To ask should I retrain as a social worker?

[DoctorOrSocialWorker]

Are there any social workers or people who know enough about the profession to advise on this? AIBU to think I could do social work?

I'm currently going back to work after 3 years of maternity (2 babies, 2 HG pregnancies).

I'm going back into teaching science to get money flowing a bit again; I aced an interview and have a job starting September, but it really got me thinking, I want to be doing the aspect of the job that I love most, and that's not the teaching part. It's the helping people thrive part. I find the teaching part quite frustrating because I'd rather spend that hour of lesson time talking to the children individually and figuring out how we could overcome their barriers to learning and thriving and actually making that happen. Whenever I have a pastoral role, I tend to prioritise that over my planning/marking because it seems more important to me to make sure the children are ok.

It's become a running joke that social work or doctor would be my best job where I could make a huge difference and social worker is the only one I wouldn't consider (until now) due to their botched involvement when I was a child, whereas doctor is the one I keep telling myself I couldn't do due to the length and cost of training/my age (35) and the fact I have kids. I think if I'd gone into medicine out of school, and if I hadn't had undiagnosed ADHD until 2 years ago, it would have been different.

I started looking at Frontline a couple of days ago (moving to England soon) and I'm wondering if it's a crazy idea to apply to retrain as a social worker next year? I don't think I'd want to work long-term in child protection as it would break my heart, but working in mental health, SEN, or with other vulnerable people would be right up my street. I think my mix of skills would bring a lot to the table in this profession and maybe I could really help support people.

But there's this other part of me that says the system is not designed in a way that enables social workers to give people what they need, necessarily. Am I just setting myself up for burnout later down the line?

I'm also wondering whether GP would suit me instead, but I don't know if I can afford to do it or if I'd feel like all the medical stuff would get in the way of helping people more pastorally. I think I'm answering my own question on that one.

I want a job where I really feel like I'm giving my best work as I feel like teaching isn't quite right for me which is why I wanted to leave several years ago.

AIBU to consider social work? Is it just going to break me or can you actually make a big difference in people's lives doing this job?

I posted in AIBU to get perspectives from a broader range of people looking at aspects beyond just the retraining point of view, but thanks.

I'm a social worker in adults. I generally work 9-5 and whilst there are quite a lot of vacancies, morale is reasonably high in my team. I would echo that there may be less hands on than you think, but I find the legal, report writing etc is something I enjoy. I wouldn't say what I do is paperwork just for the sake of it, but there is a lot of bureaucracy. I feel like I do something that is quite necessary and but I don't get a sense that I'm making a massive difference to people every day.

Wow that sounds amazing, I'd love to work in mental health. I think the versatility of the SW qualification in terms of different types of jobs and different settings you can work in is quite appealing. Have you worked with anyone who has done Frontline at all? Or via the OU? I'm not sure I'd be able to fund being out of the workforce for long enough to do a three-year full-time degree (I did also consider MH nursing but this would be the same issue) until the babies no longer needed childcare. I need to look into postgrad options as I've already had all my loans afaik.

Social work in a non-statutory agency tends to provide more job satisfaction. One of the things I pursued after leaving the LA was working for the Shaw Trust which is an agency that seeks supported work placements for vulnerable people who struggle to get into the job market - it felt a really satisfying job helping people to find their niche at work and to have the satisfaction of being earners. It also involved liaison with employers.

I live in an area where the social services has been well and truly rapped over the knuckles for being so abysmal. I can vouch for the fact that they are. I have recently been on the receiving end of their adult services as my OH was disabled - it was deeply exasperating.

I do think it is worth looking for some sort of niche role: in school (some schools employ social workers, counsellors etc.); in a voluntary agency etc.

@Keha I'm currently self-employed writing reports for industry, so getting to do writing wouldn't put me off iyswim. I find legal stuff fascinating and did consider law at one point which is another draw to SW lol. My mum was a disabled single parent so growing up I spent a lot of time advocating for her, finding out what the council was legally obliged to provide, attending meetings to put her views across and make notes for her etc. I think the reason I'm pulled more to SW than SENCO or Educational psychology is I think I'd like to work with adults or at least have the option of doing that for periods of time.

