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

I'd never be rude about someone's job to them but privately I think they are useless. I have young family members under social services, they have had many many social workers and I honestly couldn't tell you a good one. I think mostly their hands are tied with funding etc, which is a huge shame but having seen their most recent social worker try to put them back in the care of the people they were removed from (despite many obvious issues I won't go into), I don't have any respect for them. I also think the whole system needs a overhaul, particularly when children are placed with family members and get no support but suddenly there is loads more available when they are placed in foster care.

@Fernandina

I'm with your dad on this one (due to horrible personal experience when I was a teenager). It's 45 years ago, and I'd still lamp her one if I could.

But why applit to all of them? I had a horrific experience with the Royal Marine as a teenager. I don't hate all of them.

Ds has a disability social worker. The current one always seems overworked but is well meaning. A previous one let her own experiences cloud her judgement which created problems at one point. I never 100% trust any of them but I feel that way about all professionals - it is never wise to completely trust any professional.

It’s a very tough job - Massively underfunded and understood.

Constantly firefighting. If there was a PROPERLY funded system, with access to therapy for children - instead those children suffer a trauma from a young age and aren’t helped enough which then snowballs when those children are in early teens vulnerable & even harder fo help as foster cares are in short supply for teenagers and again no money.
Imagine getting a emergency call from police at 1 in the morning…vulnerable teenager (either parents decided to get drunk or the teenager being teenager multiple reasons why) and you need to find a foster carer at that time of night that will take a teenager?!?

Or the Grandma who can’t understand and kicks off that they won’t let her have her Grandchildren as her daughter is a drug addict - the reason you say no is because her son lives with her and is a sex offender - but she believes he wouldn’t harm his own nieces/nephews. Which means splitting up those children to give them bed for the night - imagine having to make those type of decisions.

The system is broke from all angles. The blame constantly at the end of the road the social worker …never the parenting, the government or the system.
I couldn’t do that job - they have to make heavy multiple decisions everyday & they will be blamed or hated from all parties involved in a case or outsiders who don’t know all the facts .

I think they do a hard job that is understaffed, underfunded, most people wouldn't want to do because of the stress and they deserve a lot more money.

@AppleKatie This is pretty accurate. I've been a social worker for 13 years across several different boroughs. There are fantastic ones, yet there are shit ones unfortunately.

The social issues that are prevalent in today's climate (social media, child exploitation, trafficking etc) have made the role much more complex that it was just a few years ago and emotionally draining. However, if this is a career you are passionate about, then who cares what people think. If it's not, then I would urge you not to pursue this as you'll be a disservice to children/familes/adults who are in bed, as well as yourself.

Don't be like my friend's social worker who was charmed by her abusive ex only to give custody to him. This is the man who gouged out her dds dolls eyes as she refused to eat broccoli.
After 4 years a court ruled that the dd did actually have aspergers, the mum wasn't making it up and the social worker had made the wrong decision!

Pretty poor. I am with your dad.
We went through hell when my father needed to be admitted to a care home due to dementia, and it ended up with my dad's solicitor being present at meetings due to the behaviourof one social worker. We had POA for health and finance in place but that didn't stop 2 social workers overuling us when he decided to go back to his flat rather than go to a nursing home, then he had quite a serious fall .
Another close family member had a terrible experience with children's social services , which put the child in danger, think 12 year old being told that it was no concern of their parents where they were at midnight in a "party town" and they didn't need to do their homework. There is much more to it, but their life chances have been irrevocably damaged.
So forgive me, but I would probably avoid you in a social situation.

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 have literally never asked anything of them. But in a meeting I expect them to know the basics like who a child lives with and whether they are in mainstream school full time (in order to contribute meaningfully to the discussion otherwise what's the point), as well as acting on any previous actions agreed. Unfortunately the turnover is so high and workload so great (because it is thankless and underfunded, as I stated) that often a family may be on their sixth or seventh SW and the knowledge of that family is just not there. I'm not a DSL so have no involvement in referrals.

@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.

This. Plus everyone assumes they only work with children and families. /sixteen years working with adults here

My niece is at Uni doing her Masters to qualify as a SW …she just wants to do her bit to make a difference to the lives of vulnerable people…she is beautiful inside and out !

@RainingYetAgain

Pretty poor. I am with your dad. We went through hell when my father needed to be admitted to a care home due to dementia, and it ended up with my dad's solicitor being present at meetings due to the behaviourof one social worker. We had POA for health and finance in place but that didn't stop 2 social workers overuling us when he decided to go back to his flat rather than go to a nursing home, then he had quite a serious fall . Another close family member had a terrible experience with children's social services , which put the child in danger, think 12 year old being told that it was no concern of their parents where they were at midnight in a "party town" and they didn't need to do their homework. There is much more to it, but their life chances have been irrevocably damaged. So forgive me, but I would probably avoid you in a social situation.

You get shit people working in any job or profession…very narrow minded to have that opinion of everyone in that profession or job ! Am sure that whatever your job is ,you have brilliant people and rubbish people!

