Social Worker Took Her Own Life.- This could have been me.

https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2018/08/15/social-worker-took-life-stress-caused-work-arrangements-coroner-rules/

Behind the headlines is the story of 66 year old Annie Peel from Cumbria......In a nutshell, she found the pressure of the job intolerable and was facing competency intervention, two complaints and had a manager she did not like. She had had bouts of mental ill health before during her 28 year career...  Cumbria of course, considers "The health and wellbeing of all its staff to be of the utmost importance...continues to invest in the wellbeing of our workforce... " and the report helpfully includes contact details of The Samaritans, in case anyone is upset by it. 

This could have been me...I haven't been doing social work for 2.5 years now as I didn't want to put up with the craziness any more. I knew of an office which had 3 staff die in the course of a year, all stress related. One a young woman of 33 who had a brain tumour. It is sad, as when I started the job back in the 80's, it wasn't perfect but there was a recognition that the work was demanding and people had more realistic work loads and working hours...and I'm sure I did better work with families. 

This social worker who died was in her 60's, and didn't get the help she needed. I'm glad that the coroner made a clear link between her work and the stress that drove her to take her own life.   A Social Worker commenting on the article says "Younger management often bully older experienced staff. My experience is that older staff are not wanted and they certainly are not supported."  This is borne out in the original article.. Anni Peel wanted to move into a less demanding, lower grade job.  I assumed at first she wanted to move from being a social worker to being a social work assistant. Not so.

Annie Peel was a team manager who wanted to have less responsibility. She had how many social workers reporting to her directly or indirectly?  Most likely at least 20.  I know from experience that is very stressful.  At her age, and already with mental health issues in her history (most likely also work related, but that is not spelt out), why did her employers not accept that?  

She was a person who, according to the local paper,  "... had a great sense of humour that could lift spirits and colleagues and families alike held Annie in their affection. The shock of Annie's untimely death has been felt in the Carlisle teams but also across the county." I know so many social workers who might fit that description, How sad that her sense of humour was not quite enough to see the ridiculousness of her employers putting her through the machinations of capability rather than employ someone new and untried.  If her work was really that bad, why not move her along with dignity to a less arduous post?  At 66 this does not seem unreasonable... Why could this not happen?

But managers, even Directors are driven by political pressures including cost saving. And more than that, it is society's choice to prize the culture of "work till you drop and then some more", if it will save some money.  Will people actually pay for a service with enough staff?   The  employer preferred to persecute her, is how it reads.  Another commenter who gives her name as Anne Edwards... 

"Can there be anyone who has not experienced agonising panic attacks, huge anxiety and daily fear that something may go wrong. It is harder for older workers who may struggle more than younger people e.g. with computerised records or with the pace of work, especially if the person suffers from health issues ( more common as one ages)"   and one commenter says;
"I’m thoroughly ashamed sometimes to be associated with my own profession for failing in its duty of care to its own staff and being so frightened of the bogey man (Ofsted) that they fail staff and in turn children..."  This sounds like internalized oppression, experienced by persecuted minorities whose self respect is deeply eroded by the way they are treated so that they turn on themselves...

Although I have now been out of social work for 2.5 years, I have friends still there, and I know it is not improving.  But now I'm aware of the wider picture too.  The general acceptance of stress as normal part of working life.  Research in vast amounts highlights the link between stress and deterioration in physical and mental health. But in general  mainstream just ignores it with a bit of handwringing and tokenism. 

I think it's the first time I've read an article in commuity care highlighting this issue quite so clearly, often it's full of what social workers have got wrong etc... But I do think it is about a bigger picture of how we define being human,I feel we got besotted with computers and have misused technology so that it dehumanises as an agent of control.. It's so interesting that children in Silicon Valley are sent to a WALDORF school and are not given gadgets till age 11... it sounds remote from talking about stress in social work but there is a connection. You may know what I mean...? 

 I cannot really understand how it is that (speaking in shorthand) we think it is OK for a small number of people to half kill themselves working 60 plus hours a week whilst many many people have no work at all. Yet we are increasing the retirement age. And part time work is limited.And we complain about loneliness and poor care of the elderly and children not having empathy etc etc... and mental ill health and suicide rates amongst children.... 

Meditation, faith,  spiritual practice and other forms of self care etc kept me fairly sane through some challenging times.  Now I might teach meditation but it is a bit frustrating to see how we think it is OK to be frenetic most of the time, as long as we meditate! I may not have expressed this very clearly but I think there is a spiritual, as well as "merely" a health issuse. Yes it's definitely undervalued work and really,  how can stressed, fearful, shamed staff do good work with anyone? 

 I read a book called Whack-a-Mole: The Price We Pay For Expecting Perfection by David Marx, He begins by sharing a story from his own life about how he once did something quite dangerous at home, even though it was his job to be responsible for Health and Safety... It is a long while since I read it but it totally underlined the dangers of a blame culture. I doubt it was read by many social work managers...

 Condolences to Annie's family and I honour her for all the good work she did.  Such a shame to end not just her career, but her life. I am glad that Community Care is publishing this, so often it is reporting on the latest flaws and failings of staff.. and I am glad the Coroner made such a clear judgement.    How can we support each other in a system which is based on divide, intimidate and rule.  I think it needs to be something outside of social work and not just an Employee Wellbeing Service which Annie did not wish to use.   Annie Peel was a team manager who wanted to have less responsibility, why did her employers not accept that?  She was a person who, according to the local paper,  "... had a great sense of humour that could lift spirits and colleagues and families alike held Annie in their affection. The shock of Annie's untimely death has been felt in the Carlisle teams but also across the county."But managers even Directors are driven by political pressures including cost saving.  It is society's choice to prize the culture of work till you drop and then some more, if it will save some money.  Will people actually pay for a service with enough staff? 

That could have been me, but I didn't choose to stay in an exposed role like Team Manager, I didn't choose to stay as a hard pressed front line worker, and eventually I didn't choose to stay in any local authority social work job.  Life is different now, uncertain, challenging, but I'm not oppressed, shamed and harried on a daily basis.  I wish I could help those who are.
  
And I think I've needed 2.5 years to detox...It's not easy looking back at a working life much which was a case of surviving and maintaining sanity within a system designed, deliberately or not, to turn people into puppets. And in which I feel I wasted much of my creativity and potential.. But at least I am alive!  Annie Peel did not see a way through her current stressful situation and there, but by the grace of God, I did.

Shanay Walker.... Reflection. 2017

This was written while the press was reporting on Shanay's case,  back in  2017.

Looking through the reports from the Court, it is so sad. A 7 year old child, her life over and we don't know exactly what happened. Her aunt found guilty of cruelty. Not murder, not manslaughter, but cruelty.  I've decided to write a response. Shanay deserves that I take the time and do this.  Since the last post, I've had ups and downs.  Right now I feel differently about the job. I don't think I'll be doing it for many more years, and I've made peace with it in some way. And I'd like to contribute....

So here goes. 

I feel so sad for this child. I know as well there are going to be some anxious professionals, waiting for the inevitable finger pointing.  For Shanay was in foster care for  2 years, from the age of 3 and a half.  The foster carer told SW that Shanay was standing at the top of the stairs, saying that she was falling. The report says that the foster carer said it was all attention seeking. So what was the response? They put up a "Dog Gate" as a stair gate was not big enough.  

Why do we think that "Attention Seeking" explains anything?  Maybe a child seeks attention because they need attention!  Did anyone look below the label and look into whether the child needed help? It sounds like a classic symptom of trauma, to do something frightening, dangerous, in order to better cope with stress, to feel a little bit powerful, and yes, to get attention.  

Shanay was either Taken Away from or Handed Over by her mother. The reports use both phrases. It seems more likely that mother "handed her over" and mother was depressed and not able to cope. It looks like mother was white, or possibly mixed race.  Shanay spent 18 months in foster care. Things had to progress...

You can imagine the conversations in the office. "We need to enure permanence for her, she can't be in foster care for ever.  She's a slightly older child, we have to consider a carer within the family if we can. 

The aunt is offering to look after her.  Paternal aunt. Shame father is in prison but at least it's family and Grandmother will help.  She's only 21 but what is the alternative? Long term foster care- that's not ideal. She is a bit too old to be adopted. We have to decide." So an assessment was no doubt done, maybe it was a good one, maybe not. The mindset would be to look for the good points. Keep the child at the same school, keep the child in the family circle, reduce the number of children "looked after".  Under a Special Guardianship Order the case can close after a couple of years. Not when a child is looked after.  

Grandmother was charged with cruelty to Shanay and found not guilty. But she was found guilty on other charges of cruelty. she was questioned about her own background. Punishment was by beating, which she said she stopped when she came to the UK, and also "peppering" ie putting pepper on a girl's vagina as a punishment for having sex.  She herself had been raped and the aunt and her twin sister were the result of rape. Kay Ann came to this country at 13.  Both she and her sister were angry with their mother about their childhood.   Grandmother says that at 3 a m on 31st, maybe 30th July, her daughter Kay Ann phoned her and said "I love you." Grandmother said she never tell me that.... I knew something was wrong." 

