Is it just me or are those who working in Social Services completely useless?
Yes they're all useless, every one of them. I know them all and I can say that without fear of contradiction.
Also, all teachers, all politicians, all planners, all estate agents, all police, all clowns, all builders, everyone who works in the travel industry, all bankers etc etc.
What do you do BTW TI29er?
Correction: just about everyone is horrified at these cases.
And they keep happening.
They say they've changed - every press conference has the same lies regurgitated.
I just don't see an end to thses press conferences in full glare of the World's media in the years ahead and that makes me sad for all concerned.
I don't have a solution, but nor did I offer one up but I'm angry that those most at risk in our society seem to be very poorly served by those charged with helping.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8497277.stm
Seems like some of them are doing alright. The ones I come across at work are generally very committed and hard working, you get some daft ones but it's the same in any job. I think crikey's fixed it.
TI - what you fail to recognise is that these mistakeas - and that is what they are are a tiny proportion.
In something like social work mistakes will be made, Things will be missed. Its just that the mistakes are so obvious and get so much press.
What you don't see is the thousnad and thousands of positve results.
What yo also forget is the headlines of " social worker broke up my family" We have had one of those on this thread - the case about the can of beer. Damned whatever they do.
Did you know child murders are vastly down? they are.
How you get from the mistakes that are made - and in the case you highlight by healthcare workers and police as well as other agecies to
Evidently the sort of people attracted by a degree and career in SS are perhaps the sorts we least require to look after or most vulnerable and at risk in our communities; sad but true.
So what do you do to make the world a better place? Try doing something - you will find out how hard it is.
I qualified as a Social Worker three years ago and it's not as low paid across the board as people would assume. Most of the people who graduated alongside me went into jobs paying around £30k. This is in Scotland though and with council's who have completed the single status pay agreements and I'm aware that there are many local authorities where Social Worker's start on far less pay.
Thankfully, perhaps because of some of the recent stories in the media, there appears to be more acceptance that generally we are not well paid for the job we are asked to do. It can be pretty difficult at times particularly with the constant tinkering from senior management, changes in policy, interference from councillors keen to take up the case of those that shout the loudest, the ineptness of some admin 'assistance', slashed budgets, big caseloads, big waiting lists etc but I enjoy the job 
It get's me out and about in the community and it's never boring, I meet a lot of amazing people and work alongside lots of excellent other professionals. T and C's are generally good although I never usually manage to take back hours worked and there's no overtime.
Regarding the tragedies over the last recent years I feel that any profession involving humans working with humans will inevitably result in things going wrong. Other professions (Police, NHS etc) make mistakes which have resulted in unnecessary death and harm as well. Things aren't black and white unfortunately.
so the conclusion is that actually yes - it is just you that is completely useless TI29er. A completely useless parasite
It makes me very sad to read the sort of ill-informed crap that people come out with on this forum sometimes. TJ, I admire your spirit, but I just couldn't be arsed to try and have a debate with some of these pillocks.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that its better to point and laugh at the silly men.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that its better to point and laugh at the silly men.
Rather than address the fact that a very large part of the population have some serious worries/concerns about social services? Those worries/concerns may only be based on the rare, yet horrible, cases which come to light, but the public image of social services in the UK is shot to sh1t.
Far better to try and explain the good, and to try and reassure people that it isn't as bad as the media would love us to believe.
Rather than address the fact that a very large part of the population have some serious worries/concerns about social services?
What do you base this assertion on?
Actually I suspect that a very large proportion of the population feel the same way about social workers as they do about almost every other issue - totally disinterested.
In fact, even amongst the people on here who have "worries/concerns" how many of them do anything other than bleat on at the captive audience of a forum?
How many have done more than read the headlines, how many have written to an MP, joined a pressure group, supported a charity, volunteered!!! etc etc.
Sod all would be my guess.
Furthermore I would guess that those that have actually done something useful themsleves are probably more likely to be on the "give them a break" side of the argument.
Of course, like yourself CFH, I'm just plucking these assertions out of nowhere.
I work closely with a number of SW. I am regularly frustrated by lack of action to support me in my role (education), but more importantly, the kids in our care.
Behind all of this is the knowledge that the local SWD is understaffed and under pressure. A number of the SW are relatively young and inexperienced, and poorly paid relative to surrounding areas.
It is important to remember that the 'clients' are not generally the most responsive or supportive members of society, and are often looking for someone else to take responsibility.
