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What can we do about racism?

This blog follows on from my last one about racism so if you have not read that one I recommend reading it first. That talks about my observations and discussions with colleagues. In this blog I want to think a bit more about racism but in terms of how embedded it is into society and what can we do to advocate for or be an ally to people who experience it as well as further observations on information I have learnt since I wrote the previous blog. Since I wrote the last blog I attended a session with Dr Prospera Tedam which focused on how we can build anti-racist practice cultures in Social Work. Some of the points she made were extremely interesting but also made me think deeper about my own practice and approaches that I have seen within Social Work. You would think as a profession who are so focused on Human Rights, Equality, Values and Ethics that racism or discrimination would not be a problem within teams whereas some of the statistics discussed in this session highlight th...
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About Me

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Natalie
My name is Natalie, I started this blog as a Newly Qualified Social Worker working with adults. I have now progressed to a level 3 Social Worker and want to continue sharing my experiences.
Recent posts

Racism

The topic of this blog is going to be racism. As I am sure you can tell from the picture on my profile I am a white woman so I am not necessarily the best person to be writing about this topic but I wanted to give some musings following a recent conference I attended where the focus was all about racism. We did an activity to help us recognise our own privilege. I was sat with colleagues from multiple different cultures and countries. Throughout the activity I was completing my own but also watching how other people were responding to it. It was a list of scenarios or situations and if it was relevant to you then you had to add something to a bag. There was a list of approximately 25 statements. I think I added 6 to my bag but I watched as colleagues added easily double if not triple the amount that I did. I found that it made my heart feel heavy because although I know I have privilege for some aspects of my identity there are some aspects where I do not. I could see people speci...
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Sexual Violence and Coercion

I am going to start this blog like a lot of my recent ones with a trigger warning. This blog will discuss sexual violence, coercion and other related topics. If you do not feel you can read this then feel free to click off or find another one of my blogs to read. I went on a training course recently that was about sexual violence and coercion. Some of the discussions that happened in the training were really thought provoking, I have discussed this with Social Work colleagues since but also reflected on some of my own opinions, viewpoints and experiences. The first thing that is important to know before I talk about this topic further is the distinction between sexual violence and sexual coercion, sexual violence can happen to anyone and the perpetrator can be anyone whereas sexual coercion is when you know someone and it is a pattern or repetition of the behaviour. I think there are three main difficulties that can come with getting justice especially for sexual coercion which a...
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Domestic Abuse

When you think about domestic abuse, violence or coercion and control what comes to mind? When you think about the victims or survivors what do you think of? My guess is that you automatically think of a woman being abused by a man. People do not instantly jump to a man being the “victim” or the survivor. There are so many stereotypes around what men should be. They should be the provider, strong and in charge. They are taught to not cry or show emotion unless that emotion is anger. We seem to be indifferent and don't really question when men are angry or lash out. It is almost as if it is an expectation of them due to gender but if someone female presenting did the same they would be seen as hormonal, emotional or unstable. Boys are brought up from a young age that you do not cry, you have to be tough or you protect others such as siblings, this has such an impact on them as adults not just as individuals but in terms of the types of relationships they get into and behaviour ...
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History of Social Care

  So before I even start getting into this one I want to warn you that it won't be an easy read. I am going to reflect on a training session I went on recently and some of the information is harrowing and hard to hear so if that is not something you can handle right now feel free to click off completely or go find a different one of my blogs to read instead. The premise of this training course was looking at the history of Social Care and included discussions around asylums, the laws and legislations surrounding this that defined the terminology of the time and a conversation about Nazi Germany. The thing they all have in common is that they were looking at how people with disabilities were treated throughout history. We were shown a list of reasons that someone may be sent to an asylum or similar and I find it so interesting that one of the reasons you could be sent is for using medication to stop conception but it was enshrined in law that you could be forced to be sterili...
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Not doing enough

  It can be very difficult especially in the early days of being a Social Worker to realise that no matter what you offer or do for someone it may still not be enough. The longer you are in the role the more you learn ways to come to terms with it or manage your own feelings on the subject. It is definitely still not easy. We come into Social Work initially to help people or when we very first apply we think we are coming in to save them. We are coming to make everything better, to swoop in and fix everything. This is definitely not the case. I have sat on panels interviewing for Social Work students to get on the course at my local higher education university and these are the types of things that you hear people say. That and the word vulnerable quite a lot which is an entirely other topic that I have also written a blog about. As I mentioned in a previous blog I am now classed as an experienced Social Worker so that has meant that I get allocated more complex cases includ...
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Values

Well it is finally happening. I have just finished my Practice Educator training this week. On day 2 of the training we talked a lot about values and we did an interesting exercise which got you thinking about your own value base but also what you prioritise most. We started with more options then narrowed it down and I found this actually quite difficult to do because although it was just crossing out a choice it made me feel like I was losing a part of myself. Obviously I know that is not what it actually did but that is how it felt to do it. It felt like forgetting or deciding that a value I hold close my heart is not as important as something else. We got into some very interesting discussions about how what we prioritise value wise changes depending on where we are in our lives and how what we chose now is not what we would have chosen 5 years ago and is probably not what we would choose 5 years plus into the future. Obviously values are a big part of Social Work as they ar...
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