- Conference
- 2022 Local Government Service Group Conference
- Date
- 18 February 2022
- Decision
- Carried as Amended
Social work teams across the country provide a vital service to our communities by supporting those who are often society’s most vulnerable – including children, older adults, and individuals with physical or learning disabilities. Social work teams have continued to provide this care during the pandemic, often by making difficult decisions and quickly adapting to new ways of working.
UNISON has a brilliant membership benefits package for all social work staff. In the Northern Region we have developed a social work project to communicate these benefits to social work teams in a focused way. Our project aims to make clear that UNISON is the union for social work.
Our project has included specific recruitment and organising priorities agreed by a social work network of activists, a template presentation outlining UNISON’s offer to social work teams, and a plan for a targeted approach to student social work recruitment.
As part of our project we will be celebrating international social work day in March 2022 with an online event, accessible to all UNISON Northern members, which will promote our offer to social work teams. The event will profile the work of UNISON Professional Services Unit (PSU) in particular.
The new dedicated UNISON webpage for social work is welcomed by UNISON Northern and it has been received positively by activists by making key information more accessible for existing and potential future UNISON members. We also welcome the move to adapt our regional social work manifesto with a view to launching a UNISON wide social work manifesto.
Conference calls on the Service Group Executive to build on this progress by working with regions and branches to build a campaign to promote UNISON as the union for social work.