Social Workers.

[Lonnie]

[Lonnie]

First question in this new format, right, I know there are some very good Social Workers out there, probably the majority, we only get to here about the bad ones, but I was wondering, if any of you have had any dealings, personally, with your local Social Service/workers, what, if you don't mind, was your opinion?.

Thanks.

[R1Geezer]

Right shower of ideoligical pygmies with no common sense. The trouble is they pay sh1te wages and only recruit from the Guardian or the Socialist Worker!

[ummmm]

I have and I found them very good. Although a bit nicey nicey, let's talk about your feeling etc.

[Lonnie]

R1Geezer, is your opinion from pesonel experience?.

ummmm, my experience, from a personel basis, and of course, locally, is that they talk a good case, but don't actually do anything, eg, we have something going on at present, my daughters last day at her day centre is tomorrow,Thursday, they have known since June, what happened, is the her Social worker has been on holiday, along with her team manager, never appointed anyone in their place, and nothing has been done, which has now put us in an almost untenable position, so my feeling is that they are getting paid for not doing anything much at all.

[DEN53]

Everything done text book style - no common sense.

[naomi24]

In my professional life I've worked extensively with Social Services, and in my opinion Den53 is right.

[Lonnie]

Hi naomi, nice to see you on here, and your reply and DENs just about ties in with my opinion.

[ummmm]

Yes, there is that but I think I phrased it as nicey nicey.

Ours was a very basic case though....basically my nasty sister phoned them out of spite. They came out and interviewed me. Asked permission to interview my kids, which I granted...then they closed the case. After that my son started to behave really badly in school (good at home) the school asked could they phone social services as they would arrange councelling for him...we'd lost a few members of our family in quick succession and he wasn't dealing with it. He couldn't talk to me as he felt that I was too upset already so it came out as agression at school.

Anyway...they arranged the councelling and also arranged art therapy for my younger son, just in case he was bottling up his emotions.

Forgot to add....we were referred to the 'family support' side.

[jno]

no personal experience but they're always damned if they do and damned if they don't. They didn't take action quickly enough over Baby P. They were far too credulous and intrusive in dealling with the cases of 'satanic abuse'.

[Lonnie]

damned if they do and damned if they don't.

I agree with you jno, but its their own fault its like that.

[welshlibranr]

Well yes, they ar damned if they do and damned if they don't, but they are bound by the law, and if the legal department say that they don't jhave sufficient grounds to, say, remove a child, then even if they are convinced that the child is at risk, their hands are tied, so it's not really black and white, sadly there are so many grey areas which are the cause of most of the problems with the service, I think that most Social Workers really do try their best to do a good job in very difficult circumstances....................welsh

[ruby27]

Fortunately so far I have not found myself or family in the situation that we require social services so I don't have any personal experience, however for what it is worth I do have extensive professional knowledge.

As for social services, my view is we get what we pay for; and that the demands on the services are not matched by funding, so inevitably there isn't sufficient resources. I know that assessments are supposed to be needs led, but believe that the constraint on local authorities to gate-keep, especially where councils are committed to keeping taxes low, results in insufficient funding which in turn means services users and families do not get provided with adequate support. Plus local authorities are large bureaucratic organisations, that brings cumbersome procedure driven systems not suited either in speed or flexibility to meet the needs of individuals.

As for individual social workers, my view is that similarly to other professionals such as nursers teachers etc, you get some few brilliant, the majority range from very good to ok and then there is a small minority of appalling ones who are either incompetent and or dangerous.

[Lonnie]

ruby27, In agree with what you say, but only to a small extent, I did say that we only hear about the bad ones, but when you say we get what we pay for, thats open to interpretation for the good, as well as the bad.

In my case, what prompted the original question, is that we have a serious situation at home, (without going into details), time relevent, and both the Social Worker involved, and her 'Team Leader' went on holiday, without someone else being informed of the situation, and taking over.

Slackness is not what I pay almost £300 a month for, not of course, including what everyother wage earner pays.

I have a reponsible job, (train driver), and if I slacken, I can put up to 1500 lives at risk at any one time, their job is different, but can be said to be even more responsible, so doing what they did, in my book, is a tad irrisponsible, and not what they get paid for.