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Opinions on social workers?
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
I've had loads of social workers myself and have mixed views on them one because of personal views but then another due to professional views.
I am planning on now going to study social work myself because of how bad some of my social workers were and i want to support young people. When people ask what i want to do and i tell them i have had a wide range of reactions. These are from being asked why im joining the scum :L to its a good job and they admire it.
After looking at peoples opinions (which were taken in a survey and presented by a social worker) in a lecture, im wondering what are other peoples views? and what do you think has shaped this view?
I am planning on now going to study social work myself because of how bad some of my social workers were and i want to support young people. When people ask what i want to do and i tell them i have had a wide range of reactions. These are from being asked why im joining the scum :L to its a good job and they admire it.
After looking at peoples opinions (which were taken in a survey and presented by a social worker) in a lecture, im wondering what are other peoples views? and what do you think has shaped this view?
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I've had up and down experiences with social workers, but they just wanted what was best for me,. My aim is to become a social worker in the future. I think they're amazing to be honest and don't get enough creddit
It's nigh on impossible now for us to refer someone, even if they exceed the threshold requirements. I've been turned away more times than I care to remember with some quite serious cases.
But i think the high work loads and the few things that go wrong, give them a lot worse reputation than they deserve.
Although i had a really bad one as a kid, but like i think its improved a lot since then.
I didn't know if you were being sarcastic or not, social workers can earn over £30k a year. The downside is it takes a long time and several degrees to get there.
Cos i know its possible to get like more money but a majority get rubbish money compared to other degree professions, especially for the amount and type of work they do too. And tbh i wouldn't try get higher in social work, its too much of a risk of being used as things like a scape goat when things go wrong, which they unfortunately do.
Individually they just want to make a difference but their hands are often tied. It's a sad state of affairs at the moment
I agree with this. We live in a socially where there's an awful blame culture, someone must always be held accountable. I'm not saying this is wrong, but I think social workers get blamed out of ease. I've had minimal interaction with social workers, it extends to when I was working in a pastoral support base in a school a few years ago. The social workers were trying to do their job, but if something went wrong, they were blamed by numerous different agencies, even if they weren't in the wrong. It seems like the organisation as a whole is blamed for their own short comings, and the individual is forgotten about.
It's like the police, there's the assumption that because someone was treated badly by one police officer, they're all bad, can't do their jobs and are unfair which simply isn't the case.
In some cases, some social workers will be silent and forgotten heroes to nobody else than the children they help.
Experiencing them myself for different things, I find them uneducated and rude. They're useless in my opinion. They blamed myself for a number of things, which in no way (I get told now) was my fault. They broke confidentiality over something she said she wouldn't need to.
I'm not sure why social workers have such a bad name though, I've just always hated talking to them. The most recent one I had was as dim as anything, I was tempted to actually educate her.
I guess it depends on WHO you get though. You can get some nice ones, and you can get some arsey ones, who I always get stuck with haha!
But if you're actually wanting to do the job because you enjoy it and WANT to help people then you'll probably be in the 'lovely' category!
Probably nothing made sense lol
I guess it just surprises me how many people have this negative view of them when they haven't really had any interactions with them. I can understand why some do because social work as a careers changed in the last 20 years a lot i believe and from what i've read. But i agree with ballerina that higher authorities and boards seem to cause a lot of issues and people just assume its social workers.
I do think its a very personally rewarding job though and personally if i can help one child to lead a happier, safer and better life then i will be happy.
And yes, tbh to take someone (especially a child) into care long term, if its not agreed by all parties it usually has to go to court, where all this evidence and case studies and appeals have to take place. I don't think the decision to take someone in or out of care is an easy one unless someone is in an obvious abusive or harmful situation.