Lately I've been reading a lot of assessments and think to myself, where is the history?  We don't seem to look into family history properly any more.  Did someone do this in Nottingham?  Was the background thoroughly considered? I don't need to wait for a Serious Case Review to reflect on the importance of having an indepth understanding of a family background. Of course, maybe they did. And on the other hand, this was a church going family, and I think somewhere it says that Kay Ann aspired to join the police. She offered herself as a carer. 

We all know the saying, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. We want families to take responsibility, we don't want expensive legal battles, we get criticized for having raised the bar too high in terms of what we expect of carers. Someone, somewhere ( several someones) will have said, we are OK with this. There can be a support package, we'll keep an eye on things. The risks are low.  Yes, we have processes and procedures and planning is done, we hope, thoroughly. 

Then, there were the reports from school.  The bruises. The burn. The "can't go swimming, chlorine makes her hair fall out.". Aunt's righteous anger about the child being spoken with by an "unofficial" Safeguarding Officer, a Classroom Assistant. Aunt being "intimidating".  Shanay explaining things. Not always in the same way, but she seemed to have a loving relationship with her aunt....Investigations took place. A multi agency meeting, agreeing to close the case a month before she died. 

Someone asked me yesterday, how could this happen?  

All too easily.  We have this naive belief that children are going to tell us the truth, verbally, if there is a problem.  Shanay was saying things were OK, and the social worker observed a loving relationship. But at school, much more familiar territory, they observed something else.  Behaviour that showed a complete alteration in the child, who by all accounts was bubbly and lively.  But not around her aunt... The teaching assistant said 

"I remember at the end of the day, when conversation took place with Kay-Ann, Shanay would stand there with her head down, slightly rocking and saying 'yes' and 'no'."

Did the social worker get told about this body language?  Was this often observed?  At times, Shanay did talk about the punishments at home.  

"Between July 2012 and July 2014 witnesses said Morris:

• Threw Shanay into a wall after she stole water.
• Dragged her by the hair.
• Put clothes in Shanay's mouth if she wore the wrong thing.
• Forced Shanay to eat things she did not want as a punishment after she had stolen food.
• Told Shanay to repeatedly run up and down stairs."

(http://www.nottinghampost.com/shanay-walker)

We don't know, yet, how often these were reported but it is sad to think that this was a child who was an "open" case. People were meeting about her still, just a month before she died.  They genuinely believed things had improved, there is no mention she was ever on a Child Protection Plan. It seems no one thought there was a significant risk of harm. 

How is it then, that reading the journalist's reports, it all seems so glaringly obvious and to raise so many questions. 

Such as- 

Were the school's concerns taken seriously? 

Was the child listened to, not just her verbal communication but her "bodytalk?"

Why did mother have so little contact and were her concerns listened to? 

Did the assessments which no doubt were done, really explore her family background?  (How often would we talk in depth to a grandmother who is not the main carer? Would the daughters feel too much loyalty to say to a social worker what life was really like for them, even if they did feel anger towards their mother?

How much support did Ms Kay Ann Morris get? She did not, it seems to me, start out with bad intentions towards her niece. Her text to Ms Walker says "I'm sorry, I was not strong enough."  Not strong enough to be a firm but loving carer...not strong enough to protect her from an attack by someone else, not strong enough to control her own rage. 

Was there good management oversight, reflective supervision, a manageable workload, clear guidance?  

But I don't think the questions are just about social work. The neighbours who heard and saw the worrying signs. They were shown the child and told she was OK, so did they decide not to "report".- more than likely. None of us like interfering in other people's business. Maybe they knew her, knew she had taken in her niece and it was not easy.  The Teaching Assistant found Ms Morris intimidating. Perhaps the neighbour did too. Perhaps the social worker did.  We are so lacking in self awareness, generally speaking, that we may not know that fear of looking silly or fear of being shouted at by someone with a strong personality might get in the way of doing what we really know to be right.  As professionals, it's even more possible, because we are supposed to know better!  I wonder, though, how easy it would be for a social worker to admit in supervision to feeling nervous or frightened by a client. It's different if they are labelled dangerous, that's acceptable. For a social worker to own the feeling is possibly not so acceptable.  I'm troubled about Shanay going into a shop at 9pm and asking for a drink. Taking a can of fizzy drink. And was anyone concerned about this little girl out and about in her pyjamas? Did anyone think it was strange?  

It seems the shop assistant simply told her she had to pay, which presumably she could not. 

I think, Shanay,  we have to look at how our society is. And make some changes so we don't lose children like you in future. 

I'm sorry for you, but I know you're actually in a better place now. I don't happen to believe that the end of the physical life is the end. I have a sense of you, laughing and singing and dancing, happy and free!  Maybe you were sent to earth for this particular mission. Part of the Wake Up call, come back to Love.   You did your bit and suffered and died.  Thank you for how you've touched me, somehow, and how your unbroken spirit was recognized by the Judge.   

I feel sorry for your social worker, foster carers, managers, everyone in Nottingham who will be facing a difficult time in the next year.  I hope that people will seek to identify mistakes not to have a witch hunt!  I hope that there will be compassion and wisdom in the probing and empathy with those who are subjected to it.  I hope that everyone involved, the neighbours, the shop keeper, the school, extended family...thinks what could I do to prevent this happening again? 

I feel sorry for your mother. She had problems and could not cope. No doubt she is blaming herself and others. I hope she can find forgiveness for herself and for others. She missed out on something special with you. 

I feel sorry for grandmother, brought up in a way that somehow will always seem right to her. Crossing an ocean does not mean changing your mind. And we don't do a lot to change hearts and minds in our culture. 

I feel sorry for Kay Ann Morris.  Someone out of her depth is how it seems. She meant well, at least she had a sense of duty, and may simply not have been able to cope or to admit that.  And that might be what she really meant when she said: "I was not strong enough." 

I am going to remember you and maybe, just maybe, do my job in a different, better, stronger way. 

The Beginning of The End? Or Hitting the Ground Running!

This week I handed in my notice. Hallelujah! Celebrations....! But wait a minute...Yesterday, just as the week ended and at the end of a very arduous and irritating day on duty, my team manager said "She who must be obeyed (he used her name but that's the gist of it) says you might not be able to finish so soon." He added that I can't count on being able to carry leave over to next year. I said: "So you are saying I have to take my leave this month, and come back and finish out my notice in April?"
He looked a bit confused, I felt my irritation surge, and I said, let's not discuss this now on a Friday at 6.30pm. We'll talk about it on Monday.
He said, just make sure you sort out your leave on Monday as you could lose it.
The day had been a real drag. I had not slept well, thinking about the work, finishing, the new job...but usually good will sees me through even if I am tired.
Today though, I discovered the system has changed. We now do have to do real Duty. This has not been the case before but now any query from a school has to be dealt with by a social worker. This was not explained by the Duty manager, and nor did he explain how to complete a contact form or whether he wanted a recommendation attached. As is usual in this Borough, just work it out for yourself, bother someone else if you have to, don't expect clarity or discussion. So the work of duty was quietly doubled, less time for our own work. I expect my non meeting of deadlines will reflect this, and managers will quietly "forget" that they made this change and that it has a knock on effect.
Much of the time I was the only social worker in the office, I took 3 full referrals and several other things and had no time in between to write them up or have a proper lunch break. By the time I took the 3rd on the trot I was quite bemused and did not ask all the questions I could, should, would have. The TM's response was a kind of surly blamingness. He also is tired and stressed. I said, look, it's 3 pm and I have had no break, I am going to make mistakes. I find my patience is almost exhausted with the system's exploitative and dictatorial processes. I looked up "Bullying at Work" and came across the ACAS leaflet about it. I am pretty sure I could make a reasonable case about my experience of work in this LA. One of the forms of bullying listed is


 "deliberately undermining a competent worker by overloading and constant criticism" 

Yes, that rings quite true. Sadly it is the culture of the office.

