I’m seriously thinking of volunteering (maybe working) in the sector, massive change of direction for me personally, but it’s always something I’ve had in the back of my mind.

Any experience? pointers?

Been friends with a few in the past, sounds tough!

you had a chat with Donna? she might have some pointers.

My wife is one. I could never do it. The people you work with rarely appreciate what you do (and often hate you for it); the people you work for rarely appreciate what you do (local authority); the public rarely appreciate what you do (and often hate you for it – be prepared to always be the scape goat); the hours are awful (often 50-60 a week); the pay is pretty poor (although local regrading has helped), and there never seems to be any sort of reprieve. My wife works in child protection, which is about as bad as it gets with regards most of the above; I doubt she’ll last much longer there. The average ‘burn out’ is about 2 years which she has more than exceeded and is now the longest serving member of her team by a long way. When it does work, though, she finds it immensly rewarding and satisfying. All i would say is make sure it’s what you really want.

What field are you looking at getting into, adults or children?

In reference to the above post, local regrading has just lost my social workers a grand of their top end salary.

Very tough

poorly paid

huge pressure and responsibility

and your ass gets kicked when things go wrong a la baby P etc

Sister in law is a social worker, in charge of a care home for disruptive kids. Honestly don’t know how she does it.

Social workers that work with kids get it particularly rough – as previously mentioned, if they interfere too much they get accused of being monsters that split up families. Too little, and they’re accused of being negligent and letting kids being abused. And when they get it right never gets reported.

Not sure where the ‘poorly paid’ bit comes into it.

Sure, there are plenty of better paid jobs, but my friend is earning £28,500 in his very first SW post barely a year after completing his MSc Social Work at Goldsmiths.

He’s working in London (Westminster), but that only accounts for a few thousand extra.

You should’ve watched the documentary the othernight about kids in care, felt that the staff involved, both residential care workers and the social work team were doing their best for very little pay & thanks.

Can’t remember what it was called, might still be on 4OD or some other digital service like that.

my friend is earning £28,500 in his very first SW post

wow, loaded then?
And I bet he just sits about drinking tea and discussing organic basket weaving and what open toed sandals? Stereotype kindly provided by Daily Mail

He’s working in London (Westminster),

..and with the bonus of a couple of hours a day stting in a BO infused cattle tube

Personally, I’d say that if you have to ask then it probably isn’t for you. It’s not a lot of money for the hours, emotional commitment and being little more than a profesional scapegoat for when the system turns out not to work.
That said, the rewards, not measurable in fianancial terms, are there for those that take their rewards by knowing that they can change the lives of the less fortunate for the better, but if that’s yo, you’d know by now. IMHO, of course.

BigButSlimmerBloke – Member

wow, loaded then?

You’ll have to refer me to the part of my post where I described that as ‘loaded’, because I can’t find it.

My point was rather that it isn’t quite the incredibly poorly paid job that some appear to think it is. Indeed, it’s on a par with teaching and the police and better than nursing.

Note that I am referring to the remuneration only and not to the effort exerted in order to earn it.

well you either think it’s a decent wage or you don’t.
A wage is paid in relation to what you do for it. £28k to serve up burgers in a drive through McD’s is an excellent wage. £28k to spend 2 hours a day in a tube then deal with the crap (IMHO) that the social workers I know deal with isn’t.
For what it can take out of you (it would out of me) it is a poorly paid job. Of course, not everyone thinks like that, hence the reference to the Daily Mail and it’s narrow minded readership.

it is more than a psych nurse; who in a CMHT for example would be looking after the same type of clients, same hours and same level of accountability/responsibility.

i see your point BBSB, and i can definitely relate to what your saying, but i also dont think BH9er is wrong when he points out as a starting salary thats better than some other public service positions. after many years of working and experience a psych nurse would be lucky to be on that wage.

