Working with social workers

[Giovanna1712]

Hi guys, am struggling with feelings towards SWs after my experience to adopt my child's birth sibling.

I'm frustrated by adherence not to process (which I fully accept can't be circumvented) but to the unnecessary 'because this is how we do it' approach, which appears coupled with complete inflexibility and a lack of compassion. The whole experience of this past few months has left me feeling incredibly flat and powerless. It was a tough decision for me to proceed with the adoption in the first place, so additional delay and stress often resulted in me questioning my decision and causing yet more stress.

I remain committed though but am worried about what's to come; I know panel and continued work with the SWs involved will require me to be on it, and positive, and enthusiastic...but I'm feeling none of that.

Am struggling to think of how I'm going to be able to work positively with them when I have little professional respect but know that I have to somehow overcome this.

Just wondering if anybody has had similar experiences of difficult relationships with SWs that they had to quickly overcome and has any tips?

G x

I’m a social worker so not sure how helpful this will be, but knowing your experience I think you’ve had a terrible time with this process. There’s good and bad in all professions but poor social work practice impacts people so significantly, what’s bad enough when you’re dealing with an individual practitioner but when bad practitioners are promoted through the ranks it often results in whole teams adopting a rigid “because we said so” approach which is incredibly unhelpful and, at times, damaging. I say this because I think the first step in being able to work with their process is to acknowledge your feelings are wholly justified.

In terms of the actual work, I’d view it as a set of hoops to jump through, you don’t need a good relationship with your social worker (though it does make things so much easier), just a professional working relationship. So do the things they need you to, and hold them to timescales for things they say they’ll do. Put things in writing, so if the social worker tells you something verbally I’d email following the conversation - keep it light “thanks for catching up with me today about X, and confirming that you need to speak to Y before we move to Z, and you thought that would take N number of weeks to work through”. Putting it in writing makes it harder to deny it happened, and gives you a good paper trail - if you’re asked why you’re doing that just tell them you’re trying to keep your own head straight because the process is quite lengthy and you’ve a lot to keep track of. They’ll know why you’re doing it, of course, and will maybe be inspired to do what they say they will.

You can’t maybe be enthusiastic about the process, but you can be about the end result which is hopefully a lovely new sibling for your child - try not to let the process take the shine off that. So let yourself feel excited about the new baby, focus on that in your interactions with the sw, that enthusiasm will carry you past the sw nonsense.

I’d also be honest with them about your thinking that this process would be more straightforward the second time around and how frustrating it is that it’s the same (or worse) drawn out process because you’d really like your new child home etc etc.

Lastly, you may find that behind the scenes your sw is as frustrated as you are if they’re trying to pick their way through unnecessary process - main grade social workers don’t generally get to decide how they work in terms of process, “that’s the way we do it” is often short hand for “I have no clue why other than the service manager/chief officer has decided that’s the process” but they obviously can’t say that to their clients. If your sw is nice/sensible enough I’d take that at face value and assume they’re as bewildered as you are, but are constrained by the process too. I can’t tell you the times I’ve had to try and explain total nonsense because someone up there line had a bright idea.

Literally going through the exact same thing!!! Feel like I could have written this post.

Have had such intense and gruelling meetings with our social worker, which we never had the first time around. They’ve finished now, but constantly I feel like I’m being portrayed as pushy and difficult as it always seems to end up with senior social workers getting involved. I think they are always surprised as we are actually not difficult but I truly think that’s the message that is being given.

We also had to discuss the details of our sex life - which felt like it was just more for the social workers entertainment than anything else. I think there are other better ways of finding out whether or not we are a strong couple... (I couldn’t actually discuss it without laughing anyway........ I’m not a prude but it’s too hard to discuss those sorts of things with a stranger without giggling!)

I believe that once the child is with us, the level of work required with social services is actually fairly small... at least that’s what I am hoping!

I also feel angry because I do not feel like SW have acted in our future child’s interest. We should have been foster carers for them, rather than wait so long for her to come to us due to delays in the court system... I feel like the justifications they are using is because “it’s just the way it’s done” rather than trying to make positive change...

I do recognise covid has caused some delays but it feels like an excuse at the moment - I’m sorry to say!!

@jellycatspyjamas main grade social workers don’t generally get to decide how they work in terms of process, “that’s the way we do it” is often short hand for “I have no clue why other than the service manager/chief officer has decided that’s the process” but they obviously can’t say that to their clients in my line of work it would be unheard of even someone at training stage to say to a client "that's the way we do it" and to not understand the decision making process. The manager would be managed out, or the person training would be seen as not capable of client facing work at the very least! It is also almost unheard of for bad practitioners to rise through ranks. Do you know why this is such a problem for social work? Your reply was very helpful, by the way.

They asked about your sex life ?! Is that normal ?? That seems incredibly inappropriate

@Hammyhamster92 I hope not!!!!