I know my TM tries to be nice, some of the time, but he surely is not a nice person when he is on Duty.  A colleague had a meeting arranged in the morning, the room booked was too small, and when He found out about it, he said "Why did you do that?" in his usual accusing tone when he discovers a mistake.  As if someone would set out deliberately to book the wrong size room.  My colleagues are all becoming increasingly irritated by the tension and the workload. Even the NQSW, who is so willing, effective and dedicated, told me she was reassured that I was leaving to do another job in social work as it gave her hope that other LAs could be different.
Anyway, after hearing the news about my leave, I left the office in a fairly rancid mood. I was thinking that without massive and unappreciated good will on the part of the staff, the job would not get done. After all as we told our Director this week, we are working 50 to 60 hours per week as a matter of course.
Near the station, with all of this circling round in my brain, I fell. Hard. Suddenly I slipped or tripped, I don't quite know, and felt my face land hard on the pavement. Ouch!! The impact was mainly on my nose and forehead. I looked up expecting to see a gush of blood and a pair of shattered glasses.
There was neither. I was amazed, dazed and in some pain. A passer by had stopped and asked if I was OK, saying she had "felt that." I got up, shaken and continued to the station.
Still no bruises to day and hardly a sign that anything happened. But it does give me pause for thought.
Was it because I felt like smashing someone's face in? (eg my team leader) or because I was just tired and distracted?
I don't know. But I know that I am prepared to assert myself about this leaving business. And I know I don't have the energy or the good will to work more than about 40 hours a week. And why should I? Oh and I got a couple of new cases yesterday as well.

So a letter is composing itself about my leaving.

Dear So and So,
I am leaving work in a month's time from 8th March when I handed in my notice. I have 5 -10 days leave to take.  I am paid to work 37.5 hours per week. I won't get TOIL so I won't work any extra hours from now on. Have a look at this article if you wonder why. I will write up the assessments I have done and will do. I will leave clear notes about what needs to be done but I will only work the hours I am paid to work.
And if you do not like it, you can whistle. As bosses go, you are pretty vile and that's the truth. I almost wish I had had more courage, stood up to you more. But I wanted to keep on the right side of you and get a half decent reference, and I am not the only one. So you  don't get to hear the truth, which is- it's been a nightmare job and I am going to need recovery time.
I'll take advice from an HR expert, or I will take legal advice, but I won't be bullied or blackmailed into unreasonable and ridiculous amounts of work.  If you really care about the children of this Borough, then employ enough social workers to meet the need. And get some sane systems and sane people to run them.
Yours etc etc.

And I think there is an undercurrent of disappointment that having spoken quite frankly to the Director, in a meeting he set up earlier in the week, there has not been any sign of  a response or an intervention to improve things. He was very pleasant, murmured sympathetically, but still accepts that this team will work almost twice its contractual hours to ensure a service is provided, and will be criticized for its inevitable shortcomings as it tries to do so. Not very impressive. Still, I trust for me this is the beginning of the end of a nightmare.
I'm Leaving You.

PS I decided that this is not the place to talk about the spiritual dimension of my work and/or life, and that that needs to have it's own space. . This one will focus on the job and I started another one to explore the spiritual journey. I'm excited about creating a kind of dialogue between these blogs...see the other one here!

Saturday Sanctuary

Another week over, another couple of days respite. It's been a while since I wrote anything here. Sometimes it's just very hard to find the place in myself to write from. Since I started sharing the blog, maybe I am too self conscious, wanting to look good, even when I don't feel good!

The truth is that recently my boss has been reading assessments I wrote in November and December and is not always very happy with them. The agency expects an OFSTED inspection any time now and the pressure on us to dot the "i's" and cross the "t's" is so high.

My colleague/ friend I mentioned not too long ago handed in her notice. She doesn't have a job to go to, but with all the pressure and the lack of support she just could not tolerate being scrutinized and judged. It's so hard to see because I know there is another side to the story. Perhaps her work really is not up to scratch. I doubt that very much,having worked with her over a period of 2 years previously and not heard any complaints!  I am not sure my own work is really no better, I may just have had a slightly more supportive manager.  Or because I am older and look like a very typical social worker, I get a bit more rope than my rather more glamorous, younger colleague!

I just wish she (and I) had had a bit more real support. For example, to be sent out with the "best" social workers in our first week or two, (ie those who apparently manage to meet all the deadlines),  to have an induction designed for the job and not a vague, go and read and get on with it sort of thing. After all 5 of us were starting at the same time, it would have been worth planning for us properly! I wish we'd been made familiar with scanning documents so that it was automatic before we ever saw a client. I wish that there was a 1 day training on how to do the initial assessments in the most effective and efficient way.  Instead, what has happened is basically we have been left to sink or swim.

Out of the people who started with me,  my friend has "sunk". I have "sunk", with my head occasionally bobbing up above the water. Another is leaving for family reasons but is clear that she thinks there is a huge management issue.  Another is going to do her level best to get through the probation period, and then will relax. She is angry, disillusioned and taking a good deal of sick leave and all the annual leave she can.

She made the point the other day that everyone is so busy they don't record the extra hours they work. She said that this means there is no evidence for how much we are working, as far as management are concerned. And of course she is right.And the other who started with us is also falling behind, starting work at 5.30 am and working far into the night to try to keep up. This person has a work permit and a loan from the Council so has very limited options. Like at least 6 other social workers out of 14.

It is just mindboggling how the job actually is. The bureaucracy that slows everything down and is so frustrating for clients and staff. On Thursday I got 3 or 4 emails from my manager wanting things added to or changed in some assessments from November. I can hardly remember the cases, now I have to "resurrect" them and do more work, on top of current work............

Thursday was a very difficult day. I felt completely thrown off kilter. With so many urgent things to do, I literally could not think straight. I tried to work faster, and was the last person in the office at 9pm. I did not even notice that it had snowed. I had the thought that I could just have stayed there and worked all night, or been stranded by the snow, unable to get home. No one would have noticed.

Every week or so, there is a list sent round with assessments that are out of date. My name was never on it till after Christmas, now there are 4 or so. Of those, some I have done the required visits but not had time to write up, some I forgot to copy and paste to a sibling.  But with the amount of work coming in now, I do not know how I will catch up.  What to do?

I got home at 10pm on Thursday evening, stressed and tired. I did not sleep well and in the morning really thought about taking the day off sick. But I had an appointment arranged with a reluctant client, one which we had actually discussed and I did not want to risk missing it.  On the way to the train station she rang to say she would not be there. I almost went back home but decided to carry on. I still felt so reluctant to get in that I did go and have a cup of coffee and phoned a social work friend.  Her job is better paid, much less stressful and it is agreed she can work from home two days a week.  It sort of helped to know that a similar team in a different Local Authority is a happy place to work!

When I got to the office at 11 am, ( 2hours Time Off In Lieu) I was told a client had presented herself to a social work office in another area. She had no money for her two children and half term was imminent.  To cut a long story short, my whole day from 11 am to 7pm consisted of dealing with that one situation, with just a few calls on another "old" case, one discussion with a GP about a baby,  and a lunch break of 45 minutes.

The final phone call in relation to the case was from the client I spent most of the day working on so that the case could transfer to the other LA.  If I'd been expecting gratitude I would have been sorely disappointed.  She phoned at 6.30pm basically to demand that she gets reimbursed for a payment she made to a playscheme and to tell me how glad she is that she will be dealing with another Local Authority. Lovely end to the week. And all the urgent things (which are to do with children's lives) which had freaked me out the previous day? Not a chance even to think about them.  But yesterday evening at home I did re do my weekly to do list, so that I can start again on Monday with a bit of clarity.

The inner story though is quite interesting.I've moved it to my ACIM space.

Peace and Mental Health.

I am studying A Course in Miracles.  I don't find it easy to admit how important it is to me,  and how I feel my mind changing now. But the Urtext is something else! A kind of practical commentary on the teaching of the course. The word "miracles" is a bit misleading. The Miracles are to do with shifts in perception rather than feeding the five thousand. It makes it sound like a flaky thing, want to learn to turn water into wine?
Especially to a down to earth social worker, who needs to be very pragmatic...
But reading in the Urtext about peace and mental health, it is very clear how the Course "scribes" were psychologists! Peace actually IS mental health and what the Course says seems very relevant to my personal journey and also in thinking about social work and clients.
"Peace is an attribute in YOU. You cannot find it outside. All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without, and capable, through your own miracles, of correcting the external conditions, which proceed from lack of love in others."
Time, almost, to think about this in my life and in a client's life. For example the young mother who needs to detox, and has an 11 year old daughter who does not have anyone to support her or offer her a place to stay for a few weeks. 
I don't know the answer. My first response is to feel stressed and inadequate.  Then to do more assessment. What if there is another way to look at all of this? 
Young mother is convinced that without moving to a particular area, her life is doomed. She is convinced she needs to detox from 15g of diazepam.   She blames her daughter for getting in the way of her recovery and says so loud and clear. Mother and daughter love each other but resent one another too. 
What if young mother were not so fixated on the solutions she has in her mind? What if she let go of detox, and began to make staying calm and and at peace within, her main goal? What if she surrendered the need to make things happen the way she thinks they should, and she could be happy anyway?

Perhaps the problems would just vanish and a new solution would emerge. 

Well, she and her daughter would not need a social worker. And if it's true what I wrote about yesterday, that in Reality all is perfect, than the so called problems are not Real.

It feels amazing and liberating to write this. That this is the first step of spiritual social work. 

Problems are not Real. 

