anyone work in child protection or some such? how do you come to terms with this?

[LittleBookofCalm]

such awful things happening to so many children, can you put it behind you when you get home>?

I work in a similar field and it is sad, it does upset you. But you have to have clear boundaries between work and home life. I never take my work home with me and I have supportive colleagues to talk to. I also take some comfort from knowing that what I do is helping to protect children from future harm.

sometimes it totally stays with you (and keeps you awake at night) and sometimes (this is worse, I think) it just washes over you and you actually forget.

I worry more at the ones I don't remember than the ones I do (for my sake) and I worry a lot about the children.

And generally, it's the lower level ones that I worry about. The ones under CIN or the ones social services won't take up when I KNOW things are proper wrong and the kids are suffering. The ones under CP or higher, at least there's support and a plan that the parents have to follow.

I had a year where I was the only safeguarding person in my workplace, and that was really hard... every decision I took was down to only me, and I didn't have anyone to discuss it with (before, during or after). But now there's a team of us, and that feels a lot better. Doing it in isolation is really hard.
You never want to let a child down.

DF was a CP social worker. He used to stop for a walk on the way home from work to clear his head.
Once we were adults, he'd mention the odd thing.
He had enough in the end and moved to the out of hours team. He still saw CP cases then but on an emergency basis.

Thank you for sharing

You toughen up and become quite hardened to it quite quickly. You should also have excellent supervision and peer support within the team which is a safe space to talk about your feelings when particular cases get to you. You also need to be resilient yourself and not one who is soft or cries easily. I'm pretty cold at times and was rarely moved enough to take things home but certain cases definitely get to you. I preferred a long commute, found the drive home good for processing. I was also in to climbing, horse riding and hiking which helped.

I left CP after 8 years as it started to affect my world view, which isn't good. I now work in adult social care, which is much nicer on the whole.

Its a reason I dont think Id make a good social worker. As an ex teacher and carer Ive wondered about it often enough but I think I'd find it hard to detach or Idstart to get anxious if Id made the right decisions.

As ive had to deal with life threatening situations with a relative Id feel the same about adult or mental health I think!

Ive met some awesome mental health nurses.

It's difficult to switch off at home. I work in a school with a heavy CP caseload and I really don't like school holidays anymore because I worry about certain children. At least when they're in school I know they're safe, no matter how challenging their behaviour might be. But I know some children are going home to unpleasant situations. I have become "hardened" but sometimes I get angry and upset about how the system works because it can be a slow process or a bit of a battle to get other professionals involved when needed.

My school is signed up to a schools' health insurance scheme and I have access to counselling through this. I've actually used it this term for the first time. It helps a bit. I do think there should be proper supervision session for safeguarding leads in schools but there is no budget for this.

I did for a bit. All the
Horrible
Stuff is still with me and I still
Think of all those poor children and hope they're getting the love and care they deserve.

I would really struggle where the system is failing. So families i got to now or crisis team not being able to support properly or children going home where you cant help the families.

My family life was quite difficult and things were missed which i guess colours it.

I'm a detective in a child abuse investigation team and do a lot of joint work with social workers and and so hear a lot of awful things. You just have to learn to switch off. Easier said than done sometimes. Most of the time I can do it but there always that one child that you can't shift. DH can always tell when I've had a bad one and is great. And having great supportive colleagues that you can chat stuff through with.

I live in a different area to where I work and so the long drive (nearly an hour) helps me decompress a bit. Also helps that I don't have much chance of bumping into people from work when I'm out with my own DC's

It's hard but I genuinely feel like a make a difference which i haven't had in previous jobs. That said in just about to go on mat leave with my second DC and intending to take a career break for a year or two just to get some head space.

I'm the safeguarding lead in a large school. I find it very hard at times. Not always because of the actual situations, but because of the feeling that so little progress is ever really made. I have the same families that dip in and out and the kids' lives never really improve. So my issues are frustration really that so little changes. I have had 3 parents relapse this term (drugs/alcohol) and we're back to square one. I have a great team that I work with but no access to counselling. I also can't share everything because of confidentiality, and the one person I can share with does not have a similar perspective! I think this might be my last year actually, it's getting me down. But then I don't want to not do the job because I'm so invested in the children!!!