social care – The Vintage Social Worker

care experienced, care leavers, memories, Poor Law, Reflection, residential child care, social work and child care, social work changes, Social work, child care and history of social work

Thoughts on a Strange evening

August 2, 2022 Jenni Randall

I love Lemn Sissay’s poetry and I loved the book, My Name is Why, if you are allowed to love a book that is a real life story of loss, anger, bewilderment and sadness. What I mean is that I have read many “lives of” books and blogs of those who have been unfortunate enough not to be able to live with their own families during their childhood years. This is probably the best of them. Not only does it have the precision and brevity of the poet but it incorporates the real, albeit as Lemn says filtered ,records from the social work files. There is anger but that is not the overriding emotion in the writing so it is not too hard for someone who was part of the Authority to read.

A few nights ago I saw him speak and read from his book on stage at the Holt Literary festival. Holt is in North Norfolk for those who don’t know. It was a perfect summer evening and there was a gathering of 100 or so people with a range of seating in this outdoor venue which is part of Gresham’s prep school playing field. Greshams is a mainstream independent senior day and boarding school with a linked junior school. Founded in 1555, it has its own theatre, boasts of being an all Steinway school and it has playing fields. It occurred to me that at £37,000 pa boarding fees this is hugely cheaper than keeping a child in the care system with many advantages that would not be obvious in the Good School Guide,

I left with many ideas and questions running through my mind that evening. At £20 a head for an hours talk and the type of audience that literary festivals attract would they really understand what the life of a child in care is really like. I am certain they would feel sympathy for the child who was abandoned and had such a traumatic time in institutions and be pleased that he had “made something of himself” after such dodgy beginnings but how can they have real empathy with that little boy standing against the wall in a big new institution having been plucked from a family that he thought was his forever. Or indeed the terror of walking into a ward in one of the old style psychiatric hospital day rooms when you are only 10. The latter is bad enough when you are an adult who is used to facing that situation. Did they? could they ? take away a real desire to make things better for the current cohort of children in the public care class? I doubt it somehow.

But was the intention of the evening to be a call to arms for those in the current care system? I am not sure. There was no attempt to suggest how things could be made better in the future from either speaker or audience during the question time. If witness writings and personal experience have become the province of literary festivals rather than social work conferences and training courses does this mean that their original purpose to change the system has become one of earning a living. I understand that everyone has to earn a living but can it not be at the expense of the opportunity to make a significant impact on the lives of those in care. I am not, I must add, making a direct comment about Lemn’s motives indeed I know that he does lots of other campaigning work. I am exploring , if you like , my concerns about the way some sections of the community choose to use these life memoirs and to offer patronage to the writers through their available middle class opportunities and events. Does this widen the gap between the care experienced and their patrons? Does it miss the opportunity to push a change agenda?

There is irrefutable evidence that our current system of care for children and young people has it roots in the workhouse system in both its underlying beliefs and in provision. In the minds of many sections of the public there are still the” deserving and undeserving poor”. There are children and parents whose misfortune brings with them sympathy for their plight and those who attract far less or indeed no sympathy at all although in fact they may be the most in need. Am I suggesting that there is a clear class issue in the provision of care for our children in public care? Yes I am. I am also suggesting that it is an issue that we have never properly addressed at any level in our professional training or work, or that our bosses whether political or organisational have addressed either . I am also suggesting that until we understand the roots of our welfare systems better and our reliance on centuries old principles that our current care system for all sections of society will remain unfit for purpose. There was some time ago a scheme that meant that some young people could access private boarding facilities but I don’t know that it was ever used successfully if at all. I wonder if it is still on the statute books. I imagine that until our general attitudes move to the genuine belief that everyone is deserving then it is not a scheme that should be revived perhaps just learning some lessons about how such excellent provision can be achieved at such low cost should be the first step. So maybe it is a long time off before children in care grace the playing fields of the public or independent schools of England.

