To Train As A Social Worker At 40?

The degree apprenticeship is definitely for people working in related jobs. Your job is considered your first placement. In my LA it's open to people working in 'unqualified' social care roles. You definitely couldn't do it if you weren't in a relevant role to start with. The places are very competitive.

Go for it. I'm a social worker (now in a more management role) in children's and I love it. It is a hard job and you have to be prepared to routinely work beyond your hours in a lot of roles in children's, but if you can find a balance and have a good team it's worth it.

Many people retrain in social work after having their own kids so your age isn't unusual. Also as a bit of a 'back up' if you do enjoy working in children's but find the work life balance challenging there are more options these days - more councils are allowing part time or condensed hours which helps. If at a later date you really feel it's to much you could switch to family support roles in future which don't require a social work degree and don't pay as well but are still likely paid better than admin, and you'd easily get them with a SW qualification. Not to say to aim for that but I know some people have changed to it because while still challenging jobs they tend to feel more rewarding - doing a lot of direct work with children, delivering food parcels, supervising contact but without the report writing and pressure. Other friends have used the qualification to move into roles managing children's homes. Social work doesn't mean you have to work in a safeguarding/court role or duty team forever! I work with children in the care system which is challenging but it I love it and wouldn't change it.

I’m teaching secondary school maths. It’s full on, but worth it.

You most definitely aren't too old. The experience of life you have by 40 is invaluable, particularly if you have lived experience of disability, or you have language/ cultural skills that would equip you to work effectively with marginalised groups.
Some admin workers have valuable experience of talking to, helping, dealing with all different types of people; but entry onto social work degrees does require experience with working with people who are vulnerable and disadvantaged.
Most Social Workers train by doing a full time degree and take a student loan to pay the £30,000 fees and work alongside and/or take a loan to pay for living expenses.
Council apprenticeships are usually really competetive as they have a large pool of experienced people wanting to qualify as Social Workers for the increased choice of roles and higher pay.
If you feel drawn to Social Work, is it worth trying to find a social care role such as Woking in a children's home, HCA on a children's ward, etc first? You won't find many qualified social workers who don't bring significant experience of direct work to their training.
Good luck with your next step.

Well done! Do you mind me asking what age group?

Our local authority is struggling to replace the social workers who leave due to burnout. As in, almost every week someone else leaves and they're certainly not replacing anyone that quickly.

This isn't a situation where there's a fully staffed department who just have more work than they can handle and need to hire a few extra hands. It's a department who couldn't manage the workload even if they were fully staffed, but actually they're 20% understaffed with few replacements on the horizon.

I can't speak for adult social care, but children's social care is not a field I would ever work in myself. I left teaching because of similar concerns, but social work is even worse.

Many sw children with disabilities. None bad .many extremely helpful. Some have to say no to things because of funding but they have all Bern super understanding

I changed my career just before I turned 40. It was the best decision. You still have 30 working years ahead of you, just think about that. Your age will be an advantage - more resilience, more life experiences - all very important when working in this industry.
Why would you be hated by everyone? You mean clients or colleagues? Or the general public? I work for the NHS, there is very little public support at the moment. I don’t care. I know that I make a difference to the vast majority of patients on my caseload and it only takes one “thank you” email to remind me why I do what I do.
As my granny told me when I decided to retrain “time will pass anyway whether you decide to do something with your life or not”. Go for it!

Go for it! My last ASYE turned 40 the month she started and she was amazing. Nothing replaces life experience! And WRT your belief that you'll be hated - really don't worry about that. I'll be honest and say if you live in an area of high deprivation where a higher proportion of people have social work involvement then you may find it a bit uncomfortable to talk about what you do and you'll be incensed by the opinions of the occasional random online but generally speaking if people feel hate towards us they keep it to themselves. And you'll make friends with colleagues and end up with lots of social workers in your social group anyway!

It is better if you have some life experience ie age as the clients will be more likely to take you seriously. Do it. You will never be out of of work, there are so many niche roles within social work- you will find the one that suits you.

It's usually just child SW that are hated in my experience but there's a huge amount of SW careers outside of CYPSS.

It will do no harm in applying for the apprenticeship. If you are not successful, I'd suggest changing jobs to an environment that works with children, then apply again at the next intake.

I know someone who went from a pastoral role in school to a SW apprenticeship. I know someone else who was an Early Help Worker then went on to a SW apprenticeship.

I did an Environmental Health degree at 45. Started practicing at 49, it has changed my life for the better, don't let age deter you.

Go for it. You'll bring a different slant to the role with that added bit of life experience that you have. Don't be put off by the negative comments about SW here. SW navigate a fine line between supporting and protecting, and trying to get the best out of our broken public services. They can't fix everything but good ones can build really effective relationships with their families and that can be a lifeline to a family in need.

Totally agree we constantly never have enough resource to do the job in normal working hours, I have never found the work or people I’m helping an issue, I think people don’t realise the sheer turnover of social work staff these days in both adults and children’s and volume of locums (some of whom are fabulous but are exactly that temps who come and go!), this hugely impacts on the service people receive, cohesion of teams and learning for newer staff. Alongside more remote working I think it’s getting harder for students to get a good experience when training in teams that can be quite transient. There are ways around this eg work in a short term or specialist team and find one where staff turnover the lowest. I have and we all have years of experience as we have all moved ourselves here! But you will need to be able to get through the training first to get to this point.

I’m really confused, I thought the apprenticeship meant working 4 days a week in the LA, and a day off for Uni? How will you be able to get any practice experience? The placements would usually be your “work” in the LA unless I have completely misunderstood!

I don’t think you’d be able to continue working in admin in an unrelated role?

When I was working, I had numerous SW students of 40 plus on placements over the years. All of them were thoughtful, caring people, who went on to have good, meaningful careers.
But is a tough job, with tougher working conditions, as people have said above.

I was 40 when I qualified. No problem with your age at all. At least 20% of the people on my masters course were my age or older.

I love my job, can’t imagine doing anything else. Also there are so many teams - children in care, adoption, fostering, children with disabilities, kinship care, therapeutic intervention based. It’s not just safeguarding and a lot is dependent on the team, your manager and the local authority. I’ve thrived in some in child protection teams and others known it was a bad fit.
Also most students are “mature” so definitely not too old

There are lots of different creative routes in these days, you dont have to already be working for the council, you could start by doing some voluntary work with children to get some experience if you dont already have that. You wont end up hated by most at all but like any career or job someone will be finding fault with what you do, see tons of threads here about any type of worker, from charity shop workers to tradesmen with people finding fault, sometimes with good cause, sometimes not.

We’ve had many social workers (over 20 years in the ‘complex needs’ system). I can only think of one social worker who was a bully. Our last two social workers were so incredibly supportive and kind. We’ve stayed in touch even after they left and had babies.

Maybe pick your specialty, but I’d say go for it, and good luck.

I think there's also often a difference between a SW feeling & saying they're dedicated & helpful & their friend thinking they're great and what the client feels is actually helpful!

@FanOfWicked I would find out if there's anyway of shadowing someone before you spend 3 years training, for a job, where you don't actually feel like you are helping.

i think there are other jobs, where you might actually be able to help people more.

Do you work in admin for the council? Apprenticeships are usually for people who already work for the LA. Usually family support workers really.
You are likely to need to go and do the degree unless you already have an under grad so you could do approach or think ahead.