How about working somewhere like a pupil referral unit?
the teachers where I work have a huge pastoral part to their job. First they need to get to the root cause of why the pupil ended up in a referral unit. Even those with deep rooted behavioural issues can often be found to have underlying issues whether they are SEN or lack of parental involvement or parental inability to parent in the way needed.

PRU’s are always on the lookout for good teachers that care and want to help the pupil make changes as well as thr understanding to work with pupils who’s behaviours are not so straight forward.

It's really not mostly 'admin and data input'
of course there is written work. Writing up visits is extremely important and is not 'data input' and assessments and reports are also very important but don't make up the majority of your work unless you're a very slow writer.

I think this is completely wrong. Social workers absolutely help people. For the majority of young people I work with, their social worker is the most important and stable relationship they have.

I was a social worker until very recently. I was in LA Adult Services. There were aspects of the job that I very much enjoyed - talking to people about their life experiences, how they thought I could help them, making headway in engaging people who had resisted this for a long time. I also liked the writing of witness statements for Coroner's Court and Court of Protection. However, all this was cross-cut by the fact that the team I worked in was the 'last chance saloon' - where service users ended up when every other team had trued to help and failed. As such, people's lives were hugely chaotic and complex. The caseloads in number weren't that bad - 25ish, but it's not necessary the number of cases you have but their complexity that creates stress. With the best will in the world, you can't be there for everyone who needs you at the same time. You absolutely need to make defensible decisions as it will be you having to defend your actions and practice to an opposing barrister or coroner if a person dies or things go wrong. Even if everything is signed off by your manager, you carry the can.

And, whilst making these very important decisions, you will also be having to contend with other multiple safeguardings on your caseload and deadline pressures that your LA legal team are putting on you to complete various Witness Statements. I would say choose your work setting very carefully.

DN is currently on a two year SW masters course. After one year she’s giving up. She’s so demoralised by the entire system.

If you want to work in mental health could you look at training in counselling and work it into your existing career?

How can she be so demoralised by the system when she hasn't even finished her second placement? That's ridiculous. She has no experience of being a social worker yet!

This is interesting - and absolutely true that there are job satisfactions to be found in adult services. The people you meet are fascinating - both elderly and young disabled people, or those with mental health problems.

However - what you want to do differs vastly from what the LA wants you to do. They want you to avoid them having to spend any money on care services..... hence the reams of forms, in which you are required to justify the LA spending any money on this person. You have to distinguish between wants and needs, and these are open to opinions. I spent a great deal of time fighting the LA "panel" who make these decisions on the basis of your reports (with their other eye on the budget of course).

It became utterly impossible - the user/client (whatever the currently favoured terminology is) quite reasonably thought that you spending ages asking them about their needs, and writing it all down in detail implied that some help might actually be forthcoming, when you knew that the chances of getting any help were slim, and that if they did get any, they would be assessed to spend lots of money on it.

It really did feel like an ongoing moral dilemma for me: do I tell this person (who is detailing everything that is a problem, watching me write it all down, baring their most intimate difficulties, then signing it themselves) that the chances of them getting anything is vanishingly small, even though their needs are great and blindingly obvious? They might reasonably ask why we are labouring through this process at all; but without it they cannot be considered at all.

I sent in my resignation on the day when I had to wade through all this with a woman whose son had just been run over and killed and whose other son had major disabilities requiring tracking hoists, speaking aids etc, etc, - the whole shebang. I told the panel it was unreasonable for me to put her through all this at that sad moment, and that the department and I knew her and her circumstances very well and what the problems were for her son. They said no - full forms with her signature or no help. I leave you to imagine her acute distress in being asked to sign that she could not cope with her son without help, when the other had just died. I went home and sent my resignation letter.

Do not expect your employer to have a heart.

I was a teacher and felt like you, loved the pastoral stuff, hated the educational machine.

