We need the public to understand what social workers do

Annie Hudson, the new chief executive of the College of Social Work, speaks to the Guardian about improving the public image of social work and the dispute with BASW.

It's a challenging time to become the chief executive of the College of Social Work, not least with the very public dispute between the college and the British Association of Social Workers (BASW). However Annie Hudson is unfazed: "They're clearly different organisations with different roles," she says. "They both have a place on the social work landscape. It's about having distinctive roles that will be complementary rather than duplicating each other. I'm aware there is history," she adds.

Improving the relationship between the two organisations is one of the many tricky tasks Hudson will face in her new role, which she took up last week. However, she is optimistic and hopes there will be opportunities for partnerships with BASW: "That work is beginning and I will be looking to extend that."

Another task she has set herself is to ensure the wider media and the public have a more accurate understanding of what social workers do. It's a goal Hudson feels passionately about and it's not a new one for her. While in her previous post as director of children and youth services at Bristol city council, social services opened its doors to the BBC who filmed a fly-on-the-wall documentary Protecting Our Children, showing day-to-day life for child protection teams.

Hudson was also at the council in 2004 when the BBC filmed the series Someone to Watch Over Me, which followed its children's services staff. Protecting Our Children was partly prompted by the fallout from the Baby P case, with social workers shouldering the blame for the child's death. She says of the TV series: "It helped the public understand what social workers do, day in day out, making lots of difficult decisions every hour."

Child protection has once again been in the headlines following the tragic death of Daniel Pelka, with Martin Narey, a government adviser on adoption, commenting that social workers need to be more sceptical when working with families.

However, Hudson, who has published extensively on child protection, says: "It's about being appropriately sceptical. Making sure people don't operate on the rule of optimism. The critical thing is about being child focused, considering what life is like for a child in a particular situation. All professionals working with children need to have an awareness of child protection issues."

Does she think the public image of social work has improved? "Yes and no. I think there has been some really positive shifts in people understanding what social workers do. The public has a more nuanced understanding."