‘There’s far too much goodwill in social work’
Published by Professional Social Work magazine, 9 August, 2023
About once a week I ask myself a question. It’s always the same question and yet I never find a suitable answer. Why is it that we spend our whole career advocating for vulnerable people but struggle to advocate for ourselves? I tend to ask this question when I’m being pushed to my limit while continually being asked for more.
As social workers our inability to advocate for ourselves at all levels, in my view, has a direct impact on sickness, burnout and retention of social workers, but it seems nothing can be done.
I have worked with tens, if not hundreds of agency social workers over the years and although we in the local authority want to think that agency workers ‘do it for the money’ I’ve found that that’s not actually the case. I’ve spoken to agency worker after agency worker and they all say the same thing: “When they put too much on me, I can just leave” or: “As soon as I sign a contact with the local authority, they start to take the mick.”
I think it starts out in the ASYE year (assessed and supported year in employment) where you learn quickly to put up, shut up, or clear off. It’s strange isn’t that a group of ASYE workers can go through university together and share their woes relating to essays and deadlines but within four or five months of starting their ASYE, they are afraid to speak to their colleague about feeling overwhelmed or falling behind in their recording. If the ASYE cohort stood together to say “this is unacceptable” decision-makers would have to listen.
But why would ASYE recruits do this when experienced social workers aren’t standing together to advocate for themselves either? Neither are the senior social workers, or the advanced practitioners.
What happens when you, as an individual social worker, goes to your manager to say you have too many cases, the complexity of the cases is not being considered, your home/life balance is being impacted?
When trying to advocate for yourself to say that you can't manage it’s seen as weakness because "everyone else is managing so maybe you need to manage your time better".
You don't want to look weak, unorganised, you don't want anyone to question your resilience, so you push on.. push on...push on until your body, and mind have had enough.
I‘m labelled as ‘difficult to manage’. I don’t ask difficult questions, I ask questions that managers find difficult to answer. There is a difference. They don’t like it but it’s true. I will do what I'm told, of course, and my manager will have the last word, but I am way beyond, "No problem" and "For the good of the service".
There is far too much good will in social work and it's taken advantage of on a daily basis. You give the job everything, at times to the detriment of your own health, family and sanity, but what you get back is a request for more of you and if you dare question this, you're the one who is in the wrong.
Imagine for one moment if every social worker in the country simply worked to rule. If we all just did what we were contracted to do. No extra visits, no extra cases, no extra time. If that happened, even for one day, the system would fall apart. This is the evidence that good will is the only thing that is keeping the profession going. It’s a shame, and it’s only getting worse.
As experienced social workers leave the profession in droves, the pressure continues to rise and ever more is asked of us, ever more of us is taken for this profession.
*Name changed to protect identity