Documentaries and news reports

Social work and social workers

• Don’t forgot the excellent television documentary on BBC 2 about social workers in Bristol  ‘Protecting our Children’ which won best documentary series at the Grierson British Documentary Awards in 2012. Read about the making of the programme in the  blog by the series producer Sacha Mirzoeff. You can see all 3 episodes on The Daily Motion site.
• There was an earlier documentary called Someone to Watch over Me following the death of Victoria Climbie in February 2000 – see what the Open University said about this. 
• The Channel 4 Dispatches Documentary ‘Undercover Social Worker’ is available on Youtube.
• I want my baby back Panorama documentary from January 2014.
• Rethinking Foster Care talk by Molly McGrath Tierney in January 2014. The Manager of the City of Baltimore Department of Social Services, she talks about why the system isn’t working and the dangers of commodification of children within the foster care industry.
• Exposure – Don’t take my child ITV documentary from July 2014.
• Baby P: The Untold Story  BBC Documentary October 2014.
• ITN news report on Forced Adoption aired on 20th November 2014, investigating ‘growing numbers of fearful parents are finding sanctuary in rural Ireland, on the run from social services in England and Wales where their children are being threatened with forced adoption’.

 

Adoption

• Love is not enough a series of programmes made by the BBC following the adoption process in the UK, following 4 families from the initial interview stage through to the placement and beyond. 
• Panorama The Truth About Adoption Filmed in Coventry, this documentary covers the search for an adoptive family for two sisters, decision making about the future of 3 children in care, and the story of a little boy whose foster parents want to adopt him but whose birth mother wants him back.
• A Home For Maisie In her 8 years of life, Maisie has lived in 10 different homes and been through 2 adoption disruptions. She has significant emotional and behavioural needs. Social services have placed her for adoption one final time, with a couple who have already adopted 8 older children, but if this doesn’t work out, Maisie will spend the rest of her childhood in care. This documentary follows the family and Maisie as they go through therapy at Family Futures, an organisation with a 95% success rate at keeping families together.

 

Special Guardians

• Special Guardianships: Keeping things in the family? Radio 4 File on 4 programme examining the impact of SGOs. March 2016.

 

 

Drama

Jo Brand and Alan Davies appear in ‘Damned’ on Sky Arts, a comedy/drama about a social work team struggling in a chaotic office. Read Jo Brand’s interview with the Radio Times and how she hopes this programme will show people what its really like to be a social worker.

Silent Witness – Protection. BBC Drama from January 2015, focusing on how the social services ‘deal with the issue of abusive or neglectful parents, giving the well-worn theme a new slant that wisely avoided black-and-white right and wrong moralising’ (review from The Edge).