Some people are so brass necked it defies credibility, thus it was that I gasped at the barefaced effrontery of the PR meister that is the phenomenon Max Clifford. He who is in the forefront of numerous tabloid ‘campaigns’. You know the type, where the gullible and otherwise brain-cell challenged readers of the popular press enjoy a blood-pressure raising sound bite over their tea and toast of a morning.
Max, it seems has either offered his services, or been invited (it is not made clear) to provide a PR masterclass to social workers to help them avoid the PR minefields littering their path in the course of delivering services to their vast caseloads.
Is this the fox guarding the chicken-house? But for him and others like him, there would be less need for public servants to have to deal with PR problems.
Do I really need to assert that I’m in no way excusing those social workers, who wilfully remove/fail to remove children /vulnerable adults and others from risk? In all fairness, these are jobs I and many others would not wish to do, therefore, as the saying goes, society gets the social workers it deserves.
There is a hideous culture of blaming the wrong target which is a deviant form of shooting the messenger added to the prevailing attitude of sue them (whoever they are) in court/claim damages with little regard for wider implications which I think leads to a weakening of the social contract*. As a major part of the problem, I have no hesitation in pointing the finger at the proliferation of reality TV shows feeding off the misery of desperate and usually, socially excluded individuals for entertainment purposes as another element in this toxic mix.
My anecdotal evidence is a conversation I once had with a group of social workers who commented that their job was made more difficult as so many of their clients were followed around with documentary camera-teams and had been on one or other of the many day-time TV miserysploitation shows. While the social workers themselves were open about their need to protect their own back, they were equally concerned about potential damage to their clients. The clients were often paid very little in exchange for baring their soul and - frequently their DNA - to the world, and no support was given to them by the production companies.
Other clients had regretted selling their stories to those ghastly gossip magazines which require constant new stories weekly. In many people’s terms these stories are purchased for a pittance, but if you are a struggling single mum on the derisory state benefits the Westminster government sees fit to pay, then you could see this as a reasonable way to pay for the consumer-fest that entraps us all each December.
All of which can be read as me being patronising towards people with little choice and I cannot dispute that my attitudes are free of that unfortunate taint. But the fact remains that social workers and their relationships with clients are at risk of impairment because of the pressures to go public with personal stories or when a snooping press descend vulture-like on a sad human situation. When these life stories involve children, the stakes are raised as apparently everyone knows better than the mother or competent supportive professionals and can pronounce judgements about complex situations as presented in simplistic soundbites in the various media.
I have no solution to this, as it is probable that similar impulses to those leading our forebears to gather beneath gallows is at work here and therefore is a part of some people’s search for excitement in a drab life. For some there is no better feeling than enjoying other people’s despair. I believe the collective noun for them is DailyMailreaders.
http://www.communitycarelive.co.uk/plenary-sessions
Wee extract from the blurb for Max’s masterclass:
IMPROVING THE IMAGE OF SOCIAL WORK: A PR MASTERCLASS BY MAX CLIFFORD
Hear Max Clifford provide a proactive overview of how to handle PR when confronted with crises to encourage support from the public and defend and boost a demoralised workforce.
*Not sure why my inner Rousseau should appear today? Might have to go lie down and up the anarchy meds.
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