Everything that is confusing, upsetting, painful for my clients and myself is not Real. It is an absence of Love, and in young mother's case, her inner experience is of fear and lack of peace. So the first great gift I can offer, is to be Peace and to see Peace as her true state of being. 

Of course all the problems seem very real and difficult. But at a soul level, they are just clouds of nothingness. 

And maybe I've taken a very important step with this seeing...the first step of what I came into the world to do...spiritual social work.  It's just spiritual problem solving. I can't make young mother change her mind but I can see the truth of her being and everything flows from that. I hold to Peace and don't get sidetracked into making her problem into a very big deal. 

For the first time, I see the invitation to do this with all the situations at work. Seeing her mental pain, remembering the Soul and seeing it's beauty. 

A  new vision of social work....which IS at one with my spiritual path. Where I and my clients are on the same side, whether we know it or not. 

At 3.53 a m again.

I hoped for 7 hours sleep tonight, so far I had 4. Then I'm awake and a to do list forms constantly in my mind. I am mildly anxious. Not a good state of mind, it's not well being, or Heaven! Oh and it's guilt as well as I have not done some, in fact many, things I should have done. Some are not that important, and if they never get done it will make no difference. Others could change a child's life.
Richard Wilson made a programme about our modern world, its use of technology and how that affects us. He did a section where he was dealing with a Call Centre. Waiting for a person to answer, getting the usual runaround. His heart rate was tested and it rose measurably, indicating stress. I wondered what would happen if this was done to me or other social workers during our working day!
One of the reasons for my anxiety/guilt feelings is that I have supervision today. How much do I say? Do I mention that "case" from November that I simply have not got round to? It is a case with a "shouty" mother, possibly neglect and certainly non cooperation. At least I met the girl on her own doorstep.It's one of those chronic situations with a lot of inertia all round.
I find getting a basic assessment done is one thing. Following through with actions is another. And we now have a new requirement that we have to do chronologies and genograms on any case we want to transfer. In fact we need to know so much about those cases that it amounts to practically a core assessment. Which is what we are transferring it for. It makes me think twice about transferring. This is probably what is intended, as we do only initial assessments allegedly. But if a case (that is a child, of course) needs more help, we have to do more work to be able to access the team that gives the help. Or try to do it ourselves, which means more things to do. Either way it is more work, without more hours in the day, and all the while being told this is normal for intake,you are inadequate if you cannot do it.
Aha, a deep breath, relaxation. Remembering who I AM.  Not this restless mind listing its tasks, condemning itself, fearing judgement. This is a feeling, a state of mind, ego mind. It's wonderful work for someone on a spiritual path, as there is so much that ego can feed on! Many excuses to feel bad, punish myself, and at times have the outer world punish me too!
But through the a different lens, what do I see?  Well, sometimes I glimpse the reality in my clients. Yesterday, there was the woman who wants a  better life for her four sons, and she could easily be judged because of the wider family and the family history. She has created a loving home, and it's a long time since I saw children sitting round a table having a home cooked meal together. Of course this might well be for my benefit but there was a gentleness about these boys which tugged at my heartstrings. I liked, no, loved them all and their brave mother.
 This week I have been so busy seeing people that there has not been time to do the writing up. And I have been trying out a new approach to doing the assessments, which will clarify things but it takes time to get used to it. The fearful thought it "I will never catch up." That is my social work reality, I will never catch up, never have time to do all the things I would love to do, and hardly have time to do the things I must do.
Remember the Reality beyond all this striving and busy-ness, the Reality beyond the parents who let their children down, and the system that creates impossible demands. Rest for a while, in the embrace of Reality where everything is already perfect. Done completely. Imagine that! Nothing to do. Perfect.

I am, O Anxious One. Don't you hear my voice
surging forth with all my earthly feelings?
They yearn so high, that they have sprouted wings
and whitely fly in circles round your face.
My soul, dressed in silence, rises up
and stands alone before you: can't you see?
don't you know that my prayer is growing ripe
upon your vision as upon a tree?

If you are the dreamer, I am what you dream.
But when you want to wake, I am your wish,
and I grow strong with all magnificence
and turn myself into a star's vast silence
above the strange and distant city, Time.

From 'Ahead of All Parting:
The Selected Poetry and Prose of Rainer Maria Rilke'
Edited and Translated by Stephen Mitchell

From a lovely website http://allspirit.co.uk/rilkeiam.html

Down to Earth with a Bump...?

It was all going so well! Since Christmas, I had a shift to a new perspective and way of being at work. So different. I was quite at peace and happy that everything was going to work out and it did not matter what happened...so long as I was doing the best I could and trusting in grace to supply the difference.
But yesterday I met my colleague/ friend Y and she was so upset. She has been told by management that she is basically not up to the mark. And I feel disturbed, that she has been given no support, just this cold, dismissive reaction. I know she is working hard. I know also that it's so much easier to criticize and pick out the failings than to be on the front line doing the work.
I feel angry that she is treated this way. And angry that I also got pulled up about having blank sections in my assessment. There is too much work, it is that simple. But then, as Y says she was told, some people manage it. Yes, some people do. So everyone should.
I feel guilty that I haven't been treated like this, and guilty that by "managing it" or seeming to, I can be pointed to by management who say, she can cope. What management say is realistic, is realistic. There is a power struggle, with management saying the workload is doable, and staff saying "It is not" but somehow seeming to cope. Those who do not seem to cope will suffer the consequences. The power struggle of whose definition of reality is valid.
This sparks off a kind of rage and helplessness.
It seems thoroughly unethical to me. To be able to give someone a bad reference after 3 months in a job which they have been dumped on and given an impossible workload...Making it difficult for them to move on.  Not to mention the fear that this management style induces in the whole team.
On the same day comes the news that Essex council have to pay millions in compensation to the victims of child abuse. Their social workers did not intervene to protect some children whose father was known to have abused other children and they were subject to years of abuse.
Of course that is very sad. But to penalize a council in that way, with the ripple effect on how its social workers are perceived and how social work is generally perceived...seems a strange response. Where does the buck stop? This culture of entitlement costs society very dear. That money could have gone into training, investment (possibly in more social workers) with a "good will payment" and public apology to the individuals, and support to help them rebuild their lives. Now I as a social worker know that any individual can sue my employer for my mistakes....And the motivation for the work becomes fear, not love. If I am not very careful!
I woke again at 4 am to write this. Not the best preparation for a day which includes two potentially difficult visits to clients one of whom has already shouted at me down the phone.
Do I feel centered?  Do I feel at peace?  It feels like, back to the real world with a bump. And yet....I talk about the other reality here.

Supposing

Not so much a post, more a poem. Still grappling with a whole different foundation for work. I know there are rational, pyschological challenges but something in me has shifted in relation to the job....and these lines express the sense of possibility. I don't know how it will work out in practical terms and I do know that it is a challenge to live, love and work like this but I am now willing, open to grace, and listening to the Voice for Life within me.

Supposing.

Supposing I really did my job as an expression of love.
Supposing when I set out to visit a client, I intend to be a channel of love.
Supposing I intend to bless them, without ever using the word.
Just suppose.
Supposing I regard every parent, every colleague, every manager, every child, and myself
as being an essential piece in the Cosmic Jigsaw.
Would I start the week with a different attitude?
Would I be grateful for the opportunities I have to serve?
Would I be confident that I will be able to make a difference?

Supposing that every problem is a call for more love,
and that every problem has a solution, because love cannot fail.

What if my real task is to allow a miracle of love to unfold,
quietly, powerfully, peacefully.

What if all I need to do is say, yes, I am willing...
and I forgive
the system
the frantic busyness,
the open plan office,
the ridiculous bureacracy,
the faults and failings of others....
Because I know that they are just human beings too,
on a journey as I am.

What if I remembered
that everyone can be stressed, frightened, tired, and disheartened.

How would I speak then?
What would I say?
What would I do?

Supposing I am blessed to know who I really am...
How would my work change?
How would my life change?

I wonder if there is no need to suppose any longer....?

