THE SOCIAL WORKER. PT.2

Making the transition from a graduate to a consummate social work professional can be a daunting but rewarding challenge.

Having spent several years at University studying/training to become a social worker, the graduate social worker is now ready to take his/her ambition and aspiration to the next level; that of getting a job as a social worker and practising to acquire the experience and skills which he/she needs to transform themselves into becoming a competent professional.

In the past, the newly qualified social worker would probably have sought to get a job doing generic social work, which, all things being equal, would have provided him/her with the opportunity to work with different categories of service users, such as children and families, adults, people with mental disorders, people with learning disabilities, and so forth. The object of which would have been to help the graduate to find out what he or she is best at doing, so that they could pursue a career in that field of social work; while, at the same time, acquiring a better understanding of how the social services for people with different needs, all link up; if, indeed, they do link up.

Such generic work opportunities, however, might not be available any longer, as social services have moved towards the development of specialist services, such as the provision of services for older people, services for children and families, services for people with learning disabilities, services for looked after children and young persons, family finding services, and so forth. All of which might require the social worker to in a unit or team which is specially geared to deal with the primary needs of the client group it was set up for, although accessing support from other specialist teams as and when the need arises.

Upon securing a job, the  social worker is given a set number of cases of service-users or clients to work with.  This caseload might be informed mostly by the demands on the social services team for their services, or, by the relative inexperience of the newly qualified social worker, or, on the basis these and other factors, such as the team's departmental guidelines for allocating cases to newly qualified workers.  All or most social work team managers will probably tell you that they try their best to provide newly qualified social workers with a ‘protected’, ie, limited caseload, in terms of its numbers of service-users and the complexity of the cases. 

This, however, is likely to be what team managers aspire towards, but not necessarily what they are able to achieve in practice. When Team managers have cases which they are not able to allocate to social workers, due to staff vacancies or a mismatch between their staffing capacity and excessive numbers of referrals, they are only too happy to have new additions to their team; whether or not the workers are newly qualified and therefore inexperienced, or are experienced professionals.  

Of course, when a team has an imbalance of inexperienced social workers, although that can result in more cases being marked as ‘allocated’, which might be one of their 'performance indicators, the level of risk for the inexperienced social worker and the team is enhanced, due to the fact that, in order to try to make up for the worker's inexperience, the team manager or other line-management staff with responsibility for supervising the basic grade social workers, will need to increase the amount of time they spend supervising these members of staff, including probably doing joint casework with them. 

Unfortunately, if they are not able to provide this additional support, the newly qualified and inexperienced social worker could soon find him/herself at sea, becoming quickly stressed out with too much work, too little time to do it properly, too little guidance and support and not enough experience and acquired skills to bring to their inchoate practice.

Any social worker and/team finding themselves in this 'dangerous practise situation', will be at increased risk of giving rise to poor social work practice. With an increased likelihood of, not only failing to provide their service-users with a good standard of service, but also the risk of failing to facilitate the effective safeguarding of the vulnerable children and families they are working with.  

This, of course, is definitely not the way a newly qualified social worker would want to start out on his/her post-qualifying social worker careers, which is why it is advisable for them to seek teams with experienced team managers, manageable caseloads, good and regular supervision and support, and stable teams. All of which can, oftentimes be at a premium for many social work teams, at various times in their team lives.

Being a social worker requires you to be calm, be a good listener and engager, and really wanting to make 'the difference' for the service-user. But first, you have to prepare yourself for the journey.