After 43 years as a social worker I will be retiring next year. I escaped from the LA to the voluntary sector 20 years ago because the writing was on the wall , Budgets were being cut and services were streamlined and centralised. Lots of innovative projects to support children at home were being cut in order to meet high end need. I know it makes me sound as old as I am and I will be accused of being out of step with reality but as far as I am concerned I cannot beat the days when I worked in a patch team where we knew our local families and local professionals and they knew us. There were opportunities to be innovative and creative on a local level as well as county wide. The majority of my time was taken up with face to face contact with vulnerable people. They could actually seek us out when they needed our help. We were not bogged down by excessive paperwork . We did not get everything right of course and terrible things happened but I also know that I did make a difference.

In recent years I have met young people I worked with 30 years ago . They knew who I was and they told me how life had worked out for them and it was good to hear. Will our service users say that in 20 years time?

I have always loved my profession . It has been a privilege to be allowed into people’s lives and to have the opportunity to make a difference . But I am not sure I would want my children to enter it now. It makes me very sad.

Tomorrow I’m going to say no for the first time to new cases, as I simply cannot take anymore right now. I’m on case load nearing 40.

But to Helena, don’t let the bad put you off.
It’s a hard job, often with no thanks. But when you get it right it’s rewarding.

The phone call from the victim, saying she’s gone to the police.
The child smiling as you bring donated presents.
The mom calling to say she got the kids in school
The child not going missing and engaging
The Health visitor to call to say the house is cleaner.

The closing of cases, the joy in a parents face when you say it’s your last visit.
The dad telling me, he cooked tea and the kids liked it.
Kids running at the door to let you in like an old friend, because you have visited so much.
The joy when a Case is stepped down and the text from the parents to say thanks

These moments don’t happen every day and you have to commit to your families, some don’t want you, but some do.
You will be sad to say goodbye and some you will be glad you got it to the point of closure.

The day you sit in liquid and don’t know what it is, or step in pooh unsure where it’s came from.
The day you knock the door and realise the kids are alone. The mark you see that will result in a hospital visit, court action.

No day is the same, no day gives you complete joy or despair. You will feel as though you could do more, but have no more to give, the vast emails, phone calls, messages and meetings to all be recorded. The lack of sleep, the driving to visits with hope it will be OK.

But we do it because we care and its more than a job, I love my job and hate it in same measure.

The biggest problem with social workers, we very good at advocating for others and awful for advocating for ourselves.

Helena
think very carefully about Social Work because the system is so broken most reasonable people leave quickly. This results in managers who are inexperienced, incompetent and in some cases bullies.

Hi Errin; Agreed. I feel sorry for the young Social Workers coming into the profession, looking forward to their career, and wanting to help people, and make changes, and then they walk into ‘a mess’ with little or no support. If the Uni’s were more honest about the nature of the role, the social work course would be empty.

No, it is not correct that agency (or locum) Social Workers get paid for every hour they work, in fact they only get paid the standard 35 or 36 hours per week. That is right across the board, whatever local authority you go too. That is because you are filling 1 position, and if you were able to claim more hours, that would mean an additional salary, & the employer would choose to hire another person – as opposed to paying staff overtime, if they had the budget to do that, which they don’t. If agency Social Workers were paid for every hour they worked, it would be very lucrative financially, and more people would stay, but this would also mean the employer would ‘go broke’ very quickly.

The Government is not going to pay agency Social Workers for any ‘additional non-contracted hour’s they work, as they already get the additional work done for free, so why would they want to pay for it .

Another reason they won’t pay overtime, is public sector employees are getting paid out of the ‘public purse’ (i.e. tax money), and the Government does not want to be seen using ‘tax money’ from it’s citizens to pay ‘very generous overtime’ to it’s staff, and there could be a public outcry (about misuse of public funds) if this were to happen, as there is a very ‘negative public perception of Social Worker’s out there already, and this could add ‘fuel’ to an already simmering ‘fire’.

Although agency Social Worker’s are paid a ‘higher rate’, that is because there is no job security, and you could be given one week’s notice to leave, and there is no paid holidays, no sick pay, and no pension. If you decide to take half a day off, your employer won’t pay you for those hours (regardless of whether you worked 25 hours over your normal hours the week before) , unless there is a prior agreement with them you can take this as TOIL.

The advantage of ‘being agency’ is you are not locked into a permanent job, and you are free to leave with one or two week’s notice, and if you find yourself in a bad role, you don’t have to give the one or two month standard notice period a permanent worker would legally have to give to their employer.

The advantage of being permanent are paid holidays, sick days, a pension, more training opportunities, and some local authorities given a ‘lighter or less complex’ caseload to a ‘permanent’ Social Worker (not always), as they are not able to leave so freely, and they are also paid a lot less than an agency Social Worker.

If you do want to get into statutory, you won’t be doing it for the money, as once you take out all of the ‘unpaid work’ the role entails each week, you will find you are working for an ‘average salary’, and might be paid equal to working the same hours in a ‘minimum wage’ job. For example, an agency Social Worker (experienced) might earn £35 per hour for a 35 hour week, however the amount of work required from management to meet the acceptable standard required, would likely require you to work an additional 20-25 hours per week on top of your standard hours – for free (i.e. starting at 9am, and finishing work at 9pm, and working 1 day every weekend etc), as whilst it may appear agency workers are being paid a ‘generous salary’, your employer expects ‘results’ the minute you walk through the door.

I would also highly recommend you do a lot of research about a potential employer before you accept a role, and ask about what an ‘average caseload looks like’, how many cases, how many children, the maximum cases you will have in court proceedings at the one time etc. There are some local authorities I would not touch with a barge pole, as they have such a bad reputation, that even as an experienced worker of 20+ years, I would not be willing to work there.

All the best to you.

Abdul

Thank you very much Tee

One really can’t measure how much time each case will take on average. It depends on the complexity of the case or the needs of the individual children or families. Things change rapidly from one day to the next with the cases because family dynamics aren’t static. I would also like to say that people were giving you a realistic view of the profession rather than stating that the job is about ‘helping people’. Ideally most of us came into the profession to help support people but there is sadly a lot more to the job than that. Staff shortages and cuts in resources makes the job much more challenging and it can impact on your own wellbeing. I wish you the best in your career.

She is not ours she is a government mandarin. She played a good game throughout her career to get where she is. Unfortunately modern social work is dominated by the political equivalents of Tony Blair.
Reclaim Social Work was one of the great marketing scams of our time. Power to her bank account.
If I recall she managed 3 years of non-frontline social work before greener pastures beckoned.