Below inflation pay rise for social workers and social work England fees to rise to £120

[forgodssakes]

How are they getting away with this? The sector is in a recruitment crisis and services are stretched as it is, how can they continue to expect people to work under these conditions? 3.2% is pathetic compared to what nurses and teachers have been awarded. I expect that more people will leave the sector and social workers will continue to be criticised when things go wrong despite working under unworkable conditions and unsustainable caseloads. What can we do about this?

Exactly! if you are three years qualified and you are the longest experienced social worker in the team you are going to be be classed as experienced and given the most complex work! I would have loved to have remained newly qualified with a lower caseload and less complex work but I had to step up very quickly out of necessity and not choice

They really, really, really don't ! 😂

And you only need three years experience to apply for advanced practitioner posts which is by name an experienced social worker

OP- You are not an experienced professional in any way. The fact that your department is in such dire shape and you feel you are important is reflective of the state our country is in. £36k for three years work (most of which will have been training) is more then adequate. Complaining about that publicly and online undermines all those that have dedicated decades to the public service because they love what they do and appreciate the welfare state.

Don't be a total div please

OP you ate absolutely right. My department isn't as dire as yours and we pay better but we are in the south so that might make the difference. I do agree it's a massive crisis though.

This is inevitable when there is NHS worshipping, it sucks up all the money, unfairly.
Most is wasted on admin managers.

In what way am I being a total div? The fact that is the way you choose to communicate shows everything I need to know. It’s sad that’s how you choose to represent social workers- because I don’t know any like that.

I'm an ex social worker.

Scarily I've heard from colleagues still practicing that there are social workers become Team Managers after 3 years. Absolutely frightening.

Exactly this. You don’t belong in management after 3 years- you are still learning the job.

So you went into management after 4 years but don't consider someone with 3 years teaching 'experienced'? 🙄

Many ways, but the most glaring is that you think most of a social worker's first three years of practice is training? What the what now?

You’re right there. I was promoted prematurely. But I have survived very rough east London inner city schools and done my time. Three years is new blood. Sink or swim.

Yep I bet your whole one year more experience in teaching made all the difference.

The reality is experienced social workers are moving away from practice at a rate of knots, because the demands of the job are pretty much impossible. There are many places where the most experienced social worker is 5 years qualified. I know of social work teams that don’t have a qualified worker at all. Which is an absolute disaster for public protection, on both counts. A starting salary of £37k isn’t great for the level of complexity and the potential consequences of the decision making involved, so people move up the line faster than is ideal because there’s no one else prepared to do the job.

And where do you think your average child protection social worker is practicing?

I don’t have one extra year of experience- I qualified in 2012- so 13 extra years? Is that enough?

You said you qualified in 2012 and have been in management since 2016 - I’m not a teacher but I’m sure that’s 4 years post qualification. Which is one more than the three years you said was new blood.

But not when you made manager, though. So what, you're just so exceptional you were made a manager with only 4 years experience , but no social worker is any good or experienced after working on the front line for 3 years? Ohhhhkay.

You were management after 4 years yet somehow you think a social worker with 3 years practice is still training. That's the extra year.

That sounds so rough! Because child protection social work is a walk in the park in comparison 😆

Everywhere. It’s not only inner city London that needs child protection. I’d have thought as a social worker you would know that?

As a student social worker, it makes me wonder why I’m bothering getting into nearly 60k worth of debt.

Ok you get up every day in the 6th poorest borough in the country and teach classes of 32 in a school in special measures to misogynistic teenage boys and see how easy that is.

I know very well, I know that three years experience of child protection work in most places develops a skill set very quickly indeed. I know that very many social workers come to social work as a second career, bringing with them a load of working experience usually in an associated role. They don’t go from school, to university and back to school and so generally have a wealth of experience to draw on before they reach practice.

There’s a huge difference between a 25 year old teacher qualified for 3 years and a 40 year old social worker similarly qualified.

Hang in there, it’s honestly an amazing profession once you’re in and established. And salaries do improve once you’ve found your feet. I’ve been in the profession for over 25 years, most of that in child protection and I’d do it all again despite the challenges.

Yeah, I don't want to do that, which is why I trained to be a social worker, not a teacher. However I could also invite you to do any number of terrifying, difficult, draining, impossible, devastating tasks that I have to do as a child protection social worker but I doubt you'd want to do that either.
I genuinely struggle to see why you're so disparaging of social workers. I respect teachers, it's a hard job that most people couldn't do. Yet you think we are all piddling around training for 3 years and should be grateful for our salaries that work out at below minimum wage for most people if it truly took into account how many hours they worked. It's weird.