Somethings are within our control and some aren’t – I sometimes think there are somethings that appear to be in the former group but which turn out not to be. As Social Workers, we often like to think of ourselves as being resilient, competent professionals who are able to manage our own affairs. It can be a hard truth to admit to that ourselves we aren’t and can’t be, even in the short term. If this is hard to admit to ourselves, it can be even harder to admit to our colleagues and particularly to our managers. Working in social care, means working with the oppressed, the marginalised and the disadvantaged with obvious impacts on the wellbeing of staff, not just, but particularly Social Workers.
As a Trustee of the Social Workers Benevolent Trust, I have become progressively more aware of the increasing number of applicants to the Trust who are either in dispute with their employers, or have had to cease work because of pressures generated at work, or existing health issues that have been exacerbated by pressures at and of work. There is also a growing number of applicants who are in full-time work but still find themselves unable to cope financially for various reasons.
Although I am no longer in full-time work, I continue to practice as an Independent Author of Safeguarding Adult Reviews; in that role, I see the tragic outcomes to cases that are almost always known to the statutory services, health, social care and the police but, all too often, fall between services. This is very rarely, in my experience, due to malicious or malignant professionals – I use this term in the widest sense. These tragedies occur for a number of reasons, including poor communication between agencies, lack of awareness of the limitations of a particular agency/profession to act, poor procedures, both internal and multi-agency, and, most often, a lack of legal literacy on the part of professionals of the “weapons in their armoury” to use to support their client, patient, customer, service user or whatever term their agency uses.
What links the above, in my view, is the role of constructive management – or should that be destructive management? A crucial factor in Safeguarding Adult Reviews that is often overlooked, is the lack of opportunities that staff have to access peer support and supervision, that goes beyond caseload management and looks at the member of staff in the round. Reflective practice that enables a member of staff to look at their practice and the impact of their personal life on their professional practice. Good social care and therefore good Social Work is ultimately, in my view, based on the relationship between the member of staff and the adult or child they are supporting.
Unless your manager/supervisor is supportive of you, how, in the long-term, will you be able to support those you work with? If their focus is on the financial bottom line, timescales, waiting lists and a range of other KPIs, how will you reconcile those pressures with your professional standards and ethics and at what cost to your wellbeing? And if your manager/supervisor isn’t also appropriately supported by their manager? And if senior managers aren’t appropriately supported by elected members?
Health professionals are now going on strike not just for reasons of poor pay, though that is a major factor. It is also about the terms and conditions they have to work under. Perhaps the time has come for Social Workers to copy their example as the impact of 13 years of austerity becomes ever more apparent in numerous ways, including small ones such as the rise in the number of applicants to the Trust from Social Workers and their managers in full-time work as well as those who have left
the profession.
Pete Morgan
June 2023