To ask your honest opinions of social workers?

[founditdark]

I am due to graduate with my social work degree and feel ready yet apprehensive to go out into the working world.

However, over the past 4 years, some people have been less than complimentary when I told them what I was doing at uni. Including my dad who had a bad experience with social workers growing up. He frequently tells me 'I hate fucking social workers'.

Is this the norm? Is it something I'm better keeping to myself when asked what I do for work?

Also if anyone has any words of wisdom for an (almost) newly qualified social worker please do post.

Thanks

Dp and I had SS involved when his ex got nasty and encouraged her kids to tell lies.

The Social worker was horrible. Rude, unhelpful, absolutely not interested in our side of the story.

She is directly responsible for DP no longer seeing his DC and leaving the DC with no adults at all to speak to (their DM was a school governor, best friends with their GP, worked in social care herself and stopped them seeing their dad and all of her family). We told the SW what she was doing. Ex's parents came to our house to back DP up but SW refused point blank to listen. It was horrendous. That was 5 years ago and we haven't seen the DC since.

So no, I don't have a great deal of time for social workers.

I know another family who adopted a little boy who had been abused by his parents. He was covered in cigarette burns and worse. SWs insisted he kept up a relationship with biological parents until he was old enough to refuse (which he did).

Having watched what has happened recently with baby Star I can say quite honestly that I have no time for social workers whatsoever!!

Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

My main experience is with the children with disabilities team. I found that whatever support I asked for they said no and then tried to offer me support I didn't want. They also made me feel rubbish when they kept saying that they see people who have children with more severe needs than my dc. I found that there was a lot of meetings/paperwork and very little action. One social worker put pressure on me to toilet train my son when he wasn't ready. The one really good thing they did was to get me a bigger wheelie bin which was life changing when I had 2 dc in nappies.

I had involvement from social services in the past, both as a child and as a parent. It’s like any other profession: some are great, some are meh, some are fucking shit.

In my experience, the people who truly hate social workers are often the same people that demand to know “where were social services when x child was abused to death”? So they hate them, but concede they are needed. And they are. But social workers need and deserve better pay and there’s not enough of them.

I know another family who adopted a little boy who had been abused by his parents. He was covered in cigarette burns and worse. SWs insisted he kept up a relationship with biological parents until he was old enough to refuse (which he did).

Social workers have no power to insist on any contact after children are adopted. Do you think you might have misunderstood the situation?

Social workers that I work with (Mh) are overstretched, they get the horrible jobs and get the most criticism. They are just people, some nice, some not so nice.
Learn on placement what kind of social worker you are, the bad ones will show you what not to do. Be the social worker that you would want to have.

@AppleKatie

A. I think there are good ones. B. I think there are average ones. C. I think there are totally crap ones.

Like all humans really!

Of course they are pretty much all-

1. Overworked
2. Underfunded
3. Stressed
4. Living in a specific bubble which can skew opinion/experience.

How much this matters depends on whether they are a, b, or c type!

This ^

and this :

Dammed if they do and damned if they don't, frankly.

I worked on a adult social work team, I can say we went above and beyond to support peop!e, including arranging flats to feed cats when the owner was in hospital, shopping, late night support in crisis, rallying found and finding clothes, household stuff for people being set up in New places, supporting borders (including doing the cleaning).

I now work on a different team and have found a lot of adult social workers click off at 5pm and will not do anything beyond their role.

I have also had experience they family with a children's team and have found them shockingly poor.

It seems my first experience was rare.

@WlNDMlLL

I appreciate they do a thankless job and are massively underfunded, but as a teacher and SENDCO I've found them next to useless.

I imagine they're largely legally unable to do what you want and unwilling to participate in the increasing nonsense of schools raising false referrals in pathetic attempts to bully SEND parents to avoid delivering the specifics they really should be.

I work closely with social workers.
Many have too many cases that are complex and beyond their capabilities.
I have seen so many that I cant even count that have started on a Monday and resigned by the following week. ( not exaggerating )
I find the older social workers who have been around for years more understanding to a families needs and realise some problems will never change because sometimes people just dont want to change their behaviours.
I have found those in their first social worker position often not understanding enough and not 'getting' individual families needs. They dont understand the history and complexity of a families background . They come in and dispense advice as if it's the first time any one has heard it. They act as if they are doing something ground breaking. We just nod and smile now and think, you'll learn Also new social workers have promised the earth to families without realising the consequences if they dont deliver. This is especially true about false promises made to teenagers around foster care.
My bottom line thought on social workers is they are great once they understand what the job is and have learned to deal with people. That takes time and expierence and doesn't happen overnight.

With a very few rare exceptions I think they're inadequate and unfit for purpose.
That said I also agree the entire system is flawed, desperately under funded and oversubscribed. Also feel that other services such as mental health, The disabled, CAMHS, schools and police all need better funding to avoid the woeful current lack of support for so many.

@Nidan2Sandan

Overworked, underpaid, and massively underappreciated.

I think if social work had the funding and attention it needs, the issues that makes people hate social workers would be far less.