 Supposing it is no longer possible to dream or hope,
What then?     (Update 18.08.18)

Launching out...2012

It's been a while since my last post. I reached a point where I did not want to write the same old stuff. Also, there was a challenge in my life, a spiritual challenge.  Most of my life I've been on a spiritual quest. It was something I shelved for a while. God wasn't doing what I wanted, I was overwhelmed and angry at work. Then glimmers of light appeared and I realized I would have to start being explicit about all of this in this blog or it was not going to be authentic.
This was scary. I've had a spiritual life, which had truckled along on its own track, and a social work/ reality life,which was on its own track. They were on seemingly parallel lines, so that you won't find much mention of spirituality until a couple of posts ago. But in late November I knew.... nope, can't carry on writing at any depth about my job, without including the spiritual aspect.
That means the blog might not be just about my social work reality any more, but my whole life reality. So should I start another blog? Or just allow this one to be spiritual? What does it matter?
OK, that is just picking up the threads, I explore it a bit more here.
So yesterday I was walking to a client's home. I had a choice of ways, since I did not know if her house was at one end of the street or the other. I chose what I thought was the right way. I realized it was probably not the shortest way. But I passed a shopfront for a bereavement charity, went in and got some leaflets. I was thinking this was a bit silly....I could get the information online. Still, the leaflets were tucked into my bag...
I did the interview with the client and she mentioned that her father had died some years ago and she still found it hard....I was surprised and felt so reassured. I hadn't known this would be an issue for this client, but my Higher Self/ Holy Spirit did and I felt I'd been prepared. So I left her with a leaflet....
The whole day, I was at times asking to be guided. I have so many cases, I have to trust that I will have nudges about things. In fact one of the big shifts in my consciousness is to accept the system is crazy. There is no point in resenting that. It is what it is. And I can choose to align myself with peace, joy and the will of God,  no matter how the craziness is playing out around me. That is the challenge I have somehow accepted now. It is so strange how a burden has lifted, and I feel like I am on a path now, not just going round in circles. Not before time....and probably just at the right time.
So from now on, this will be a focus of this blog....spirituality and social work in my life.

Not 4 a m again!

Yes it is. Once again I am awake at 4 am, with thoughts of the myriad undone tasks buzzing about like bees. Which one will end up stinging me? Is any client at risk through what I am doing, or not doing?  I quickly gave up on my work organization system, it's too cumbersome, and too time consuming. I have just concentrated on getting things done, but with a mushrooming caseload it's a nightmare.

How to keep track of old cases I have mentally finished with but they are still open to me for one or more bureaucratic tasks... When I have new cases to go and visit and new checks to get done. It is a nightmare. I feel as if I am doing two jobs, one is vaguely like social work, the other is the relentless paperwork which could be done by almost anyone who can print out a letter or fathom how to send a fax via the telephone, when the system saves documents in a format which it won't deal with as a fax. This makes getting information from GPs, for instance, quite a palaver.

Yesterday I went for a coffee with a colleague who is under serious pressure from her manager, she described a lot of nit picking which seems designed to cause her to lose confidence and possible move on from the job. Picking her up on things...

How rare that conversation was! One hour of real discussion. We joined at the same time, have been quite close, and this is the first time we really spoke. I cried,  what has become of this profession? So many managers really seem to enjoy the power they have and it is not combined with compassion.

When I think of the time wasted on our induction, when surely we should have been set up with the tools and information we need to do the job, but weren't! But there is a corporate requirement for that 2 week induction so something had to be done. It included days of reading time and going to find places like the Job Centre. Not how to use ICS, or adjust to working in a paperless environment....for example.

So we are still scrabbling around trying to find out stuff like how to send an email to the police.Learning all these systems, when I am busy and stressed. So emotionally unintelligent. It was another worker who send me a step by step guide to sending this email, which is a fundamental part of the child protection process, not business support or managers.

I am looking for another job, and I want out of statutory social work. It is not a good place to be.

Sunday Extra

"My only advice......is to merely accept where you are. Granted, its not ideal, but accept it and surrender to it. Realize this is where you are. It may not be what you want long term, but by focusing on the future and what you want changed, you actually make your present moment worse. So stop, look at where you are, know it won't last forever, and accept it. Find the beauty in it. Find how much it means to help your family for instance. Find how much it means to be healthy and happy and not one of those dependent and unable to help themselves.

The more you appreciate where you are, the more quickly you can change your circumstances.

Remember...that which you resist, persists."

This is a quote from a site I belong to online....inspired by a spiritual teacher called Mike Dooley.  I have belonged to it for a long time, but hardly ever look into. I "dropped in" in a casual way, on my way to writing here again. It's 4.39 am and I woke up with thoughts of work, and life....so time to write again.  

Yesterday I emailed a good friend about my decision to do some work at home. She responded that it was a good decision and commented..."what we resist, persists." I felt that kind of "ouch" of recognition. I certainly have resisted the idea of working at home and also much of the job, I resist!  

So  when I came across the same quote on this web forum I knew, yes, it's important to explore this. No coincidence here! This is my personal journey, and social work is the "work" bit of my reality. It's true I've had a lot of grumbles and complaints but the thing is, it's not just work, it's life. And I was conscious this week of how being angry may feel empowering in the short term, but how does it affect others? And how does it square with my values and aspirations?


So as it's a Sunday, I want to write about spirituality and life and social work. Yes, I think there are issues about how the job is organized now. I think that it is quite a crazy system. But it is also true that it is what it is and it is likely to be the same for some time. I am in no different a situation than many people who find themselves today doing work they'd rather not, for less than adequate pay. The details may be different but that's the nub of it. 


No different to the person stuck in a loveless marriage, or in a burdensome caring role, or with a physical disability......or with debts.....the stuck, burdensome situation looks different for each person but it has that characteristic of seeming unchangeable and relentless. 


I have a situation where, to keep up with my not very inspiring work, it makes sense to do more of it, in my "free" time, in order to stay on top of recording and producing assessments. Either I do that, or I spend time and energy feeling anxious, worried and trying to remember details from days ago.  Until now, I have resisted this aspect of my job. 


Yesterday, I did some of that dreaded extra work. It was not so bad, from 4.30pm to 8 and then another 20 mins during ad breaks to finish off whilst my favourite TV show was on.  And now, the bones of a weeks work are more or less written up. 


I was grateful to my friend for what she wrote. I have been an intense spiritual seeker all my life, and finding myself in the one situation which I did not want (back in statutory social work) is a huge challenge to my faith. I have had the idea that my life would change radically, outwardly, and I would escape the drudgery of the job...again.  And start my real life, where I could show what a truly wonderful spiritual being I am. 


But the truth is, I need to live now in a way that expresses who I really am. I've been aware that the anger and resentment that I feel have an impact at work. They affect my colleagues and clients too.  They don't see the inside, the "why" of what I feel, they see, and sense, an energy of anger and negativity. 


I still feel it a dilemma though. If I let go of the resentment and be in harmony with what is.....does that not let "the system" off the hook?  And if I can be joyful in the job, doesn't that mean that it's OK for everyone? 


There is a spiritual law here, "what you resist, persists." After all, Viktor Frankl was in a concentration camp but chose to "say yes to life."  It is easy to say yes when life hands us the bowl of cherries. But perhaps life will hand only the lemons....lemons of long working hours, open plan offices,  pressing deadlines.....all the things I've struggled with. Can I accept this lemons and in some way transform them?  Allow them to be what they are and yet transform them into something beautiful? 


Some time ago, I gave a talk on moving from Trauma to Triumph in life. I said to my manager this week, it's been traumatic. And it has. Trauma is fundamentally about separation. I think I have fully experienced that stage. Now it's time to move on. I have said it how it is.....I know that the acceptance is vital and means I can begin to be kind to myself and remember, there is a journey from Trauma to Triumph, no matter what the circumstances.


So yesterday I went shopping and bought a project book, in which I can organize each case, with its own to do list. A small step of acceptance. This is what I need to do for myself to be on top of the job. I wrote case notes at home, in a relaxed way....a step of acceptance. And I accept the need to do the job without complaining to colleagues in the office. It does none of us good, when I complain.

It feels good to have reconnected with the spiritual side of life in a way that includes the job! Remembering that my life, my particular life, is about being joyful, no matter what.  Joy that is based on the fundamental goodness of reality, no matter how it appears.  I have the opportunity to do that in the challenging world of social work. Maybe it is even a blessing. And what I resist, will persist!

