Social Worker Sharing

  In one of the lectures I took part in at university they suggested that we complete the Honey and Mumfords Learning Style questionnaire to establish what type of learner we are ( https://www.ilfm.org.uk/cms/document/ILFM_Learning_Styles_Resource_TK_09Oct17_Ver1.0.pdf ). Initially I thought this sounds like a waste of time but did it anyway. Now I feel completely differently because it really did help me through my degree to know what worked for me and how to get the best out of me. I have found that I learn best when I am able to discuss what has been learnt through with someone because when I try to recall the information, I can link it to the discussion that was had at the time. An example of this would be how I revised for my law exam, instead of just writing and rewriting notes and a practice answer for the seen question I revised with someone else. We would test each other on different laws, legislations and what sat where. We also talked through our answers to the seen ...

  I was in a workshop this week for my Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) and the focus was self-care, resilience, and wellbeing. These are topics that are discussed a lot in Social Work practice, especially resilience. One of the questions that was asked was what in your job do you have control over? My initial gut reaction was not a right lot. Until we discussed it further as a group. I found that actually we have a lot more control than I realised. When I had initially thought about it, I automatically thought about control over what happens, how long something takes or how a process is done. We definitely do not have control over those, but we do have control over the smaller level day to day things. It was mentioned about managing our own diaries, this is something I am so used to doing in different roles I have worked that I didn’t realise until I thought about it afterwards. For the Local Authority I work for that includes start and finish times because we ...

  I know that a lot of people don’t necessarily understand what Social Workers do but what I find most frustrating is when other professionals will tell someone we are working with that something is our responsibility when it’s not. I have had this happen quite recently where a GP told a family that for that specific issue to get sorted, they need to speak to the Social Worker because that is there job or even suggest that they go above me to my manager to get it sorted. Luckily, I was able to explain that it is not my responsibility in this particular instance because it was regarding equipment. I could explain to the family member that I am not medically trained so would not be able to order equipment because I do not understand what they would need. If this situation was the other way around, I would not want to signpost or refer someone somewhere if I was not sure it was the right place for them to be. I know if I was the person on the other side and was given a number to ...

  I find that when people have had no personal experience of Social Work that they don’t really have any understanding of what it is other than what the media has portrayed it to be. The issue with that I think is that the media does not give a realistic picture of what Social Work is. It focuses on one specific area of Social Work and only when something negative has happened. I find that the only positive information you hear about Social Work is in Social Work circles such as webinars or the awards which someone who is not in the field is unlikely to attend. I think this is due to the nature of Social Work. It’s split into adults and children’s and within that there are many different teams working with specific demographics so it would be impossible to be able to explain them all to someone but the fact that they exist would be nice. I find that having a Social Worker is seen by people in one of two ways it is in a child protection sense, so nobody wants to talk about it...