Social worker vs teacher

[Icecreamsundaenutella]

Hi, wondering if anyone could give me information regarding being a social worker, specifically working in child protection.
I’ve been thinking about becoming a social worker or primary school teacher and would love to hear from someone who is currently in the job and could give me some advice and whether you would recommend becoming a social worker! Of course I understand that it is not an easy path to follow and will be emotionally challenging and draining!

I guess it depends upon your appetite for seeing children suffering and ability to detach when needed.

Was a teacher and now a social worker in child protection. What would you like to know

Thevoice2019 thank you for your reply!
What made you change career?
What do you enjoy about social work?
What’s a typical day look like for you?
What sort of cases do you most see in child protection?

I am also very interested Thevoice2019, not in teaching but in SW and child protection so I'm going to lurk on this thread

2 professions that have little time or respect for each other.

I’ve seen two almost identical threads to this in this last few weeks. Do an advanced search to read the replies.

15thOctober2019 oh that’s not true!

SW here, 5 years in
No reference personally to also being a teacher unlike Thevoice2019, so difficult to give a comparison. Wouldn’t say we ‘have little time or respect for each other’, not quite fair or true from my point of view.
Am possibly skewed by my current work at the moment but i’m feeling incredibly drained, overwhelmed and ineffective at the moment, with crisis piling on crisis generating tons of work to address said crises without having the time to do it, and feeling hugely conscious that each situation has massive potential impact for each child and their wellbeing in life and those around them. Trying to retain the perspective that that’s the ebb and flow of things and that it won’t always be this way but it’s quite difficult, especially when a really overwhelming time in work coincides with stresses and challenges personally.
Having said all that there is something about it that keeps me going, motivated and glad to be here, and not wanting to jump ship and do anything else.
Sorry, not particularly helpful I know but just my 2 pence worth.

Sorry only just seen replies. I changed career as I was the safeguarding lead at school and this started to take over more and more of the role. I don’t think teaching was ever for me so changing was easy decision.

I enjoy working with children although it’s not as big a part of the role that it should be. I enjoy supporting families so make changes and equipping with skills to move forward. I love how every day is different.

There is no typical day. I try to have one paperwork day per week but that doesn’t always work out. Most days consist of home visits, seeing children at school, meetings to see how plans are progressing. You need to be flexible as plans quickly change.

There are so many cases that we support as social workers. Not all are child protection and as a newly qualified social worker, you would not be able to hold child protection cases. Most are child in need cases. Supporting parents who have experienced domestic abuse or have mental health difficulties. Supporting families where they are experiencing hardship are some areas

Sorry to hear it’s currently a difficult time DeriArms hope you have supportive team and manager.

Thank you Thevoice, yes I do!

I'm a child protection advocate and wouldn't take on the role of SW for 10 times the pay.

I'm a social worker. Did child protection and children in care for 5 years before I went on maternity leave. I had an interview recently for a part time position in a locality team and I nearly had a panic attack when I was offered the job because all the stress of the role came flooding back. I think it's safe to say I am completely burnt out and I don't think I'll ever return to front line work. I didn't realise until I had the chance to start it again after maternity leave.

My last role was with a particularly bad LA and I just felt professionally very unsafe because of the constant change in management which led to little planning for families who deserved much much better. I left the job at 29 weeks pregnant because I felt the stress would harm me and my unborn. I could barely sleep with worry about how much work I had to do.

But I have worked in 2 places where I would have stayed if I hadn't moved to another part of the country. These two teams had the same things going for them - stable management at all levels and clear policies that were implemented well. I think one of the most important things that makes a LA a good place to work is when there is stable management who are supportive and reasonable regarding workload. This is especially important when working in a team that undertakes court work as that can be very stressful and acrimonious.

Social work is never going to be an easy choice of career and child protection, while very exciting at times, can completely drain the life from you. I just got tired of the constant battles at nearly every point - it's not the families who give you the most stress, it's the structural barriers, the lack of services, other professionals challenging or undermining you - and I want to take a different path.

I'm still a social worker but I have an advisory role rather than a front line role and it suits me much better. I really like social workers as people because generally they are co operative, non judgemental, great listeners, great at reassuring you, and have fairly strong opinions about matters that affect their service users. There has only been one LA (the last one I was at) where my colleagues were unhelpful and very bitchy.

@15thOctober2019
Totally disagree!