They asked us how we relax and if we snuggled on the sofa together in the evenings, which I found uncomfortable as we're adults.... yes we of course snuggle whilst watching greys anatomy/this is us we obviously don't sit on opposite sides of the sofa as if we hate each other but do we need to talk about this with an adult we don't really know?

Then it progressed as to how things were in the bedroom. I guess they weren't asking specifics, but we both were shocked...! But they asked "are we in a private space" when we were stunned and my partner was in their office at work with 2 other people... obviously going bright red..... I just said: "...good". I wonder what they would have said if I'd have said "we have a sex dungeon, so we have a pretty good time when our DS is in bed..."

It's a funny story to tell people when they ask what it's like to become adopters....................

I guess they were trying to see if adopting once had meant we no longer have sex because we're running around after a small child... maybe?

@Notmenotme I’m guessing it’s because having children can really impact a couples sex life for lots of different reasons, her questions don’t sound too intrusive (she wasn’t asking for details), and in terms of putting another child in the mix is fair. Part of the assessment in a second adoption would be to explore the impact of the first child who was placed on all aspects of your life.

In all honesty I’d always expect a couple to ensure they were somewhere private for adoption meetings because you need to be able to speak freely about very personal stuff, not necessarily sex but finances, health information, family “stuff” that you’d want them to speak openly about which isn’t really appropriate for colleagues to overhear.

in my line of work it would be unheard of even someone at training stage to say to a client "that's the way we do it" and to not understand the decision making process.

Social work is an odd profession, while we might refer to individuals as “clients” the reality is people generally only are involved with sw when there’s no other choice, so it’s not the same as someone buying a service. Even with independent agencies, the adopter isn’t the “client” in the usual sense of the word.

Sometimes the only answer to a “why is it like this/why do we need to do this” is that this is the process we follow. Sometimes the process doesn’t make obvious sense, sometimes the process has come about because of learning from other very adverse circumstances (eg the actual answer might be “because when we didn’t do X a child died and we now need to tick this box every time”), or because the sw actually doesn’t know the reasoning behind it but it’s an agency wide process. I agree that sw should be able to give a clear explanation for the processes and decisions but sometimes the honest answer is “because that’s the process we need to go through”.

The other thing is, it’s entirely possible to get so caught up in discussion and debate about why something is the way it is, whether it’s reasonable or not etc that it derails the assessment process so much the actual work doesn’t get done. At the end of the discussion the process hasn’t changed but hours have been spent debating it and the assessment hasn’t been done. In extreme cases I’ve known people to debate the validity of the process to distract from issues they expect to be tricky, leaving the whole process in limbo.

There’s no excuse for poor practice, but there can be a whole host of issues sitting behind “this is just the way we need to do it”, it’s not always a social worker trying to be obstructive.

Thanks for the answer but actually I was asking a general question, I was just wondering if you knew why there seem to be more management type issues with social work compared to other professions, after reading what you had written.

@Notmenotme I remember assessing a couple for adoption or family finding and feeling very awkward at mentioning sex as it is a very private thing. However the questions I asked was necessary to open up the conversation about boundaries and the impact having children may have. I also I had 2 separate couples get pregnant, 1 after approval and 1 just before matching. Which was amazing for them of course.

I think my annoyance at the question stems from I don’t agree with the reasons behind the question. I think you should just say what you mean, not be so cryptic. If the question is about boundaries, ask about boundaries. If it’s about us being in a loving and strong relationship, ask about that. At the end of the day, they asked us if we’d want to adopt the second time and then we are jumping through all these hoops including questions that make us feel uncomfortable.

I understand that the approval social worker has to be certain and they have to get to know us etc but I feel like the process has been made a lot harder than it has to be - a lot harder than the first time around.

I have to say, whilst I am in the position of bringing a child home, ( my partner's son is coming to join us from another country), we do not have soical services involved because it is a "family/immigration " situation so I'm not familiar with the process of "traditional " adoption.
But I find it quite inappropriate they would ask about sex. Surely it is irrelevant to the adoption, because any normal person would not be having sex in front of/ within earshot of a child ?!

I just think I'd feel very resentful of a professional asking questions about my sex life, when it is none of their buissness. I am pregnant at the moment , and would be furious if a midwife asked for details of "how often I have sex a week" at an appointment. It seems very intrusive

The reason I ask this, is my partner and I are exploring the possibility of me legally adopting his son later on, and I think I would find these questions very innapropriate.

@Notmenotme

I think my annoyance at the question stems from I don’t agree with the reasons behind the question. I think you should just say what you mean, not be so cryptic. If the question is about boundaries, ask about boundaries. If it’s about us being in a loving and strong relationship, ask about that. At the end of the day, they asked us if we’d want to adopt the second time and then we are jumping through all these hoops including questions that make us feel uncomfortable.

