Okay, so I think we have got the message that Social Workers have a difficult job - we get you - but you know that when you become one and if you can't do your job properly - resign!

[thenewme]

Your job is to protect children, not to be best mates with the parents.

I am just so sick of hearing how hard their jobs are like that is an excuse for the fact that yet another child was under their "care" and they failed them.

Nothing has changed in decades and I doubt it ever will.

And stop going off on sick for months at a time! So many of my residence cases at the moment are being held up for months on end waiting for SS and Cafcass reports to come in from people who have been off with depression for 3 months plus.

If you can't do the job, have the decency to resign.

Child safety should not be about bloody politics!

If their management team overrules them they should go higher. There is no excuse.

There will be more Baby P's, more Shannon's.

No one cares enough to really sort this.

It's not that they don't care, they are scared.
They are scared of gobby mums and aggressive dads, scared of the snarling pitbull in the corner, scared of getting their car windows smashed, scared of catching something from the people they visit.

But they forget, that if they feel scared, how much more so for the little child?

It's been suggested that social workers are all mainly from middle class backgrounds and they don't know how to relate to working class - it's easy. If you suspect abuse, you go in, you make their options very very clear to them, you demand to see the child, you check the child over whilst they are watching you and if they threaten you, you tell them that's the best way to get their kid taken off them. Give as good as you get.

And if you can't hack it, then piss off and get another job. Because you shouldn't go into those sorts of jobs with your eyes shut.

I sometimes wish I had chosen to do Social work degree instead of Mental health nursing.

It is a job I absolutely could not do, no way

And I am a mental health nurse

Yes that will help. Lets encourage every demotivated, oberworked and underpayed social worker to resign . It will be fine because there are so many other capable people willing to train and take their place .

so if your job makes you ill you should resign from it?

No way are they scapegoats. They arenot doing their bloody jobs.

Multiple visits or no visits, on registers, taken off registers, moving to new areas and not following up from old areas. etc etc etc etc etc

Okay, now let's not generalise too much, eh?

Thing is, you can ask to be moved from a case if it's distressing you. You can ask to do a deskjob. But I don't think that anyone who has trained in social services has any illusions about how hard that job is.

Yes I agree about management, but I've seen social workers on the ground and the way parents run rings around them.

I am not generalising about ALL social workers. Just those that are crap at doing their jobs.

If you think it is such an easy job, give it a go.
There are so few people going into socail work that they are having to recruit from abroad.
And it's not just about the money. Majority of SW 's are hard working and do care but their hands are tied by policy and law.
I work with socail workers and know their frusatrations.
This sort of knee jerk witch hunting will really help

I agree. And if they are scared or ill to do their jobs then let them put that down as the reason they resign. Staying on and pretending to do the work makes matters worse.

so let's give the sws more power to do something about the fucking awful parents then. except it's the thin end of the wedge, innit? but it is the parents who are the villains here.

I think that's possibly one of the most naive and thoughtless OPs I've ever seen on here. And I'm neither a SW or someone who has any involvement in their work whatsoever. It's just obviously a stupid thing to say.

The police can't do their jobs properly because of bureaucracy, or so they are always telling us - I guess they're just making excuses too, we'd surely be better off without the wastrels. Nurses are struggling to carry out their duties effectively due to equipment and staffing constraints - throw in the towel, folks - we don't want you anyway!

[shakes head in disbelief]

DB, yes there are some bloody good ones out there I'm sure, but the bad ones are making HUGE mistakes, and these mistakes are just the ones we know about.

I'd like to throttle the social worker for my brother who doesn't give a shit and never returns my calls. I'd also like to throttle those social workers who give my 70 year old mentally disturbed mother, 16yo boys to foster.

Good lord, have any of you ever dealt with abused children day in day out? 2 of my family are SW's, they do a wonderful job. Can you imagine having to go home at night after dealing with a particularly horrific case of child abuse? I am sure the most stellar of us would suffer with some form of depression. The Government obviously needs to shake up the WHOLE Social Service system, then the SW can get on with their daily jobs and not be faced with mountains of paperwork. The same goes for the Police force.

One bad case does not make all SW game to be victimised. You never hear about the good they do do you?

Go and be one yourself then get back to us and let us know how easy it is.

Cliff - how on earth can they do that?? How can they allow your mother to foster any child?

That's what I'd bloody well like to know!

Sorry, but speaking from experience, I've met lots of social workers and have yet to meet one of the good ones.

I'm still waiting, hoping to be proved wrong.

It seems that SWs are damned when they do and damned when they don't.

Sometimes we demonise them for being over protective (who was that woman on here last year who was told her baby would be taken away at birth as she had a serious history of mental illness and self-harm - we all rallied around and were horrified at over-zealous SWs).

Othertimes we demonise them for not being harsh enough (Baby P etc).

None of us are trained, none of us know the complexities of the laws they have to work within, all of us are lead my the media on this one. I for one will withhold my judgement of people doing a much harder job than mine.

Cliff, you've met Scummy!

OP - i don't know any Sw's who want to be best friends with the parents, but they do have to have a 'working relationship' with them to do their jobs.
You really are very misinformed.