Asking to change social worker?

[rwoollsey]

Apologies for asking so much on this lately!

But yesterday I had a call with our allocated social worker, just to arrange our teams meeting for next week and a small intro.

And I don't know what it is but he doesn't seem like someone I want to go through this process with: the other social workers we have spoken to so far have been really reassuring and friendly, he sounds very stand offish and a bit cold

I'm going to have our face to face (well video call) and see if he is more reassuring on video but if not would we seem like hard work by requesting a change - I just don't want to go further down the road if I just know it's not going to work out.

If you don’t feel comfortable with this SW then do speak up. Our first SW was a nightmare. She would lie to us, cancel meetings, ignore us for weeks on end, she would say one thing to us and then something else to us when a manager was around, she failed to gather correct information and made it hell for us. We didn’t speak up because we didn’t want to come across as difficult so we put up with it. It didn’t work out for us and because of her it all came crashing down the day before our panel and we had to withdraw. You have to remember that this SW is someone who you’re going to have to tell your whole life to and who needs to know you inside out. They will be representing you at panel. You have to feel comfortable with them. You will regret it if you don’t speak up. It’s important so that in the end you are matched with the correct child. Any professional agency will understand that not everyone gets on with everyone and that it is an important journey for you. Our assessing SW second time around gave it to us straight. She said if we didn’t feel it was right then to say straight away. I hope all works out for you

We were really reluctant to speak up at first as we were worried it would cause delays etc if we asked to change. We did in the end and was very happy we did.

Your SW will be in your life for a long time so do what feels right!