Social Worker Sharing

Well the I suppose you'd call it inevitable happened. I hit burnout. It's why there hasn't been a blog for a couple of months. I did not have the brain power to think about anything more than day to day survival and to be honest even that was a struggle. When joining the profession, training, on placement and in pretty much every form of media related to Social Work you regularly hear the word burnout but it does not really describe how it actually feels so I am going to do just that. Firstly let me start by talking about the lead up to the actual time off because this was not something that had happened overnight. It is something I believe was beyond the surface for months beforehand. I had people relying on me though so I just pushed it to the back, took on extra responsibilities to distract myself and probably made it all worse if I'm being honest. I noticed months ago that I felt to be falling out of love with front line Social Work. I wasn't sure if I n...

  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...

We keep talking about what a tough year it is, how we are working through such a difficult time. They don’t understand how students are managing. Or on the flip side people saying you aren’t really doing a proper placement are you. You aren’t learning what social work really is because you can’t visit or see the person face to face.  Yes, I am.   I’m learning what social work looks like right now. Not what it looks like ‘normally’ but how we have adapted. Parts that may end up staying that way when Covid is over or different ways of working that make people feel more comfortable and connected. I am not only learning how social work functions, but I am also learning how resilient and open to change social workers are and isn’t that what social work is? Adapting when something doesn’t go your way. Making changes to how you communicate to do it the best possible way for that individual. Waking up in the morning and expecting your day to be one ...