I did an MSc to become a children's counsellor. I work peripatetically in schools which I love as I get all the work with children with none of the politics of being a member of school staff. I also work as a specialist mentor (mental health) which is about removing barriers to learning.

I haven't looked back and wouldn't change it for the world.

If you are interested in SW you could also consider family therapy/systemic psychotherapy.

@DoctorOrSocialWorker I have once and that student was very motivated and did well, she was young and didn’t have any children. I think the OU relies on people being very organised and motivated (as most SW courses to tbh).

AMHP requires a further post grad diploma but that course is a year & a placement but sooo interesting it flew by! And I was lucky my LA paid for my training and and paid me my salary whilst I did the training (a luxury not afforded in my LA anymore sadly) - the SW’s that do it have to work in their team at the same time which is very taxing so sadly we don’t get many AMHP candidates any more

Mischance yes, the time spent on me asking questions about a carer's needs and them responding to it, as there's a legal duty to offer a Carer's Assessment under the Care Act 2014, knowing full well that the LA would offer nothing to support them, was utterly demoralising.

@noveltynovember yup reason I became a dedicated AMHP among others 😐

I worked in ss with vulnerable families. It was awful, understaffed, over worked. I had a contract of 18.5 hours I worked 30 hours a week to keep on top of the paperwork /meetings/visits. I was barely on minimum wage with the extra hours. Limited support available cahms, crisis team all had such rigid criteria they helped very few. Everything had long wait lists. It was demoralising. I had a child with Sen under 2, elderly parents and I just couldn't do it anymore. Ss works for those without families, those with adult children and people who aren't the main carer in the household. I wouldn't even consider it with young children. Senco or similar would be interesting though.

Ditto to both of these.

I left social work after 20 years when it destroyed my health.
I chose to be a social worker for the same reasons as you and, in the early days, I enjoyed it. I wanted to make a difference and bring about change in people’s lives but in the end at the sharp end of child care, with no management support, with 40 active child protection cases, no budget, virtually no resources, and one hell of a lot of personal risk it all became untenable. Arse covering by senior management left us all vulnerable and it felt as if I was spending my days fire fighting on 2 fronts. By the time I left burn out was rife and social workers were going under. Worst of all was that the most vulnerable, the service user, wasn’t getting what they need. In many cases they were worse off after social services involvement.

My heart broke for the profession that I had originally loved but, in the end, I was so overwhelmed that I needed to leave and just barely escaped with my sanity. I promise you I am not being glib when I make that statement.

Only you can decide if social work is what you really want to do. I wouldn’t want to dissuade you but you do need to be aware that it is not an easy profession. In some areas I am sure that you will be able to make a difference and there are lots of positives but you need to be aware of the very real down sides as well.

Good luck, whatever you decide.

Yes to this

I am a. EP love it so much

Def consider it

Indeed - Carers' assessments are a joke.

I was around when that piece of legislation came in and indeed knew the lawyer who initiated this and drafted the legislation. In the beginning the intention was that documenting the carer's needs as well as the user's would trigger enhanced services for the user, so that the carer did not get burned out in their role - and that was how it worked. Extra care could be put in so, for instance a carer, could attend a regular hobby/choir/meeting or whatever would help to keep them sane.

What we have now is a complete piece of nonsense. I asked for a carer's assessment when my OH was so ill, and was told that I could have this but that it would not trigger any extra help ....! So why have it in the armoury? - it has become utterly pointless. And indeed not using it for its proper purpose is illegal - I did point this out - I was not flavour of the month.

Do you need to be earning an equivalent salary to teaching? If not, maybe consider a pastoral role in an FE college. It can be really varied, dealing with anything from students who think they might be pregnant, to homelessness, financial issues at home, getting support for those with undiagnosed SEN, attendance issues or supporting those who have fallen behind with their academic work. I’m an FE teacher and I absolutely couldn’t do my job without the support of our pastoral tutor, she spends most of her time either talking to/working with students or talking to academic staff / well-being team / safeguarding to come up with a plan to support those students. It’s such an important job and it has such a huge impact on the students.