Couldn't agree more with this

I've come across good, bad, indifferent and everything in between, both personally and 'professionally'.

On the whole I think they've got far too much workload and not enough resources to do what most want to do and to do what is needed and take the kicking for that. I feel like I'm in a similar position so I understand to a certain extent.

As a teen I had a positive experience from my social worker, my parents remember it differently because she was there to act in my best interests and listened to me and they found it difficult to come across someone that didn't just take their version of events as gospel as they were used to - and they could be quite hostile to that.
The social worker appointed to deal with my DD because of her father was very good and genuinely imo, supported the best interests of DD at the time - although I didn't agree with some of what she said, I could see that.

I do feel disappointed sometimes with the lack of support in my job, although I understand the reasons for things being slow and clunky, the attitude that I've come across from some social workers professionally has left a lot to be desired, I'm the one dealing with the person who is in the wrong environment when funding decisions or lack of places mean that they don't get the placement they need and I don't have the training to deal with their needs - yet often that's overlooked and the people looking after them get the blame for care needs not met, instead of the real reasons - they're wrongly placed but there's no where else for them to go.

I've also come across some who have no idea what it's like to actually work with people in social care on a day to day basis and refuse to listen and have unrealistic expectations, but I guess they'd say the same about me.

Basically the whole of social care is a shit show, and we need good people inside to change that - and we need them to stay and continue working from the inside to improve it, bit by bit, though I do understand that there's only so much a person can take.
I really hope you do well and find that the rewards outweigh the negatives - best of luck 💐

As that previous poster said - damned if they do, damned if they don’t.
Parents of out of control teenagers demand that something be done — just how? One is not permitted to bodily force compliance and they’d probably be the first to complain if their little Jason was touched. Social workers are supposed to magically know how to fix behavioural problems, many of which are due to parental lack of boundaries, witnessing alcohol and drug abuse and domestic violence or abuse of the children. Emotional abuse is a huge issue and the hardest to provide evidence of. There are so many damaged children and a lack of therapeutic resources
It is heartbreaking to meet young people who were born perfect in every way damaged by life experiences (no matter who or what is to blame) and to know very few will be resilient enough to have happy adult lives.
Still one keeps slogging away in-the hope that the children on one’s caseload (and whom one feels affection for) will be protected from further harm .
Most parents don’t intend to harm their children and someareapleadure to work with.
Managers often seem more interested in the paperwork being completed than the well being of their workers. And each year the computer systems programmes become more complex and take longer to complete which means less time to spend with clients.
Most social workers donate unpaid work in order to meet deadlines.
It’s a satisfying career in many ways OP but do have an exit strategy
Good luck ( and tell only good friends what you do for a living)

Like every profession there are good and bad. It’s too much of an generalisation for someone to say they don’t like social workers.

Top Tip: When someone asks you what you do, your job is (without taking a breath) social-worker-not-children-and-families. Because 99 times out of 100 the bad experience someone has had is that. I lived in a rough part of South London and would literally see people's faces start to scowl when I said SW and lighten during 'not-children-and-families'. They'd already be taking a breath to tell me how shit SWs are. And then be OK because I worked with adults.

It's not for the faint of heart. But I loved it, loved my clients, did good and felt great. I am a bit of a stress-addict though.

My children's services social workers have been great on the whole. DH's adult services SW was an utter failure and let us down badly at the time we needed help the most.

I think they do a thankless job for not enough money.
Underpaid, overworked, under-appreciated.

Of course there are also crap ones, just like in literally every single job.

I've only had personal dealings with a SW once. She was just awful.

Social workers are often the scape goats

Thankless job for defo

@AppleKatie

A. I think there are good ones. B. I think there are average ones. C. I think there are totally crap ones.

Like all humans really!

Of course they are pretty much all-

1. Overworked
2. Underfunded
3. Stressed
4. Living in a specific bubble which can skew opinion/experience.

How much this matters depends on whether they are a, b, or c type!

I agree with this.

Useless. I had one who told me I was " jealous" of my mums boyfriend when I was 13 when he was regularly battering us. He went on to bea gropey fucker to.
Had experience with them last year due to mental breakdown. Made me jump through all sirt of hoops to prove Im a capable parent. When I pointed out that my kids have two parents they promised that my abusive ex would be questioned on his parenting. He wasnt. They totally let me and my kids down.

There are awful ones average ones and really good ones.
Unfortunately the good ones burn out or leave or get dragged down by the system.
You have to remember why you are doing it, be aware of your own bias and be kind to yourself. You can't do everything but you can make sure everything you do is done well.
Please don't ever tell a high risk DV victim to return home for the weekend because she fled at 3.15 on a Friday.

We have a disabled child, he should be classed as a child in need (due to being disabled). Apparently because we advocate well for him he isn't. I'm too tired and have too many other fights (education) to fight this.

We've had caf for budgets for short breaks and home adaptations. I see them as gate keepers for his social care funding. Reports aren't specified, provision in them is lacking so the provision he gets is.

I'm exhausted and took tired to fight for respite.