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'm with your dad

The experience I had as a victim and a victims mother was fucking traumatising my daughter has ptsd and believes I do too however I don't trust anyone anymore so I won't get help beyond medication because my kids are still young and I don't want them back again

Tough job that deserves more respect and needs to be much better funded.
Impossible job at times: Deciding whether a vulnerable child should be in frying pan or fire sounds like a hellish decision.
I have friends and relatives who are SWs and undoubtedly went into it for the right reasons and probably have a lot to offer the profession.

I know a young man who would probably tell you that social workers ruined his life but it wasn’t their fault his parents were dangerously negligent and abusive. For most of his childhood social workers were as good as useless but on one or two occasions decisions were made that were both astute and creative, the result of VERY good social working imo. Someone made a shrewd judgment - and took a big risk - which put his life on the best possible course for the circumstances at the time and I honestly believe they saved him. It would have been much easier and more obvious to lock him up, but he needed to learn how to live in normal society, and he did. I take my hat off to these people who behind a closed door thrashed out a decision that enabled him to have a slim chance at a good life, a chance which he made the most of but which could have horribly backfired.

So good luck - your job done well is a very valuable and powerful thing.

I can't imagine how hard it would be to see some of the situations you will face, and the decisions you will have to make.

I coudn't do it, we need Social Workers and I admire them.

Like a previous poster, I also have no time for them. In light of last year’s horrendous cases (and many previous) I can only think that the system is rotten. I can’t believe that people are that incompetent or nasty. It must be the way it’s run/taught and, if that is the case, then the whole thing needs overhauling.

I am a foster carer and so work with many social workers. Some are very good some less so, like people in other jobs. They do all have massive caseloads though, so it would be easy to overlook something that needs doing.

Worked in social work now for 10 years . I'm incredibly proud of my profession and see good work on a daily basis. All of the workers in my team are there to do a good job - nobody intentionally wants to make life difficult for people but we have to work to standards and guidelines and are bound by legislation.

One of the big issues I come across is people think we have more power than what we actually do . We can't just run in and take people away etc . I also feel that people don't really understand what we do aside from safeguarding work, and have a vey skewed idea of our roles and purpose.

I think the job needs to change (and will due to less funding). However when someone asks what I do for a living - I tend to keep to keep it simple and say "I work for the council".

I’m some cases you’ll do a great job on some cases you will. They say it’s a thankless job, it’s not at all. Some days and visits are amazing and you feel like your really helping to better the world, other times you’ll feel like a failure, you’ll feel guilty and frustrated and want to jack it all in.
Yes some people other professionals will get frustrated as they think you have a magic wand ans money to change things. Sometimes they project their own failings on to you.
Honestly I wouldn’t do anything else. Like anything some people will think your a hero, others will think your scum.
It’s important to remember social workers can be very scary to people as they are seen as a threat to their children. Iv only ever met one parent who didn’t love their child, the rest love and adore them but have had difficult roads to travel.

I work in care and have a lot of experience with social workers. As previous posters have said there are good and bad ones.

However it is scary how many work with the elderly and can't grasp the concept of mental capacity, the mental capacity act or DoLS.

Just one example of many was a social worker plus her manager saying one of my residents couldn't possibly have the capacity to make day to day decisions such as what to have for lunch or what to wear if she did not have the capacity and insight to understand her needs and where to live (in a care home as she couldn't be cared for in the community). They seemed to think mental capacity was either all or nothing!

I think the majority of people have no clue about how social workers do their jobs, or the limitations they have whilst doing it. Social Work is not an individual profession, things can often only happen with the agreement of more than one government department and, since all of those supporting services are also underfunded, underpaid and overworked the knock on effect is vast.

Added to all that, the hostility of families who need a social worker is demanding and exhausting. Often parents can't see the need for a social worker and feel threatened by their involvement. No-one likes to be told that they aren't doing a good job of raising their child or looking after an elderly relative.

I was brought up in a home needing social workers, then removed to the care system. I've also stood in court as a professional (not a SW) and fought to have children removed from their family home. I've seen my fair share of good and bad SW on both sides of the fence.

But let's not pretend that 'social workers are bad'. Some are not suited to the career, some are jaded and exhausted, some might be just idiots and some are amazing. But the one thing they all have in common is lack of funding and support to carry out their jobs safely and effectively.

Blaming social workers for all the problems they encounter is a bit like saying the police have failed when the CPS turns down a case to go to court, or when a judge gives someone a minuscule sentence/slap on the wrist after hours/weeks/years of hard work that went into getting them there in the first place.

Good luck OP. You are certainly going to need it, but well done for going into this profession, we need more SW not less.

They're not worth the paper that their payslips are printed on.

Due to a really awful experience with one after a family trauma when I was younger I agree with your dad. Patronising clumsy and no empathy. She made everything worse.

Having adopted two children, one with lots of emotional, behavioural and social problems who goes missing a lot, they are very variable. The ones who we worked with during adoption assessment and placement were amazing. Very experienced and I would imagine that placing children with families who want to adopt is one of the nicer roles in the profession. The ones who have been assigned to us once DD started having issues have been very variable. The main issue is the high turnover - they leave or change departments all the time, so you build a relationship and then they are gone. The person who takes over will call you to say they are your new SW but they haven't read your file yet. There seems to be no handover.

