Leeds City Council has been urged to improve support for social workers after an employee was injured amid disorder in Harehills last month.
Rioting broke out on 18 July following a dispute over children being put into care that saw social workers facing ‘hostility’.
According to Unison, ‘much of the disorder seen that night, which resulted in a number of arrests, has become widely regarded as “normal” for social workers in the city’.
The union said social workers had been threatened with knives and often had to deal with people entering the properties they were visiting or gathering around their vehicles to ‘intimidate’ them.
Staff have told Unison it is common to work alone in such ‘hostile and threatening situations’, mainly due to staff shortages.
Unison also accused the council of failing to learn from the Harehills incident after a new social work assistant was sent alone to visit the family whose case sparked the unrest.
The council, which has announced a review into the incident, said it took the health and safety of staff ‘extremely seriously’.
A spokesperson said: ‘Managers and senior leaders have already met with individual social workers and visited area social work teams to listen and talk to them and ensure they have all the support that is necessary.
‘We are determined to work with colleagues to identify learning and agreed actions arising from recent events.’
