Celebrating small differences

I haven’t written a blog post in quite a while, mainly because university has been pretty mental. My exams are now finished, and I have recently found out I have been accepted onto a local authority graduate scheme which means I will get my second placement with them and if the placement goes well and I like it and they like me, pending an interview, I’ll be offered a job there for the next two years. I’m very excited about it although anxiously awaiting to find out which team I’ll be placed in. My top choices would be LAC or young offenders, as my instinct is that that is the area I’d like to work. And if not those two, then I’d like child protection as I think the experience would be invaluable. So we’ll wait to see! I now have about 30 days left of my placement and a month to complete my portfolio – it’s weird being able to see the end in sight, and I’m trying to sort out my summer. I’m waiting to find out if I’ll work on a residential camp with young people and have a few other places I’m in contact with, as well as dissertation work and a holiday planned! So, diary aside, recently there has been some big stuff happening on placement. My first client, who I have spent a great deal of time working with, will be leaving soon, at short notice, for a range of reasons I won’t go into for confidentiality purposes. As a result of this imminent departure, I felt that I did the first piece of work that I felt really proud of, and one of the reasons I’m writing about it, is because it’s nice to celebrate the good stuff that we do, particularly as it wasn’t really recognised at all by my placement and I think sometimes this stuff should be. Or maybe it just felt like a big deal to me but either way I’m happy. My client was going to have a choice to go to a different placement that they were offered or not take it, which would likely mean she would find herself homeless. As I predicted, when offered the placement she said that she did not want it. She was angry at the organisation and refused to listen to what was on offer nor did she want to consider the consequences. The assessment at the new placement was lined up for the same day, so if she could not be persuaded to go, a few days later she was likely to be homeless, so it was a pretty important day. I couldn’t bear the idea of my client being homeless. Despite certain unacceptable behaviour, I had seen so many great qualities in her (not to mention that no-one deserves to be homeless) and had formed what I think has been a really good relationship through the ups and downs and so I was determined to support her to make the decision that I really felt was best for her. I sat with her over many hours, sometimes just with her, sometimes in a meeting with the housing department which she had organised and sometimes over the phone when she left to talk through her options. At one point while she was angrily shouting about not wanting to have anything to do with the organisation, I stopped her and just said firmly, ‘I’m speaking to you as an adult here, what will you do on Monday, if you don’t take this placement’. And it seemed to work/ She stopped talking and just thought about it and then asked me why I cared so much and I was glad to be able to say that I’d really enjoyed working with her over the last 5 months so it was really important to me that she was ok wherever she went next. She said she would think about it and a few hours later called me to say she’d take it. For me, I guess this was a pretty big deal, it felt like I’d made a bit of a difference. She may well act out in a similar way at the next placement, as she so often has before. But I knew from her CPN that no other options were available, and I’m hoping that after so much rejection in her life, knowing someone cared, might have made a tiny difference. This will be a difficult week as I’ll really miss her and hope it goes well. But I think it’s important that we celebrate the small differences we can make. Particularly because I find that in my placement, differences are so often intangible and up and down, mental health has no quick fix solution – nor do any of the issues our service users come to us with, that the small peaks have to be noted, to help us get through the frustrations that many days bring.

Capacity, lawyers and ramblings

First - I have no idea why this blog has got rid of all my spacing but don't have time to work it out right now, apologies!! During the course of my MA I have done some basic learning on capacity. I know the 5 key principles of the MCA and broadly understand the DoLS. But in terms of application there are still areas I'm unclear on and how well trained different professionals may be in this field. Recently I witnessed a client who needed to go to court and give a guilty or not guilty plea. The weeks before the hearing their mental health had deteriorated quite a bit and it was thought this was largely due to the anxiety about the upcoming hearing. In the days before, my client was asked to call the lawyer to tell them the plea so they could prepare the case. The client refused to do so and then when they did call, it was only to sack the lawyer and ask for a different one to represent them. On the day, the client was incredibly anxious, did not really engage with the lawyer and so it was suggested that they say that the client lacks capacity to make a plea and therefore can be assessed by a psychiatrist. When I was informed of this I thought it was the right decision and wondered why none of the staff had thought in the day or two before that this might end up being the case. Someone expressed the view that the lawyer had only said this because they didn't know how to deal with the client, having only met him years before and therefore wanted to avoid it going to trial if a non guilty plea was given. This lead me to think firstly did he have the capacity to make the decision to change lawyers at the time and therefore end up with one who may have been less experienced at 'dealing' with the client and also it felt sad that it was looked at in that way rather than think we are protecting the client's mental health. I still find it hard to know whether they did have capacity in these two decisions regarding the lawyer and the plea. They can retain the information and communicate the response but can they understand it? I struggle to know. I suppose that's the purpose of the assessment. We had assumed the client had capacity and I had done everything to support the client in making the decision, explaining the outcomes of both pleas and I was aware that the client could make an unwise decision but was it one they understood? Also, are there any lawyers with specific training in working with clients with mental health difficulties? Or much training in this matter? Apologies if this is a really obvious question .