Saturday Sanity

The last post was written at one of my lowest points and I might end up deleting it.  It came about purely through tiredness and trying to do too much. Two visits in a day is enough. It does not sound like much, but these are intensely demanding visits, quite often to clients who are angry, puzzled and resistant. It takes an emotional toll and there has to be recovery time. Otherwise I will become overwhelmed, confused and arrive at clients' homes with a mind full of information which I have not had a chance to process as the system requires.
I have just about  decided that it is not possible to maintain a normal work life balance and do this job. There is so much writing up to do and so little time to do it, with all the other tasks that have to be done in terms of contacting other professionals, making referrals, sending out letters, uploading correspondence.....these take all my time. Actually writing up the assessments is not difficult, if I don't leave it for a week after the visit.
So this weekend I am going to do some work at home. And if the TV is on in the background, never mind!  Then I can copy and paste at the office, amidst the hubbub, and do "bitty" work, admin and phone calls at the office. At least at home I have peace and quiet, and pleasant surroundings.
I will keep track though, of just how many hours I am doing this for, and it is an adjustment I've resisted as it is an erosion of free time. But it is pointless having free time in which I get worried and stressed just remembering all that I have to do.
I had supervision yesterday and I do like my manager, which helps. I think if he knows I am trying, he will be as kind as he can about piling on the pressure. But as he says, he is not in charge of allocation to his team. It just continues.....though he can say, not to this worker this week, perhaps!  He said the culture of the LA is not to try to keep people or move them round if they aren't happy. He also advised going on training.
So yesterday I got up in the early hours and drafted a closing letter about a case.....on of my first, and I had not given information about resources quickly. That is the other thing, do that, do referrals, as part of the assessment, don't wait for assessment to be approved because then the energy goes out of it. It's all about striking while the iron is hot, and getting it closed!
Being in the moment, I suppose. Knowing what resources are around in the LA....all of which does take time.
But perhaps if I can work in a slightly different way, while I am getting used to the systems, the printer, being paperless etc, it will be not quite so intolerable. After all, this is my precious life and I don't want to waste it complaining and resenting things that just are. And in the meantime, I downloaded an application form for another job.....  Looking for a "spiritual" slant here, I came across this quote in connection with the underlying theme of spirituality and my life as a social worker:

"Spiritual resilience is not being hardened to the point where you ignore or deny circumstance. But using your most challenging life experiences, like the akido warrior who uses humor and flexibility, to respond and–if necessary–remake yourself."   
Find the original
here

“What’s really important in life? Sitting on a beach? Looking at television eight hours a day? I think we have to appreciate that we’re alive for only a limited period of time, and we’ll spend most of our lives working.

That being the case, I believe one of the most important priorities is to do whatever we do as well as we can. We should take pride in that.”

~Victor Kiam

Definitely not all right Jack!

Shit hitting fan today.  Too much to do. Results: so late for an appointment that I had to abandon it. getting on bus to wrong address. Retracing steps, not knowing what to do, stand about futilely for a while. Give up and go home and beat myself up. No phone numbers on me to phone either client. Deadline tomorrow on one of them. Should I just make it all up, I went, I saw, I conquered and I did the damn reports before the deadlines!
Of course I would not do that, too afraid of getting caught for one thing. But how annoying to be so controlled by deadly deadlines.
And thought I didn't have notes from yesterday at home with me, so thought I couldn't write up report from yesterday.... I had them all the time, just not accessible.
Two more little conversations, my friend R. is angry, feels she is being abused by the work.  X is "over my head" with work, and even MJ says she is struggling. I was close to speaking up in the Team Meeting. Young colleagus S. says, we get cut down for speaking up, or they say they'll do something and don't. It must be a "health and safety" issue...
So, instead of writing up a report, I filled in another job application and also contacted fostering agency. I am almost ready to launch out again into the unknown. Life is too short to be nothing but a human info. robot. And I don't enjoy telling people what to do. I must get out of statutory social work before I lose the will to live entirely!

A poem for the month and entirely in tune with this bleak mood, especially going on  a visit to a bleak housing estate on a cold, dark, wet November evening:

November

by Thomas Hood

No sun--no moon!
No morn--no noon!
No dawn--no dusk--no proper time of day--
No sky--no earthly view--
No distance looking blue--

No road--no street--
No "t'other side the way"--
No end to any Row--
No indications where the Crescents go--

No top to any steeple--
No recognitions of familiar people--
No courtesies for showing 'em--
No knowing 'em!

No mail--no post--
No news from any foreign coast--
No park--no ring--no afternoon gentility--
No company--no nobility--

No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member--
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!

I'm all right, Jack?

This week was not bad, for me. I was free to do visits, not desk bound and tied to the office as you are on duty, except when there is a crisis. I started doing write ups etc immediately afterwards. It is much easier, though it means I am wondering when to do the stuff I was given earlier...more deciphering of the hieroglyphics called my notes. 

And when am I going to upload all the documents I have received? Now that we are paperless, it’s  a whole new way of working. I got a half day training in it, but it would takes time and practice for doing this to become automatic and that time I have not been allowed. So I will have to bite the bull by the horns ! and stop the flow of my work to start adding documents to the system. Including about 10 documents I was sent by the FCO on a case. 

It’s a heart sinking feeling. I could keep an admin assistant busy for 2 or 3 days a week, and that is what puts so much pressure on me and all of us. So I was up at 1 am  one night this week designing forms to support me in doing things efficiently. I do want to feel I am as efficient as possible.... The lure of being seen to cope is so seductive.

But do I really like this efficient me? My lips set in a firm line, that says, don’t mess with me. Head down as I work, not wanting to be interrupted by anyone, including colleagues who need help! But they’ve been getting so busy, they have pretty much stopped “bothering” me. Who wants to interrupt someone who is clearly typing “against the clock?.”  I know I don't.

A kind of hardness is setting in. And I see it in the lack of a sense of humour. The fear of speaking the truth. The slight glee that so far, I haven’t been late with an assessment. It is seductive!  A strange desire to be so ruthlessly efficient, that nothing is late, that my back is covered, that all the boxes are ticked....Actually helping a child is somehow an extra, to be done if it can be fitted in to my jam packed schedule of minutiae. 

So I didn’t feel "bad" this week. Coping? Numb? In denial? In some kind of spiritually protected space where the cares of this life don't really bother me? I am just not sure. And I am not sure it's healthy!

It’s kind of a game, working out the shortest ways of doing things, how to write something so it can be reused, and just “get the freaking work done.” To quote a manager. Or did I imagine that? Perhaps, but it is the attitude.  

However yesterday in the kitchen, despite the risk of being interrupted by a manager, and obviously then the sky would fall in, three of us had a chat. Me and two young social workers, qualified about a year. One said our Team Manager wanted her to finish an IA, even when she was off sick. And if you are not in, you will continue to get work allocated to you. She never stops thinking about work. She works till midnight sometimes to get things done. 

The other young social worker said she also was struggling and could not keep up with it all. She said she worried about some cases which she thought were child protection, but managers want to minimize everything. But, she said, it is our name on the assessment and we will be blamed if things go wrong.

I said I took some shortcuts, I don’t write case notes about every single thing I do!  You could have knocked them down with a feather. One said, but what if something happened? So I then said, well I do write it if it is going to make a difference. But I might write 2 lines not 10 and say “see assessment.”   They still looked slightly appalled! I also said what I could about human beings not being perfect. I don't know if it helped....and I was still keen to get on with it, set lips and all.

In Care Space, an online forum for social workers, I am tracking a thread “Stress: Am I Burning Out?” I am definitely not alone in thinking the system is crazy. It’s what to do about it that is beginning to occupy my mind.

Suggestions:

Leave and get less stressful job....

Sue employers

Get Health & Safety in to do an audit. 

I think we should tell the government that social workers are not able to cope and are not doing the job we are paid to do, because there is no time to do things properly, no freedom to make proper choices and no respect for us from our own managers. 

I also just came across this link to a Guardian series on Work Life Balance http://www.guardian.co.uk/worklifeuk/work-life-balance-uk   It reminded me that this is not just about social workers, but we seem not to be mentioned in dispatches. I suppose we are only remembered when something goes very wrong.

 

I remember discussing with a friend what it means to be in social work these days, for me personally. She said that the Sufis say that this is a time of collapse, a light has gone out. The light of an era. Things won’t get better, the whole civilization is falling apart. My friend said that what I am doing is “being there” and being conscious of the process. This teaching says that there is no point trying to change things, it is just too late. Social work, teaching, nursing, medicine, all ruined professions in a collapsing civilization.

In some way just being there is said, in this teaching, to be an important service to offer. I hope so. But there is precious little time to be aware of anything, even though I believe it is vital.....And I did take a short lunch break 3 times this week, just for this reason. Time now to relax and allow myself to be a human being, just being, or who does things at a human pace,  not a human being trying her best to be a  robotic human information processor. 

And as I've mentioned Sufis, here is a poem by the wondrous Rumi. Nurture for the soul.

Only Breath

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu

Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion


or cultural system. I am not from the East

or the West, not out of the ocean or up


from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not

composed of elements at all. I do not exist,


am not an entity in this world or in the next,

did not descend from Adam and Eve or any


origin story. My place is placeless, a trace

of the traceless. Neither body or soul.


I belong to the beloved, have seen the two

worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that

breath breathing human being.



From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

Monday....the week starts here.

Well, I've had worse days. Really. Today was writing up of interviews and the truth was I struggled to remember some visits that I did last week. The details were blurry. Somehow when I am I listening to a child's account of what has happened, I don't want to be writing notes, I want to be listening. At the time I don't think I can possibly forget, but today showed that I can and I do.

After an inner struggle, not wanting to lose face, I asked my colleague who was there also to help me remember. She also had not made notes, for the same reason, not wanting to put a child off telling her story by writing it down as she spoke.

But together we put something resembling her story together and I did it on my own for 2 other children's accounts. The trouble is, they don't tend to be all that coherent, or easy to follow. It made me realize, I am there as an authority, a representative of the Local Authority. I do need to get things right. It's a bit of a dilemma though and with my training as a counsellor, and years of experience in that, it's not always easy to be as probing as I need to be.

