Diary of a social worker

Published by Professional Social Work magazine, 16 August, 2022

I thought it would be interesting to reflect on what I had written this time last year for my journal entry. It concluded with a call to “stay focused on when possible being a part of bringing a more humanistic model of social services working, and not just with the children and families we work with but in the institutions, we work within”.

This was within the context of starting my first agency role in a local authority with a business model approach. I now feel that all local authorities operate this way. I continue to do my part to bring the humanistic model, however this feels very much like swimming against the tide.

I was discussing with my friend who is a children's guardian about the current state of social workers in frontline child protection work. She compared this to being in a washing machine where they are churned up and spat out.

She was told this before she started her career as a child protection social worker by someone who had taken early retirement from the role and advised her to choose a different career path. I too was advised on my student placement in statutory child protection not to choose this path and instead to go into adults or mental health.

Today I feel that my despondence is more about the impact of two years of Covid on us. We constantly operate at a high rate of pressure, risk, responsibility and accountability with agencies who tend to be ill-informed about our expertise.

Covid increased this. We had no support from other agencies such as schools, mental health, drug and alcohol services, health visitors, midwives. It was us and the police and we were totally burning out.

There has been no slow pace for us following Covid and we are all feeling moral injury and taken the emotional toll. Now we have a mass shortage of staff which means those in the job, who are not off long-term sick or left/leaving the profession, have to cover an insane amount of caseloads with lack of resources. Children’s contact centres continue to close down and waiting lists for services such s CAMHS are at least eight months long.

The demand and unrealistic expectations do not stop. In fact, I witness them only increasing, where upper management and outside agencies appear to be under the impression that our job is not one role but many such as contact worker, family support worker, financial assistant, business support, benefits worker, employment support, mental health worker, education support worker, residential care worker, taxi driver, food delivery, postman, data analyst.  

As a child protection social worker our role is diverse, varied and multi-functional. With many responsibilities, not only of tasks to be completed but of knowledge, ability and skills. To understand that one must have done the job.

My current thinking is that to save the remaining social workers from leaving they need opportunity to de-brief from the impact of working through Covid: a day every two weeks with the team and manager to discuss and reflect on the impact professionally and personally. If this could be offered for six months, I think it would put a humane element back into the job and give us a chance to recharge and reflect.

Sadly, I don’t see this happening and I want out. I believe in the job and love the job but it is has become something that is slowly taking pieces of me and I am worried what little of me I will be left with. I believe that the profession is dying. Perhaps something will bring about a radical change and the Munro Review will be realised.