Enabling people and families, offering a barricade for vulnerable people and facilitating change through relationships are all part of the day job for social workers. While united by shared values and social conscience, many social workers experience and relate to their role in different ways. Reflecting on what is a demanding but essential role and to celebrate world social work day, three Cafcass staff across different frontline roles shared what being a social worker means to them.
Gemma Bond, family court adviser, Cafcass Bloomsbury Private Law Team, London
If you are interested in people then you will never have a dull day at work as a social worker. We have the task of working with a hugely diverse range of people at points of crisis and transition in the most intimate areas of their lives – family life, parenthood, old age, childhood, sickness.
We are called upon to use not just our knowledge and training, but also our capacity to relate, to enable someone to feel heard and understood with the hope that collaboratively, some change can be effected in their lives. Social workers have many different roles, but facilitating change through relationships is always central. That’s what social work means to me.
Paul Doherty, family court adviser, Liverpool
Being a social worker to me means many things; it is about having resilience to practice as we work daily with vulnerable families. As with all of us, this poses considerable demands on my inner self in both conjuring personal empathy and warmth to those I meet but at the same time looking to provide firmness and clarity as to where the boundaries lie.
I work mostly as a children’s guardian, resolving disputed issues where possible. To do this well means being able to be open to others’ opinions, stepping back to listen and reflect, yet at the same time keeping my focus on how this all comes together for the child. But the role of a guardian is not that of therapist and we need to be forensic in interpreting documented evidence and separating opinion from facts.
Being a social worker always requires being part of an organisation and its processes which, although sometimes feels like they’re there to be administered to, I mostly experience as supporting and improving my standards of practice and efficiency. And especially so in persuading an old pen and paper, file based person like me to appreciate and value the IT tools and support systems we now have. For me, working as a practitioner with Cafcass for over 15 years has always been about being one of the team, through wanting to adapt and always seeing the merit of change. There is a genuine enjoyment of continued learning and my personal adopted mantra, of looking to work smarter and not harder in managing it all.
Ultimately, for me, being a social worker has evolved and adapted over time but has always required the motivation and willingness to continue to cultivate and nurture the above elements as a renewable synthesis for each new child’s case so as to support the best possible decision being made in a timely and organised way.
Not too much to ask, is it?
Heidi Crampton, senior service manager, Cafcass Business Centre, Coventry
I am not a rescuer. I am not a saviour. I am a social worker. We enable. We offer a barricade to vulnerable people. We make a tiny ripple in the sea of life.
The world is not a fair place. I soon came to understand that I can help bring about a revolution of the mind.
Educate, interact, appreciate, relate, lead, coach, assess, support and firm telling when needed!
Social workers are teachers, healers, investigators, friends, crutches, time keepers, story tellers, toilet fixers, door guardians, confidants, enemies, makeup artists, personal shoppers, soul workers, heart workers, play workers, cry workers and mind workers.
The responsibility we have scares the living daylights out of me. The opportunity we have fills my life with optimism. Realising the conflict keeps me grounded.
I am a social worker.
Content on this page is produced and controlled by Cafcass, sponsor of the Guardian Social Care Network children’s services hub.
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