To ask what it's like to be a Child & Family Social Worker?

[IsThisRealLife12]

Has anyone qualified through the Frontline organisation?

Even those that haven't and have qualified in a different way, what is it actually like to be a social worker, working with children and families?

Is it as awful as is shown in the media? Is it hard emotionally because of the subject matter, does it impact you? Especially if you're a parent?

What is the workload like?
What is career progression like?
Is the financial element at all beneficial?
Are your organisation/local authority/employer supportive?
What's the work life balance like?
Is it rewarding?

Any feedback would be fantastic. Good, bad and the ugly.

Following with interest. I'm thinking of taking a new job along similar lines, but not quite as a social worker.

At the risk of being a CF and adding to the OPs thread, if anyone already does this type of work - do you find it difficult to 'switch off'?

I am a Child Protection Social worker and have been for 7 years. Working late is standard, the stress and emotional impact can be challenging, especially with small children as I often can't switch off. I am lucky and have a great manager but the unpredictable nature of social work and abuse from families can be difficult to manage. I started on 29 thousand and am now a senior social worker on 39,000, I was promoted after being qualified for 2 years and next promotion will see me up to 45,000 or so.

I have a caseload of around 16-20 children. This could be 4 families of 5 children each or 16 individual children depending on what comes through. I spend 70% of my time doing reports, court work, writing visits up, making calls, attending meetings and the other 30% with the children and families which is the best part. I love my job but being the lead professional is draining and carries an enormous amount of responsibility. Eventually I'll move to private law or a private agency where I will advise and produce independent reports but the "buck" won't stop with me.

It's an excellent job, and I feel we are well paid, especially at "higher grade" which can be gained 2 years after qualifying usually. I am happy and look forward to going to work most of the time. The downsides for me is the stress (normal for me to wake in the night wondering if I've done the right thing /wondering how a child is), and managing other professionals anxieties. Schools in particular can be difficult to work with as they don't always understand our remit. Positives are that every day is different, I'm largely autonomous, the teams are usually very supportive (with a very black humour!) and I see great outcomes for a lot of the families I support.

Thank you so very much for taking the time to respond. My background is Legal but I feel more and more that I'm moving away from my goal of wanting to help primarily children and then families as a whole. I'm feeling very strongly that I want to switch careers and the Frontline organisation is offering that opportunity over 2 years. I have a 1st in Law and with Frontline I'd then also have a Masters in social work. The first year is qualifying and then the second year is placement with hopefully your local authority.

I'm very intrigued and I've had an email saying they have had some places come up for the July 2022 cohort, I'm so very tempted.

@Kindlynow, how does your role impact your family life? Do you feel fulfilled generally speaking? Workload doesn't scare me but going from one sector where my hands are perpetually tied and I'm unable to actually effect change to another where the same would happen, does. I want to help, as pompous as that sounds.

There are different roles within social work, in England and Wales you could be in a duty and assessment team, a locality/safeguarding team (which deals with what you think of usually - child protection and court mainly) you could be in a specific court team, you could be a social worker for children in care, children with disabilities, or am adoption team. Some authorities have have you doing all those in one role but it's more common to do one area as your main role and find you do a little bit of the others as part of it.

It is very interesting, very challenging. Most days are a constant rush and there is always more work to do than hours to do it. Working late and logging on once you've got home are common, not because anyone tells you to, because you know you want to get X Y Z done quickly and you know next week you've got A and B to do and there won't be any time.

Frontline is a good programme and we have it in our authority, I know the students really like it but are frustrated that the way they're taught to work isn't compatible with the job (they work with a very small number of families very in-depth using systemic tools, and it's not possible to do that when working with a family)

The emotional stress of it - most people tend to adjust because it becomes normal very quickly and you feel better knowing that you are doing something about it. You learn to feel responsible for the bit you are doing and not to feel responsible for preventing something bad happening. Obviously we want to reduce the risk but we're not minority report - we can only do what we can reasonably do. People work really hard because they want to do right by the kids they see. You do find yourself very invested in other people's families and it is definitely possible to emotionally neglect your own because of the headspace needed for the job.

It's guaranteed that you will have some weeks where you dream about writing reports and find yourself either working until the early hours or getting up at 5am to get ahead. But you make it fit. It is still possible to have a life.

The money isnt great for what it is, but in lots of parts of the country it is still a good wage.

If you're working with children, you will visit the majority of them after school and that means finishing times and where you finish varies a lot. You can't be refuse to visit because they're the wrong side of town to the office, or because they're in after school club and don't get home till 4.45. Adoption teams your visits will be in daytime but could mean traveling across the country. Children in care usually means a lot of travel, as children remain 'yours' regardless of where they move to.

Most people in it say they're going to leave 'next year' or 'go agency' or go work in fostering because the hours are better. But then, still keep going year after year. Knowing you've got options helps.

I think there are a lot of parallels with the police, where the job becomes addictive and you still want to do it despite knowing there are easier ways to earn a living!

I really like being a social worker; the good way always outweighed the bad for me.
It is hard emotionally and you have to develop resilience and the ability to leave work at work; that takes time to develop. You also have to develop clear boundaries around workload and be able to know that you will never get everything done and be clear with your managers about what you’re prioritising and why.
I found it wasn’t compatible with having young children; once mine are later primary school age I’ll go back into the frontline child protection work but for now I’ve had to move to a different team.
financially I feel I do pretty well and there are increments every year which I like and there is good career progression and so many different teams that you can also make sideways steps without getting bored.

