What is social work?
Sir: Peregrine Worsthorne asks God to forgive social workers, for they know not " what they do (Notebook, 18 April). He is probably right about most of them, but their representatives purport to know that whatever it is needs a long and expensive training paid for by the compliant taxpayer. On the strength of what Mr Worsthorne perceptively calls sociological mumbo-jumbo, so cial work are licensed to 'experiment according to individual whim and prejudice', and paid much more than nurses to do so. The curious reluctance of politicians to question the credentials of those who assert they are in the business of benevolence must be overcome, and 'professional' social work seen for the indulgent nonsense it undoubtedly is.
As for Mr Worsthorne's comment that the media only notice when babies are battered and ignore the numbers saved by social workers, there is no reliable evidence that a single baby has been saved except when social workers have removed him from the threatening environment. This requires decision. Case conferences frequently serve as excuses to avoid decision, and to prolong the so-called 'preventive work' with families 'at risk'. There is not a shred of reliable evidence that this does more than enhance the social worker's self-image as a 'professional'. There is some that it has occasionally permitted the continuation of infant suffering quite unacceptable to those whose commonsense has not been blunted by a training the scientific basis of which Mr Worsthorne rightly questions.
June Lait 7 High View Gardens, Derwen Fawr, Swansea
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