Thank you Lemn for setting me off on that train of thought. If you read this it is rather like the way you suddenly follow a set of thoughts when you are speaking. If you the reader have not read Lemn’s book please do. My Name is Why is available through all the usual outlets.

Getting older, memory, Social work, child care and history of social work, Uncategorized

Sitting still.

March 26, 2019 Jenni Randall

How hard can it be to sit still for a morning to have your portrait painted by a group of budding amateur artists? Well actually not too hard but occupying the mind while remaining still can be a bit tricky. I began to think about the resultant pictures and how these artists would interpret me,not just the physical ,the outward presence but what would they see of me, of my soul, of who I was.

Perhaps nothing past the hair colour, the wrinkles, laughter lines and grey hairs but I hoped that they would see something else, something that maybe each individual would recognise and connect with, something that only they would see or better still something universal that anyone would see. They all knew very little about me other than a few public facts. I own a dog, who my partner is, a few friends maybe in common, that I am retired, and a few of the class knew that I was once the manager of the children’s home in the village only a few yards from where the class is held. And a guess at my age I suppose. Of course they can make up a back story from these few facts but it would be a bit thin and say nothing of the real me.

But what would I want them to see or not see . I would want them to see more than the good bits,more than the ready smile and kind word generally offered. I want them to see that those open parts of me are borne from many hard experiences not from an easy path through life because that is where I believe compassion and kindness spring from. If we are genuinely to understand the desires, wishes and needs of the vulnerable and less fortunate in life then we need to have experienced some hardship ourselves. This does not mean that only those who have experienced, for example, homelessness can aid the homeless or that you must have had your own children to be able to work alongside children and families. I have often been told that I don’t understand because I am not a parent . I recalled a young person once asking me if I was running a children’s home because I couldn’t have my own children when asked where she had got that idea from it transpired that this was a commonly held view among the staff. A back story born out of very few facts and a bit of imagination which fitted their own life scripts. They were mostly married women with children.

It is not the exact or similar event that must be experienced but the transferable feelings and emotions that are important to understanding. If I have felt loss, abandonment, hatred, overwhelming sadness, hopelessness, guilt, pain, anger, misery, then I can feel compassion for those with similar emotions. I can also believe that they are survivable even in the most dark and difficult circumstances. For those of us who can say that we have had good childhood who have experienced warmth, affection, security, friendship and unconditional love and always known our connection to the world we can just begin to understand all of these blessings in their absence if we can stand the pain for a moment. Because probably all of the people I have met during my career have and continue to experience the exact reverse. We can be brave enough to use our imagination and intellect to reverse our own story in order to share their pain. Because it is not our story we can return safely to our reality with renewed understanding. I have always tried to get in touch with the pain of those I worked with and I hope they knew that in some way. I know I can return safely to myself and that is probably why I have survived better than many of my peers and colleagues.

But can all this be seen in the lines on my face or in my demeanour while I sit for my portrait painters? We are none of us simple, straight line life stories. We are hugely and endlessly complex. My mind racing through these thoughts has kept my body still but now I am allowed a break and to see the end products. The colours in my hair proved a challenge apparently and I see nothing of my thoughts while sitting in their work except for one that showed a distinct stoicism in my posture and another that made me look rather far away in my thoughts which was indeed exactly where I was.

Sometimes sitting still and letting ones thoughts meander is a really good thing to do. I enjoyed my morning sitting still and I hope the artists did too and invite me back again.

care leavers, folk music, leaving home, social work and child care

Kinder Shores and the power of music

March 16, 2018 Jenni Randall

Can music change things? I hope so or else I am definitely heading down the wrong path at the moment. Kinder Shores is a CD and a concert to raise money for a project to provide specialist counselling for young parents who have been in care during their childhood. To find out all about it go to http://www.kindershores.org.

