“Focussed wholly on Social Work Practice in Wales” 

Dr Caroline Hughes Associate Dean, Student Engagement, was invited to deliver the opening address at the 'Social Work in Wales' (Livingston et al., 2023) book launch at Wrexham University in July 2023. 

In the address, Dr Hughes said:

"Bore da a chroeso cynnes i chi gyd - good morning and a warm welcome to you all.

I’m delighted and honoured to welcome you all to the launch of Social Work in Wales- an important book which is the first to offer an in-depth study of the unique nature of Welsh Social Work practice.

It is wonderful to have so many of you here- we have a mix of the editorial team, authors of the book chapters, Outside In members, students, colleagues, strategic partners and friends of the University.  I hope that you enjoy the rest of this morning, hearing more about the book’s journey and what it means to have the first book launched which is focussed wholly on Social Work Practice in Wales.

Today is a celebration of this unique book which brings together a range of academic, carer, family, individual, practitioner, researcher, and student voices to explore Welsh context, practice examples, and current challenges in relation to Social Work in Wales.

We will hear from the Editors- Professor Wulf Livingston, Abyd Quinn Aziz and Dr Jo Redcliffe who will be able to talk to you about the origins of this Welsh social work dedicated book, and about how relationships built with Welsh Universities working together alongside Social Care Wales for Continuing Professional Education and Learning for social workers have provided the platform for this all-Wales collaboration.  

We will also hear from some of the authors of the book chapters including Eluned Plack, Hayley Douglas and Liz Lefroy.

Eluned’s evocative picture ‘the Quilt of Life’ provides the image of the book’s cover design and Eluned’s inspirational words giving voice to her picture can be found in the Introduction of the book, in both the Welsh and English languages, offering a flavour of how the same message looks and feels in the two languages. 

It is fantastic that Mark Drakeford, first Minister for Wales, has provided the foreword for the book. Mark Drakeford worked as a Probation Officer and Youth Justice worker, before entering academia and then a political career. He also helped set up the Welsh homelessness charity Llamau following his work with young people experiencing deprivation. He is arguably then, best placed to have written this forward, having both the hands-on experience in his early career and of course the wider political and policy knowledge as leader of Welsh government. In his opening words Mark Drakeford says:

 ‘A quarter of a century into the devolution story it is absolutely fitting to draw together a series of key themes and developments on one of the core, foundational responsibilities transferred to Wales in 1999.’

He talks about how one of the lessons any new social work student has to learn is that good intentions by themselves are not enough. He compares this to government where the hard work is to translate principles into practical policy and highlights how many of the chapters of the book weigh up that journey and come to conclusions where success has been achieved and where further ground remains to be gained. 

The shining example of co-production at Wrexham University is Outside In, the focus group of individuals and carers involved, participating and coproducing within the Faculty of Social and Life sciences at Wrexham University. Liz Lefroy, who facilitates this work writes about applying the principles of co-production and Outside In in chapter seven of the book. Outside in have won a number of awards including the prestigious Social Care Wales accolades in 2020 for Developing and Inspiring the workforce of tomorrow.

Outside in members have written chapter ten ‘Experiences of Social care and social work education: completing the circle’ which is an inspirational chapter where the starting point is experience and not the requirements of publication. It was founding representative Sandra williams who came up with the phrase ‘completing the circle’ -the group’s purpose and approach to coproduction distilled into three words. 

It is beyond the realms of this welcome address to be able to discuss the content of all of the chapters which are all excellent -informative, highly interesting and original and all with a distinctive Welsh context application.  Each chapter, with it’s own topic focus considers distinctive aspects of the ‘Welsh Way’ that underpins the nation’s social work approach and considers the implications for practice, offering clear signposting to key resources for further independent exploration of the topics covered.

Before I hand over to Wulf, I’ll share Mark Drakeford’s closing words. He highlights a sense of freshness and innovative thinking that is apparent throughout the volume and ends by saying – ‘It should give us confidence that the future of the profession and the discipline lies in strong and committed hands’."

'Social Work in Wales' by Wulf Livingston, Jo Redcliffe and Abyd Quinn Aziz is available to purchase at Policy Press