M606 crash

It's easy. We should get rid of all social workers apart from a few moved to the police to work on child abuse. The rest serve no purpose to society and are just a club of people who are on a good thing. They look for problems to solve where there are non that cannot be solved better without the input of social workers who seem to have a job to save by making situations worse to justify the profession

 

Honestly Trev, you are talking absolute nonsense.

Social workers perform vital roles in the fields of:
Child Protection
Adoption
Mental Health
Learning Disabilities
Older People

If you believe that social workers simply invent problems to solve with these groups then you are living in La La Land. Problems abound and are getting worse and more numerous because of the collapsing state of the economy and public services.
Who do you think should help all these people, if not social workers? As someone once said, 'If social workers didn't exist, we'd have to invent them'.

I can only assume that you have had some kind of bad experience with a social worker that has led you to make generalised, erroneous assumptions about what most actually do. Either that, or you have absolutely no clue about what they do and are simply making stuff up.

 

There are plenty of professionals who can do the job in the areas you mention without the interference of social workers who have built themselves a role and convinced the authorities that they are essential to help. Of course the authorities protect them because it saves them having to do the work they should be taking responsibilities themselves. But I am convinced we could manage without ,80% of them and be better off with more personal responsibility and more dedicated support for hard to deal with areas like the sure start centres but more specialised but general social workers done away with.
Oh and don't get me started with the NHS which provides the worst healthcare in Europe based on outcomes and has scandal after scandal as it kills hundreds of needless deaths every year. We have a sick nation not from the people but a sickness of those in government and services

 

This is possibly the worst take on anything I've heard in 2022...

Give your head a shake.

 

It's pretty clear Trev, bless him, is in a La La Land that likely ends at the bottom of the road he lives on.

 

I feel sorry for most social workers. Some are utterly useless, but you find that in all professions. The majority want to make a difference, unfortunately they find they are working with two hands tied behind their backs, clueless senior managers and policies that ultimately make the job near impossible to do. The systematic break up of family unity, parents not responsible for their kids and a society where we look to shift the blame for someone wrongs to others has left us more than ever with a fractured society. And there are some who think that overworked and overloaded social workers are somehow to blame.

 

I may have different ideas on societies ills but that does not warrant any insults on those views. We live in a sick society and more of the same is not the answer. We need radical ideas that we will not get from those with an interest on keeping the same. Take the N H S that polititions shout best in the world and on value for money it probably is.. But if you measure it on patient cures and services is probably the worst in Europe ranking 11th in patient outcomes yet this is never mentioned only that it is value for money ot mentioning it is cheap but poor. The same can be said with social work where we have over 300 local authorities each with a Director varies managers and offices to pay for. It needs radical change not more of the same. But of course anyone working in the profession will insult or denegrate anyone suggesting changes to the cosy life they have while those who deserve better care for those needing it

 

Regardless, I have to question your level of experience in the world as you seem to have drawn a completely random conclusion that social workers are a problem, rather than accepting the somewhat clear and obvious fact that they are (at this moment, with the chronic underfunding) a sticking plaster applied to a gangrenous limb.

They aren't the cause of any infection - and it's truly bizarre that you think that.

The idea they invent problems in a society so full of criminal levels of neglect and deprivation is absurd. If you have ever left your small world to shadow social workers then that would be interesting, but I honestly can't imagine your 'knowledge' of social workers and what they do is based on real world experience.

To put it shortly, you're just wrong on this, and that's taking into account that it's just an opinion and most opinions aren't wrong by definition. Yours, on social work, is.

 

Some of what Trevor says is unfortunately true and I agree with RT too. I've had a lot of direct involvement with child protection, not as a professional but regarding a family member. Some of the workers I've come across have caused absolute carnage before being moved on to do the same elsewhere no doubt. This in itself puts massive strain on the service and increases the workload on the next incumbent. On the other hand the good ones, and there are plenty are absolute diamonds and I wouldn't do their job for any amount of money.

 

We will have to disagree on this but have experience of social care work at a high level both managing and funding of it which there will never be enough. If you employed another 100 in a dept they would claim the workload needed more it is never enough. The damage some do far outweighs the good they do in my opinion which I am entitled to hold as you are yours but after 50 years of social work depts we are no better off as regards helping the unfortunate. Time for more radical thinking than defending a system that is broken and I'll set up

 

Well when you break down what we're both saying, it's clear that you're right that it will never be enough and it will never fix things for the less fortunate.

No one profession can ever do that, it's a fantasy, and it shouldn't be expected either.

Social workers in many cases are a kind of emergency service reacting to deprivation, which nobody wants or is able to fix, but I don't see how your conclusion can then be LESS is more.

It's embarrassing that social workers are required, but society is embarrassing.

Don't forget also that social workers aren't just busy bodies or child protection. There are plenty of vulnerable and disabled adults that get vital support. You wouldn't believe unless you've heard tales of how care homes wish to treat and neglect people in the name of business and bottom lines, and it's generally social workers that ensure things that should be done are getting done, while managers in those businesses manage everything else apart from real life experiences.

I'll never tell you all social workers are effective or that things are great the way they are, but as you can see, we're at polar opposite ends of the scale when it comes to what to do from here.

I take @Salty's points too, but we need much better funded social care and we need much less deprivation and we need much more balance in wealth distribution. Well you're never going to get the latter because people are self centered pricks and there's always something that you'd like that you can't afford, but we can certainly do better when it comes to finding social care.

If you think it's a poor service, then it's poor because of the lack of appetite for making it better.

 

It's not just about wealth distribution etc although I agree that there's a sickening element when you look at the top of the wealth tree, you don't need billions or even millions. A huge problem is our approach to mental health, or lack of. If you abuse yourself through lifestyle choices and get diabetes the system can't do enough for you. If you have a brain dysfunction through no fault of your own the help is very hard to come by and initial community based treatment isn't specialised enough and often hurts rather than helps. Our approach to mental health problems is disgraceful and unfortunately looking forward will only get worse which will increase the workload on social services

 

I don't really have a handle on this, as everyone I've known who has had mental health issues who contacted their GP has been offered support.

Anecdotally, I haven't seen this.

 

Mental health doctors and nurses do a very good job despite been neglected when it comes to funding it. It needs both a higher profile and better funding.

 

It's not the workers that's the problem, it's getting access to the right people appropriate to the condition. Something that not all GPs are good at evaluating, they can't be an expert in everything. The system doesn't help them to get patients the most appropriate referral. There are great practitioners around but it can be so hard to access them

 

OK, come then - which professionals exactly could do the job that social workers do in mental health? Or in Learning disabilities? Or in older people's services?
Be specific. If you're saying that social workers are unnecessary in these fields, tell us exactly who else can replace the work that SWs do and what credentials they have to do it.

And what exactly is this higher level experience that you have of managing and funding social work? Because from where I'm sitting it sounds like you have very little idea of what most social workers actually do and why their role is both essential and different from (eg) nurses and doctors.

 

The biggest problem in mental health services, apart from the appalling lack of funding, is the total domination of the medical model. Most people in mental distress get offered very little except a spurious, unscientific label/'diagnosis' and a bunch of pills which mask the distress but do nothing to actually deal with the issues contributing to the distress. Getting effective therapy is as rare as rocking horse shit. It's a disgrace.

 

To be fair, I'm sure there are a few social workers who would tell you that those managing them have no idea why their role is essential lol