Keyworker Support Thread

[SpiritEssence]

How are you all doing ? I work for a supermarket so been through it all from the start of this. It's been very stressful and the attitude of some people has been disgusting.

But just wanted to be positive as we keyworkers have done so well and we should be proud of ourselves in what ever sector you work kn as a keyworker. It's been tough but and upsetting at times. But keep going we are the backbone of this country.

• [Note from MNHQ: title was originally 'To all keyworkers who have worked through this' and has now been changed at OP's request]

Social Worker.

Only time in 10+ years I've genuinely felt like quitting.

Not because of covid but because of the complete and utter incompetence of the people above me in managing the situation, and the expectations for people to do very difficult and emotionally demanding jobs away from their colleagues using poor IT and without any extra support.

I feel a bit broken. Social care will be feeling the affects of this for years after everyone else has gone back to normal.

Senior carer in a dementia unit, luckly no cases staff or residents.

The last 3 months have been relentless with ever changing government and industry guidance, constantly trying to source non-existant PPE at exhorbitant prices, dealing with frightened staff, staff isolating and shielding, going sick with the virus and clients being discharged C-19 positive and those who have died.

After 3 months I got to the end of my tether and have just had a week off which has been wonderful but achieved hardly anything on my 'to do list' so feeling guilty and really not looking forward to going back tomorrow.

Please can I say a huge thank you for all everyone on this thread has done and continues to do?

There's a whole lot of us who see you, who thank goodness every day for the caring, committed people who do health work, teaching, deliveries, admin, supermarkets and food prep work, deliver public transport, Carers and many others of you who go out to work during this crisis.

I know none of you chose to work under these conditions. I know many of you haven't had the equipment, pay or guidance you need. I'm sorry. It's really crap. I'm sure you're beyond knackered. I hope the one good thing that comes from this mess is the pay, recognition and respect that all these roles deserve.

I'll continue to try to stay home for you because you can't. Thank you again.

CPN.

Normally I work in the referrals and assessment team, receiving new referrals, triaging them, assessments, then signposting on e.g. to CMHTs, psychotherapy services etc. But a lot of secondary services like psychotherapy closed their waiting lists, and a lot of people stopped going to the GP with non urgent referrals so the workload was reduced. Urgent referrals go to the Crisis Services which is separate.

I was asked if I could help with the depot clinic. Depots are slow release injections of anti psychotic medication given at regular intervals, a bit like injectable contraception. It involved going into patients homes daily. I really enjoyed it, loved getting out every day, different to spending most of my day on the phone or computer. It was quite saddening at times though. We as a society have failed people with long term mental health issues. Many of them lived in bare, dirty flats. One of the symptoms of chronic schizophrenia is social isolation. When I asked patients how they were dealing with lockdown, while a few said 'I'm missing my mum/going to church/whatever' many said "don't bother me, I never go out anyway. " They'd only nip out to thdd shop for tobacco, bread, milk etc anyway. Imagine your whole life being one long lockdown. There's very little out there for them any more, no day centres/day hospitals, drop in services where they could call in for a cup of tea and a chat, nothing.

Our referrals are going up again, and I'm now pt in my own role and pt in the depot clinic. From July I'll be back ft in my own role. I will miss those clients. I've always enjoyed working with them but don't want to be a care coordinator as I hate doing care packages, personal budgets, housing panels etc. But ask me to do injections or encourage patients out to the limited services there are and I'm as happy as a pig in muck.

I'm an NHS manager. Stopping all services in March seems a doddle compared to restarting everything with 70% of the staff and 25% of the space. My boss has never bothered to check in with me and colleagues around how we are managing so I would say I feel generally unsupported. My kids are y10 and y12 and have been home alone throughout as dh also a key worker. To say their education is neglected is an understatement. The thing I am most worried about is how to get them back up to speed, and the inevitable impact of everything they've missed on their exams and life chances. Ironically I am a qualified teacher and had I been furloughed or wfh I think I would have done a really good job.

However, I'm so tired when I get home. I'm working 60 hour weeks including on calls one in 6 due to the number of colleagues sick/shielding. My staff are struggling and I'm dreading a second wave. I'm trying to avoid things like going to the supermarket as it just takes so long. I'm spending my weekends sitting in the sun, reading and taking walks. Basically just trying to keep a lid on things. I had a week's leave last week and felt miles better but it's all starting to heat up again. I have been having chest pain for weeks, assuming this is stress related. I wouldn't mind 14 days of self isolation tbh.

There have been some real positives around the way the teams have pulled together. I have some fab people running the show.

Tired and worried. This week I can't stop crying, I come home put DS to bed and just sit crying (very silent so he can't hear me.) Don't want to say I'm suffering with stress, don't want to bother the GP. I'm praying for an end to this. I need to hug my parents, I'm so desperate for my mum to hug me. Made myself cry again writing this 🙈

NHS here. It's been a massive roller coaster over the last 3 months and we're all exhausted. Our hospital is largely back to normal for inpatients but nothing routine for outpatients / therapy etc. That's the massive worry. It's like they are just cutting great chunks of the services. No one knows where they stand. Usual rooms have been taken by other services and are refusing to give back. There just isn't enough room and everyone is arguing etc.

Many people are off sick with stress and the more robust people are using it as an excuse to make change without discussing it.

Bloody sick of wearing masks. It's SO hot, dehydrating and spot inducing. It makes me so angry to see people on TV pulling them down to talk, fiddling with them constantly, waving them around etc. Makes a bloody mockery of all the torture we have to endure because it's not suppose to be like that!

