Social Worker Sharing

Self-neglect is something we are coming across more often than I have ever experienced before. It is something I feel like people are more aware of and more concerned about. We receive safeguarding reports about it but it can be very difficult to establish why someone is self neglecting or even get them to see that is what is happening. Statistics show us that self neglect prevalence rates of 116-121 per every 100,000 of the population although it is likely that in reality it is much higher than that as it is under reported. This sounds like a low number when you look at it generally but it is definitely on the rise and there does not seem to be consistency across the board about the approach to be used or whether it should be reported as safeguarding or not. This has meant that there is an unfortunate amount of people who are being discussed in Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs) because referrals were not made to relevant authorities meaning that no support was provided and they e...

I knew I wanted to write about poverty for this blog and had already started writing it when someone mentioned to me on a training course about being anti racist that one of the chapters in the anti-racist social worker in practice book is about the link between racism and poverty. I did not want to write about poverty without thinking about the connection or different experiences people can have due to other factors and how the same as other characteristics about people can link via Intersectionality poverty is something that will be experienced differently based on characteristics such as race. Within that chapter it talks about the changes to tax benefits from a survey completed in 2023 by We Are Citizens Advice which shows how different families are impacted money wise. I was extremely surprised that black families are impacted by over triple the amount of white families and Asian families almost double the amount of white families. I understand that we are in a cost of livin...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

  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...

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...

I attended a very interesting full day of training this week and although there was a lot of information included that I could write about I am going to specifically focus on an activity we did that was linked to the wheel of power. For those people that have not heard of the wheel of power, which I will be honest I hadn't until this course it is a wheel that looks at different aspects of identity such as gender, wealth, race etc and demonstrates that those who in the centre of the wheel hold power based on that particular characteristic or aspect of their identity and that those on the outer edges are marginalised. I got into an interesting conversation about this with someone who is outside of the Social Work world afterwards who based on the categories on this wheel has the power in 8 out of 12 categories. They commented on the fact that they do not feel they have privilege or power based on these. I explained how that is because they have not had the experiences that othe...

  I had a conversation with a colleague the other day about how our experiences can impact our practice. We were talking specifically about safeguarding cases and if you are someone who has ever experienced an abusive situation how you would manage this. We talked about other scenarios and I gave the example that when I first started on my final placement in a hospital team it was around the time of the anniversary of losing my grandma so I remember talking to my practice educator in the first couple of weeks of placement about how I thought I would struggle with taking cases where someone had the same medical experience as she did because it would potentially be triggering for me at that time. It felt good to not only be able to have those conversations with someone who was so supportive but reflecting back on it the fact that I was able to recognise that for myself was so important to my development. Obviously we can't always avoid something we would struggle with but it i...

It is coming to the time of year where a lot of people have time off. Me included. Some practitioners can find this difficult because they are concerned about what may happen with their cases whilst they are off. With the team that we work in you never know what is going to happen. This discussion brings us back round to how you find a work life balance or how you switch off from what is a difficult job. We can hold people's lives and futures in our hands so taking a break from that can feel difficult especially when there are situations where carers are struggling with carer strain and certain groups or social inclusion are their lifelines but they close down for Christmas. Especially the ones which are run by volunteers. I have noticed the same when it comes to playgroups and groups for young children. They all stop over the Christmas period which is understandable but it can also cause a lot of anxiety and make situations more difficult for people. Christmas and New Year...

Risk is a big topic in Social Work. This is more at the front of my mind this week because I attended a training course where we were discussing it. I think the initial thought process to consider is what a risk is or what does that mean to different people. Is this another term that means more to professionals than the people we support. The thing that I find really interesting is that we are so concerned about the risks that the people we support take on a daily basis when they may not even see it as a risk. As not just practitioners but people we take many risks every single day that we do not even think about. Even on a basic level we do tasks such as crossing a road without even considering that it is a risk. I think about it a bit more because I have a young child so I am usually explaining to her why we have to be careful and why it could be unsafe. It may be a consideration that is taken into account when supporting people with learning disabilities or someone who has diff...

I was recently reading a couple of blogs from Rewriting Social Care and found that it got me thinking about the use of language and whether this has improved over time. One word that is used often when referring to people who require support is the world vulnerable. What does that even mean? There are a lot of different ways of thinking about this word. Does it mean at risk, does it mean open emotionally, does it mean uneducated or lacking in skills. I don't know about you but I have definitely felt vulnerable in my life but I do not require Social Care support. The two things are not mutually exclusive but they seem to be intrinsically linked. I have felt vulnerable physically when having my daughter because you are in effect in a room full of strangers, not wearing very much, in pain and for me experiencing something I had never done before. Not only was I open emotionally, I was at risk physically and I did not really know what I was doing. I have felt emotionally vulnerab...

We wear a lot of different hats as a Social Worker. The one I have been seeing a lot recently is advocate. Now that we are an older people's team we seem to be getting a lot more referrals coming from people who either have no family or due to the family dynamics they are not the best people to support them. It is trickier to support people who come through with a Dementia diagnosis or similar when there is no family involved because usually we would speak to the family to gain the required information about how they are managing or what has changed recently. This is not an option in situations where they don't have anyone because when they live alone or do not have people who are close to them it does not give the opportunity to gain that salient information. We can see records and notes on the systems but it does not give us insight into how they are managing day to day, we do not know how their finances are managed or if there bills are being paid. We end up doing a l...