They call a lot of meetings but very little action comes from the meetings. TAC, TAF, CIN meetings don't ever seem to lead to any significant changes for DS.

The departments are not joined up and the senior managers are very hard to get hold of, even for the SW themselves. They say "I'll have to ask my line manager" then a week goes by and they haven't been able to meet with them.

I get the impression that many of them are trying their best and it's a terrible system which is massively underfunded. Like the police, until you actually have to deal with the service you think there is all this help and support available and there just isn't.

People tend to just focus on those cases,that hit the news, where some social workers have made mistakes, missed signs of things going on in some homes, where chiidren have been at risk etc.

My small interaction with social workers was they were totally blind to the reality of people who are not middle-class like themselves.

Oh OP They have virtually no resources to allocate, not enough time and they are damned if they do and damned if they dont and every Tom, Dick and Harry could do a better job. In fact the only thing worse than social workers is not having them.

The system is fundamentally broken, and most social workers are chronically overworked and unappreciated.

I have a lot of contact with them in my line of work. I’ve met some absolutely fabulous ones, who are empathetic well meaning people with so many valuable contributions to make. I’ve met some who are nice enough, but perform their job in a fairly perfunctory box-ticky sort of way. And I’ve met a sizeable minority who are so unsuited to the job it would be funny if it wasn’t so serious for the people on their case load that they are failing.

I imagine that if you’ve only had contact with the latter, it would give you a pretty dim view of social services and social workers overall.

What's the difference between a Rottweiler and a Social Worker?

With a Rottweiler you get your kids back.

I would have become a social worker, I really do believe its an important job IF done properly.

I worked closely with social workers in a previous role, what I saw was many were incompetent or projected their own issues.

The only interaction I have had with a social worker was when we were looking into fostering. At the first meeting at our house she showed up over and hour late saying she knows she is late but does have an excuse. During the conversation she didn't really answer our questions. But told us numerous time how hungry she was. After she left we discussed this and we both got the impression she was wanting us to feed her. A couple of weeks later we had a phone call. She had signed us up to various courses. One was over 200 miles away and we only had a couple of days notice. No discussion with us, we had jobs to go to. She just wanted to steam roll over us. We decided we would not be fostering based on her behaviour. I did not want to be dealing with a distress child and dealing with people like her. We just knew we would not get the support we needed from her.

As another professional working with them I'm afraid most of ours are totally useless. For some reason our county employs ones without any common sense, for example directing families of under 10s to age 15+ youth groups etc. The service in the county I work in is however under special measures so I can not speak for all social workers. We do have the odd fab one bit getting to them past the front door is often very difficult!

I've met some I have loved.
Some I have liked.
Some I have been indifferent too.
Some I have disliked.
One or two I've hated.

However the murders of Arthur, Star, Teddie should make us realise how underfunded and understaffed and in need of much more help these folk need.

Good luck, I'm sure you'll be wonderful x

One was brilliant. The other was ok but disappeared after 2 visits and we heard nothing for 8 weeks. When they finally called to say we had been appointed someone else I refused (had self referred) due to non communication. They reckoned they had called to explain-nope.

Like any job - you get good ones and bad ones.

Unfortunately in a job where the stakes can be so high having a bad one can be disastrous

My friend is a social worker - she's amazing and passionate and genuinely cares about the families she supports - she spends ages driving round sometimes in her own time, picking up baby equipment etc for families who have nothing. I really hope she doesn't get burnt out.

In my career I've come across a lot - some start off well and become jaded and ground down by the system - I've had everything from just can't be arsed to openly hostile. In a lot of cases things could have been done but there was no will to get them done.

I've also had a lot who seem to have lost their objectivity - ones who seemed to have a downer on certain parents and seemed determined to take the kids away no matterwhat -in one case the mother had made a real effort to change and willingly jumped through a million hoops and they still recommended removing her kids.

In another the dad was a "cheeky chappie" who charmed the social worker - she seemed to love him - the fact that he was openly using heroin in front of his 5 year old, inviting anyone and everyone into the house while he was out of it and leaving the front door wide open didn't seem to matter. The social worker was determined they must keep the family together at all costs - even to the detriment of the child.

Of course they are human and can make mistakes but in both cases there were several other agencies involved all saying the SW was wrong but they werent willing to even consider the possibility they might be making a mistake because they were so arrogant. They looked down on those workers and were adamant they couldn't possibly know anything or be highly skilled because they weren't "qualified professionals" eg they didn't have a degree

I really fear for the future too because I helped mentor student social workers for a while and what I saw wasn't good (in terms of the training and guidance they were receiving from their tutors)

So many people in my world are social workers. A lot of the older now retired ones were fantastic but were also operating in much easier times than the present day. I also know some really strong younger women who are great social workers in a completely underfunded and dysfunctional system.
I will admit however the standard generally seems to be dropping and it’s often a toss up between teacher/nurse/social worker and I have seen some truly under qualified, naive and not very bright (academically or socially) qualifying in more recent years.

My work brings me into contact with social workers and they are no different to any other profession. Most are good people - competent, hardworking well meaning, some truly excellent and some need to leave and do something else.