My name is Mark Doel and I qualified as a social worker in 1974. My career has taken me through direct practice, teaching, training, researching and writing, and I feel lucky to have experienced such a wide range of social work roles. I took my pension last year, though I am only really 'semi-retired' and I remain passionate about social work.
The highpoints are still from my days as a practitioner - just short of 20 years 'knocking on doors'. We had a great team and there was tremendous freedom. There was a lot of trust and this got the best out of me and my colleagues. We were all quite assertive, too, and we stuck up for the profession and our judgements. We worked with personal and social problems in a 'patch', a relatively small geographical area. It meant my caseload was extremely varied, as we didn't have specialisms. So, I worked with individuals, families and groups - with adoption, fostering, preventative work, children in care, court work, youth offenders, people with mental health problems, people with disabilities and older people, both in the community and moving into residential care. There were some specialist services we could refer to but, by and large, we frontline social workers worked from first contact right through intervention to closure. I got to know my local neighbourhoods like the back of my hand.
We might now be considered 'jack of all trades and masters of none', but that was not my experience of it and I think the service users appreciated having one person they called their social worker. There was less stigma attached. For example, whilst I was in one person's home, a neighbour would sometimes knock on the door asking if I could see them next!
When there was one generic social worker involved with a family we were able to work with the whole family rather than with a set of labels, so parental mental health was integral to child protection. If a family's situation was very chaotic team members often co-worked.
I appreciated the system of family group homes here in Sheffield and the direct access I had to them. We could use them for brief periods of respite care, longer planned stays, short emergencies, all sorts. Quite a few residential workers were qualified and we would work jointly with families. The family group homes were integrated into their local estates and the kids would go to the neighbourhood schools. In all my frontline years I was always able to use informal care and never took care proceedings, though I did supervise many care orders that I had inherited. I worked a lot with fathers and male partners in families. I think the 'missing male' is a real problem - not just the avoidance of working with men, but also the widening gender imbalance in social work. It's interesting to speculate why men don't go into social work like they used to (about a third of the students on my course were men and now it's more like a tenth).
I know I'm in danger of painting a too-rosy picture and, of course, the context was more favourable to social work then. But I hope we can recapture the value of the relationship with a community as more important and more effective than adhering to a cumbersome set of procedures. The biggest challenge is how to help the bigger community trust its professionals because, as things stand, we are in danger of having the professionalism squeezed out of us.
I qualified as social worker long after the writer. However, I was in social work provision long before that. I managed a council social care home for young people before entering for the qualification. I had the attitude, commitment and tenacity and often found myself victimised by more ambitious colleagues. Never an altercation with a service user. I am black, male, well qualified and love the job outcomes. Where did I get it wrong?
Sylvester Mensah-King
12 Dec 2011
Yes I did my first job in 1975 and qualified in 1979 so I remember generic social work too. It was very different and had advantages and also many disadvantages. In those days Working Together" guidance on child protection was a little 30 page booklet. The last time I looked it was over 350 pages. We also had some simpler and more naive approaches in those days. For example in the two years of my first job in a busy London office we had almost no cases of child sexual abuse, because we didn't believe it happened so we never saw it. But yes endless procedures takes away professional judgement and reduces it to a mechanistic process that does not really work
Steve Bagnall
11 Dec 2011
I can relate to your outline Mark, as I too was a generic social worker in Hospital and within the community in Lancashire.I had a large case load which included all adults, families with disability and acute ill health and vulnerable older people.I visited farms; derilict buildings;flats and the usual urban variety and worked with drug users often living in derelict houses.I have loved every minute of my 46 years as a qualified nurse and qualified social worker and I have learnt much from the people I have been privileged to work with, some of whom initially would tell me to 'F' off! Face-to-face case work did effect change and I pity those to-day who spend most of their time at the computer filling in endless paperwork.rnSome dependency was created but overall good practice moved people through challenging events in their lives.rnI still undertake some Practice Assessment and work with Age UK to effect positive change with elders in our challenging times.Best wishes and thanks for all your text books which have helped me in my role as a University Senior Lecturer, Christine.
Christine E. Keenan
08 Dec 2011
hi
It was nice to read a positive article about social work. I too am a practitioner of many years. I feel so sorry for the social workers of this generation, They have Law forced down their necks .They are almost trained as combatants of 'war' Managers are often to inexperience or to 'job worth' to give good advice about preventitive care. It has become a number crunching game. Staff are held up high for working longer unpaid hours then defiled for having time off with stress.
It is not the job i went into.As for men coming into the profession.I have just dissuaded my son to come into the 'profession. I don't want him to be used as a scapegoat for all the ills of society.
Like Mark working with families is great but the successes are never published. I still love my job, the people i work with are the greatest . I am still looking forward to retirement though!
Well done Mark for a positive back pat!
jane.bakerdavies
08 Dec 2011
I really enjoyed Mark's article - reminded me of first meeting Mark through my practice teacher (Vicky S) in Sheffield F&CS in the early 80's. All was not perfect in Sheffield then, but there were some very strong teams, with a strong commitment to working positively with families (although sometimes I think maybe we intervened slightly too late on occasion), tapping into local community resources and learning from and supporting each other. I, too, valued some of the flexibility - eg being able to place a sibling group together in a small family group home whilst initial assessments were made as to their needs, relationship to each other, etc, rather than probably splitting them, on age grounds, into 2 or maybe 3 different foster placements as emergency placements. Thanks Mark.
Hilary Thomas
07 Dec 2011
Read Mark Doels article it mirrors my own experience as a social worker starting out in 1972. Always felt valued by the clients and it was a privilege to be involved in thier lives.Its gratifying when clients from the past stop you in the street to catch up .
peter Clark
07 Dec 2011
this is what social work should be about. It reminds me of just what an interesting and varied job field social work was when I was a social work student. It was just the same in hospital social work. There was never a dull moment as you never knew what would be facing you when you got up to the ward. But what a marvellous set of skills you had to develop to face all the different challenges.
suzy croft
07 Dec 2011
Hear, Hear! I feel really sorry for the students and new social workers of today who apparently have little opportunity to develop strong working realtionships with people and often seem to have only boxes to tick - how can this help towards effective lasting change for the individual user?How can having several people, who are not always able to communicate, effect positive forward moves within a family?
Maggie Davenport
07 Dec 2011