My post on Guardian Social Care Network

The Guardian kindly asked me to write a post about my career change!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/social-care-network/social-life-blog/2012/apr/05/swap-advertising-social-work?CMP=twt_gu

Midway point of placement and the Guardian Open Weekend

I'm now approaching the midway point of my placement. And i'm enjoying it more than ever. I'm particularly enjoying the work I do with one of my clients who was recently released from prison. After i set up our first keywork session to create some realistic goals we can work on together, i now regularly receive notes under the office door or thrust in my hand with more goals to work on! Whether or not they are achieved, it feels like a good mindset to be in and i feel like i've developed a really positive relationship with him.

And i found out yesterday that I'll be getting a third client next week, which is exciting as students normally only get 1 or 2. This might sound very small compared to the caseloads you get in stat settings but it's very different being a keyworker in a residential setting as the face to face support is much greater.

One of the things i'm loving is the randomness, the charmingness (i know it's not a real word!) of working with people everyday. The unpredictability of it. While some days may be stressful or emotional and full of incidents or clients shouting, many days are spent laughing with the clients. Or sharing lovely days out, like our recent picnic and ice cream in the park which the clients have been talking about ever since.

My uni work has been driving me pretty mad as the uni have totally mucked up all our portfolio requirements. They have realised now, at the midway point, that most of the students on the course were working to the criteria set out by our course leader, that was in fact wrong. So all the students and their supervisors have become somewhat panicked, realising the evidence that has been 'ok-ed' at the midway point, may in fact not be OK. Joy!

Next week I start to have some days off for exam revision. I admit i'm pretty tired now, trying to sustain uni work, placement work etc so I'll be glad when exams are over and I can have a weekend away for a proper break.

Last weekend, I had a fantastic time at the Guardian Open Weekend. I went to four back to back sessions.


One was a panel debate about the nature of communities, including Camila Batmanghelidjh, the founder of Kids Company, and somewhat a hero of mine! She spoke about the fact that the issue of revenge has still not been addressed, young people don't feel they have been heard, for example young people feel they are being used to sell the Olympics and then won't benefit from it. She also discussed how we need somewhere for young, unemployed people to go and do something even if there is no labour. They shouldn't be stuck in their own living space, they need to be encouraged to create a community. She explained that people assume that behind every child is a competent carer but that is not true for 1.5m children in UK who become marginalised with their needs unmet. These sometimes, vulnerable individuals may not have the baseline competences to seeks out social cohesion. You need economic resources and social confidence to seek this out.

Sue Marsh was one of the panellists in a talk about the shape of the welfare state, discussing issues such as the fact that the child in poverty is more likely to have a parent in work than unemployed, alcoholic etc. Parents are not able to make a living wage. She also said that we have the lowest level of benefits in the developed world with 94% of those on JSA getting jobs in the first 6 weeks.

The talk on what the new age of protests was achieving was also interesting - discussing whether they are successful given that often they do not serve to veto law, ie tuition fees, NHS bill etc or is it an acheivement anyway, to get those who are voiceless onto the front page? or to raise the consciousness of a generation. It was also mentioned that while once you could not imagine the end of capitalism, now radical systemic change is more on the agenda.