I'm in a good position, family wise, as my husband is largely a stay at home parent. I have colleagues who worry about getting an emergency at 1600 because they have to be out the door at 1700 to collect little ones and I don't envy them that stress.
I feel very fulfilled, I am proud to be a Social Worker and find myself loving my own little ones harder after a long day, rather than not having the emotional capacity for them, if that makes sense. I do feel fraught a lot of the time but I do tend to thrive on the stress and deadlines rather than let it overwhelm me. I'd say 50% of our new starters (frontline CP team) leave after 6 months. Organisation is key to success in Social Work. Every minute is accounted for in my diary and I usually only work late once or twice a week and that might just be logging on at 20:00 after dinner to fire off some emails or organise myself for the next day. It is a labour of love. There can be frustrations with lack of budget/limitations of how you can help but usually we leave families in a better situation than we found them so I generally feel effective.

Like Pakka says, which team you choose will have a huge impact on how you experience social Work. I did LAC for a year and was often driving to Kent, Birmingham..sometimes flights to Scotland! I'm on the South Coast and it was just unsustainable and management were awful. I'm much happier in frontline. I do the initial assessments so when a new case comes in, it's me who does the initial visit, assessment and follow up work for 3 months before handing over to the long term team. I love it, very varied.

Children and family social workers and the angels of health care. They do so much amazing work and help families. It can be stressful but I imagine very rewarding. I could never do it as I would be too anxious.

I've just retrained was a teacher in a very deprived area previously so some if the things which shocked my course mates didn't shock me! I did a masters as didn't get In to front line as I only had a 2:2 in my first degree. but really loved my training I had placements in a Child Protection team and Children with Disabilities team which also involved lots of safeguarding. Interestingly on a day to day basis I find it less stressful and easier with kids than teaching as it's a bit more flexible, I can also switch off byt then I had had 12 years of experience of learning how to do that from school first. Workload is less than it was at school but still do some evenings so guess it depends on your expectations

I'd agree re the point about young children. It's very common for people to either do a management role when they've got young kids (because they can leave at 5, collect kids and log back on later after kids are in bed if they have to, whereas if you're a CP social worker you're out in the community so you can't just go), or to work in a team where the hours are a bit more predictable, like a MASH team (screening referrals), fostering team etc. A lot of people think of the late night emergencies and while that does happen sometimes, you might be late home just because you went to see a child and they were having tea so you waited half an hour to speak to them and then they wanted to play a game with you and that takes time and then... So finishing at a set time is hard

Being the primary carer for kids is difficult as though work will try and be understanding, it's difficult to take time off at short notice - if you're due to chair a meeting that day, that meeting won't go ahead without you and rearranging is difficult because everyone is so busy. I do know plenty of single parents who do the job but only manage it because they have family or friends who can step in when needed.

The workload varies a lot depending on caseloads but also what is involved and the support at your work. I've had caseloads of 25-30 but in places where they're all multiple sibling groups, all within a 20min drive of each other and where admin will take minutes and send letters for me. I've had caseloads of 18 where half the kids are more than an hour's drive each way, theyre all ones or twos (so overall, more families, more meetings, more visits) each one has a big piece of work attached (court/assessments/a programme of direct work) or where I'm doing a million admin/support tasks alongside like collecting food parcels or doing a morning school routine and school run for a week, and without anyone to delegate anything to.

Following! I'm just coming to the end of my second year in uni studying social work.

Thank you all so very much for your responses, I absolutely do appreciate it. I also note the candid and honest and insight into this career. Thankfully what I'm reading here isn't worrying me but is inspiring me.

I appreciate that everyones experience with the role is unique to them but I genuinely just want to do something that is purpose driven. I do have 3 children, 14, 10 and 8. My DH then has 2 children, 16 and 13 so we definitely have a busy life. I do want to ensure a balance of quality time and joy for my family but I equally want to feel that my path is leading somewhere where I want to be as a human and feel like I'm doing something worthwhile.

I think your legal background would be an advantage, the workers I know who really struggle are those who find report writing really hard - I would think if you're familiar with legal paperwork you're less likely to find that aspect overwhelming.

I don't know anyone who has regretted the frontline course, and I've met a lot of their students. It's good pay and a relatively short course for a well regarded qualification. And in terms of making a difference - you have to accept that you're not going to be swooping in and rescuing anyone, or creating systemic change as we'd want to (eg poverty, govt policies) but in terms of making a difference at a small local level, absolutely.

Worst case scenario and child protection isn't for you after your first year; there are plenty of other social work roles you can consider as mentioned above. The qualification also opens up other roles (albeit lower paid) eg non teaching school roles (pastoral, safeguarding), family support services, careers guidance etc. And if you get management experience then it will give you further options for career moves, eg I had one friend who became a nursery manager and another who manages volunteers for a mental health charity.

Good luck!

I wouldn't want my children to be in the military or police, prostitution or social work.
Was children's social worker for 16 years . It's hell. Services are cut to the bone and you put a sticking plaster over gapping wounds. Managers mostly don't back up their staff as too busy passing the buck. The public and other professionals don't respect you and want to avoid you or pass the buck. Was a better job when I first qualified and we had more funding. Avoid .

Safeguarding social workers have nearly broken my family - it's only the support from other professionals and family/friends that have kept us going.
We've just been 'signed off' from 2 years of hell - no resolution - it was just convenient for them as she was moving to a new position.
8 SW's down the line - not one understood neurological conditions - just continual parental blame. Sickening.
I have absolutely no doubt that the pressure/responsibility is huge but the damage they have done to us is unforgivable.

I work in a similar field. Social services in my local area not have the resources to adequately support families. They are putting sticking plasters in severed limbs and don’t have the capacity to build meaningful relationships with the children they serve. They are pressured to sign off families that still need support because of the lack of workers and capacity
id look at the latest ofsted of your county before making a decision