There were two inspirations for this project. The first my years in social work and my continuing contact with those who were in care as children and young people. I am privileged to still know them. I know that they may leave care but it never leaves them. The issues that come with being separated from parents as a child continue on into adult life colouring a whole range of life experiences particularly those to do with relationships and parenting. I have long-held that if while in care more therapeutic help was available this would be partially resolved but I know too that sometimes we have to work on issues when we are ready. For some young people who, in their adult years, may want the help it is sparse in availability and certainly not specialist enough to deal with the specific issues about being parented outside your birth family. So this project is greatly needed in my opinion.

Having left care more than 30 years ago, and on the surface, a successful adult life, it was only when I became a father in my 50’s that I realised I still needed to talk about my childhood. I was lucky to have the ongoing support of my social worker who helped me through some of my issues. It amazes me that there isn’t counselling available to all care leavers. Not only to deal with issues that took us to care but often for the inhumane way we feel treated whilst in care, especially feelings of abandonment when we do leave, often without the skills to cope alone whilst so young.

These are the words of David Akinsanya brought up in care he is a journalist and campaigner now and they encapsulate perfectly the need for this counselling service.

The second inspiration came through my love of music. Much of the music in the folk and folk rock world is driven by exploration of injustices, by the world of the ordinary working man, of politics, of opening up emotion and feeling, and the need to change the world for the better . Often the songwriters observation of the world and people around them is unerringly accurate and it can connect us with feelings we have hidden, ignored, or that simply relate to our experiences in life. More importantly they can sometimes connect us to other people’s feelings and life experience bringing awareness and understanding. And so there was a song that provided the final push to get this project underway, when I heard this song I knew exactly what it was about. It speaks of so many of the young people I have met, of their pain, their anger with the world that has treated them so poorly. It tells too,of the complex nature of the “rescue” of any adult attempts to make their world safe and secure and of the nature of therapeutic endeavour in whatever arena. She’s the One written by Suffolk singer/songwriter Eric Sedge became both the inspiration and gave me the title for the CD, the concert and the project. Kinder Shores is exactly what I want to help to achieve for these young people, to find peace and tranquillity in their lives for them as individual adults and for their loved ones and children. The words speak for themselves , here are the lyrics reproduced with Eric’s permission.

She’s The One

She’s the one with bad behaviour,

She’s the one who wants to fight,

She’s the one with the reputation,

She’s the one who bites.

She’s the one with all the bruises,

Tears in her eyes,

She’s the one who talks the loudest,

Covers up with lies.

Hush now Babe, I know you’re Frightened,

Hush now Babe I know you’re Scared,

Don’t you know your Daddy Loves You,

Don’t you know we all care,

So breathe in and out again

I saw you drowning off the headland with the waves coming in,

Shackled to your history, chained by your father’s sins,

So I raced into the shallows, to set you free,

But the undertow from long ago knocked me off my feet.

And the waters near engulfed me, but life has made me strong,

So I pulled you from the wreckage of a life gone wrong,

And we built you the finest clipper, now we’ll be your faithful crew,

So set a course to kinder shores may your path be true

Hush now Babe, I know you’re Frightened

Hush now Babe I know you’re Scared

Don’t you know your mummy Loves You

Don’t you know we all care

So breathe in and out again Eric Sedge

So can music change things? Yes it can. It can change how individuals feel, it can provide comfort in difficult times, it can offer explanations, it can make us dance and sing, give us joy, share our happiness, it can inform, explore and inspire. This CD has a narrative to the tracks that explores the issues that face these young people gthe world often without the skills and support to cope but it also has songs that speak about the possibility that in overcoming the difficulties there will be a better future out there. This music informs and inspires hope. If we all come together and share this music it can change things for these young people and their futures.

For more information

http://www.kindershores.org http://www.reesfoundation.org http://www.ericsedgemusic.com

media, Social work, child care and history of social work, Tv drama

Just wanted to say a word about Kiri….if a little late.

