Reflecting on Five Years in Statutory Child Protection

Taking the time to reflect on this year, I realised a few things. The main one being, how grateful I am that took the opportunity to work in a completely new role. I have always enjoyed learning, teaching, creating communities and seeing people grow and develop. Becoming a Practice Lead in Child Protection in the Outback of Australia has definitely been bringing all these parts and more to the day to day work life. I’m still learning here, a lot of learning!

Instead, I’ll reflect on five (of many) lessons I’ve learned working in statutory child protection in Scotland.

1. Crying After Work Isn't Normal—It’s Burnout

It’s not normal to cry so much after work. That is called burnout and if the feeling that you have towards work is disconnection and you are ‘going through the motions’ then something needs to be readjusted. For me, it wasn’t work. It was being far away from home and family. It was the knowledge that if an emergency happened I couldn’t be there quickly, that it would be an expensive 30 hour travel time, multiple time zone changes and weeks off work.

I learned to prioritize me, and the things that are important to me like family and connection to home. Not everyone has the privilege to make this kind of shift, so I know I’m very lucky.

2. Change Takes Time—But It’s Happening

Change can take time. But change is happening. Organisations, especially local government are working within the contexts of wider political environments. As workers on the frontline, we only see a small snippet of what standards and regulations local government need to follow, or what they are being told needs to happen from higher political sources who fund them. Tricky situations.

I am all for change from within and from the ground up and how can I do this within the role I have, within the legal frameworks.

More radical social workers should work within governments to advocate and encourage change.

3. You Don’t Have to Know Everything—Collaborate and Listen

I always thought I had to fix everything. I’ve learned that’s neither possible nor my job. I’m not an expert in health, education, policing, or the lived experiences of the children and families we work with—I know social work.

Collaboration is everything. Ask questions, listen, and know your role. Humility in practice is crucial. You don’t need to have all the answers; you just need to know how to find the right people and work together.

4. Your Colleagues Are Goldmines—Talk to Them

Your colleagues are fantastic, talk to them more. Learn from their experiences, and their style of work. My favourite line I have picked up from a colleague is when she is dealing with a parent yelling over the phone, she says:

“I want to hear what you’re saying, but I can’t listen when you’re yelling.”

She repeats it in a calm, steady tone. If the yelling continues, she follows up with, “I’m going to end this call because you’re yelling.”

Nobody comes to work to be abused, and as a social worker, no thank you, being a verbal (or physical) punching bag is not part of your job description.

5. I Love My Job

We’ve all done it, fantasized about other roles, and career changes, and signed up for job websites. I have done this a lot after a tough week.

But working with people and serving communities is what I enjoy. Would I change my career? No. But I will continue to embrace opportunities, take risks, and start fresh when needed.

As I reflect on the year, I’m proud of how far I’ve come—and excited to see where I end up next. If you told me this time last year, I’d be in the Outback of Australia, I would have laughed, not in my plans!

Whatever role you’re in, what lessons have you learned this past year?

My Supervision Experiences

I’ve had a pick and mix of supervision experiences. From supervisors who take the time to consistently and regularly ensure a safe space for reflection to times when line and case management is prioritised. I’m sure you’ve had a bit of a mixed experience too.

In social work, we are constantly told that critical reflection and good supervision impacts the work that we do. Yet, external pressures such as timeframes, lack of skilled workers, minimal training for managers providing the supervision, and focus on case closures and numbers means that critical reflection and supervision doesn’t even get a look in.

These external influences are in addition to our own feelings towards supervision. For me, I know supervision helps me be a happier, healthier person, who can give more in my personal and professional life. Yet, there is still that block.

I get worried and nervous about being vulnerable, admitting when maybe things aren’t going so well, are a bit tough, or out of my experience level. At the same time, I feel like there is this expectation that we should have the answers and have things under control. The supervisors that can help me contain this multitude of emotions and external pressures are the ones that I’ve enjoyed sitting with again and again.

It takes courage to be vulnerable and the best place I’ve had to do this has been with external supervisors who understand the field but don’t have a line managers responsibility for me. Here, I have the time to focus on my learning, development, and well-being. For that hour, it is all about me!

I’ve found professional supervision to be something that is encouraged within the field, but not always actively supported. It is still something of a luxury, and I think this needs to change to keep more fantastic social workers in the field.

