Lack of resources blamed for social workers leaving profession

A children’s social worker has described how the lack of resources is causing her colleagues to leave the profession.

“Jane” – not her real name – recalled how a member of her team changed jobs following a particularly difficult case in which specialist treatment was not available.

She said: “There was a young boy who we knew was a sexual risk to his siblings and his mother wasn’t coping with him as an adolescent and her young children.

“This young boy was really disturbed but to get the specialist services to deal with a young teenage sexual perpetrator is really hard.

“We put in a temporary package for this young man to go and stay with his grandparents. They couldn’t really cope with him. It was a stop-gap measure and it collapsed,” she said.

“The social worker was superb but they were so burnt out that they left to do another kind of work and it was a great loss to the profession.

“I know that that social worker was totally drained and exhausted.”

Jane, who qualified in the 1980s and went on to become a children’s social work manager, feels the level of resources in the majority of cases are “severely lacking”.

She said the role has become harder since the death of Baby P in 2007 and other high-profile child abuse scandals.

“The numbers coming through the front door have shot up, the public perception of us has got worse and the blame culture has increased,” she explained.

“It makes you practise in a more defensive way. You’re always looking over your shoulder and thinking ‘have I covered my back?’.

“If the worst happens, if this child dies or this child is severely injured, what will the record show?

“It keeps you awake at night. It increases burn out, It makes you think ‘I want to do something else’.”

Jane said the system for children’s social workers needs to be improved to retain staff.

She said: “There is some fantastic social work going on out there.

“It’s absolutely crucial work. You’ve got to have people with a heart, who care and with dedication.

“What we need is a system that supports them, not punishes them.

“If you support people and show that you value them as staff they will do better work.”

Copyright (c) Press Association Ltd. 2014, All Rights Reserved.