February 14, 2018February 14, 2018 Jenni Randall

I didn’t know whether to cheer or cry or both! My response to Miriams’s outburst to the assembled media wolf pack was a moment of sheer delight. Forget all the stuffy, prissy nonsense in the media about the portrayal of social workers in Channel 4’s mini series Kiri, I at last saw something that represented how I feel about my profession. How often have I wanted to openly talk with such passion and such humanity about a piece of work, about how I feel for a child for whom I have responsibility. We cannot do it without risking the heavens falling in on us. Even in business meetings it is rare and frowned upon by others who see it as unprofessional.

If we are going to get nitpicking about our portrayal on the media, especially in drama productions, then it will never happen in a way that will make us seem a mainstream emergency service. Of course it will not be a totally precise picture, the procedures will not be complete or accurate, and there may be an added dramatic edge to some characters because it is a drama, it is entertainment and not a training video for the general public.

A picture of us all sat at computers, filling in forms and attending meetings and panels would be like watching paint dry the only excitement being complaining about cold coffee or the irritation of road works when we are characteristically late for a meeting. So we have to stop posting about procedural inaccuracy, dogs in offices and social workers drinking and embrace the essence of our work that the public are more likely to engage with when more dramas are commissioned. I would give the very wonderful Sarah Lancashire a contract for a soap around the same character.

I imagine that the police, doctors, nurses, lawyers and many others feel misrepresented from time to time and no doubt the backlash is that the public want them to behave as in the latest TV show. However they have the public ear and eye, who will have a much clearer view of what it is that they do and how they do it perhaps, more importantly, they may also get some understanding of why they do it. Themes about complex issues around right and wrong, of difficult social issues, and the daily impossible decisions faced are all possible to explore through dramas. This becomes easier than documentaries where the personal and private issues of identifiable individuals may not be acceptable to explore so widely. As a profession we have to sit back, embrace the possibilities and accept the flaws.

I believe the payoff will be huge. And incidentally I know social workers who have the odd drink, who take dogs to work and who have difficult and complex lives themselves. There is more that unites us with our clients than divides us however high we may wish to put our professional pedestals. I thought this was well portrayed when Miriam gets the only real comfort in her impossible situation from her ex clients. There is no warmth from her colleagues or her line manager who despite themselves settle for toeing the company line and offering her nothing by way of help, support or even a kind word. I have had great support from those I have worked with in many situations, they understand difficulty, trauma, pain, anger and all those emotions we share with them from time to time in our lives. We would all do well to remember that in other circumstances we could be in their position in life. While the focus of any work is their situation not ours, all the pain and emotion to work with is theirs not ours there remains a place outside the therapeutic relationship for simple humanity, acts of kindness and solidarity without any negative impact on the “work”.

If Kiri did anything as a drama then it reminded me of why I became and stayed a social worker and I hope it showed that to the watching public. Well done Channel 4 and Jack Thorne.

PS I don’t drink at work but I have taken my dog to work.

christmas, Social work, child care and history of social work, winter festivals

When the world takes time to breathe: reflections on Christmas.

December 29, 2017 Jenni Randall

Nearby a father and husband is dying, the nurses and family are coming more regularly as the days pass. My first love posts messages between bouts of chemo and my life’s love died of self neglect and depression in an age of outcome driven social welfare unable to be reached by anyone. I switch on the TV for light relief and it reminds me of donkeys dying of thirst carrying their heavy loads of bricks, an albatross feeding its young with plastic from our seas, of orphans living on the streets, a toddler in a cardboard box on a main street seemingly invisible to passing shoppers, refugees with nothing and no home, the homeless and friendless. A friend posts on social media that for no apparent reason she is overwhelmed by a great sadness. I understand this. It’s Christmas.

