Beti Jones

BETI Jones played an important part in the launching of the Social Work Scotland Act 1968 when she became the first chief adviser of social work in the social work services group of the Scottish Office in 1968.

She was born in the Rhonda Valley on 23 January, 1919, and spent her early life there. She was the first in her family to go to university, graduating with a BA in history from the University of Wales.

She later was acknowledged for her work with children by being offered a fellowship at the University of Cardiff.

Beti was a natural innovator and, after teaching and youth work she went to Germany as a youth officer in the Control Commission, working with refugees.

In 1947, she became the first children's officer in Glamorgan, closing all children's homes there in the 1950s, placing children in care with foster families and forwarding supported adoptions. During that time the Aberfan tragedy happened in her area, when a coal mine slag heap collapsed on to a primary school, and she was one of the first to offer help to the families affected.

She remained in Glamorgan until 1968, demonstrating that a head of department should know their staff and be known by them. She had an absorbing interest in all the children in the care of the local authority and kept in touch with many.

On her appointment to the Scottish Office in 1968 she formed a team of inspectors in child care, welfare and probation and appointed senior social workers to a new social work advisory service. The act required a strong interventionist role from the Scottish Office in establishing combined departments and increasing the number of trained social workers throughout the country. When she was appointed, under half of the total workforce of social workers in Scotland were fully qualified. The bulk of fully qualified social workers were medical and psychiatric social workers in hospitals, who already had long- established student training units and played a major part in the training programme which ensued.

Beti's commitment to training was reflected in her inclusion of senior civil servants in many training programmes, and this laid a foundation for future co-operation between professionals and civil servants.

To remove the ordeal of children attending adult courts, children's hearings were established, with local lay people forming panels and deciding on action for children in trouble. Her advisers travelled the country, helping to establish panels and talking to community meetings and local authority councillors. This system still exists in Scotland, and is envied throughout the world.

With so much change in social work happening, Beti nevertheless saw the importance of another major area of social concern - the state of long-stay hospitals in Scotland. Following the report on the disaster at Ely Hospital, (1969), it was agreed to follow the recommendations of the report, and with colleagues in the Scottish Home and Health Department she seconded one of her advisers experienced in medical and psychiatric social work to form the Scottish Hospital Advisory Service to inspect all hospitals involved in the care of adults and children in geriatric, mental deficiency and psychiatric hospitals in Scotland. There are no asylums where children and adults spend their lives; and after 25 years there are no children in long-stay hospitals today. This was the beginning of community care.

The task of establishing such a major change in providing social services saw the appointment of more than 50 directors of social work, the formation of the Association of Directors of Social Work, the appointment of the COSLA Social Work Committee and the establishment of the Central Council for the Education and Training for Social Work in the UK. For the next reorganisation of regional authorities, she mounted a series of residential seminars in 1974 for prospective directors of social work in the new authorities.

By her retirement in 1980 she had managed to increase the proportion of qualified social workers to more than 90 per cent. She will be well remembered at her retirement evening sitting reading from Under Milk Wood with typical Welsh feeling.

As a member of the Society of Friends and a regular attender at Quaker meetings in Edinburgh, Beti continued her devotion to children after her retirement, serving as a board member of the Mount Quaker School in York, and a member of Save the Children Fund. Beti's presence was always felt. She was a larger-than-life personality with great warmth and kindness. She was charismatic and generous to all, and could be like a ship in full sail when committed to getting something done.

She died on 14 September, 2006 after moving to a nursing home near her family in her beloved Wales.