (2003). From Policy to Practice: the implementation of a new framework for social work assessments of children and families. Child and Family Social Work. 9 (1) Pp 81 – 90 doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2206.2004.00314.x

Children and Young People’s Unit (2001). Building a Strategy for Children and Young People. Consultation Document. Children and Young People’s Unit, London.

Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015 (c.2) London: OPSI.

Department of Health (2003). Getting the Right Start: The National Service Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services – Emerging Findings. Department of Health, London.

Department foe Educational Services (2003) Every Child Matters, Cm 5860. London: The Statutory Office.

Data Protection Act 1998 (c.29) London: OPSI

Farmer, E., Owen, M. (1995) Child Protection Practice: Private Risks and Public Remedies. HMSO: London.

Garrett, P, M. (2006). ‘Protecting Children in a Globalized World: ‘Race’ and ‘Place’ in the Laming Report on the Death of Victoria Climbié’. Journal of Social Work 6(3): 315 –336. Doi: 10.1177/1468017306071179

Government. (2006) Children and Young People: Rights to Action. Safeguarding Children: Working Together Under the Children Act 2004. [Online] [Accessed on 15^th April 2015] http://www.conwy.gov.uk/upload/public/attachments/328/safeguarding_children__english.pdf

Home Office (1998). Supporting Families: A Consultation Document. The Stationery Office, London.

Health and Social Care Professions Council (2015) Preventing Small Problems from Becoming Big Problems in Health and Social Care. [Online] 3^rd March [Accessed on 20th April 2015] http://www.hpc-uk.org/assets/documents/10004A7EPreventingsmallproblemsfrombecomingbigproblemsinhealthandcare.pdf

Lord Laming. (2003). The Victoria Climbié Inquiry. [Online] [Accessed on 10^th April 2015] http://www.victoria-climbie-inquiry.org.uk/finreport/finreport.htm

Laming, H., (2009). The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report. London: The Statutory Office.

Le Riche, P and Taylor, I. (2008) The Learning Teaching and Assessment of Partnership Working in Social Work Education. London: Social Care Institution for Excellence.

Munro, E. (2011). The Munro Review of Child Protection: Final Report. A child-centred system. Department for Education.

Macleod, S., Hart, R., Jeffes, J., and Wilkin, A. (2010) ‘The Impact of the Baby Peter Case on Applications for Care Orders’. National Foundation for Educational Research. [Online] 3^rd March [Accessed on ^23rd March 2015] https://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/BPI01/BPI01.pdf

Oliver, B and Pitt, B,. (2011) Working with Children, Young People and Families. A Course Book for Foundation Degrees. Learning Matters. Great Britain.

Stevenson, L. (2015) ‘Social workers to face five years in prison for failing to protect children from sexual abuse, warns Cameron’ Community Care. [Online] 3^rd March [Accessed on 2^nd April 2015] http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2015/03/03/social-workers-face-five-years-prison-failing-protect-children-sexual-abuse-warns-cameron/

The Children’s Act 1989 (c.41) London: OPSI

Manic

In the space of a few weeks everything has gone in so many directions. It’s crazy to try and adjust to life after education! I have started working for now and it’s taking some getting used to. Although, I have got a workshop next work to find out what it’s like working with young people in a residential home, so I am excited! Can’t really believe they took the time out to look at my application form (took about 5 hours) and call me days later! I am super excited! I am also moving this weekend, not packed, not organised one bit! For the first week it will be a full house.. a pregnent lady, a horse (my dog) snake, my partner and her other half! I have so many things to do, but I feel like I have so many opportunities coming my way. All trial and error at the moment. Up and down days, such an emotional wreck! 

The Use Of Berger’s Contagious in Our Campaign

Our campaign is about student loneliness, and it is not recognised as much as it is for other social issues. In our group, we had experienced loneliness one way or another so it was something we could take about and relate our personal experiences too. The question that is asked within Berger’s Contagious Book is why are things talked about. He outlines 6 main factors that should be thought about during the making of a campaign, they are known as STEPPS;

• Social Currency
• Triggers
• Emotion
• Public
• Practical Value
• Stories

When it comes to social currency, this refers to how good or important something makes us look for sharing it. We want to look bright and knowledgeable so we are more likely to talk about those things that make us look good. This campaign is aimed at students as they may feel relief that a campaign has been set up to get everyone thinking about how students really feel. A minority may think that students have no problems, and they are happy all the time, they live on campus have loads of friends and go out all the time, when in reality it isn’t like that. We wanted to highlight the need to notice that students can feel lonely, which will affect their well-being and even their studies.

