[candy1567]

Hi

I work for social services but in the adult field, but dont get me started on that one!!!!

We have had a number of children and families social workers come over to adults due to the pressures of the job, am not in anyway defending them and obviously cant comment in the case of the baby starved to death, but its all about govt targets and paperwork now, the art of being a hands on social worker has long since gone, and i speak from vast experience that u dont need a social work qualification to fill in the paperwork.

Your hands are tied, even thought gut instinct tells u there is somthing not right with a case u hav to follow procedure, yes its a different ball game with children rather than adults but the targets are the same.

Case loads are horrendous, u drown under paperwork and in my office we dont all have computers, yes thats right u share computers.

A more hands on approach is needed and life experience far outways any training u may take, and until we get away from targets then unfortunately ppl especially children are going to suffer.

The worse of it is that as now we have the social work degree, u can start the degree at 18yrs now and become fully qualified at 21yrs, am not sayin all 21yr olds are not capable of doing the job, but how much experience of raising children in the real world would they have, and most of our young social workers are on a restricted case load due to the pressures of the job, oh to be 21 again, a caseload of 10 would be a walk in the park compared to the 35 i have!!!!

Juliex