Social workers are professionally trained and qualified in social work. They undertake a range of work with service users (that is, people receiving social care services).
There are many specialist areas working with children. For example:
- Working in Children’s homes
- Managing procedures for fostering and adoption
- Supporting parents to help then take care of their children
- Working with education and health to support children in schools or who face difficulties brought on by illness in the family
You can read about what it is like to be a Children's Social Worker in Cumbria below....
Liz Geer - Social Worker
I have worked for nearly five years as a family support worker, in the Children and Families Intake Team and more recently in the Initial Response team, in Carlisle. My work in these teams has involved assessing and supporting children and their families. My skills in my practice over the years have developed and during my employment with Cumbria County Council, I have completed my N.V.Q. 4 in Care, in which I had to demonstrate the core competencies which are required in social work, through evidence based work.
I then applied for, and was successful in obtaining a secondment onto the Diploma in Social Work (now the Social Work Degree) course through the Open University, which the county council funded. I was well supported in this endeavor by the workforce development team, my tutors and colleagues in my team and in the placements, which I had to undertake on the course. I have also been fortunate in accessing regular and appropriate supervision and the opportunity to reflect on my practice.
I completed this two-year course recently and was successful in my result, which will give me the opportunity to progress and undertake further training.
Apart from deriving job satisfaction from working closely with children and their families, I also feel that becoming a social worker has reinforced my optimism that it is still possible to make real changes to people's lives, and sustain them.
Finally, I could not finish this piece without stating that Cumbria is one of the most beautiful places in which to live and work, and I feel I have been fortunate in being able to give back something positive to the county I was born in.