Social Worker Sharing

Values and Ethics are vital in Social Work practice and something that you not only complete modules about when studying but they also run through your practice every day. I know that there are a lot of situations where people's personal lives change dramatically through completing their Social Work degree and a lot of this comes down to values. The easiest way I can describe what completing your Social Work degree does is breaks you down and then builds you up piece by piece. It brings your values to the forefront of your mind and you reflect A LOT on how this looks to you. It also impacts your relationships because you find yourself noticing where your values do not line up. You find yourself speaking up more and people who know you best don't necessarily know how to take it. You would presume that the majority of people who come into Social Work hold similar beliefs on the major issues. Which on the whole in my experience they do, however there are so many other situat...

I am ready to be back in my own team now which tells me that the role I have chosen is definitely the one for me. I went on a duty visit this week with a colleague and it reminded me why I love what I do. I am hoping I will be back in my team soon enough that I can take it on. The family member present at the visit when we explained we were on duty that day not allocated to it asked whether someone else in our team who was allocated it would be as good as us. They would as I work in a good team but it is always nice to know that someone feels you are doing things well. I feel like I am back in my stride now which is crazy to say when I have been back from maternity leave 7 months and I am only just feeling this way but that is how it feels. Everything has been different since I came back between going part time, having to continue with my studies before I finished my ASYE and then later on being on secondment from my own team to the other project I have been working on. I have tho...

  Social Work is a job where no 2 days are the same. However you definitely see a theme in terms of the types of cases we get. Sometimes you can predict what will happen when you have barely begun because although people are individuals and have their own wishes, views and feelings certain aspects appear over and over again. The geographic area that we cover means that a lot of the people we support are older people because of the locations we have. Other local teams get a lot more cases involving drugs and alcohol or additional needs. I see a lot of people on my caseload with either a Dementia diagnosis or suspected Dementia. When I had the opportunity to attend some training on Dementia this week I took it. It was split into 3 sessions, the first two were more what I am used to in terms of training. Here is the information, what are your views, how would you manage this situation etc. Whereas the third session was delivered by Palliative Care nurses and talked about End of ...

  What does well-being mean to you? I was in some Care Act training this morning run by The Mental Capacity Cat and was reminded about the first principle of the Care Act. It is the well-being principle. We talk about well-being a lot in Social Work but it is really hard to define because it means different things to different people. It is made up of so many parts of somebodies life and experiences. What one person feels is important to their well-being might not be something that other people even do. For example working out may be a major factor for one person but other people do not do it at all because it isn't for them. It is not as simple as self care it also includes engaging with the local community and activities. This is what can become difficult in our assessments because what we see as important is not what other people need. The way that somebody lives may be their choice and would not work for us but it does for them. It is where you cannot let your own viewpo...

  When you ask people why they became Social Workers the default answer is to help people and actually this is a smaller part of it than you think. It feels like we spend a lot of time managing things. Managing risk and managing care. Also we spend much more time than you would like doing paperwork. The important part of what we do is a small part of it. There are small shafts of light in the darkness which make our job worthwhile and when these become few and far between that is when people struggle with burnout. A bit like in your own life when you feel that there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I have had two conversations this week that are those shafts of light. Actions that can seem like a small thing that have made a huge impact on someone's life. They are why I do what I do. One was a new case, family are concerned and have been waiting weeks for someone to be allocated. All I did today was call, introduce myself and arrange to go meet up them but you would ha...

  Something that nobody mentioned to me when I was studying was that the connections you make are so helpful. Speaking with people working in other teams let you know not only what that team does but also who would be suitable to use their service. Building links with different agencies allows knowledge to be built around where you can signpost people to if your service is not appropriate for them. I started making connections when I was still studying and was on placement. I would attend conferences and go introduce myself to the people who had been speaking. This not only allowed me to get their contact details which would allow me to contact them to ask questions or organise something it also meant that they knew who I was. I did not know if this had any impact until I was in an online session more recently. One of the people I had gone and introduced myself to at one of these types of events said that she remembered meeting me because I was one of the only people to com...

  When working in Social Work we don’t do it for the positive comments because if we did, we would be sorely disappointed. There is a lot of assumptions made about Social Workers and what we do. I have found that when I say that I am a Social Worker people automatically assume that I work with children. The media show that Social Workers remove children, and some people genuinely believe that they are paid for doing so. Like they get some kind of bonus based on it. That is probably the furthest thing from Social Work values that could happen. Social Work values focus on social justice and improved outcomes. Social Workers don’t want to remove children from their families but if it is the best thing for them and the only option at that moment then that is what they are going to do because the child in that instance is the focus and at the centre not the parents. I see similar experiences when working with adults where family members believe that someone should be in care but...