I was running a training course on leadership recently and it reminded me how important leadership is for social work. For me leadership isn't just about management. I would like to think that managers see leaderhsip skills as part of their repertoire, but I think that practitioners have a leaderhip role too - indivdiually and collectively. Leadership involves having a clear idea of where we want to get to and how we are going to get there, and I would like to think that practitioners are not waiting for managers to decide that for our profession. I would like to think that we can all play a part in deciding our direction and pursuing it. For me that is one of the things that makes social work a profession - the fact that the direction we move in will owe much to our values and our own sense of why what we do is important and valuable.

I began my career in residential child care a long time ago. I had the official title of 'residential child care officer' (RCCO), but was also often referred to as a 'residential social worker'. These days in the UK we have protection of title, so only people who are registered with the appropriate care council can legally refer to themselves as such. This has been a very positive move as previously anyone who did anything vaguely charitable could call themselves a social worker: 'I'm a social worker; I do fundraising for my church group'. However, it raises the question of whether residential child care is part of social work, when the vast majority of such workers are not registered (except in Wales where the picture is significantly different from the rest of the UK).

I have always thought of residential child care as not only part of social work, but also a very important part of social work. However, I am aware that there are many people, both within the sector and outside it, who would disagree with me. How do we judge what is social work and what is not?