@RainingYetAgain

If your dad had the mental capacity to make the decision [having dementia does not in itself mean a person lacks capacity] it is irrelevant that you had Lasting Power of Attorney. That only comes into play if someone lacks capacity
But hey, those wicked workers standing up for older people's rights and not wanting to break the law. How very dare they.

ive only ever had them involved the once and its on going through no fault of my own, my family really are the victims of injustice and a corrupt system

she was nasty judgmental ,a pathological liar, she made up so much shit on the reports and her bosses believed it all with no scrap of evidence.

she harassed me to the point my solicitor had to threaten her with a non molestation harassment order as she was ringing me at 9am and midday to see what ive planed to do with my schooling and what ive done(she didnt want to know the legal side of home education unschooling route which is different to home schooling ,she had all the legal stuff sent to her by my solicitor as did her manager but as she didnt agree with home ed she point blank ignored it, the calls never got answered but she tried anyway.
at one point she printer out a weeks worth of work and posted it to me.
it was 3 year above his age.it all got binned
as i didnt answer her calls she turn up un announced on her way home to check up on my 4 -5 times a week,(i found out after it wasn't sanctioned visits)
when i wouldn't let her in or ignored the door or was genuinely not in she would post a note saying she's going to get a emergency care order that night

she was also very good on gaslighting behaviours but it never worked as i always had evidence proving her wrong.

the reason i had this toxic bitch involved was she didnt agree personally with home education and attachment peaceful parenting and did all she could to "make" me change it even though both were legal and had zero evidence on any neglect

their bosses dont always go on facts and the sw opinion is enough to go on as they are sometime as corrupt as them

i got to stage 3 complaints about this woman and her boss and the day my solicitor sent out the order her and her manager disappeared to another department

ss are still involved as the old one did enough damage on paper reports
both my boys have numerous diagnosed disabilities and at one point toxic bitch accused me of fii and tried to get an 10 year diagnoses overturned as i only made them up to obtain dla.

ivr had nothing but hell of this service and all, because of a nasty referral from a nutty neighbour(who ive had a few runs in over my boys not attending a school) and had the unfortunate luck of having the toxic bitch turn up and made my life hell from day 1 on zero evidence just a personal opinion

not everyone who has these vultures involved are guilty
ive ben trying 2 years to get these people of my back and got no where.

you cant work with them when they are using personal opinion over their job title and when they have no evidence

all this has caused an emotional breakdown(now term for nervous breakdown)extreme trauma and ptsd
my 11 and 17 y old extreme trauma and ptsd,all this on top of their complex disabilities as well

all because of one nasty piece of work that had zero evident so made it all up just because there was life choices she disagreed with

im on support groups on Facebook and there are so many corrupt unprofessional sw out there that caused/s so much damage to innocent families

before i had any experience with ss i innocently believed they are there to help or if their involved you deserve it some how,
boy was my option changed

i have so much distain for sws that i would never be friends with one and if i was introduced to a person and they said that's what they would do i would walk away and not talk to them

Most of them that I have had dealings with (children with disabilities team) are a complete waste of oxygen and have been completely useless - nothing has been done without a hell of a lot of prompting to ensure that statutory duties were completed.

Very variable. My friend is one and she's amazing. We also have adopted children in our wider family and the support from their social workers has generally been poor. My friend also works with some atrocious colleagues

They do a hugely important job under very tough circumstances and are under appreciated. I have family members who are social workers and have worked with many more. They are just normal people. Most I've known have been lovely, some clearly better at their job than others. The general public don't understand the workload or the high thresholds which means that they can be seen as useless, but they're literally prioritising life or death situations in terms of safeguarding.

OP: avoid Children schools and families departments unless you are utterly sure that's the only field you are interested in.
Tell your dad that if he loves you he will respect your choice of profession and button it in your presence. And that he will listen when you talk about what you do.
Grab every chance of training and professional support. Make sure you get good and REGULAR supervision. Remember that you work for the client/service user: not their family, the NHS or even your organisation.
With the right support and good colleagues, you CAN make a real difference. There are bits of work I did that I am still proud of years later, and sometimes even got credit for.
Most people on here complaining about social workers either don't actually understand what they do, the legal context in which they are obliged to operate and the constraints they work under, or tar them all with the same brush because society encourages them to because it's easier than facing difficult facts.

The problem is they are a required evil to protect children with limited time, resources and budgets. You will need a skin as thick as a rhino to survive.

That responsibly to protect the children comes into direct conflict when a parent who thinks they are a good parent but isn't and isn't doing right by the child. No one likes being called a bad/failing/struggling parent and having SW involved perceived as a mark of the above. I haven't met many parents who don't think they are behaving in the best interests of their child. But some do not. It's that simple. That same parent who thinks they are doing right by their child and may not be, will then say SW are trying to take you away from me and then the child hates SW .

A lot of its fear driven, a struggling parent may not want to ask for help because then they fear their children will be taken away and that is every parents worst fear. SW are the only people who can make this fear a reality and people hate them for it.

However they are required. But it's a tough profession and a thankless one at that.

Through family experiences there are lots of promises made and lots of promises broken. Even lies to cover their inadequacies. Mostly just lip service paid and then you are left to sink or swim.

I’m a childcare solicitor so I see their actions from another more detailed perspective.

As above same as any profession they’re all different.

All I will say is they are an expert at twisting words and taking one sentence out of a whole long conversation and putting in a particular context to suit themselves and the evidence.

But the evidence I see they have done the right thing.

@malificent7

Don't be like my friend's social worker who was charmed by her abusive ex only to give custody to him. This is the man who gouged out her dds dolls eyes as she refused to eat broccoli. After 4 years a court ruled that the dd did actually have aspergers, the mum wasn't making it up and the social worker had made the wrong decision!

Social workers don’t have the power to decide things like this. Only a court does.

Hate them, I would never get them involved even if I was desperate. Only had awful experiences. One lied about seeing me on days that she didn’t.

@RainingYetAgain, I understand exactly what you're saying. My DM had dementia and her social worker was awful. I have sympathy for her because she'd obviously done the job for years and was burnt out by it but she was so unkind. She wanted my DM to go into a home but because I didn't have POA refused to give me any help, basically I would have to find a home who would take her on credit until the house was sold. I moved in with my DM and never heard from her again

I'm a community mental health nurse so I have a fair amount of contact with social workers. My experience of them has been largely positive - essentially they're people who really want to help but are constrained in terms of legalities and funding, same as us nurses.