When it comes to triggers, this refers to association with something you have seen or head. For example, peanut butter is highly associated with jelly, and so the mention of the former often ‘triggers’ the thought of the latter. Increasing the chances that they will be both talked about and influence our behavior, and it will then trigger people to spread the word. So for example, in our campaign video it is a video walking near the bridge and into university where no one is around. So when students and others have seen this campaign, when they go into university for a lecture or sit down to do some work we hope that they will think of our video and our campaign in regards to student loneliness.

Emotion refers to videos, images, blogs, etc that bring out emotionally feelings that may be both positive and negative such as; excitement, anger or anxiety. Therefore through emotional attachment the campaign is more likely to be shared by others. The way we have tried to evoke emotion in our campaign is to show how it is sad that students are lonely, and there a misconception on how we are in a cohort. It needs more attention.

One of the factors identified is public, which refers to how important something is that is in the public eye. This triggers people to talk about it, so at the moment the Kardashians and the Jenners are constantly in the media and on their social networking sites. People have start to do something called ‘The Kylie Challenge’ were people are trying to get their lips as big as possible whether that be through fillers or using plastic bottles or glasses to such their lips in too for as long as possible. We have created a hastag for twitter (#saynotostudentloneliness) and used it on our blog, campaign video, facebook page and posters in order to spread the word, and let people know that if they want to talk about to use the hashtag. We have also contacted the university to spread the word. When I tweeted the hashtag with some facts, a speaker from the TED organisation retweeted it which was exciting, so I contacted him to help in the promotion of the campaign.

Practical value refers to the fact that people like to be helpful to others, and so anything that is particularly useful is more likely to be shared than that which is less so. This helps things go viral, when we share we care!

When it comes to stories, this refers to the fact that people tend to enjoy telling and hearing stories. Which is interpreted into a narrative and this means that it is more to be shared than those that are just presented as information. On our blog we have a few stories of how students have felt lonely and sometimes if it is made a little bit personal it helps people to relate to the campaign.

By using these main factors throughout the process of our campaign, we hope that it will be very successful.

Feminista

Feminitsta is a non-profit organisation that helps activists conduct a campaign, through varies resources they publish on their website. It was created in 2010 as they believed that men and women were not equal. Individuals who want to get involved can either create a campaign to suport equal opporunities for mean and women, or support them by donating. They use online tools such as;

• twitter (26.1k followers)
• facebook (11,756 likes)
• youtube (200 subscribers) and flikr.

The site is very simple and easy to natviate around it, with published stories of those involved with Feminista. As well as press realses, e-newletters, coverage and a message board. In the UK their statistics show that;

• Approximately 100,000 women are raped each year, and just 6% of reported rapes end in a conviction.
• Men outnumber women in parliament 4 to 1, and just 4 of the 23 cabinet members are women.
• Women working full-time earn 16% less than men, and two-thirds of low paid workers are women

Feminista believe “The creation of a world where women and men live equally won’t just ‘happen’. And it can’t be achieved solely by small groups of policy makers in closed meeting rooms. It takes all of us to stand up and be counted and take action for the world we want to live in”

The Fawcett society highlighted that women face a ‘triple jeopardy’ (The Fawcett society,2012:5) suggesting women are being hit in three ways due to the austerity measures; public sector jobs, benefit reduction and service withdrawal and as a result of this service withdrawal – women are left filling in the gaps (Fawcett society, 2012:36)

Feminista is important because it’s helps indivudals to create thier own campaigns in support of bring men and women together and making them equal. Campigns can be started in schools, and others in any envirmonment or from any backgroud. It gives people the opportaunities to come toegther and create social change, and campign for what they believe in. The more people are involved the more they are heard, the bigger the change.

Job Search

From 9 this morning I have been searching for jobs, and I think I have looked at around 60 plus jobs and applied for 7! I think it has been getting frustrating when I look at their criteria and some of them… I don’t meet them but I also have my own criteria and I know what I want, they know what they want. It’s not as simple as sending off a CV, I had to answer questions and fill out references and employment history boxes! One thing that really pee’s me off is having to register and sign up to all these profiles! I would love just to have one, and it would just reach out to every other site out there. I know it will be worth it in the end!

