Bread or roses? Reframing the role of social work with care homes
Dr Sally Nieman, August 2025
An article in the British Medical Journal about the ‘crisis in care’ referenced the campaigning slogan ‘bread and roses’ used in 1910s America to advocate for workers’ rights. Put simply: bread feeds the body, but roses satisfy the need for sustenance. This made me think that when social workers are restricted to statutory, transactional roles, they are delivering bread – the essentials, the paperwork. But many social workers understand that bread is not enough and they want to bring roses too – which involves building relationships and finding out what matters to people.