I’m beyond exhausted. Work in a wonderful children’s hospice but with rules and regs changing daily, our services ever changing, PPE issues, it’s been so draining. I’m a full time Carer for my mum with dementia so even when I’m home - I had 2 days leave to take - it wasn’t restful - she’s even more confused than ever and completely isolated as her usual routine -hairdresser,chiropodist, Carers- has been stopped for 14 weeks now. I just want to hide under my duvet and cry.

Teacher in school looking after 30 vulnerable children and key worker children. I'm sick of going to work to continually break up fights between the kids who are struggling. Scared because I've not been able to social distance or use PPE. Tired because I'm working 7.30-6.30 to provide wrap around care. Fuming because some parents are bringing their kids in under the guise of being a key worker when we know in fact they just want a day at home alone, when they know we're already stretched. Angry because where I work the R rate is above 1 and nothing's being done about it.

I work for a mental health crisis team and it's been ok until now but we've been running on high stress levels waiting for the real brunt of it. It feels like it's starting now as lockdown and the pandemic really starts to impact on people's mental health.

I've spent most of the day writing two documents which I just couldn't fit into last week, and which I need to produce tomorrow. I feel a bit lighter for having something to turn in tomorrow, but I resent the time spent in the spare room typing away.

And I resent all the lost time I put in throughout April which I won't get back, and which was because we were under resourced in my service which has extra duties in pandemic plans. I am grateful to the woman who noticed and who basically took over from my own line manager who didn't give a shit, as she got me some help.

Sorry, I think my floodgates just burst open.

NHS. I’ve just returned to work after testing positive for Covid on 14th May.

Weirdly, lots of staff on our ward are now positive - after we’ve worked with this for months. Can’t help but wonder whether because we are just so worn down now our immune systems can’t hold it off anymore?

We’ve been a negative ward, a query ward, a positive ward. Then a query ward & finally a negative ward again. But even as a negative ward the other day 2 patients with negative swab results had chest X-rays/CT scans which showed them to be Covid patients.

We can’t handle a second wave. Not yet anyway.

Speedofasloth 🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺🌺

Supermarket picker, we've just exploded in terms of business, we are so so busy, more orders, more staff, starting in the middle of the night and working through till early afternoon. Some customers can be so bloody horrible, annoyed at us for being there, for being in their way, telling us we should be working at night (we are) , not following social distancing or one way systems, giving us abuse for it. It seems just recently everybody at work has hit that wall and got so stressed. A colleague is off work due to it, think more may follow. Used to enjoy going to work with my colleagues and team but there's an oppressive atmosphere now that's getting to everyone.

Can't imagine how stressful it must be right now working frontline though, they have my utmost admiration.

As a teacher I’ve been in looking after the younger key worker children. To be honest I didn’t dare post on this thread until another teacher did. There has been so much negativity towards teachers on Mumsnet lately that I don’t want to sound like I’m moaning and thinking I’m special by saying it’s been hard teaching kids from age 3 to 7 together in one room whilst trying to keep them apart as much as possible. Leaving my year 7 and year 9 kids home alone to motivate themselves to do some work and not just eat crisps for lunch!

Emergency foster carer here - it’s been horrendous. We’ve taken children from families who were all seriously ill with Covid and because they were symptomless we were not given any guidance/PPE or support ( this improves as time went on). We’ve also had lots of teens from placements that have broken down due to the teens not following the rules in houses where there were people at risk. Also lots of children from domestic violence situations. Social Services has been skeleton staff throughout - lots off sick/isolating and no visits, just video calls occasionally. Those that are left are dealing with crises so there is no day to day support. It was very difficult at the beginning with food shortages and limits on buying things as we are a large family with lots of complex food issues. And the children are here 24/7, which is hard enough for a ‘normal’ family, but most of the children we look after have significant mental health issues and not even being allowed out more than once a day led to some very difficult times, where we didn’t feel safe.

Not many children have been coming in from home, we are expecting an influx. Not sure how we will cope, it’s relentless.

Teacher.

Worked myself to the bone on the home learning - two year groups in my class. Back at school now with one of the year groups, other year group can't return. Trying to run home learning at the same time as having 15 kids in. Had the shittiest email ever from one of the home learning parents complaining about the drop in quality of home learning. It was awful, I felt crushed. Still do.

Teaching Assistant here, not had the hours as most on here but jabe found the last week knackering! Dont know why, just hit a wall I think. Always vigilant but having to be hyper vigilant is tiring and stressful. Sending love to al the keyworkers on here.

@Copperblack much love to you, foster carers are our unsung heroes.

Child protection social worker here, exhausted and isolated. Working from home in a job where you need that informal supervision/reflection that your team give you. You can't do that on teams because we are just too busy to take time out to arrange it. Team meetings have been cancelled for the last 3 weeks (yet funnily enough not the performance reviews with senior management). I'm the domestic abuse rep for our service and high risk cases have doubled. It's frightening.

Husband is a bin man, not been provided with mask, gloves or hand sanitiser so has had to buy his own. Unable to socially distance in the front of the cab. Hes working overtime on an already physical job as some work colleagues are shielding. Hes tired, physically and mentally, and falling asleep on the sofa by 6pm most nights. Hes due some leave but has been told he may have to cancel if they are short staffed. The dc's clap for him on a thursday but he said he would rather people follow the lockdown rules than clap for him.

My school (SEN) has been fully open throughout with all our SEMH children in. We are attached to a residential home. No way we can socially distance or use PPE. Our children live in our residential home so there has been huge anxiety that the school or home would have infections. We have had to do our own cleaning as our cleaner is shielding.

We just had half term and we certainly needed it but we are refreshed and ready for this last term. I work with THE best team who are dedicated and just get on with it. Oh and no cases of the virus!

Frontline nurse. Exhausted.