Schools have kids for 6-7 hours a day, and society expects SWD to be on the ball for the other 17-18 hours, often forgetting about the support that families - uncles, aunts, grandparents, brothers and sisters - are capable of providing, yet do not feel compelled to do so.
In short SWD are underpaid, understaffed, and under pressure. This means priorities have to be established, and your priorities may not be the same as mine, and they're both likely to differ from the next man's.
What's required is a societal mandate to fund and support the necessary interventions. Currently we're desperately short of Foster Carers, and this needs adressing too...
... but who wants to take on destructive 14-year-old with a drink and drug problem and a severe attachment disorder? Form an orderly queue now...
Roll on the day when we staff frontline services with management consultants, Daily Wail editors, internet blowhards and political think-tankers. They need to show us how it's really done.
Far better to try and explain the good, and to try and reassure people that it isn't as bad as the media would love us to believe.
Salutary words, given UK media-idiocy. Quiet success doesn't tend to make for good copy, sadly.
In an ideal world, yes Captain.
Here, where wild and ill judged internet warrior nonsense is the chosen currency, why waste even virtual ink?
The kind of comments seen here are like the ramblings of a tramp who wrapped himself in the Daily Mail after a hard day shouting at pigeons.
Laughter, the best medicine.
Trout Wrestler has it spot on - though I may be biased as MrsSwadey is a highly qualified SW currently enjoying a well earned career break by trying to bring up our two little ones in such a way that none of her former colleagues have to get involved.....
TroutWrestler - Member
I work closely with a number of SW. I am regularly frustrated by lack of action to support me in my role (education), but more importantly, the kids in our care.
I work in healthcare, and in my local area the 3 local SWDs seem to do anything except take kids on, often citing the Common Assessment Framework as a multiagency responsibility, which it is, but their lack of action on a child in my responsibility last year resulted in a unplanned teenage pregnancy, because the young person was "co-operating" with the agencies (health & education) involved.
Individual SWs are good, but the systems (& maybe managers on a local level????) hinder what they can & cannot do.
After reading the thread in full I feel I need the help of a social worker. some good opinions ruined by egos baiting with one another. For me its a hell of A job to take on & one I'm not even. Remotely qualified to comment on.on the whole they do a hell of a job from what little I know.
Utter bobbins most of them. In my personal experience I've seen horrific incompetence. Girl in my daughter's nursery class wasn't picked up from school, SS called. SS take three hours to turn up, then leave the kid with a neighbour who happens to be in the front garden a couple of doors down. Meanwhile the mother is being raped and tortured to death in the house they didn't even knock on the door of. Another time, rather than organise a proper place of safety for a child who turned up battered at school, sent the kid home with the school bursar who was pressurised into it as she had sat till after 6pm waiting for someone to drag themselves the two miles from the office since 10am. Another case a child needs a place of safety after parental assault, SS turn up late with nothing organised, asks the abusive parent if they can suggest somewhere. He suggest his mate up the road, SS agree. His mate's children are subject to a child protection order due to neglect, battery and sexual abuse, SS happy to use it as a place of safety. There might be three people in the whole department locally I might trust to even try to do a proper job. Welcome to Doncaster. At least if they sacked the lot and didn't have a service at all, people wouldn't assume the job was done, and the criminal behaviour of abusive parents could be dealt with by the Police as it usually should be.
Don't forget, the managers are struggling to implement the (ever changing) political will of their elected leaders.
MLC, asa result of your concerns, are you now registered as an emergency Foster Carer? Sounds like Donny are in need.
midlifecrashes - 2 issues - Doncaster social services are acknowledged to be failing following the recent cases so hopefully will get sorted out now at last and why did no one turn up? How many staff on duty? How many hours had they worked? its a service struggling to cope with a shortage of staff and those there are demoralised
Finally - is your knowledge direct or hearsay?
Girl in my daughter's nursery class wasn't picked up from school, SS called. SS take three hours to turn up, then leave the kid with a neighbour who happens to be in the front garden a couple of doors down. Meanwhile the mother is being raped and tortured to death in the house they didn't even knock on the door
The mother is being raped and tortured to death in the house ? That must have made the news surely.........have you got a link ?
BTW, I can't believe that it took social services three hours to turn up when a child wasn't collected from a nursery school 
OK, maybe 20 minutes - or even half an hour, but THREE HOURS !