I understand that the approval social worker has to be certain and they have to get to know us etc but I feel like the process has been made a lot harder than it has to be - a lot harder than the first time around.

I wholeheartedly agree and maybe it's a learning thing (social work being practice and not perfect) that this is said beforehand. I think I usually started the question by saying this is going to be very awkward for us both but I have to ask because x y z. At the time I thought I was doing it for my benefit and preparing them so it's not out the blue, but hearing your experience it may have also been beneficial to add more to the discussion.

Right, apologies in advance as this is going to be a long reply as responding to each of your comments as so many valid points here.

Thanks @jellycatpyjamas, definitely worse/harder this time around. I was warned by a (good) manager years back to always be prepared to stand alone when fighting for families, I guess I never thought it would be my family on the receiving end...when it's your life it's so easy to just doubt yourself instead, so thank you.

I'm trying to hold onto the thought of the sibling and having a mindset of enjoying my child while it's just them, but it is so hard not to be drawn back to the sadness, worry, and frustration. I do follow things up in writing and (I hope) am at least being professional. I've given up any hope of getting any form of flexibility or solution-focussed thinking, is no way I can undo that culture even if I hadn't already been worn down. I think the child's SW is as you describe, struggling to understand the process but they too are on their own I think.

@Notmenotme; touche! I suspect I'm portrayed as pushy and difficult too, senior workers brought into meetings with me too; makes me feel worse as I've been the other end and have worked with people who are difficult and I know I'm not like that, I'm just honest, and practical, and (usually, when I'm not too scared to be) direct. I can't even say that I felt relieved to read your post with the 'it's not just me' sentiment as I'm just so sad that you're going through this too. I don't know that many adopters but know two who had terrible experience, another whose assessment process was so appalling they simply withdrew, and have two family members who would offer happy and safe homes to children who were open to adoption but since seeing my experience have now said they would never consider it - and that was during my first time which was far better than this. It's just so sad isn't it.

And this..."I also feel angry because I do not feel like SW have acted in our future child’s interest. We should have been foster carers for them, rather than wait so long for her to come to us due to delays in the court system... I feel like the justifications they are using is because “it’s just the way it’s done” rather than trying to make positive change..." Wow, I literally could've written this too, every bit of it. And Covid too, same here, something to hide behind I fear.

@sortingoutatticcrazy - not good is it. And I have literally been told this - any by experienced SWs so is no wonder people then coming through the ranks end up with similar attitudes/approaches as jellycat suggests it appears endemic in the profession for some reason. When I was first told this during my first adoption I asked about the legalities surrounding process, desperately looking for someone to be a bit more solution-focussed, can still see the look on that SWs face now. There was no explanation, not attempt to find one - that's how it is, end of; reminisce of authoritarian parenting - 'you do as I say' kind of thing. Having worked in this field myself I'm actually surprised to hear you say that it's not a valid excuse in other professions, in itself sad.

@sabzino I wouldn't have thought of the sex question in that way so that's a really valid point - out of interest, what happened when couple's became pregnant, did they remain committed to the children they were matched with or had they not got that far at that stage?

@Notmenotme - I'm with you - call a spade a spade - when you're going through a process that is not only confusing but also disempowering understanding why you're being asked the things you are helps you be more open I think - if someone is asking me personal questions (in any setting) I'm far less likely to be resistant or hesitant if I understand why something needs to be asked. Re: the hoops thing, I read of parents approached like we've been for a sibling who were then told they had to have their staircase spindles altered when it hadn't even been an issue for the first child. I'm still incredulous as to how people have been able to form judgements on my home when they've not set foot in my house for almost three years; I know everyone needs and deserves to remain safe during this current climate but have real concerns around ensuring children are safe when home visits aren't happening, like jellycats said about 'good and bad' in SW the same is true of adopters too surely, we're all human and there's good and bad in all walks of life, assumptions should never be made.

@Hammyhamster92 I totally get where you're coming from with the intrusiveness, but think too like I said above, there's good and bad everywhere and we can't make assumptions that all parents would have appropriate boundaries in place, I've seen some things in people's homes that I wouldn't have in my home or certainly within the view of children and have had to weigh up whether something is just contrary to my personal values or constitutes something of concern.
Good luck with your impending motherhood in both senses. :)

sabzino, the approach you describe sounds honest, respectful, and transparent - don't think many people will have problems with almost any question with explanations beforehand; sounds like good practice, yourself and jellycatpyjamas bring music to my ears! Thank you.

Finally, tank you all for sharing and contributing; I'm always so fearful posting anything but am glad I did as the feeling of being properly heard is a very powerful one; it isn't one I experience too often at the minute so I'm really grateful to you all. @Notmenotme, I hope it improves for us and all our children soon.

G xx