I am driving home on Christmas Eve from Christmas celebrations , the cloak of darkness is pierced by homes and houses covered in light, trees flicker at me in the night and inside I picture the families relieved after hours of shopping but with that twinge of anxiety that something which will make the day tomorrow perfect has been forgotten. The cranberry sauce, or the rum butter or more likely the indigestion pills for tomorrow tables and stomachs will be groaning with food. This is the season of gluttony, of overindulgence, of celebration?? Celebration is often about feasting. I guess this harks back to a time when food was basic and for many in very short supply and for most just enough to keep body and soul together. Now it is not a rare and happy occasion to sample good, special or extra food but a time for eating and drinking ourselves into a stupor and of giving the supermarkets licence to tempt us to evermore extreme delights each year. Our overindulgence extends to present buying, to the yearly increase in the number of strings of lights attached to our homes, to the party bags and the number of gin varieties in fact to every aspect of what we could consider to be our already very well provisioned lives. So what exactly are we so heartily celebrating?

The possible options are numerous, the birth of a Saviour is one. Certainly churches see an increased attendance at Christmas and that can only be a good thing giving people a moments quiet and respite from the stress of world at Christmas. A festival of winter is another and certainly we need something to brighten the dark days of the year as we make the slow progress towards spring and the renewal of life. There is much talk of a time for families, of valuing the things that are important to us and of remembering those who we miss or are living away from their families. There are flaws in all of these , if you do not share the beliefs of the Christian church, are not in tune with the changing seasons and the natural world, have no family or are separated from them, are alone, old or ill then all these reason to celebrate become difficult to accept. Remembering the losses may become very real and only add to the sadness of the daily unhappiness. So what exactly are we celebrating?

Perhaps we are all using our overindulgence to celebrate or remember something special and unique to each of us and the trick is to work out what and how best to use this time of celebration. To do this we need, it seems to me, to rid ourselves of the prescriptive demands of materialism and to develop our own rituals and special moments throughout our winter festival. For me it’s great value is that it is a quiet time, a time when the world stops for a day or so and breathes, of calm and reflection. There is no other moment quite like it, driving home from a family dinner or a Christmas concert in the dark with no one else about, to quote the carol,” All is calm, all is bright.” In the brightness of that reflection I can only conclude that the message of these festivities for me is in the sharpness of the contrasts. That while I am grateful for my good fortune and can celebrate that in whatever way I choose it is also the time to recommit to ensuring that the world is a better place for all those who are sad, lonely or suffering. It matters not that this commitment come from questioning the overindulgent and wasteful materialism of Christmas. Dying, loss, loneliness and sorrow are in fact just the same whatever time of year the experiences visit us. It is sentiment that makes it seems worse. Or dare I suggest that these untoward events somehow blight the perfection we are led to believe is so important at this time of the year. It only matters that the desire to help lasts all year round. It only matters that we offer ourselves as agents of change , of help, company and solace at Christmas as at any other time. Just think what could be achieved if we all had a little less and used the money for charitable purposes throughout the year. Or all visited a lonely person on Christmas day or simply stopped to say Happy Christmas and chat to the homeless man who is sitting in the same spot as every other day of his life. It would be amazing.

I do hope that you all have had a very Happy Christmas and wish all my readers the very best for 2018.

Homes, Social work, child care and history of social work

Home Sweet Home?

November 11, 2017November 11, 2017 Jenni Randall

I have had many homes and many lovers as I said in my last blog, but it is the homes and not the lovers that are the subject of this blog! Maybe the rest will come later though perhaps not wise in the current climate. Several things that have happened recently have left me reflecting on the nature of “home”, a friend moving after twenty or so years from the house that had been her son’s childhood home, a visit to my “home” or do I mean “house” in Cornwall, a new chapter for a book about the meaning of home in relation to a children’s home, the movement of people across continents looking for a new safe home, the rise in homelessness and the crisis in the availability of homes.

