Keeping my head down.

Like a lot of parents with Special Needs children I have found it invaluable joining online communities for support. I have one or two favourite ones where I have made such lovely friendships with some wonderful people. The support and advice offered has been truly invaluable and I often wonder how I managed pre-blogging days. However, recently I have hit upon a problem..........and yes I am going to have a full on rant!

 

As many of you are aware, I am a full time social worker. I work in the area of child protection which means that sometimes I am part of a team that has to make some pretty grim decisions regarding the welfare of children. Part of my job is assessing families and their home environment to ensure that children who are at risk are having all of their needs met. Often this does not happen and as a result many children are removed from families. This is not an easy decision to make and is not made in isolation. It is something that is made with input from not only the social worker, the senior social worker, line managers and the Courts. That said, our remit is to always keep children with family if possible. We look at ways to improve a situation to allow a child to remain at home. Its not always successful. We have to protect all members of the family and sometimes thats about protecting the child from themselves or protecting parents from a child! But, that's the side of social work the general public don't think about.

 

Getting back to my difficulty. I have noticed that in a lot of online communities and support groups there is a fair amount of 'social worker bashing' going on. I try to be understanding as I know it is difficult being scrutinised by social services. I can see the coin from both sides as my daughter has a social worker from the disability team. Yes, the social worker has a social worker. But, I welcome his input. I know that he helps steer me in the right direction and has our best interests at heart. Often he has to give us bad news or tell us that we have been turned down for services. Not exactly the same sort of thing I am having to do in work but the man works damn hard! Sometimes a person is too close to a situation to see a problem clearly and it often takes someone from the outside to come in and scrutinise a situation. Because more and more children and young people are not meeting the criteria for disability social work teams it falls upon child protection social workers to carry out carers assessments or support families. We are being forced to juggle too much with little or no resources at our disposal. However, the general public in their ignorance often refer to us as 'bloody social services,' without being aware of the facts. Do you think we say no to resources because we get a kick out of it? If a child is the subject of Care Orders, Supervision Orders etc or has been removed from the home there's a damn good reason for it! A lot of people shut their eyes to what's actually going on within their family. Its easier to blame someone else.

 

Being the mother of a special needs child I need as much support as the next person. Being a social worker does not make me infallible. Recently however I have found myself leaving one or two groups as its becoming increasingly difficult to respond or not respond to queries people put up with regards to social services. I'm proud of my profession and want to jump in and defend it. However, I sit back, bite my tongue and feel excluded. Of course there are some social workers out there whose practice isn't great. But, the same could be said about every profession. However, one bad social worker does not a bad profession make! If you have had a bad experience with a nurse, doctor, teacher or even a postman, do you decide that the whole profession is terrible and be horrible about or to every person in the profession? No! So, why does it happen with social workers?

There are many more social workers out there who are fantastic practitioners, striving to do the best for the families they work with but often hampered by uncooperative parents, lack of resources and paperwork! Like everyone else, we have to follow procedures. Sometimes the procedures are more of a hindrance than a help but nevertheless they have to be adhered to. Sometimes we get it wrong, but more than often we get it right. Yes we have to be nosey. We can't win though. We are continually damned if we are and damned if we haven't been nosey enough! Does the general public actually think we enjoy the grim aspects of our jobs? We take no pleasure in removing children or telling people that their homes aren't clean enough. Do you think we 'high five' one another when we remove a child. Hell no! Have you any idea how much paperwork is involved in removing a child, never mind the fact that we know most of the children are going to be distressed and they are going to see us as the cause of that distress. Have you ever had a child sitting in the back of your car throwing up with nerves because of the situation they are in? NO! You don't see that! We do!

 However, just doing our job often means we are stigmatised and verbally abused. Being a social worker means I can't share pictures of my family on my blog. I can't tell you our real names and I feel vulnerable. Lets just get to a few home truths about social workers. We often work above our contracted hours, sometimes at weekends too. We often miss important events with our own family because we are busy looking after other families. I've missed school plays, parties and events we have paid good money to go to. My children tell me they miss me. My husband misses me. We often lose out on taking time off because simply we don't have the time! During our days off we do paperwork or think about work. We lie awake at night worrying about families or the list of jobs still to complete. We get death threats. Our cars are damaged. We get phone calls from work on rare days off, even when we are on holiday! We often pay for shopping or other essentials for families out of our own pockets because claiming the money back often takes months and sometimes we don't bother because of the paperwork involved! Hell, I've even rolled up my sleeves and helped people clean their houses!

 

So, the next time you are about to say something mean and nasty about a professional, take a minute to think about what you are going to say, whether it be online or in the real world. Is there someone who is listening and feeling unable to share their own life experiences with you because of your attitude to their profession. Do you truly understand the job we do? Is this what we really want to teach our children? Hate? You may not like us but I'm afraid that's just tough! If we weren't about who would investigate risky situations? Who would assesses the conditions some children are living in? Who would pick up the pieces when some families fall apart? Have you thought about the reason some people go into the social work profession? I bet you haven't. Its usually not because we have had wonderful childhoods! Some of us haven't. Think about it!

Do you think about us and our families? I bet you don't.