Comments all around about the job, one person back on duty today after being off sick last week. She said it was just because she hadn't been looking after herself properly. And it was both great and terrible to hear C....say that he did not take work home, have a mobile  and that long term work is more stressful as they do everything, Child Protection, Core Assessments, Court work! His view was that in intake everything we do leads to a completion of our  work, everything a person in long term work does, creates more work.  He also said, jokingly he likes intake as he doesn't like people...and that in LAC and other long term work he had a terrible time as he did everything. He thinks that Chairs like to create long lists of things to do to keep people busy but when they had done them all, and it hasn't helped, they don't know what to do.

So in the 4th week of the job we finally have a 5 minute chat and I feel I have begun to get to know a colleague at long last.
Oh and my not quite qualified colleague gets allocated the case we visited on Friday. The mother of the child told her she wants us just to take her, or she will send her back to Jamaica.
Our manager is so busy trying to process the tasks on ICS that he clearly does not really want to be disturbed with questions from any of us.....but we must ask!
I managed to leave at 6pm.....wonderful!

Sunday at 5pm

The reprieve is nearly over. Like social workers across the land, probably, I am realizing that Monday and the working week are looming! I feel daunted at what lies ahead, going back on Duty, with no write ups done on the 3 CP investigations I began last week. But when was I going to do them? I worked till after 7pm on both Thursday and Friday. I was tired out by Friday night.

And now I am a bit worried. Will I remember well enough to do the recording properly? Did I take enough notes? Which police officer was with which case?  The memories are there, some notes are there, but once again not having time to record the work within the working day is so annoying. I don't see why there isn't a structuring of work time so that we work more of a shift pattern, like the police. Beginning later, finishing later when it is so likely that we will start a CP enquiry in the late afternoon.

I thought about doing some of it at home yesterday, or today, but really I need time to relax and recover. I am paid to work 37 hours per week, and not to sit for hours at the weekend writing case notes!. I know people do, and perhaps I will have to as well, but I feel very resistant. I want to enjoy free time and it's important to be able to switch off.

My partner and I were discussing this whole situation and I mentioned that many social workers (25%) have second jobs, as recently reported here.  He was amazed, as was I. How on earth do they do it for one thing? I suspect it might be more adult sector social workers.  I was hoping to do some extra work, assessment of Foster Carers, but it's just totally out of the question!  As it is, I need the full weekend to have any chance of recovery. Such an exciting life that I lead...

The week-end looked like this: 

I come home on Friday night about 8.15pm, switch on the TV and relax. On Satuday I write my blog in the morning,   as I woke at 6.30 any way. I also relax in the garden, and watch TV in the evening. Today I thought of going out, but the thought of any traveling or having to get anywhere on time is so much like work. that I can't bear it!..Instead,  I did some "serious" reading in bed in the morning and enjoyed the sunshine in the garden in the afternoon,  when I admit I was chivvied outside by my partner!

This is quite typical.At the weekend I don't arrange social events, I don't talk much to neglected friends or family.  So I am not spending any money, incidentally. If I am at all typical of stressed out public sector workers, overworking us is probably not so good for the economy, never mind family or community life.
 I live like a hermit to compensate and recover. It saves time and  money. So I do very little business in the local shops, or any shops for that matter, except for essentials.

In fact I haven't even gone shopping for some warmer clothes, an extra pair of shoes, or had my hair cut. All of which I could do with. Colleagues must already be quite tired seeing me recycle my 3 or 4 work outfits..If they have time to notice, which is doubtful. So if the economy is depending on me, its prospects are definitely even more dire than people think! 

What a difference to  life years ago! A weekend would not have been complete without a dinner party or a social event of some sort. Saturday afternoon shopping was a ritual. Nowadays a trip to the cinema or a meal out would be a major event!  Of course some of it is to do with my age and personal preference.   But do my colleagues have the time, energy or money to do "normal" things at the week end, like having fun with their families? It's very hard to imagine.

About this particular  weekend.... it has all been with a niggle of guilt!  I should have got recording done. Imagine having another job....not even to have a whole two days recovery time!....my current job is more than full time already. Imagine feeling guilty that I have not done work at home this weekend! And not just guilty, but anxious about when and how I am going to do it.

The possible repercussions cross my mind. What if something happens to one of those children and I haven't recorded what I did and why I did it?  Not that I think anything bad will happen, as I was satisfied that the risk to the children was quite low. But I can imagine times when the risk might have been higher.  This is one reason why people do work till 10pm and carry a constant  anxiety. 
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But I know myself and my limits! I know how exhausted I will become if I don't rest, body and soul, at the weekend.So mostly I let go of the anxiety and enjoyed my free time. Now as the evening approaches, work does loom, but I feel able to cope because I have rested.
But exhausted people don't rest, they don't think straight, and they make mistakes. I'd rather be rested, refreshed and able to make sensible decisions, than have everything recorded to a T and be too tired to think straight. It isn't just a practical matter though. It's a question of whether I have the right to a life outside work, or not? I happen to think I do. It's a basic human right, surely. Enough free time to reconnect  with the the joy of being,  a human being, not a human robot.

Response to a Colleague

I read a post on a social work forum by someone who said she was not coping and asked if she was burnt out. This is my slightly edited response.
" I am so angry about what has been done to the profession and what is happening to my colleagues and me. I joined it in the early '80s so I remember pre ICS social work. You know, it was OK. We had reasonable caseloads and time to think and discuss things. It's RIDICULOUS what has happened and I wish that at the time I'd been bold enough to shout about it!
Instead I left! But I saw the trend. It's a long story but  I rejoined after 10 years hoping for a little improvement. Instead I find it like a nightmare! Why on earth did I go back? I keep thinking, this can't be real. Professionals being treated like naughty, irresponsible children who just can't be trusted, but let's keep giving them more and more work and maybe that will make things better.Funny if it wasn't so tragic. I've got my ways of coping and one of those is a commitment to my own wellbeing no matter what. One way I cope is to write, mostly about the ridiculousness. It helps me keep a sense of perspective and, well, you never know, one day it could be evidence to use  in suing someone or defending myself.
We are dictated to by the ICS system which makes management by deadlines so easy. It is crazy that when management decide to pretty up their statistics, (if an Ofsted inspection is due for example), they can say all IAs to be done in the required 10 days...or else, veiled threats and pressure applied by Team Managers. Too bad about the quality of the work..It is so stupid. Up the pressure, down the morale, up the risk. Insane. The system is insane. Social work (especially frontline children's services) has become a tyranny. and there's so much hypocrisy. F........, like almost every social worker I know where I am currently working, is enduring an iniquitous system.
One colleague last week said "This is slavery" and I've often thought so too. It's "command and control"  social work ( Term used by in Signs of Safety, Turnell & Edwards)   I'm wary of "stress management" approaches, whick do not tackle the core problem of lack of resources coupled with ludicrous expectations. Talk all you like about protecting children, but if you don't put money into it and if you overwork your staff, you really don't mean it, Mr Gove or whoever else. Pretending that it's all down to individual social workers performance and let's blame and shame the social worker is so handy.
I agree with S.......   about anger. After all even Jesus cast the moneychangers out of the temple! I am the mildest of people on the surface but there is an anger in me that says, you can't hoodwink me into thinking that open plan offices are good for social workers, that it's ok to work regularly till 10pm at home or at the office, never take a lunch break,  it's OK that I should have an undoable caseload, and that ICS is a real boon in the way it is used! 
Without that detachment, I would totally "buy in" to the It's Your Fault, You Bad, brainwashing. And I do at times, not being superwoman, and then I really don't feel good....It's a bright red light to stop and get outside the system, mentally. See it for what it is, Emperor's New Clothes.
And it is all totally unnecessary! I came into the profession to help people. Why should I be bullied and persecuted about minutiae? If an IA is late, so what? if it's a real risk, you act. The rest can wait!  The Government should never have legislated about our practice in that way. When supervision becomes about the management checklist, and the "practice issues" slot in a team meeting is a knuckle rapping about ICS, then if you haven't got a team manager who at least understands (even if they have to toe the party line outwardly).....I'd move on asap.
And  maybe I'll rejoin BASW again and shout this time! I like the idea of calling in Health and Safety. It's all so Orwellian, just a little later than 1984. Perhaps we could do something revolutionary. Any ideas? I think we have to connect somehow. Unity is power!"