Blog Appearance

When I first found out that we would be making a blog on WordPress, I can’t say I was best pleased about it. I thought, great another thing to manage. I used to have Facebook, BBM, Viber, Whats App, Twitter and Instagram. I deleted the other social networking sites and kept two. Over time I have grown the like my blog, you can write more and people don’t seem to be as opinionated as they are on other sites. With a little help from Clive, my blog has started to get better in its appearance. I have pages, with pages underneath it, that are linked to it. Tags, Categories, embedded my twitter account into it. It feels like it’s all connected together. I also like making it a little personal with photos, for example the banner on the home page. On that day I went for a walk down the canal with my brother and my puppy after work, It was such a nice day! It seems to flow, it’s not cluttered. The only social networking site I have that is embedded into my blog is twitter, looks neat at the right hand side of the page! It is difficult trying to get used to all the tabs, and widgets and settings knowing what will work and what won’t so it takes a while but once you get the hang of it, you start to like it more. I will be posting on my blog even after the final year is complete.

Staying Safe Online

I am not a techy person, and I have only really used word, emails, and official sites for getting academic journals and books. I only use twitter and Instagram on my phone. I have two programmes on the laptop known as ‘CCleaner’ and ‘Mcafee’ to protect from viruses and hacking and deleting any unnecessary files. I use the CCleaner on a regular basis if I am shopping for anything and there is an option for paying via pay pal then that’s the best way to do it. It is so easy to gain other people’s details and set up instagram, facebook or twitter and pretend to be someone else, there is actually a programme called Catfish that is in America. They help people meet the person they say they have been in a relationship online with and then visit that person, the majority of the time it turns out to be someone else. It has been in the news recently in the UK that someone has been pretending to be a man, and he has had to speak out about it because so many women think they are in a relationship with him. I was watching ‘Keeping Up With The Kardashians’ the other day and someone had hacked into Kris Jenner’s icloud and gained access to her camera, she ended up being blackmailed for money, if she didn’t pay up then they threatened to release the footage of her changing in her room. I think there are so many apps, and sites that people can use and it can be difficult to manage. There is always someone hacking something like the PS3 years ago. Having programmes like Mcafee and CCleaner can help, because it shows you which website are legit and those of which will not harm the computer. It has a green, amber, and red system, which shows next to the links.

What Sparked Our Campaign?

Personally I have experienced loneliness a number of times during my time studying at university especially after a loved one had passed away, others can experience it if hey have moved away to another university away from their family home. It can be overwhelming going from college education to studying a degree. It was nothing like I expected. Many of the students were over the age of 20 plus, I remember being 18 at the time, the youngest one. I felt stupid because the other students had already had so much knowledge on the units, they had done access courses. When and If I asked for help, I felt like I should already know these things. In the end, some of the students from the first year didn’t seem to want to put the time in to explain or help me with something and I did drop out. I had never felt so lonely in the first term. I really doesn’t get much awareness, I guess when people think of going to university you think of living with friends, not doing much work, going to lectures, or missing them, and going out for drinks, and getting up late and being around people a lot. I feel that I can reach out to people because I have experienced so much already, so when a girl in the final year had been feeling lonely after losing someone close to her, I decided to reach out and let her know that she wasn’t alone and that I have two ears if she ever wanted to talk. I hope that helped, but it was something as a group we could all relate to for one reason or another. The main objective of the campaign is to let students know that they are not alone, there are people around they can talk to and they can get support from various places!

Working Together

Working together does have it’s advantages, but there can also be a few difficult aspects to it also. It does relieve the pressure of having to do so much work in a short space of time, and not feeling so alone while you’re doing it. Someone may struggle with one thing, but the other may have a solution to the task or situation.

Tuckman’s (1977) theory of team development outlined 5 stages that self-directed teams go through while working on a specific activity together. Those 5 stages are known as; Forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. 

I think as a group we are probably at the fourth stage of performing because everyone is doing their bit. I seem to have more responsibility on the campaign blog. I like it, I think to do this on my own it would have probably got overwhelming with so many things to keep running. One person has been doing the posters, the other has been focusing on the video, another person to manage the facebook page and I think it has all worked out well.

It goes without saying that we as students have so much work to do complete in the final year and although it is all about how we manage our time and use it wisely, it is always going to feel like there is never enough time to get so much work finished. Personally I have so much time to focus on blogging and the campaign, and I have been asking what needs to be done, or is there anything that I could take part in but there doesn’t seem to be any direction as to what next… I seem to be getting confused and it’s not being made clear. Everyone has their part to play and so do I with managing the campaign blog and tweeting using the hashtag #saynotostudentloneliness , I just want to make sure we’ve done everything we can.