chill people 🙂

if you want poorly paid then my OH is a great example, the stuff she has to deal with with in her role for the wage she gets is insulting:

currently on a “threat to kill” (or something) list – police taking it seriously as one of the husbands of a woman she supports has made specific threats to kill her, works 50+ hours a week not including the 12 hours+ she’ll spend on the weekends trying to catch up with stuff, in charge of students, training new staff etc etc..

she is responsible for all the high risk clients and at the age of 23 is the most experienced person in her organisation apart from the manager and director due to the stupidly high burn-out rate and staff turn over…. she’s on less than 17k

society really doesnt reward the people who go out fo their way and do crap jobs to help the vulnerable members of society 🙁

+1 to all the above. Social work is in no way compatible with current local authority cuts or indeed nhs ones if you end up in older persons or mental health. Pay, caseloads and stress will only get worse for the next few years.

Volontary sector ‘social care’ (as opposed to training as and being a social worker) may not be as bad and quite rewardingn in comparison, but be prepared to be at the mercy of numerous changes in funding, commissioning, legislation and indeed the changes to statutory health and social care funding and and administration over the next few years too.

Still, the big society will sort all that out won’t it? 😕

Programme was Panorama, and it is on I player still.

society really doesnt reward the people who go out fo their way and do crap jobs to help the vulnerable members of society

+1

and *10 when it’s mental health you’re talking about. Probably even more when it’s criminal psychiatry because that’s something no politician will go near.

society really doesnt reward the people who go out fo their way and do crap jobs to help the vulnerable members of society

Dead right. My missus is a drug worker and gets paid roughly the same as myself. She comes home exhausted and stressed out, whereas I do nothing of any particular use, get to go for the odd pint at lunchtime and waste time on internet forums.

And today I had to sit and listen to some stupid woman at work ranting about how her taxes shouldn’t be used to pay for public sector pensions.

it would be selfish to say +1 on

when it’s mental health you’re talking about. Probably even more when it’s criminal psychiatry because that’s something no politician will go near.

mainly because that’s what i’ve ended up working in haha.

to NickC:

perhaps look at some part time hours as a “support worker” in a social care setting, or volunteering with a charity that works with the group of clients you’re interested in helping…. be warned though, the moment you do any training and become a “professional” the accountability level shoots right up and with that the paperwork does too… much less time spent the the people you started the job to help.

it is more than a psych nurse; who in a CMHT for example would be looking after the same type of clients,

I guess that depends on where you are based; our band 5 CPN’s get less than the social workers, but have case loads with less risk/ hassle. But the band 6’s get more top end than the top end social workers, and they have similar caseloads but the nurses don’t have the hassle of undertaking mental health act assessments. I’m just pointing out these things differ, and I’m a psych nurse so not looking to defend either side, but don’t get me started on OT’s…. 😉

Fair play to you for considering it Nick, but I know I couldn’t do it. There are many people who need SW help, but the (very little) experience I have of this area is that a fair proportion of them don’t recognise this and will be wilfully obstructive.

I couldn’t continually take the rejection /abuse of those I was trying to protect. And when the best of a situation might be that, potentially, you’ll split a family up (drug dependency issues, spousal abuse etc), I’sd either pack it all in or become so hard-hearted that I’d be no use anyway.

Don’t be put off if you’re really interested. You should be able to access a careers interview with an IAG advisor through the job shop; like all services it will take a bit of nagging and research to get it.
The best thing about the career, in my opinion, would be the degree. Sociology is an amazingly interesting and broad subject. Several people I work with are doing the OU introductory course and loving it. The trick with going into any profession, I think, is to not specialize too early. Get a feel for the way things work before you commit yourself to one branch. It has worked for me, in a related, but different, public service.

Sociology?

Yes, there will besome SW with sociology undergraduate degrees, but not as many as you may think.

My SW friends took psychology and English literature before their MSc Social Work. There’s also a direct undergraduate route now through the SW degree.

Smell_it, that’s good to hear, the last time I was in a cmht during a discussion on pay the grade 5s were handling the same as 6s…. says a lot about the manager in that case though! Very happy to Be corrected 🙂

My career history is that of managing a record label, then project management for a hamper company, then youth work. In June I started a f/t job working for an Independent Fostering Agency, who provide foster carers for children that local authorities have taken into care.