“Home is where you hang your hat”

I don’t think so! I have put my hat on many a coatpeg overnight but in no way did it constitute home. That may be a sentimental quotation designed to make anyone who is somewhat transient in their lifestyle feel more settled and easier about their lack of a more permanent base. Indeed all dictionaries exclude temporary accommodation or residence from their definition of a home. This includes hospitals, prisons, care establishments and other institutions. This in itself is interesting as certainly care, nursing, convalescent and children’s homes have traditionally used the designation home. In the example of children’s homes this suggests that they cannot be that possibly amazing place we can know as home. This maybe supports the recent trend to transfer most public care for children to family based care.Both my research and experience would refute the idea that a children’s home cannot provide “a home “albeit temporary. There is a fundamental problem though with research which is based on individual experience and unable to be verified by any measurable statistical or quantitative evidence. What are we measuring? Does home mean the same to each person? Do we mean our childhood home, a geographic location, where our family live, does this change with phases in our lives, does it rely on the presence of certain people or possessions in that dwelling place, can one have more than one place that we consider as home? How we use the word may be relevant, do we mean somewhere that is homely or feels like a home even though it is not our main residence. It is certain though that our first experience of a place called home was as a child.

“Home is where one starts from” (T.S.Eliot)

Perhaps this is why it is, for better or worse, so fundamentally important to us all . Our home defines who we are throughout the various phases in our life, it is part of our self-definition and the public face that we choose at any point in time. This need to provide an outward facing expression of our life probably accounts for the need in some for houses so much larger than required or the placing of Georgian styled porticos and reclining lions at the front of ex local authority housing after the right to buy sell off. So if indeed it is the root of ourselves what makes it so critical to each individuals life. Home can be anything from a cardboard box to a million pound mansion but it is so much more than an estate agents description of the building. It is where we find sanctuary, peace , comfort, safety and where the relationships that are the most important to us are centred. It is where we learn about the domestic detail and patterns of living that will form the basis of our whole future life. In some ways home is a feeling rather than a description of a place which is why it is so difficult to quantify the elements that make it or to find set of general principles that would define it. Each of us has a sense of what makes our safe place, each of us can describe how it feels though increasingly it seems we choose descriptors that are to do with the style and materialistic content. However it seems so many images we might choose to illustrate home hark back to a less materialistic time and focus on family and friends gathered by the fireside in a picture of probably unrealistic nostalgia.

“Curses like chickens come home to roost” Old proverb

My memories of my childhood home can be easily brought to mind by the smell of Sunday lunch cooking as it takes me back to opening the back door after Sunday School to the warmth of a kitchen rich with roasting meat. While my memories of home are happy, warm , fun, and secure it is not true of so many. Children and young people for whom home represents fear, hunger, pain, uncertainty, anxiety or sadness can be taken back to those times equally quickly by a wide range of triggers. For those of us who have chosen to live alongside young people in care and to make a home base for them know how sudden these changes can be and how sometimes they can be seemingly inexplicable. An excellent songwriter and folk singer from Suffolk Eric Sedge captures this perfectly in a song called “She’s the One” when he talks of the “undertow from long ago” sweeping him off his feet when trying to reach a child who is drowning ” chained by the father’s sins”. We have to work from a very secure place ourselves to be able to work with these changes but I think we have to be prepared to recognise that whatever the horrors of that childhood place were it remains home to that child. Too often I have heard workers talk in disparaging terms about a child’s home, even tell the child that is was to awful a place to be a home. Just about every young person I have lived alongside has wanted to go back there and many do just that when they leave care. It may be a fantasy that it will be OK or that it wasn’t as bad as they have been told, it may be that they want to make it OK somehow. Whatever the reason right there are relationships with the most important people in their lives, right there was the beginning , the defining moments of their lives. It matters not what curses there were and or even when their return is treated like a curse they have to return , to try, to see, to learn, because it is their home and theirs alone.

Make yourself at home….make yourself a home….

