Despite everything I had been "programmed" to believe in University regarding the field of social work, the lectures attended, presentations given, seminars attended, assignments and placements completed, research conducted and dissertation submitted, disillusion set in really, within six months. After graduating I was full of enthusiasm and applied for a position as a social worker in an inner London borough. The induction process was carried out by the the administration worker assigned to the team, which consisted of about twenty to twenty five social workers. The induction period lasted for about two weeks at the most.
Induction meant basically, being bombarded with information regarding fire escapes, admin procedures re applying, for finance and transport, being given directories of local resources, visiting other council premises working in conjuction with the children and families team, learning the filing system, in terms of where physical files were accessed and stored and where one could find the keys to open the storage facility, should you either be in work before or after anyone else, not unusual in social work and really the only way, you're going to be able to manage with all of the over arching bureaucratic and administration processes, this is before you consider working on weekends.
After this process is completed you are given a diary and have handed, or more commonly, you have left on your desk, a bundle of files and off you go "to do social work" One of the earliest challenges was working out how the computer systems in place worked. Invariably there were two systems to be learnt and managed, for example, one might have the actual forms and paperwork, so beloved in social work departments, and the other would operate pretty much like a running log, this is where every interaction/conversation about a case, with whomever and conducted, in whatever format is recorded.
These systems would invariably crash, considering the numbers of social workers working in the boroughs/councils, children and families department. Most departments had at least four teams made up of children who were looked after by the local authority, as unaccompanied young people who were seeking asylum, whether voluntarily therefore with the agreement of their parent's or family, or via fostering and adoption, a team for children who had disabilities, children who were seen to be in need and children in need of protection. The system would inevitably crash, freeze, lose work and not be accessible for a variety of reasons including being upgraded or for maintenance etc.
Part of the myth of social work being if everything is recorded, then this will keep children safe, how exactly does that work, when it is recognised social workers spend up to seventy five percent of their time in front of a computer!!
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/social-work-two-thirds-paperwork-28999726.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/social-care-network/2012/sep/25/social-workers-longer-hours-survey
http://www.tcsw.org.uk/uploadedFiles/TheCollege/CollegeLibrary/Consultation/Service_User_reports/Action%20for%20Children%201%20of%203Full%20Report%20Social%20Work%20College%2012th%20November%202010.pdf
As all of these documents note, social workers invariably get sucked into a black hole of administration and bureaucratic tasks and this has a great knock on effect, in terms of the relationships you are attempting to build with children and families and is surely counter productive and in direct opposition to what was imbibed at university, whereby what is stressed consistently, is the importance of and the need to build and maintain positive or at least workable relationships with children and families who have interactions with local authorities social work departments. You are therefore immediately placed at a disadvantage, as there are not enough hours in the day to complete all the admin tasks expected.
A failure to stay on top of these tasks can lead to social workers being burdened with the label of not having "good time management skills"when the system itself mitigates against this, talk about a catch 22 situation. What also takes up time is having supervision, attending meetings and training, travelling to different parts of the country in some cases and also across and out of borough.
Time management or the perceived lack thereof is often used as a stick with which to beat social workers, this is easier than recognising, the way the system is set up and operates, inevitably means you are on a hiding to nothing really, as in my experience, there were always more cases than there were social workers and this represents a large portion of the problem in social work.
Since every case has to have an allocated social worker, most social workers have the responsibility, for at the least twenty cases. If time management is perceived to be an issue/problem this will be raised in supervision and discussed with the intention of making a change, obviously this doesn't and wont work until the issue of the number of children/families allocated to social workers and the very real shortage of social workers in the field is tackled, after all how many parents/families would or could spend seventy five percent of their time focused on any thing else besides their children. If this was the case, social services would be wanting to carry out assessments with the intention of finding out what was happening and why.
Social work has moved way beyond working for the best interests of the child and in working to keep children and families together. As acknowledged by more than one manager, social work has become more about the practice of having the requisite "bums on seats" further as another manager stated, managers and social workers are "glorified administration workers" It is hard to see how this situation can improve given the cuts and austerity measures, falsely foisted onto local authorities/councils. Social work departments should start to examine why this is the case, when the same amount of council tax is being collected, yet services are being cut or are no longer available.
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