Social Worker Sharing

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...

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 ...

How would you like to be told to make a decision without all the relevant information? How would you like it if someone made a decision for you and didn't even ask you what you thought? How would you like it if someone disregarded what you wanted because it was easier for them? I would be angry, frustrated, sad, upset and many other emotions but there are so many conversations that happen in Social Work specifically with older people where we are told that they need something because family would find it easier not necessarily because it is what is best for the person. I have had cases where people don't really want me there because they hold Power of Attorney and have already made a decision. I have explained more times than I can count that Power of Attorney for Health and Welfare only kicks in or becomes active when someone loses capacity to make the specific decision. It does not allow you to make decisions for someone who has the capacity to make it for themselves. 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...

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 always find it interesting when I am speaking to colleagues who are either students or new to Social Work. There are so many aspects of Social Work that you don't realise are a thing until you attend certain training courses or get a particular case. I was having a discussion regarding the various type of Mental Capacity Assessments that are carried out and although this is something we complete on a semi regular basis in our team we generally complete them for either place of residence or finances but there are a lot of situations where they are also done. One example of this is whether someone has the capacity to consent to marriage which is something that we do not see often, whereas for Social Workers in other teams this may be something they come across a lot more often. There are so many different teams in a council that will all deal with completely different situations even though we cover the same geographical area because our client group is different. As I hav...

As I explained in a previous blog I am currently working on a project separate from my team. I have really enjoyed this but it has feel a step away from Social Work even though I am completing Care Act Assessments as I would be in my normal job and asking the same questions. I think because there has been a time crunch on the project it has meant that I have been getting the information quicker and then getting everything processed. Which has been the best for the people in the situation but has meant there has been less opportunity to relationship build. I have enjoyed working on this project up to now and it is coming to the end of the process and I am looking forward to going back to my own team. I have found that when visiting people for the odd cases I am still holding in my own team I have really enjoyed the opportunity to relationship build and support people in a more holistic way as opposed to working through a process to be completed as soon as possible. It has made me...

  Age does not automatically equal inability or mean that someone doesn't know what they are doing/thinking.  A specific diagnosis does not cause a blanket inability. Someone can have a dementia diagnosis and still be able to make their own decisions and choices. They can still know where they want to live or what they do and do not want with their care.  I have a lot of conversations with family members telling me what the person needs and sometimes actually what they are telling me is what they need to make it easier. For their worry to decrease. I understand this from their perspective but also I am there to do the best thing for the person. I am there to advocate on their behalf. If they don't want to be in care and I can do something to support this then I will.  We work to a home first model in my area and i got into a conversation with someone at a care home about this. They asked me whether that's the best thing for everyone and my response was tha...

  I went for an opticians appointment this week and whilst they were doing the pre screening a box popped up on the screen to ask my ethnicity and the person immediately closed the box. I volunteered my ethnicity to her and she explained that she feels uncomfortable asking because you never know how someone will react and it got me thinking. Isn't it interesting what people see as difficult questions and what makes one person uncomfortable to ask wouldn't faze the next person. I personally am pretty comfortable asking most things and I am happy to answer questions about myself and parts of my identity that others would feel uncomfortable asking about. As part of our role we have to make sure that the person's record is up to date with all parts of their identity and some of those can be tricky to ask. People don't always feel comfortable asking about gender identity or sexual orientation. Through discussions at workshops I have attended people mainly found this ...

  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...

 After my recent return to work I have been catching up with everything. I went through the over 3000 emails I came back to and sorted all my IT issues. I am now back on the system and have cases allocated to me. This has meant that I feel more like I am back at work. One of the things I have had to do is update some documentation from cases I worked on before I went on maternity leave. I didn't expect this to have an impact on me but when I went to look at them and realised that of the four I need to update, two of them had passed away. This reminded me of the trickier side of our job, one of the people was someone I worked with for a long time and the first time I met them they were still at home with a package of care. I saw them go through all the stages that lead to the end of their life but was not there at the very end. It hit me hard when I saw this and found myself trying not to cry. I am quite an emotional person so me crying isn't a big shock but it just really ...

So as you may or may not have noticed it's been a while. There is a good reason for this though, I became a mum. It has been an incredible journey and also the hardest thing I have done in my life. What I am interested in professionally is how it is going to impact me as a Social Worker. Am I going to struggle with certain aspects of the job more than I did before? I wonder if I will find it more difficult to focus because I would rather be with my child or am I going to be more focused because I want the time I am spending away from her to mean something. Work life balance is a tricky thing for everyone regardless of their role but I think when you are in a profession such as Social Work that is so emotive this can bring its own set of challenges. Prior to being a mum I could finish for the day and decompress especially when I'd had a tricky one or something happened that stayed in my head whereas now I finish work and immediately put on my mum hat. I don't have the ...

  I attended a seminar this week which was provided as a space for practitioners to discuss Social Work in a pandemic. It was an interesting session to attend and allowed me to link up with people who work all over the country and hear their perspectives. I always forget how different my experience of Social Work education and starting my career has been because of the pandemic. I think because it is all I have known it doesn't feel strange to me. It was not until I mentioned that I have been in my team in various capacities for approximately 14 months but have never been in my office and saw the reactions that I was reminded. People in the session who have been practising for many years were so shocked and this led to an interesting discussion about the amount of information you can learn from being in the office and overhearing it. They talked about working somewhere for a while and only knowing about certain paperwork because a colleague mentioned it in passing. I explaine...

  We work with people in a lot of different situations and although we may have previous experience of working with people with the same diagnosis or similar difficulties this does not mean that we know the best way to approach the situation. I was linked to a very useful website this week via some training I attended about tips from people living with Dementia. It is a website full of ideas about different aspects of life and how to use small fairly inexpensive fixes to make day to day life easier for someone with Dementia. I found this really helpful because although I have worked with people with this diagnosis the people who experience this as part of their daily life have much more knowledge than I do about what works. Working in a community team we look at what is available in the community first before looking into other options and then paid for services. Some of the simple tips that are offered could save a lot of money but also could allow someone to remain in their...

When training to be a Social Worker we do talk about the importance of the language we use and focus on not using jargon because we don’t want to confuse people, but I don’t think this is a topic that is discussed or delved into as much as it should be. We know that we should speak professionally, not swear and be respectful. These are a given but the finer nuances of interactions with people can make a big difference to how the relationship develops and how involved that person feels in working with you. When we first visit someone, it is important to know how they wish to be addressed. Are they happy for you to use their first name, do they go by a middle or different name or do they prefer Mrs X. This demonstrates from the beginning of your interaction with them not only that you care about their preferences but also it can do a lot in terms of respect. I had a conversation not long after starting my final placement with my practice educator about a specific case. I am White...

  How often do we have conversations with carers talking about how they don’t need to feel guilty for needing a break? How they are only human and can only give so much to others because they need something left for themselves. Now how often do we take our own advice? I imagine a lot less than we should. We seem to find it easier to explain to others how what they are doing is what they need to do for their own mental health, but we don’t do the same for ourselves. The rate of burnout in Social Work is high and the average length of a Social Work career is approximately 8 years. There are a lot of reasons for this such as high caseloads and low resources, but I do think that some of it comes from Social Workers who want to make sure they do the best for the people they support and put themselves on the back burner to achieve it. I follow a lot of Social Workers on twitter and see regular conversations about how people are having to work weekends and late into the evening ...