Cases are icebergs

 

Social Work is one of those jobs where people will say no two days are the same. This is definitely the case because we work with people, and everyone is an individual, but I do find that we see the same types of things quite often.

There will always be outliers that are like nothing you have ever seen before but more often than not we see the same types of referrals coming through.

For the team I work in we see:

·         Capital drops (where someone who was self-funding previously is now below the threshold and can receive some financial support from the Local Authority),

·         Carer Strain (the carer is struggling and needs a break),

·         Assessment Bed (someone has either left hospital or has been put into an assessment bed from the community to establish their needs before working out a long-term plan),

·         Assessment for long term care (someone already has some support at home, but it is no longer enough and either they themselves or someone in their lives feels they need 24-hour care)

·         Assessment for support (no previous support but now requires some)

There are many others, but these are some of the bread-and-butter ones that we see often.

What I find most interesting is that sometimes cases are like icebergs. The information that has been provided to us once the referral has been screened barely scratches the surface. It mentions one small detail and when we actually speak to the person or attend the visit it is like opening pandora’s box. Sometimes the opposite is the case, it appears really complex, and we are anticipating hours upon hours of difficult work, and it actually ends up that one small change or suggestion is enough.

This is why although reading the notes before a visit is a good idea because then the person you are supporting does not feel that they have to start all over again it can also cloud your judgement of the situation and mean that you do not ask the right questions because you thought you already had the answer.

It is always difficult to tell and because people’s situations change so often you can never know, and I think that is what contributes to the fact that no two days are the same. The other thing that I see happening a lot in day-to-day practice is that you have things booked into your diary and when you log on that morning everything has changed. You have to be able to roll with this and that was something I struggled with when I first started because I am a fairly organised person who likes knowing what they are doing. As time has gone on, I have got more used to my plans not going the way I thought and what I initially thought was going to be a day full of visits ending up as a day of admin because the visits have been cancelled.

Covid hasn’t helped with this either because if someone you are working with comes back Covid positive it pushes back everything you are doing with them for a week at minimum. This is not too bad on cases where there is not a limited time frame but in certain instances where something needs to be completed by a certain time it messes it up. We are only human at the end of the day and sometimes situations like these are out of our hands and that also takes some getting used to. Especially when you are an organised person who likes to have some control over their day but it is something I am definitely getting more comfortable with as time goes on.

I have adapted and learnt to understand that sometimes there is nothing we can do either about a cancelled visit or about supporting someone in the first place and that is something you have to learn to be okay with as a practitioner otherwise you wouldn’t get through the day.