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Social Workers or probation officers
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
in Work & Study
Do we have any here? How did you go about training? How long did it take? Any tips?
I'd love to become one of the above and I think I'd be good at it too.
I'd love to become one of the above and I think I'd be good at it too.
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I'm in my first year, and it was my first day on placement yesterday and it was really good. I got to shadow a social worker. There seems to be a lot of paperwork, with every contact you have with clients/schools/whoever, needs to be documented on the computer system. We went out on some visits and stuff, so definetly you need to be good at communicating with people, and be very diplomatic! Hope that helps a bit.... I'm intersted in reading other peoples replies to this thread
Im in dance at the moment but my mam has been a social worker working with kids for bout 7 yrs now. Its something that would really interest me (cos i wana work with kids 2) but OMG no way could i handle that stress everyday.
You have to deal with the parents yelling n crying at you for taking there kids away, you have to take the abused, negleted, mistreated kids n find them somewhere to live, you have to deal with imature couples who resort 2 going 2 court (and totally forget about what the child actually needs) so they get control even if they cant handle it, and foster parents that decide they dont want the kids anymore. Not that Im trying to put you off or anything.
But be warned its like that everyday and even though you know your doing whats best for the child, you hardly ever see the beifits.
And for the person thats intraining, sorry if Im totally freaking you out, thats just my view of it, I respect you for doing something worthwhile.
So i think i might look into youth work instead.
you'll probably get the same stick from them! kids these days...
i was a bit put off by the salary when you finish being £19k or something.
For me it is more than the salary. It is what I would get out of it. In my area, I would get around £21k to start with.
Personally I would go for probation over social work any day. Probation is grotty in that you will spend the early part of your career working with dangerous offenders, including incredibly violent people...my dad was lucky enough to escape when a man tried to throw him off the top of a fourteen storey building...there will also be the sex offenders and personally it would break my heart having to hear what those people do to other human beings and work up close with them. Your work may involve staying overnight in a hostel for people on probation including those convicted of murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, rape, the list is endless.
I don't think I could work with people who I knew weren't safe to be on the streets and yet couldn't do anything about it.
But I think social work is another ball game. It is a dangerous job whichever way you look at it and social workers don't have nearly enough protection to go about their job because its not an area that receives anywhere near enough funding. My mum has been repeatedly threatened throughout her career, including a teenage lad who tried to beat her to death with a baseball bat and a colleague of hers was repatedly stabbed and left paralysed. These stories may sound extreme but the truth is they're not. Speak to any social worker and they'll all have their horror stories.
And then there's the emotional impact of it. It will depend on what type of social work you go into (although I think most areas will be pretty harrowing) but my mum has had to work with children where she knows a child is being sexually abused by a family member and yet being unable to do anything to protect the child because there simply aren't the powers. One case that haunts her was an amazingly beautiful sixteen year old girl who had become incontinent. The girl wouldn;t say what was happening but kept saying "if only you'd ask the right questions" . My mum was sure that the girl's dad was raping her but she just couldn't prove it. :crying:
Or you may go on home visits to see babies that have just given up on crying because theyve been abused so badly. It would break my heart.
I know I'm making it all sound very grim but I really think you need to consider these aspects of the work before making any decisions.
haha don't get me wrong i'd like to do the job but for me money is also important! at the moment i don't know what i want to do so the salary is going to sway me a bit!
Thats a really helpful post. I've been thinking of going into social work too but when I really think about it, like some of the things you've talked about I don't think I could handle it. I like to think I'm strong but I'm not that strong! To know that something is probably going on but you can't prove it, how frustrating and sad!
Hmm maybe I should rethink
social workers for sure have to put up with so much shit every day in the job they do and its really emotionally draining work.
its NOT like the tv portrays it. - its not all about helping people and making their lives better as you might be tempted to think it is. its a job that is plagued by beaurocracy (sp?) and most of the time the poeple who you are dealing with hate your guts. and there is nothing sader than trying to help people who don't want to be helped, or trying to deal with families or children who are being abused and ther is f**k all you can do about it.