Critical social work theory, what is it, why do I love it.

Theories help us to understand, engage with and explain the world we live in and the people and communities that live within it.

Life is complex is a big understatement. How many times have you received a referral with a listed concern, to then go out and  meet the client and their network and you get back to the office with a spiderweb of interconnected issues. Theories can help us get a little bit of order and explain what’s going on. Theories then also help us with how we analyse the information we have and engage with the clients.

The main theory that I align with as a social worker is a critical theory of social work. Critical theory explains the world through the perspective of power. I won’t go all Foucault on you, he is a good read, but to quickly summerise it is how social inequalities, such as access to resources are built in to our societal structures. Critical theory in social work is to question how these inequalities from historical contexts and current social situations emerge and then the important bit, how we address it.

These inequalities can be differences in access to resources and treatment for people of different genders, different ages, sexual orientations, cultural backgrounds, differing abilities. To list a small number of the spectrum of ways that people can be grouped.

How this then plays out in practice is through approaches including, but not limited to:

-          Strengths-based: focuses on identifying and using an individual's and their network’s strengths, resources, and capabilities to create change

-          Feminist practice: looks at the importance of understanding and addressing gender-based inequalities and to create positive change for women and girls

-          Trauma-informed: recognises trauma and adverse childhood experiences on people and aims to focus on healing and resilience

-          Anti-oppressive: aims to dismantle all the systemic inequalities that are pervasive at an individual and structural level in society. Burn it down.

Each of these approaches has a critical lens. They locate the person within their wider societal context and asks is there a concern here, or is the person a product of their environment and the way the world is treating and defining them? Then it goes, how do we change this to be better in the future?

Proctor’s Three-Function as a Framework for Supervision

I use Proctor’s Three-Function Interactive Model. It works through education, admin, and support. This is a personal choice, it doesn’t fit with everyone and that’s all good.

The reason why I like it is because it covers multiple aspects of our practice, that ALL influence how we do our roles.

Education: teach me something! I’m nervous about going out to this house to have a discussion about Dad threatening to kill himself if Mum leaves, how do I bring that up with Mum safely? How do I then speak to Dad about that safely? Give me examples, help me think of questions, and let’s practice a couple.

Admin: it gets a bad rap, but being accountable to the legislation, policy, and guidance keeps the client safe, but also you as the worker safe. It supports us to know what our practice remit is and gives us boundaries to work within. I’m a nerd for some well-written legislation and policy.

Supportive: this job is hard. It is emotionally, physically, psychologically, and spiritually draining. How do you do it? How do we support each other to manage the emotional stress and demands of being a social worker? And how is this support provided in a safe, helpful way?

Throughout any supervision session, we may focus more on one aspect than another. Say you need 2/3 of the session to focus on support and only a bit of learning and practice and even less about policy the framework can be changed to reflect this. Like life, it’s flexible, we can move with your needs.

There are many theories of supervision out there that can inform supervision in social work. Are there any others that work for you?

Why external social work supervision is good for practice.

I’ll keep this brief as all my blog posts because we are busy busy people that hardly ever take the time to breathe let alone grab a coffee or tea and chat with our colleagues.

Social work supervision is important to help us process the trauma’s and difficulties of our jobs. External social work supervision provides a safe space from outside the organisation we work in to critically reflect on our practice. It supports us to stay in an emotionally demanding environment.

When I leave the office at the end of the day, I am not frustrated from lack of caring, but of caring and not having the resources, skills, training, time to be able to give the job the attention that it deserves and therefore I’m not able to give the people that I work with the attention they deserve.

And when something hits you hard, like a child being drugged and sexually assaulted, a home for a teenager with carers of 12+ years breaking down, a parent using violence in their relationship, it makes me question why I do the job I do.

I do social work, because I love working with people. The potential, the change, the capabilities, the essence of what makes us human. But this is also the hard part of social work, because we can see the possibilities.

Good supervision, where we can reflect on values, responsibilities, theories, and wider societal and organisational influences, supports us to be able to walk in the door at home and know we did the best we could that day.

Supportive, collaborative supervision is important to help us walk back through the door the next day with a cup that is relatively full and a plan. A critically reflective safe space to do this is essential.

So, what’s been your experience of supervision in social work? Is it something you relish or something you avoid?