EBSWA has written to each of the three Government Ministers responsible for social work in England, Scotland and Wales asking for Guidance and explaining the problems social workers are encountering as a consequence of widespread adoption of doctrinaire beliefs about gender identity. We want to practice safely, and ethically, with confidence that this will be supported by Government.
Janet Daby MP
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Families and Wellbeing
Department of Education, England
Natalie Don-Innes MSP
Minister for Children Young People and The Promise
Scottish Government
Dawn Bowden MS
Minister for Children and Social Care
Welsh Government
CC Colum Conway, CEO Social Work England
Maree Alison, CEO, Scottish Social Services Council
Sara McCarty, CEO Social Care Wales
7 November 2024
Dear Ministers,
We, the Evidence-Based Social Workers Alliance (EBSWA), ask that our profession be supported through the publication of statutory guidance for working with adults and children with gender dysphoria and those expressing diverse gender identities. Following the publication of draft guidance for Gender Questioning Children by the Department of Education in 2023, we request that the Departments of Education, Health and Social Care, the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, alongside Social Work England, BASW and the Care Inspectorate deliver guidance for social workers on this topic, as well as how to understand the law around sex and gender for social work practice.
Social workers are required to work effectively with all kinds of people, respecting their identities and self-determination, whilst considering the role of ethics and the prevention of harm in order to make proportionate, professional decisions fitting to their role.
EBSWA is concerned that social workers are being prevented from working in a safe, evidenced based way due to significant limits on the way that gender identity is responded to across the profession and by social work employers and regulators. Sex and Gender reassignment are both protected characteristics, and the courts have found that believing in sex as a fixed biological state, is also protected within the characteristic of Religion and Belief.
In social work, it is necessary and expected to discuss difficult subject matter and explore many aspects of people’s lives, including their beliefs about themselves, in order to identify and coordinate their support and advocate for them. EBSWA is hearing examples from social workers experiencing barriers to working openly and curiously with service users who express gender diversity due to organisational decisions to use an affirmation only model. When relevant, this expectation inhibits both exploratory and formulation work, as well as preventing social workers to be candid with service users about the current evidence around gender medicine. This extends to not being able to raise safeguarding concerns when it is felt that the risk of harm interplays with the function of gender distress for an individual or within a household.
We are particularly concerned that the following four areas are addressed:
Best practice guidance for the benefit and safety of service users
Risks to practitioners in the community and at work
Producing and utilising evidence for practice, including the CASS review and NICE guidelines
The need for social work standards to extend and include discursive and ethical dilemmas pertaining to sex and gender, rather than taking an affirmation only position as a profession.
To illustrate the essential need for guidance, we would like to summarise examples we have had brought to our attention. These are varied in their ramifications but are all examples of the difficulties social workers are experiencing without consistent and appropriate guidance in this area. All reflect both subtle and explicit ways in which social workers are currently inhibited in their role.
One of our members has raised concerns regarding a decision to socially transition a looked-after child in Scotland. The Cass Review has concluded that social transition is not a neutral act and should be considered with caution as well as with clinical oversight. The looked-after child in our example was never provided with appropriate psychological assessment, support or diagnosis, and the decision to support and facilitate social transition in care was made in isolation by the local authority. This continued even when no alleviation in distress was observed and culminated in an intimate search by police of the opposite sex due to the child’s social gender rather than sex being reported on missing reports.
The uncritical uptake of affirmation-only responses by social care can be seen in local authorities where databases and internal referral forms only allow gender identity to be recorded. This makes it harder for professionals to understand somebody’s identity as the status of their gender identity cannot be stated in addition to sex. It also limits the discussion by reinforcing a controversy around sex and gender reassignment as distinct and relevant areas of equality law.
One of our members, an experienced and senior practitioner, recently experienced disciplinary action for approaching family work with appropriate curious enquiry and being subject to a complaint by a colleague for questioning the suitability of affirmation in a pre-adolescent child in a family with significant safeguarding issues. The child wished to transition alongside a parent who was no longer able to care for the child due to mental health concerns. Our member’s practice was not explored, it was assumed that wishing to incorporate curiosity about the function of gender within this family was, by default, prejudicial.
We hear from social workers who are being discouraged from openly discussing the health complications that a medical transition can lead to, as well as the lack of evidence in relation to long-term outcomes of treatments. We are also hearing that social workers do not feel able to be transparent about risk where an issue of claimed gender identity is present. Social workers are often working with individuals who are experiencing extreme distress and present a risk to themselves or others. When a person’s sex is not apparent it is not possible to do an accurate risk assessment both for the protection of social workers and should emergency service professionals be needed.
Many social workers feel unable to introduce discussions around evidence and gender diversity despite the Cass Review and a number of salient court cases. We believe that a government and regulator-led approach is necessary if the profession is going to deliver consistent, evidence-based practice when working with service users for whom gender identity is important.
We look forward to your response,
Yours sincerely
Maggie Mellon EBSWA Scotland
Charles Plummer EBSWA England
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