Social workers have accused Ofsted’s chief inspector of ‘oversimplifying the complexities of child protection’.
Chief executive of the British Association of Social Workers, Bridget Robb, criticised comments made by Sir Michael Wilshaw at a hearing of the House of Commons’ education committee.
Sir Michael had said social workers needed to send out ‘tough messages’ about taking responsibility to parents who ‘behave badly’.
But Ms Robb said: ‘As a headteacher, Sir Michael will have worked with parents with a wide range of parenting skills and he apparently found it helpful to use the language of good and bad parents to distinguish between the people he was meeting.
‘In schools, disruptive children or families can be removed to another school but social workers do not normally have that luxury.
‘I don’t think Sir Michael has a lot to teach social workers about how to deal with the complexity of family problems they face on a daily basis.’
