Goldie backs social worker campaign
Updated on 01 September 2009
Musician and DJ Goldie speaks to Channel 4 News on the day a national campaign is launched to encourage more people to join the social work profession.
Goldie praised the social workers that helped him in his childhood but said that the government needed to fully support the profession in order for it to be successful.
"For me it was a real buffer - to have someone who was going to be there and kind of help me go through trying to find my identity in the family sect.
"It's alright the government saying they're going to fund a campaign like this but you need to look at the bigger picture in following that through and assessing the assessment within its own structure.
"A lot of social workers by default are for the good and have helped people like myself within my upbringing and I think that they have a lot of love and a lot of time to help kids in these situations.
"I think the difference is that they can't do that just by love alone. They need to have the backing of the government which is why this campaign has come about."
Oscar-nominated actress Samantha Morton also spoke today of the "wonderful" social workers who supported her as a child as she helped the government campaign.
Morton, star of a series of films, and twice nominated for an Oscar, said she was backing a campaign to recruit more than 5,000 social workers for vulnerable children, adults and families.
The TV campaign will feature high-profile actors including actress and fashion designer Sadie Frost, former EastEnders star Michelle Ryan, Emilia Fox, of Silent Witness fame, musician and actor Goldie, Skins star Nicholas Holt and Joanna Page, who plays Stacey in the hit TV series Gavin and Stacey.
Each of the actors will play the role of a child or adult in need of the support of a social worker.
The Help Give Them A Voice campaign comes amid fears that the furore over the death of baby P has discouraged people from choosing social work as a career.
The recruitment drive aims to attract social workers who may have left the profession and people looking for a career change, as well as people making initial career choices.
Morton, who was looked after in care in Nottingham as a child, said she experienced some "wonderful" social workers who supported her and helped her realise her ambitions.
She said: "My early life from infancy to leaving home at 16 was spent in care. I had some wonderful social workers who supported me and helped me achieve my goals in life.
"That's why it's important to recruit more social workers.
"There are many people out there, whether they be children, families, vulnerable adults, even the aged who need a social worker. I want to enable them to have the support they need. Help us to help them, and maybe one day they may help you."
Children's Secretary Ed Balls, launching the campaign alongside Morton, said: "Thousands of children and families desperately need the help and support social workers give in difficult and sometimes dangerous situations.
"It is a job that makes a difference in ways that most of us can only begin to imagine. It's a job that can save and transform lives.
"Yet the success stories of the nation's social workers are rarely heard and research shows that many people don't even know what social workers really do.
"This hard-hitting campaign will mean a big step towards raising the profile of their work and showing what social workers deal with every day."
Emilia Fox, who plays an elderly man who has been married for 60 years and now struggles to care for his wife who has Alzheimer's, said: "I think we have got to a really critical situation where people are shying away from becoming social workers because of the bad press about the job.
"But this leaves a lot of people who do need social workers and do need care alone and without anyone so this is really to encourage people into a profession with responsibility."
Joanna Page, who plays the role of an elderly woman who has suffered a fall, said: "You forget how much good social workers do and how much they help and it is not just children, it is the elderly, it is families. They do so much good and there is a lot of bad press towards them."
