The sense I get from this board is there’s an assumption that professionals have much more awareness of other teams remits, what they do and how they work and have the same level of training about different areas of SW as they have of their own. Obviously rightly so. Best practice dictates that they should.
I don't think best practice does dictate that a SW should have the same level of training across the board. SW covers everything from child protection, to addiction, domestic abuse, childcare and support, adoption and fostering, community care for mental health, community care for disability, community care for older people, criminal justice and protection of vulnerable adults. You seriously expect that they understand the intricacies of all of those teams and their roles and have the same level of training in each?
To take just one of those areas - child protect legislation has changed significantly in the last 7 years. In Scotland there have been 4 pieces of primary legislation, two sets of statutory guidance, one Supreme Court challenge which has impacted implementation of primary legislation and goodness knows how many significant case reviews relating to child deaths. A CP SW needs to know the impact of all of these changes in enough depth to practice. But your argument is that they should also keep up with changes in all other areas of SW too?
That's like saying a lawyer should know all the intricacies of criminal law, conveyancing, family law, commercial law etc etc. We don't expect that though, we go to a lawyer with specialist knowledge of the area we need because we recognise the dangers of inch deep, mile wide knowledge in practice.
Yes SW should be aware of related areas of work, e.g. Eg CP should be aware of how adoption and fostering teams work, be aware of how SW with children and disabilities work but to have the same level of knowledge across the board is as ridiculous as it is impossible.
I've been a child protection SW for 20 years and I'm bloody good at my job, it's one of the hardest, thankless jobs with limited resources and with very poor public understanding of what the job entails and the very real limits placed on us by law. In waitings situation it's entirely possible birth mum simply refused to meet with the SW, has been hospitalised or sectioned - but it would be inappropriate for her to say that and much easier to say "I've not caught up with them yet" than to say birth mum had disengaged, or is off taking drugs or whstever. And actually the reason for not seeing birth mum really isn't anyone's business. It's not the first time I've let someone think I've been inefficient to protect the dignity of a parent or family really struggling with the process.
Yes there are some SW who aren't that great, who struggle with aspects of their role and some who really need to be in another job. Most however get out of bed with the intention of doing their level best for families in whatever area they work in - some days that's easier to achieve than others.
Having been through the adoption process I can see why people get frustrated but the touchy feely, reflective, "hoop jumping" is driven by research and evidence of what helps adoptive parents to adjust and cope. It also helps SW assess whether folk have the capacity to adjust, to reflect on their way of being and make the changes that children might need them to and a day by day basis.
Yes there are always things SW can do better, of course there are, but not all are rubbish - the process is difficult because it is, the legalities are complex and very much drive what happens in practice.