My job is to provide support to that placement, so the vast majority of my work is with children and young people.

The youth work proved very good experience – I worked with NEETs, the permanently excluded, special needs, on rough council estates and traveller sites.

Most of my colleagues are social workers, and their role is to support the foster carers – SW jobs are not always in Child Protection as I always thought. I guess the thing to do is to research, figure out where you want to specialise. I’m hoping to start an NVQ in social care soon.

I’ve found that my job is very rewarding, and makes sense of going out to work every day.

Philconsequence – not so much sure it was a correction, just a perspective from a different area. Prior to afc the 5’s, or E’s as they were, were put on more in our area but changes to the job roles sorted this. But even then they still had more, in terms of supervision and clinical support through the nursing structure than the social workers, who have always had to be more independent in their practice. It could just be me, but I’ve always felt glad I was a nurse 🙂

e-mail in profile if you want to discuss /advice/info.

The level of stress does depend on the field you work in as most of the others who have contributed to the thread have mentioned. Undoubtedly child protection work is the most stressful and pressurised but if you want to work with children there are other areas. A lot of local authorities have child disability teams, some also have youth justice and fostering and adoption could be an option as well.

I work with adults with physical and learning disabilities and while it can be chaotic and stressful it is far less so than child protection work. Child protection always has more job vacancies than other areas for a reason! I feel I have pretty good working terms and conditions (pension, flexible working etc) and my colleagues and manager are good. I consider my pay to be ok as well, I certainly don’t feel underpaid or undervalued by my salary. No doubt Dave and chums will try to change that shortly although I’m fortunate to live in Scotland – Scottish gov are much less likely **** about with public sector workers.

And according to many on here you will become a non-productive workshy, overpaid, over pensioned public servant like me.

I work closely with the SWD in the LA where I work. We desperately need more good SWs. Some teams that are supposed to be staffed with 10 are down to 2. Like any profession or workplace, some are excellent, some are useless. I would say that ALL are undervalued, underpaid and overworked. My LA has a real problem retaining SWs due to higher paying LAs nearby.

A good SW is worth their weight in gold and I have seen excellent work done with young people, although it is rarely appreciated by the young people and their families.

I witness shocking remote management of SWs and caseloads. In the past I have called Duty Child Protection to be told that there is no-one available to report abuse concerns to, and had “Walk on by” as the hold-music on the telephone (also had “Closest thing to crazy” from the Ed. Psych. Service too… Someone somewhere has a sense of humour.)

Where I work, it is just a matter of time before a kid dies, despite the best efforts of a very committed few. We REALLY need more decent SWs.

I work as a support worker for adults with learning disabilities. A bit different from social workers obviously, but I do work with them often. All I’ll say is: probably not the best time to get into a really demanding job that requires loads of work, loads of beaucracy, and loads hoping your service won’t be cut. Go for it if you really want to though.

I sort of hope that the numbers of people doing this sort of work will fall and fall, and then the wider public/local authorities will realise how hard and how important it is and the remuneration will improve.

My mrs works closely with social workers in Portsmouth city council. She though about it as a career but speaking to her colleagues there are more cons to the job than pros. Evasive seems to e miserable in their role which isn’t a way to live

I don’t work in the field, but have seen cases that reach the courts, so have some grasp of the subject matter. It’s vital, and hard work. The most worthwhile kind IMHO.

Just from a STW perspective, it’s nice to see so many decent people who know the score.

I used to have an ambivilant attitude to social workers, not having had any contact with them and my only idea of what they do was gleaned from the guardian etc..

However a close freind was recently accused of sexually abusing his daughter. Ultimatley he was exonerated, mostly due to the actions of the soical workers who quickly exposed both the daughter and the mother (who intially reported it) as having fabricated the whole thing. Very impressed and my mate now has a high level of trust in the local child protection team.