Screen social workers

Could Mariah Carey prove an unlikely Hero for social workers? In the film Precious, she ditches the diva glam to play Harlem social worker Mrs Weiss who is assigned to an obese, HIV-positive teenager made pregnant by her abusive father. The film won the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize for best drama at the Sundance Film Festival. Carey's performance is described as 'disarming' by Variety magazine. It's certainly a shock to see her wearing an outfit that's not two sizes too small. Precious is released in the US later this year Photograph: Public Domain

Unlike her rival diva, Jennifer Lopez didn't forego the glitz to play a social worker in The Cell. She spends much of the time strutting round in garb that brings to mind Barbarella rather than child protection. J-Lo plays children's social worker Catherine Deane, who uses a virtual reality device to enter the mind of a comatose schizophrenic serial killer to track down his final missing victim. To think that social workers in the real world have a hard time tracking down children at risk... Photograph: Cinetext/New Line/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar

In Chains Of Gold, a straight-to-cable TV movie from his early 90s career slump, John Travolta offers an unusually kickass portrayal of social work. Travolta plays ex-alcoholic turned social worker, Scott Barnes, who saves a boy from a gang of murderous crack dealers. Maybe if the job description included shooting bad guys into lift shafts full of alligators, social work could well attract a whole new pool of talent Photograph: PR

You'd have thought a boy grown in an artificial womb by a scientific cult might be in need of child protection. Yet despite one of Kyle XY's main characters being a highly sympathetic child psychologist, the sci-fi drama (think the OC meets Smallville) presents the social worker who comes to investigate the titular character as very much the stereotype of humourless jobsworth. Plus, she turns out to be in the pay of the sinister cult plotting to get their hands on the belly buttonless boy genius Photograph: c.ABC Inc/Everett/Rex Features

In this clip from Little Britain, Vicky Pollard tells her dumbfounded social worker how she swapped her baby for a Westlife CD Photograph: c.HBO/Everett/Rex Features

Ken Loach's Ladybird Ladybird, tells the tale of single mother Maggie who has had four children (by four different fathers) removed by social services because of a previous violent relationship. While Maggie is clearly a troubled character, the film offers a rather negative depiction of social workers as hard-nosed child snatchers Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

In Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky, social worker Tim (played by Samuel Roukin) plays the love interest for Sally Hawkins' teacher Poppy. His character is a world away from the usual depictions of children's social workers as frumpy child snatchers Photograph: Miramax/Everett/Rex Features

Best known for playing scheming strumpet Atia in BBC drama Rome, Polly Walker is equally formidable as a social worker doggedly investigating a religious cult in the Canadian film Savage Messiah Photograph: Fred Prouser/Reuters/Corbis

In the Courageous Heart of Irena Sendler, X-Men and Piano star Anna Paquin plays the lead in this true life story about a Polish Catholic social worker who helped smuggle Jewish children out of the ghetto of Nazi-occupied Warsaw. Sendler, who died last year, was honoured as a national hero by the Polish parliament in 2007 Photograph: Matt Sayles/AP

Before he crashed on an island that may be in another dimension/moving through time/a figment of some guy's imagination, Lost star Daniel Dae Kim played social worker Ken Sung on ER. The show featured a number of social workers (including Adele Neuman, played by Erica Gimpel - CoCo in the 1980s TV series Fame) who were well-rounded characters on par with their medical colleagues Photograph: Michael Buckner/Getty Images