BASW publicises new film for World Mental Health Day
Daphne died suddenly in 2020 and was by that time a prominent figure in social work practice and policy development in children’s services. But she started and worked for much of her career in community-embedded and holistic mental health services.
This film captures the importance of that early work, in the 80s and 90s and goes on to explore how she developed her career pioneering work in children and families social work, and later in policy and practice development.
The film shows how social work values, skills and knowledge can both move with the times, and be timeless in their underlying principles, whether working with adults, children, families or communities. We hope this film will be inspiring and educational to people at all stages of their social work journey.
Emeritus Professor David Morris, Daphne’s husband, writes:
This film commemorates the professional life of a remarkable woman and social worker, my late wife, Daphne McKenna. It is intended also to speak in a celebratory way to social work itself and the ways in which the personal values and commitment of the profession to social justice remain a cornerstone of its role, whatever the challenges.
The film covers some key dimensions of social work practice: community, learning, supervision and protection. I hope that Daphne’s long experience and particular approach to these themes shows something of their central importance in past professional development and, as importantly, as interrelated aspects of any practical social work vision for the future.
In sharing widely the record of Daphne’s professional life, I hope that this film will contribute something to professional learning in pursuit of that vision while, in the process, paying tribute to the inspiring dedication of the social work profession itself.
This brief story of Daphne’s professional life is a legacy of which I know Daphne would have been far too modest to ever consider but it is a story which, I feel with her colleagues, family and friends, richly deserves to be told.
I am indebted to Ruth Allen and BASW for making it possible to do so; to all the colleagues, friends and family who advised or participated in its making; to Marie Diggins for helping to conceive the project and shape it from inception to completion; to the Damilola Taylor Trust for its support and endorsement; to Linda Lang for her narration and, primarily, to Nicki Lang who, with great expertise, commitment and understanding, made this film.