As adults we can develop new contexts for our home with our own children, partners, friends, lovers, and so on. But as adults carers we have to develop a regime that will hold those young people for whom this coveted place home has terrors and at the same time teach them new ways of living in a place that may offer security, safety, warmth, and good memories. In this way they may be able to move forward to build homes in adulthood that do not repeat the patterns learned in early life but where they are able to hold that first experience safely. May be I have not answered my own question about what makes a home, but Debbie when I asked her about what made 11a Corve Lane Children’s home feel like home said “It was where I could curl up on the settee and watch TV”. Maybe there is an element of freedom and choice in the definition of home too. A place where we can be ourselves. It is an ever-changing idea, not constant but changing with time , memories, age and the people who come and go in our lives. A complex concept so much more than concrete and brick that underpins so much of who and what we are.

“She’s the One” Words and Music Eric Sedge on Plenty More Fish in the Sea Broadside Boys 2016.

Getting older, Social work, child care and history of social work

Slips, trips and falls.

September 20, 2017 Jenni Randall

It is not all about social work! This was not my first thought as I lay on the bathroom floor in pain surrounded by a variety of debris that I had knocked to the floor on my way down. My first thought was **** that hurts, followed swiftly by the notion that this was the beginning of something I did not want to face or think about. The first step being waiting in A and E at the Norfolk and Norwich hospital with a suspected broken hip just another elderly person who had slipped and fallen at home. Indeed I had slipped and fallen while taking the nail varnish off my toes with my foot on the bath edge and on reflection it could actually have happened whether I was 40 or 60 plus. Having decided that no matter how much it hurt I couldn’t stay there on the floor I hauled myself to my feet and made my way to lay on the bed through increasingly blue air.A few minutes later after taking stock and I decided that while it hurt I had not broken my hip nor anything else. Relief.

General friendly advice seemed sure that “at my age” it would be sensible to get it checked out and so I found myself sitting in the relative peace and quiet of Cromer Minor Injuries unit. Accompanied in the waiting area by two more “fallers” of an age to need bumps and bruises checked out and a young man with a sports injury, I began to wonder how I had slipped,if you’ll excuse the pun, seamlessly from the category of having had an accident to the slipped and fallen descriptor. Age. It’s an ageism. The script goes something like this.

“Take a seat “ “I’d rather stand it hurts to sit.” “Oh bless you. A fall?” All delivered by a gentle lowered voice and a kind, benign smile reserved for babies, small children and the elderly.

To the sports injury. “Now what have you been up to.” Big broad grin and a louder and altogether jollier tone of voice. “We will get you sorted out and back on that football field soon.”

Now I could kindly believe that this was a health worker consciously adjusting her responses to each individual who presents at her desk but I rather sense that there is something far less conscious at work.

” Take a seat in the waiting area please”

So I finally lower myself to a chair and look around at my other “fallers” and wonder what back stories we all have and how sadly we have now arrived at this waiting room with the resultant injuries of our trips, slips and falls. We are , of course ,taking this all stoically and with the required smiles and pleasantries to each other. We are not too bad, bit bruised and I understand why the elderly put up this front of being OK and not making a fuss. If we gave in to making a fuss and acknowledged everything that ached , creaked and didn’t work quite right we would be talking about it all day and never talk or think about anything else! So stoicism along with the aches , pains and now bruises becomes the order of the day. That way we can find space in our lives for other things, funerals, outings, voluntary work, families, dogs,knitting and so on. Already my conversations with my friends usually starts with who is dead, dying, ill or having their new hip before we get to the interesting stuff. We are not quite old enough for the first category to be the predominate discussion but definitely old enough for the replacements updates.Perhaps its just a different kind of gossip but I think I preferred the gossip that centered around whose doing what to whose partner that shouldn’t be, sexual goings on were much more exciting.