Tips for Staying Sane in Social Work

Phew! It's Saturday morning again, a brief respite begins for the weary social work foot soldier! This morning  in a moment of rashness I thought I would look at a Social Work Forum. A salutary experience! Both encouraging and daunting. The encouraging thing was that  someone has put a very honest post on there, about not coping with the job. There were many responses, some of them encouraging and supportive.
The daunting and irritating thing was that many of the responses implied, however kindly,  that the writer should be able to cope. They did not say all that much about the overwork being unacceptable. I was amazed at the seeming agreement that it has to be the way it is! No wonder we got lumbered with it! What is this fear that has us all in its grip? I have noticed this in the office.
I responded with a bit of a rant, which I may regret.  I was very forthright about the system and the culture of social work. I asked if anyone had any ideas about what to do about it. I really wanted to say. please don't let's accept that it's OK that the system is the way it is and that it is our own fault if we can't cope! Such a clever bit of brainwashing.... well I need a rest from the struggle now and again!
This week I was a little less overwhelmed. That doesn't make the system OK, just that I might be finding a sort of escape. So today I want to concentrate mostly on keeping sane in the job.....and keeping my head above water! What helps me to escape from going under, in spite of the system?
Writing this blog.. I feel better after I have written. It helps me stay detached and I enjoy putting the grist in the mill.It is empowering! (I wish I had more time and energy to write creatively about clients. But one of the "costs" of the system is that I don't want to think about clients when I am not in work. When I work a 10 hour day,  and have so much ridiculous paperwork to do, I need to relax when I am not at work. I would resent giving any more energy to the job in actually thinking about clients. So I don't give them much benefit of my attention in a creative way. Perhaps I could do occasional writing that is aimed at finding solutions for clients, not just listing problems.Too bad it would have to happen off the job! The most important, fundamental thing is....
Remembering who I am. That means, connecting with "I" as I do the job. The "I" who is more than my job. It's amazing how challenging it is to do that, in a bureaucratic system. The whole thing is geared to creating a smooth machine, and we are little cogs in the machine. The machine is not interested in our feelings, just our function. The trick is, not to believe it. Do the stuff that must be done, but  remember who I am. I am a human being who likes working in a quiet environment, I like privacy, I like having time to do things properly. Not having those things and missing them does not make me a bad person, whatever the system says! I have a kind of mantra that helps me do this- "no matter what...I am OK.I have the right to see things my way." I am not a machine. This is my precious life and so I practise....
Seizing the moments. Noticing things I come across that are beautiful. Taking a second or two to do this at the time if I can.. Beauty lifts my spirits and it is so absent in the office. So absent. Thankfully I am not always in the office. I see flowers in people's gardens. I saw a single amazing apple on a tree this week.  I see the sun from the office kitchen window....I saw a beautiful school building on a late visit yesterday. It's vital to  notice these things.  I also remember who I am by...
Taking time for me during the work day. Relaxing for 10 or 15 minutes. Going to a coffee shop even if I don't have the full hour for lunch. When I am out and about, I can stop and have a cup of tea. They haven't yet installed tracking devices under our skins so why not? Even if I also make notes about work in the cafe,  I am somewhere else than the office. I feel I am part of the rest of the world not a bureaucratic cog. It helps to spend a few minutes every day...
Dreaming about a better way of doing the job, a better system. I won't start on this topic  properly here, but I do know of an approach that I like,  Signs of Safety.  I don't know how the whole system could be better but I know it's possible. If we were using creativity,  had supportive management, based on a holistic understanding of people, so much more could be done. What sense does it make to do keep focussing on the problem, describing the problem, analysing the problem, recording the problem? If our energy was focussed on finding solutions, and creating solutions instead of on covering our backs and avoiding punishment or exposure,  how much more effective the profession would be! It could be exciting, constructive and rewarding. It could make a real difference to children's lives. Signs of Safety takes an approach that works, but it has to be a real change not just tacked on to the old system. Scometimes it's great to switch off completely by...
Doing something FUN at the weekend, other than watching TV and eating lovely food. That takes planning, but it is worth the effort to switch off completely from the job. Of course it's wonderful having unplanned, unstructured time, but life needs variety. Then I go back to the office a little refreshed. I can help myself stay sane by
 Making it as easy as possible to deal with. minutiae. Things like, having my own checklist of tasks per child per case and ticking  them off. Have headed paper with me to do written agreements. Keep all papers and notes about a family together in a plastic folder. The office may be paperless, but I 'm not!  Sometimes
Doing some work at home is better for staying sane, than being rigid about not doing this. Within limits of course!  I don't want to come home and work for 3 hours every night. But writing up an Initial Assessment is so much easier when it is done "fresh" and the memories are vivid. So writing a draft assessment in an hour or so at home after the visit is OK for me at the moment.Better that than struggling to remember vital details and spending 4 hours on it later.Always though,
Knowing what I have to do is crucial. When it's frantic, it's easy to get caught up in Do Do Do and then I feel overwhelmed. If I know what I have to do, even if I don't have the time to do it, I feel slightly more in charge of my work.If I get the chance, remember to...
Picking colleagues' brains, how do they do it? (Stay organized that is!)  I have had a few ideas from others .It's just finding the time to talk to my colleagues about anything, including work,  that's the real challenge here.For example what about...
Using a new case check list. In the crazy system we have, there is an advantage to have a checklist that I design, which I understand!  It helps me keep track of what I need to do and when. The devil is, truly, in the details. But let's try to give the powers that be what they want, with the least amount of wasted time and effort on my part. It could take up most of the working day, satisfying the powers that be. (In fact, it probably is the main real aim of the job.) The first things on that list are to start a note of vital information which will come from different places at different times. And send an appointment letter immediately. Then remember about
Writing lists of tasks every day. This is different from the new case list.It is more of an ongoing mammoth to do list. It's possible to have so much to do that you forget to make a list and then all that stuff is floating around in your head. Stressful. Not fun. Writing it down is a lifesaver.Especially when you have 10 schools to contact before half term tomorrow, 3 Child Protection investigations, untouched new cases and deadlines approaching. ...either you run from the office screaming which could be embarrassing, or you make a list and remember to look at it. Maybe we should all run from the office screaming but in the meantime
Using standard letters, and  post or email requests for information is better than ringing around. This is a short cut that is purely for efficiency. Of course we are meant to be working closely with other professionals but as they are similarly chasing their tails, it is tedious and timewasting to chase your tail chasing them as they chase their tails...   And it saves writing stuff down if they send emails. And you can prove you tried to contact them so it slightly covers your back.  Of course it doesn't really build working relationships and it discourages probing for the deeper issues through an actual discussion. But hey ho, there must be some casualities in the war that is now social work practice on the frontline.Oh and it's less distracting for your colleagues in the office than a phone call. And it's cheaper! And since the direct line doesn't have voice mail (or shouldn't) why give someone else the work of taking a message if you aren't in the office. And in the midst of all this laborious minutiae...

Remembering why I entered the profession is a good thing.  I wanted to help people. Really! It was just that simple. I also wanted to make a difference and not just go through the motions or put people through a conveyor belt process. Hah! I still do want to help people so
Remembering what I am actually trying to do is a very good thing.  Keep coming back to...
Focussing on the children. The system is not their fault, so I mustn't take my anger out on them. I am dealing with flesh and blood children, not ID numbers or players in virtual reality. The system is a virtual system. The children are real. Cutting corners on the prescriptive paperwork is different from cutting corners when a child is at risk. It can get blurry though, so keep on track by
Asking myself  a few simple questions that allow my heart to have a say. Social work has become so left brained and rational, it loses sight of the fact that what we want to know is....

What is this child's life like?
Is the child being mistreated or abused by anyone?
Is this child having a miserable life?
Is this child's life being ruined by how they are being treated?
Is the child in danger?
Do the parents care?
Do they accept there is a problem?
Is there a real need for something to change?
Is the child's life good enough?
Is the parenting good enough?

How do I know these things? 

That's what my job is really about, answering those questions in a meaningful and honest way. I can only do the best I can in the limited time available. I may not always get it right, and  when it comes to clients...
Being realistic is a necessity.
 People aren't perfect. Parents can be struggling, cruel, stupid or totally overwhelmed. Or good enough. Or great. Children can be lovable, or a bit of a challenge or both. If I have a clear focus on the child's life experience, and how life is for the child, I will probably have done a good enough job.I can't make things perfect. A  child is a person living a life, and it's not always that easy to see life through another person's eyes but I do try. And I haven't given up yet! Because in the midst of it all I also am living my life and

Seeing a deeper meaning.
I do have a spiritual perspective on life, which has sometimes been more theory than practice. But I do believe there is a deeper purpose for my life, and a significance in all life. We aren't just bodies with feelings, we are spiritual beings. I still need to go deeper into that experience. One flash of insight that I had this week was that I could choose to see the pressure to do initial assessments so quickly as an encouragement to me to live "in the now". Respond to life now. That is part of  seeing the whole job as a spiritual challenge. I always have that choice.Then staying on top, coping, is not the be all and end all. Then I am free to be in the system, but not of the system.

Another poem of Rilke- 

"Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower"
by Rainer Maria Rilke; translation by Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows

Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,

what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.

In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.

And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.