Social Workers Child and family social workers protect vulnerable children and support families in need of assistance. Social workers help people solve and cope with problems in their everyday lives. One group of social workers, clinical social workers, also diagnose and treat mental, behavioral, and emotional issues. Duties Social workers typically do the following: Social workers help people cope with challenges in their lives. Social workers may work with children, people with disabilities, and people with serious illnesses and addictions. The following are examples of types of social workers: Child and family social workers protect vulnerable children and help families in need of assistance. Clinical social workers—also called licensed clinical social workers—diagnose and treat mental, behavioral, and emotional disorders, including anxiety and depression. Many clinical social workers work in private practice. Geriatric social workers help senior citizens and their families.
Carer's Assessment | Carers Trust | The Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Crossroads Care are now Carers Trust. Action, help and advice for carers What is a Carer's Assessment? In short, a Carer's Assessment is your opportunity to tell social services about the things that could make caring easier for you. Carers Assessments were first mentioned in the Carers (Recognition and Services) Act 1995. Carers can ask for an assessment of their own needs when the person they are caring for is having an assessment, or re-assessment, of their needs. Two late Acts have superseded this Act, but the 1995 Act is the only one that does not restrict Carers Assessments according to age, meaning that young carers can have an assessment under this piece of legislation (see section on young carers' assessment below). The way that you can get a Carer's Assessment will depend on your circumstances. Carers and Disabled Children's Act 2000 This act of Parliament was promised in the Carers Strategy (1999) and made some important changes to assessment and services for carers. Carers Equal Opportunities Act 2004 Financial Assessment Young Carer's Assessment
The CAF process - Children and young people The CAF is a four-step process whereby practitioners can identify a child's or young person's needs early, assess those needs holistically, deliver coordinated services and review progress. The CAF is designed to be used when a practitioner is worried about how well a child or young person is progressing (e.g. concerns about their health, development, welfare, behaviour, progress in learning or any other aspect of their wellbeing) a child or young person, or their parent/carer, raises a concern with a practitioner a child's or young person's needs are unclear, or broader than the practitioner's service can address. The process is entirely voluntary and informed consent is mandatory, so families do not have to engage and if they do they can choose what information they want to share. The CAF process is not a 'referral' process but a 'request for services'. The CAF should be offered to children who have additional needs to those being met by universal services.
Services We Provide A young person can access our services at any point and not necessarily in any pre-determined order. The choice of when and at what stage they want to enter or exit the service is theirs. Information, Advice & Guidance The initial enquiries from young people often relate to advice on housing and benefits. Counselling Counselling at Moving On is to offer young people support when difficulties seem confusing, emotional and unmanageable. Pre-Tenancy Support We provide continual support to help young people through the process of securing long-term accommodation and help to plan for independence. Floating (Tenancy) Support Housing related support is offered to young people to enable them to set up a home in the community, live independently and achieve personal goals. 'MO's Army' Tenancy Survival Group Young people get together on a weekly basis every Wednesday from 2pm-5pm to share experiences, gain skills and support each other. Free laundry service for Moving On service users.
Refugees and asylum seekers in North East helped in project 29 May 2012Last updated at 13:53 ET The idea behind the project came from research by the forum and the university A project has begun in north-east England to help build bridges between locals and refugees and asylum seekers who have settled in the area. Over the next three years, the Changing Lives project will focus on inter-cultural contact between minority groups and professionals in the public, private and voluntary sectors. The scheme was made possible with more than £500,000 from the Big Lottery Fund and Northern Rock Foundation. It aims to give a voice to minorities. The Regional Refugee Forum and the University of Sunderland will work together to help give minority groups the "confidence" to be themselves. Project manager Herbert Dirhau said: "When refugees and asylum seekers come here, it is a new environment which can be overwhelming for some people. "The project is here to give people information and help in their settlement in the North East." 'Two-way conversation'
The age of risk: risk perception and determinati... [Med Law Rev. 2011 Housing staff fill gaps left by social workers Housing support staff are being forced to fill the gap left by social workers to assist homeless people and undertake tasks they may not be qualified for, a new report claims. According to ‘Tackling homelessness and exclusion: Understanding complex lives’ workers taking on primary responsibility for supporting homeless people with complex needs also feel isolated and out of their depth. The report, which was published today and took two years to write, also looked at some of the reasons behind homelessness and showed that almost half of people who slept rough had a history of substance abuse, institutional care and begging. It was comprised of responses from 1,286 people accessing homelessness, drug and other services. The report said: ‘It has been argued that housing support workers are effectively filling the vacuum that has been left by the retreat of social workers from ‘direct work’ with adults.
David Drucker obituary | From the Guardian David Drucker studied psychiatric social work at the London School of Economics before joining a pioneering service for the domiciliary care of mentally ill people If our father, David Drucker, who has died aged 86, had any regrets, it was (somewhat unreasonably) that he had not managed single-handedly to "fix up" the social problems of the planet. He had a strong sense of justice and community, always wanting to improve the lot of ordinary people. He was born in the East End of London during the general strike of 1926, his mother being taken to hospital by a fire engine with all bells clanging. He was one of the many thousands of children evacuated to the countryside in the early years of the second world war; after that he left school at 14 and worked. At 17, David trained as a navigator for the RAF in which he considered himself, in his modest way, as one of the "last of the lot" rather than the "first of the few".
Social workers deserve recognition, rather than this endless criticism | Society Social work is demanding and is made even more difficult by huge workloads and public sector cuts. Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian It seems the criticism and humiliation that can be heaped on social workers is limitless. Last week, child protection responses were found wanting by a Commons education committee. The social work profession is said to be at "rock bottom" in terms of how adoption is being dealt with. Then there is Josh MacAlister's claim that social work is a failing, demoralised, low-status profession in need of the "brightest and best" graduates to provide the stimulus for the rebranding it desperately needs. Of course, there are ways that social work, like all professions, can improve. The gravest maltreatment surrounds the systematic expulsion from public discourse of attention to all the good that social workers do, day in, day out, in often bewilderingly complex cases. There are certainly problems and challenges to be overcome.
Christmas: a difficult time for social workers | Social care network | Guardian Professional The music is playing, the trees are being decorated and the televisions are filled with adverts showing happy family meals and presents being exchanged. It is a time for family, for celebrations and for parties. I like Christmas. Working in mental health services make it a busy time for me as a social worker and an approved mental health professional (AMHP). For as long as I've worked in social care, which is more years than I'd like to recount, I've worked over Christmas. From end of November onwards, the team, reduced to a skeleton staff over Christmas, begins to feel the lid being released from the pressure cooker and the busy steam of stress escaping in terms of the referrals that come in – though we do have a higher number of emergency referrals. But these 'marker' times of the year are very difficult for some of the people I work with. There's no way of getting around these expectations without feeling like a grumpy curmudgeon. It isn't guilt I feel, it is sadness.