What do these lazy social workers actually do all day long ..... ffs 
.....and as you quite rightly point out, just a simple knock on the front door, would have put a stop to the raping and murdering nonsense.
TJ is your knowledge of ss direct or hearsay?
midlifecrashes - if they had knocked on the correct door I suppose it would have been their job to prevent the alleged rape, torture and death?
One thing that Social Workers have to deal with a lot is other agencies passing on cases or situations to them because of a 'social work might be able to help' attitude, sometimes it seems as if the buck is being passed. Admittedly this may stem from the lack of clarity about just what Social Work's role should be and to be fair joint working seems to be improving.
To lighten to mood a little, and this is totally true by the way, our local SWD has 'Walk On By' as one of the tracks on the telephone hold music, whilst Psychological Services has 'Closest Thing To Crazy'. Incredible, but true.
zeicke - go and do a bit of googling. It's not exactly a secret that Doncaster Social Services has experienced several of the issues that TJ describes with tragic consequences over the last few years.
zeicke - MemberTJ is your knowledge of ss direct or hearsay?
A mix
if they had knocked on the correct door I suppose it would have been their job to prevent the alleged rape, torture and death?
Well maybe not. But if they had at least been bothered to knock on the door, then they would have perhaps been able to identify the rapist murderer after he had opened the front door.
Direct and current TJ. I'm chair of governors of a primary school with a varied catchment. Deputy head spends 75%+ of their time on CP issues, since without that there would be no consistent attendees to core meetings, you never see the same faces twice, and every new face starts at the front of the notes and is never up to speed before they move on. I've spent a lot of time shadowing this work (it's a big commitment for a school and we need to be on top of what happens) and offering support. We've pioneered systems between schools in the area to make sure kids don't fall out of the system as they were doing previously since abusers twigged long ago that moving your kid to a different school made all SS involvement magically disappear since a referral from a new school triggered a new file. We work closely with the SureStart as they have similar issues. If we didn't stay 100% on top of the cases and left it to SS, we know from previous experience preventable harm would occur. We've made the commitment that's not going to happen on our watch. As for the SS management in Doncaster, well there have been some changes at the top, but unfortunately the corruption and incompetence extends so far around Doncaster that it's not somewhere where the good guys want to come to work.
So, after all this, how do you/we/they fix it?
How do we develop, maintain and operate a system of social care that keeps everyone happy?
Given that social workers are considered fair game by the majority of the right wing press, how do we fund it?, given that people are encouraged to think of social workers as either interfering busybodies or feckless do nothings, how do we staff the service?
Given that we expect expect miracles, how do we go on?
The STW keyboard jocks seem to be in full force tonight 
Keep reading the Daily Wail to cultivate your sneering attitude on life in general or as been suggested already, offer to assist those less fortunate than youself.
It's good that we only ever see the bad side of things, you never see the good side, why because it doesn't sell papers, or get the public interest going.
If I could afford to go to uni full time I would happily retrain as a social worker, why? I've seen what a crap one can do or not do as the case may be, and I've also seen some good ones in action, and i'd certainly want to be one of those.
So, after all this, how do you/we/they fix it?
Well midlifecrashes suggests that we scrap social services :
" if they sacked the lot and didn't have a service at all, people wouldn't assume the job was done, and the criminal behaviour of abusive parents could be dealt with by the Police as it usually should be. "
You can't really argue with that, can you ?
And I bet it wouldn't take the police so long to turn up to a nursery class when a child isn't picked up.......for a start, they've got proper stuff like sirens and blue flashing lights.
Maybe split it up, some under Police some under health authority control, maybe some in education welfare. There are simply too many agencies involved in many of these cases. There is also an overextension of a culture of localism, where national statutory duties don't really need reinterpreting and prioritising at a local level. This might be partly that national government doesn't feel like getting it's hands dirty with messy services like social services, care for the elderly etc. Better for them to delegate this stuff to local level, without adequate funding then they can blame someone else when it goes tits up.
But there's problems with the mental health service as well.
I'm lucky enough to have never had any need to deal with social services at all, however as having no knowledge of a subject is no bar to expressing an opinion on here, then I'll chip in my tuppenceworth.
I strongly suspect that for every horrific case that makes the papers there are another 1000, maybe 10000, where the job is done properly and the kids/adults are helped.
That's not to say mistakes don't happen. They do in every job. I work in IT and we screw up on a regular basis. However when we do we don't have some hysterical tabloid or ill-informed forum poster berating us.
This topic has been closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
