We spoke with Rob, a Senior Social Worker with Suffolk County Council to hear what his experience of working in the sector is like and he provides his perspectives on what it takes to be a good Social Worker.
Rob, tell us about the team you’re working with.
Currently, I’m working in the Child and Care team. In Suffolk, we take children from the moment they’re in care, so after the first hearing, we will stay with that child all the way through its journey whilst in care – until they’re leaving care or for those being adopted. It’s quite a broad range of work from court work to overseeing the care plans of our longer-term children in care.
What was your journey into Children’s Social Care like?
I suppose I had quite a varied and a journey before I found myself in social work. When I left school, I did a few different jobs from cutting grass to working in kitchens, and then eventually found myself working in a residential home for boys, and I did that for nearly 10 years. I think I arrived at the point where I realised that decisions were being made for these children, which I wanted to have more influence over. I also wanted to understand a bit more about why these children were coming into care and to do something a bit different.
So initially, I went to university to study psychology and counselling. I think working in residential, I got to know quite a few people who then went on to be social workers, so I was of having conversations with those people as I was doing my undergraduate degree in psychology and counselling. It helped me to realise what they were doing was more what I wanted to be sort of doing. So straight after completing my undergraduate, I was looking for the next step and that’s where Suffolk was able to offer me that graduate scheme.
How did you find the Graduate scheme into Social Work?
So it had several attractions, one being it was a paid route into social work. And as an older student, that was quite attractive to me. It started off with a year being employed by Suffolk and employed as a graduate trainee social worker and they made it very clear right from the off that you were here to train to be a social worker, not to be a family support practitioner, so they were very mindful to make sure that over that year, we did work and develop skills that was relevant to being a social worker. If you successfully did that year, they then funded you to do a two-year Master’s with the University of East Anglia and then offer you employment pending interview after that Master’s. So that’s the route I did.
I kind of felt that there was a real difference between those doing the graduate route and those who were just applying for either a Master’s programme or undergraduate at university because we had that whole year of really learning the work and knowing what it was and what it wasn’t, we kind of went into it with our kind of eyes open. We kind of knew what to expect, what the job would be at the end of the degree.
What kind of person do you think makes the best Social Worker?
I think, fundamentally, you need to be honest and you need to be confident to be yourself. All of the children appreciate somebody is honest and integral. Whatever characteristics that’s packaged up in, whether you’re a very serious person or I’m quite a jokey person, as long as they know that you’re integral and you’re honest, then that will kind of carry you through.
You do need to be resilient as there’s a lot of secondary trauma within social work. Some children had some terrible things happen in their life and you have to be resilient to that. Our team is very adaptable and creative, which I think are also key characteristics. These aren’t simple situations with a straightforward answer. Sometimes we have to be very creative in trying to find the best possible kind of outcome. We’re going to have to continue to keep working and rethinking the situation, so you have to be quite creative in that sense.
Read the experiences of our other Social Workers in the region here.