It was amazing to have so many under 18s in the room asking questions and expressing their desire to be able to vote. It was such a fantastic, buzzing atmosphere and I loved the opportunity to listen to such a range of speakers and be surrounded by people who give a bit of a sh*t about the world we live in. I really wish there were more events like this, even if not on this scale, but with opportunities to hear experts speak and debate on their subject.

Sharing feelings

Before and after every group we run, we have a pre and post group.

The pre group at the start of the day, i particularly enjoy. We go round the room and everyone just discusses how they feel. It could be anything from - "tired, i didn't sleep well" to "anxious about the day because i found yesterday particularly hard..." etc

I think there's something incredibly refreshing about this group. For one thing, it helps just to relieve you of any negative feelings you might have about the day ahead. For another, it allows you to feel some empathy towards your colleagues and judge the way you behave with them accordingly - i.e if you know they're having a bad time in their personal life, or even that they didn't sleep well last night, you might be a bit more patient with them or give them a little extra support. If you know they're feeling demoralising, you can try to inspire them etc.

Anyway....just a little thing i like and think could be transferred in some way across different settings.

Control issues

Historically the issue of control has always been a big one for social workers and some of the dichotomies involved in partnership working vs control.

One thing that I have found a struggle is my own lack of control in this role. In my past career I felt pretty much in control of everything I did, I had my to do list and I got on with it, in I would say quite an efficient way.

But working with people is different, (it's not rocket science I know!) People won't attend that meeting just because it's on your to do list or answer the phone because you want them to or get up in the morning because you believe it's best. And sometimes however hard you think you're working or however much effort you believe you're putting in, you won't see the progress you were hoping for. In fact they may go backwards sometimes. Basically you can't control what's going to happen, you can only do what you think is best with each intervention and each decision but the control and the responsibility lies with them not you.

People are unpredictable. And that what makes working with them so bloody interesting

Ups and downs of therapeutic setting...

My placement is very big on reflective practice (which I realise would be less the case if I was in a social work setting but I’m actually in a therapeutic setting.) There’s lots of positives about this, obviously.

But at times it can be quite difficult. For example, I came to supervision today with a few concerns that I wanted to raise about my placement at the moment. I’ve felt a bit demotivated recently. Partly this is because I have one client who is barely ever in the project and has currently left (can’t disclose more details) and we’re not yet sure will return. My placement should now be picking up pace and I should be getting my second client soon, but I have only had one actual keywork session with my first client and what I feel is fairly little client interaction of late. Although I see clients around the project to have little chats with, I haven’t had a much of a supporting role to any.

My supervisor turned it all back on me and asked me to think about the issues it brings up for me – am I too driven by getting things done, and isn’t the fact my client isn’t around, giving me things to think about and write about too. I meed to think more about my own issues and how I’m dealing with my feelings.

I’ve thought about this quite a lot. At the time I felt quite angry – I felt that my supervisor was absolving himself of any responsibility towards my placement (not just for the above issue but for others brought up too) – but then I thought, there is definitely some truth in the things he is saying. I can be very goal driven, wanting to be busy, efficient etc and perhaps don’t quite know what to do, when there isn’t anything to do.

On the other hand, as this is my placement, I would like to feel constantly challenged and as if I am developing and I feel that the placement can be incredibly slow, with days going by where I really don’t feel I have done anything at all. Today for example I took part in cleaning group with two clients, spent a few hours doing “room checks” – ie measuring the temperature of the water in each bedroom and checking the room for safety reasons. Did some uni work and then had supervision. When a lot of days are like this, I don’t feel I’m achieving too much.

But it is interesting. Partly because I think its teaches me a lot about me. Definitely one of the biggest things I have been struggling with is learning how to give up control – something so important when you’re working with people, as opposed to standard targets – learning the limit of your role and how to leave responsibility with the client.
On the other side, I do wonder how this would differ in a social work setting. As I’m in a therapeutic setting, there’s no abundance of case loads. We have 7 clients in the project at the moment – everyone keyworks with one or two- or is therapist to one or two, and it’s not about working through a time scale, it’s an ongoing process, of possibly years – so in many ways it feels a lot more relaxed, less pressure to get things done…which is counter to all the managerialism and target driven culture complaints that social workers often receive.

Anyway…that’s my rambling.