To find social work easy?

And as we squeeze services tighter, this pool must be getting bigger.

This is the point I was trying to raise. About services not being there for people who don't have families to support them. Who is the voice for these people? What organisations are there out there for people who have no family and have been let down by services as well. They are then let down by both families and society. This why I didn't really understand the comment upthread about there being plenty of support out there if people choose to engage - it seems there can be unrealistic expectation on both sides.

@RowcheRascal Yes, it is understandable that children who are in danger have to be prioritised when resources are scarce. If you are a carer then you will have seen both sides of the coin. I don't blame you for leaving.

There was a documentary a few years back about children in the care system. It must have been channel 4 and called '15,000 kids and counting' or something. I'm sure there was a social worker on that who showed all the horrific abusive text messages she received from one dad she was trying to help. Literally hundreds and hundreds of them. The mum eventually chose this abusive bloke over her baby and the baby was removed from their care. I imagine that social worker found it pretty tough. They said something like the average career for a social worker in child protection was 6 years. Which is just mind blowing to me.

I work with a lot of adult social workers and CAOs in a professional capacity. I don't think their job any more or less difficult than mine. We share the same frustrations of people not engaging in services when we know they need them, families having unrealistic expectations and there not being services out there for people who don't have family support.

...well, it's less easy for families who are in desperate need for help but get thrown under a bus (no assessments , no support) time and time again in the name of saving money. Good for you you are happy with how social services work. They don't work for many people who need support. HTH..

I think if the services were there to provide the support then jobs in Adult Social Work would be a lot easier. Long waiting lists to before the adults get an allocated to a social worker and by that time crisis has hit, then they go onto long waiting lists to get support in place. It’s the juggling managing the families in crisis and having no support, so I end up doing a lot of the support work on top of my usual job.

I agree hospital social work is high stress; I had more abuse from families wanting to admit their relatives to a care home than families anywhere in children's services .

I just decided . Enough! And left.

@Warriormum1 I think I get what you are sayinv and it was one of the things that frustrated me when I was a children's social worker. Where I was , children with additional support needs (solely)were allocated to a social worker who had child protection families, looked after children . Sadly ,the children with disabilities were not prioritised for services in both areas I worked on over 17 years . There just was no resources left. They had been cut to the bone . I felt these families were taken for granted and that if kne of the parents had a drug problem, they would get services. It was so unfair. I have a child (well he's a grown man now ) with additional support needs and I was also caring for my terminally ill mum, I made myself ill and I was out until half 9 every night with my job after starting at half 8. I couldn't do it. I made myself physically very unwell.

CP, not CO

Interesting thread. I have two friends who work as Social workers, one in CO and one with vulnerable adults.

My intention is also to become a Social Worker. I have a Degree in Social Science but need my Maths Level 2 to be able to enter the Step Up to Social Work Programme, which I hope to be doing in around 2 years.

I have considered CP but I tend to struggle to switch off to others suffering generally and feel this line of work may really affect me. Others in this thread have clarified this for me.

Perhaps working with adults is easier as you are able to help them to help themselves vs children whom are in the care of adults iyswim? I can't imagine visiting children knowing they are being abused and having to walk away from their house knowing anything could be happening to them before my next visit.

I have worked as a consultant social worker for frontline. Do it! It is a great way to get into social work!

I'm not a social worker but I am a foster carer so we see the burn out of our children's sw which in turn affects our children as they have to get used to a new person which sets them back on their trust and ability to rely on adults.
Even before we did this job, my mam always said a social worker could never win because they're damned if they don't and damned if they do.

some people just have different skill sets that suit them to different types of work better. It sounds like your particular skill set (time management, organisation, ability to compartmentalise) is an especially good fit for what you do.

Have had some experience of social workers as I'm closely involved in a friend's situation and I have to say this is never been my impression of the job. Even some of the things SWs have said don't leave much to the imagination that they are working in a high stress job with and impossible workload, with very little tools to actually help people practically. It would be great if everyone felt the way you did about the job.

Utterly wrong and offensive, patronising rubbish. All the adults SW I know were top flight students who got 2:1s or 1sts with a genuine interest in adults work.
And if you seriously think adult service users and families necessarily welcone SW involvement and are cooperative it only shows you have not the remotest idea what you're talking about.
You should apologise to every one of my colleagues working overtime, weekends and flogging their guts out to give a good service with care impossible to find and hospital discharge nurses breathing down their necks and blaming them for medical failings.
Seriously I'm so fucking angry on their behalf, SHAME on you.

yes I was a social worker for a child protection front line team, local authority, I liked the work and didn't find it too stressful, it was the management that I despised, still to this day I intensely dislike the way the higher ups managed the teams. I left because of that reason.

@Shayisgreat not ours, we were moved into a trust due to failings. Several restructures and merging of teams had lead to cliques and no team spirit. I remember once we were all waiting for line manager to arrive for a team meeting. We hot desked across two sites so there wasn't enough computers for everyone to log on. So some people were standing waiting as meeting was due to start. Line manager rang to say she would be late, she asked her deputy what everyone was doing and she said 'oh they are all standing around chatting like there's nothing to do' As if they could even sit and work!

Oh gosh, that sounds like a horrible place to work. I've found in most places I've worked that my colleagues were what made the workload easier. When there's a good team culture it really makes a difference.

I think it specifically refers to child protection. I worked in early help and had a break down and we were a level below social care. Also line manager was evil, and most of team would stab you in the back in an instant

Yeah, I think attitudes towards work needs to change. Before I had my son I thought nothing of working 60+ hours a week but in the last 5 years I just won't do that anymore. My son needs me to be present both physically and emotionally and my job, while important, is just a job.

I think collectively social workers (and all other public services) need to only work 40 hrs a week, take toil, and highlight to the councils/community/government that there needs to be a major investment in the people of the country and adequately funding children's services is part of it. We're people first and our profession afterwards and I'm not willing to be a martyr to my job. Obviously, there will be times when I can't leave exactly on time but there can be a balance.

Totally understand this regarding the work load.
I am a nurse and always struggled with workload and the feeling of never completing the work when one day a colleague said to me "it's a 24 hour service, you've done your bit".
Helped me enormously.

I think it's great you love your job and you cope well, it's obviously your calling.
Some people are more suited than others.
It is possible that your post may be insensitive to other SW however that can happen no matter what you say. We all have different experiences.

Glad you've clarified your not working with children and child protection. I would have to assume you were an empath (think that's the right -path) to say that's easy and not stressful.

I've worked in the children's services for the last 10 years. I've worked with looked after children, safeguarding teams, and assessment teams. I think the thing that makes the job hard is that you are never done - it is relentless.

My experience is also that the wider professional network and families are happy to hold social workers responsible for fixing everything. When we can't produce a magic wand or suggest that other people should approach things in a different way, we are called stupid, incompetent, interfering or other unkind things.

We have so many balls to keep in the air, we're working with families in crisis, and we have limited resources at our disposal and indeed in the community.

On the other hand, I can't see myself leaving this line of work. I get enormous satisfaction from bringing about safety and wellbeing for children.