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Today, I'm celebrating social workers
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doing incredible work all across Wales.
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21 March is World
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Social Work Day, but at Social Care Wales,
we're using in the whole week
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to celebrate the great work being done.
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Each day this week we'll have videos
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from a number of people,
including politicians, practitioners
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and partners,
really talking about their own
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thoughts and perspectives
on the value of social work today.
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My first experience of social work
was when my sister
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in law qualified in the 1970s.
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She was helping young children
who were finding it difficult
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to stay in school. And using a range
of community therapeutic methods
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she enabled those children
to restart their education
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and get back onto the right track.
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And then in the 1980s,
my youngest sister qualified in Scotland,
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and she was helping families stay together
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despite the challenges of substance
misuse and mental health.
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Then I
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started working in the public sector
in Wales in the 1990s,
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so I became very familiar
with the work of social workers in Wales
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and what I can see from my experience is our
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social workers do an amazing job
in connecting up
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with housing colleagues,
with schools, with NHS
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and third sector organisations
to really wrap around care and support
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to people who may be vulnerable
at certain points in their lives.
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So I'd like to celebrate the great work
social workers are doing right
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across Wales and ask you to
look at those videos, share those videos
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so that we can spread the message
and give our thanks to
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those people who are
doing great work every day.