Regarding the service not being fit for purpose. You’re right. it isn’t. Not due to workers not trying inputting in enormous amounts of time and effort but due to very poor systems and continual changes.
We’ve just had a major transformation which led to an 80% movement of staff into different teams. 30 % of whom left the service in the first year and a service staffed by agency workers, most of whom are good but don’t have the local knowledge and staying ability of contracted staff. We had a few who came in and either left the same day or within a week. This is probably one of the reasons for changes of worker.
Most workers are well over and above contracted hours just to try and keep on top of the amount of work being given. Regular 55 hours instead of the contracted 39 with no hope of taking TOIL. Often 65+ especially if there are court reports to be done within the ridiculous timescales.
Computers that crash every few days, hot desks so there’s no regular place to sit, offices miles from where you need to meet people. Regular 60 mile round trips for visits, often the family isn’t in when you get there despite it being an arranged visit. 40+ cases. Abusive parents/young adults who threaten to ‘smack your ‘ead in’ and tell you to F off.
Managers who are never available and take months to sign of reviews. Changes to paperwork which no-one tells you about before you write a mapping so you have to do it again in the ‘correct’ way.
Wakefield talks about the profession being on the verge of burnout. Much too late it’s now burnt out and smouldering. Talk about Social Work Health Checks. We’ve just done one, waste of time, whitewash. No discussion regarding staff morale or case loads.
]]>So very true
]]>Agree wholeheartedly, Lilybright.
Unlike other professions, there’s a a pervasive culture in social work characterised by high and unreasonable expectations & poor working conditions: namely the unpaid hours we work, the unacceptably high caseloads, the toil accrued (that there’s never time to take) and the poor life/work balance generally.
Even if we don’t sign up for this initially as social workers, it is simpler to collude in the long run because if we didn’t, many local authorities would just go under.
I qualified in 1996 and sadly it was exactly the same then. One of the main reasons that social workers don’t actively challenge the status quo is because they just don’t have any more time available to them to do it.
Btw, Isn’t this the sort of issue the chief social workers & the HCPC should be addressing on our behalf?
I totally agree with Mahrg – having faced bullying, harassment and intimidation from SSW upwards to Head of Children’s Services within my authority. I can only recommend that staff subjected to such overt violence not by clients; – but by their colleagues as was my experience. Get the support of a good union. Lodge formal complaint under anti bullying and harassment protocols, follow through, report to sick bay, GP and OHS.
Ultimately it will be deemed toxic stress syndrome and management will get tired. Watch out for the smallest faux-pas on their part. Complain to other Agencies, such as Human Rights organisations, ombudsman’s Office and the like. They do not like being exposed for their dubious actions and responses iin close examination of such practices.
Record a chronology, verbatim statements made and actions taken by management. Watch out for ‘investigation’ and disciplinary procedures being invoked, which becomes another abuse. My senior management took over two and half years to look at four small case files and arrive at their decision. Meanwhile, I was referred to psychiatry out patients on the basis of the abuses which had taken place the preceding two years before investigation and the unduly long process attached to it.
Overall the more my employer and their representatives tried to swart me in their actions, the more it rebounded on them. I am one of the few individuals who was awarded PIB on the basis of psychiatric injury, described by one psychiatrist as a more significant injury than just PTSD.
Caseloads must be limited to protect the vulnerable (child/adult) AND the social worker. The old adagé rings very true here. You can’t help others if you don’t help yourself.
]]>The CSWs are a waste of space – government place(wo)men, not social workers.
The HCPC is a health organisation, it hasn’t got a clue about social work and is totally ill-fitted as a regulatory body. The “standards” would be laughable if they didn’t actually mean that people can’t practice genuinely creative professional social work without being in contravention of them; and can’t be victims of organisational failings without being victimised.
LA’s won’t look at caseloads or working hours until they’re forced to. We need to take united, organised, action. If offices work to rule, refuse to work extra hours unless paid overtime,; present managers with daily lists asking what they wish us to prioritise, given realistic time constraints & writing up time…. we can start to wrest back some control over our professional practice, & personal lives.
No matter how caring and committed we are to helping people and to social justice, by no stretch of the imagination is acceptable for our colleagues to be sacrificing their emotional health and relationships for this job.
Finally, to misquote Joe Hill of the IWW “Don’t moan, organise”. ]]>
Spot on Longtime SW. I couldn’t agree with you more. If we all stand united and strong on this, we will make progress.
]]>Where is the Union that will fight your corner?
Things are already at Crises point – do we have to see things get worse before things get better? I believe one child dies every week yet the Government seemingly is blind to it and does not appear to empathise with the problems and challenges Social Workers deal with daily.
From my short spell in learning about Social Work I know helping to change people’s lives for the better is what I want to do but the cost is seemingly a heavy one. I’m not sure our local MP’s would want to take on such a challenge, which is a shame as they might learn something. Perhaps they should spend some time shadowing Social Workers and see precisely what is getting ignored.
My hope is the the ‘voice’ of all Social Workers gets heard and that the Union starts to take on the responsibility it is meant to, to protect the wellbeing of all who practice in this profession. It is about time our elected Government became accountable for the distress they are creating…We all learn about Anti-Oppressive Practice…isn’t it about time our Government learned to respect this practice also?
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