The gentleman with the painful shoulders’ wife gently asks him every few minutes if he is OK. Maybe they have been together since being teenage lovers, brought up their children, built a life between them and now enjoy grandchildren and the garden that they have kept beautifully for the past 50 years. They bought their house when the children were small and have lovingly cared for it all these years but maybe it is becoming too much and they have to face the inevitability of leaving all those memories and the garden and downsizing. That’s another word that comes into the aging vocabulary to avoid using shrinking, shrinkage or shrunk. Shrinkage of everything just about, the reduction of life and self in so many ways is the reality but we are downsizing when we leave our beloved family homes. Downsizing our lives is the truth.

I have had many lovers and many houses, made my home where ever I have landed at any one time, can they see this in me as I sit alone with my bruises. I have had a career that spans the 50 years of that garden’s life and has been as carefully nurtured and hopefully has given as much to the people who shared it with me. Can they see that too? Maybe the other faller a lady somewhat older than me but also alone with her bruise can see that in me. She has hurt her elbow. Slipped and fell on her front path she tells me. Her children told her that she should get it checked “at her age”. I guess her husband is dead and her home is a small immaculate cottage in a town that has been her life since childhood, married at the church she now attends every Sunday and where she helps with the flowers. Her elbow may curtail that for a while.

None of these people have been wanderers or travellers except for holidays but maybe the lad with the sports injury will make a football career and have a life full of adventures, excitement and many lovers too. It will be some long time before he succumbs to the language of the slippery slope into second childhood and sits with his thoughts, his memories and his bruises in minor injuries as part of the “has been cavalry”.

“Mrs Randall? This way please.”

“How did you fall?”

“Varnishing your toe nails?! Really at your age you must be more careful.”

Social work, child care and history of social work

What am I looking for?

September 11, 2017 Jenni Randall

It was Cromer Carnival recently and I went to watch the parade. The town was packed, people waiting along the route looking towards the direction of the approaching procession and excitement could be felt in the air. Kids, some in fancy dress waved long tails of multicoloured fur on sticks and ate chips while they secured their place at the front of the pavement. Local people waited hoping to see their friends and relatives go by and holiday makers happy to have an evening’s entertainment for all the family. I was taken back to a holiday for young people that I had arranged many years ago , under the Intermediate Treatment funding, to a youth camp site near Cromer and our visit to the town to see the carnival.

The history footnote here is that in the very early days of Intermediate Treatment, the fore runner of Youth Justice, we used the funding rather non specifically for holidays for young people who we considered to be unlikely to have time away from the issues they were facing at home and to give them new and exciting experiences which maybe be more attractive to them than criminal activity. This was usually done as part of a weekly activity programme and as a general preventative support strategy.

So we are waiting near the cinema and the group are pushing out into the street to look in the direction of the expected parade and then one young chap of about 12 or 13 looked at me and said” Miss what am I looking for?”

This memory prompted me to think about the nature of deprivation. The deprivation that is not obvious, not as visible as the scruffy and dirty clothes being worn to school or the sadly increasing queues at food banks, the kind of deprivation that cannot be measured by statisticians and inspectors. Indeed the kind of deprivation that social workers have long since ceased to address as part of their work due to lack of time, funding and the inability of anyone to be able to successfully measure the outcomes of their efforts. Fortunately there are some projects often run by charities, community groups and churches that fill this gap to some extent. This is the deprivation of social, cultural and life experiences, the opportunity to extend the boundaries of daily existence to learn new skills and ideas and to acquire through these experiences a sense of self and direction in life.

Of course education provides some of these opportunities but less so in the current educational climate geared to measurable success ie exams. It has always struggled to provide these experiences for the children of poorer families. They have not had the resources to pay for trips ,provide packed lunches or appropriate clothing and resources for their children to take part. Parents who themselves have had limited life experiences will make choices about opportunities for their children based on their own perspective of what would be worth the money. So if they have never been to the theatre for example they are likely to feel that their limited finances would not be best spent on that trip even when it is offered. I have never been a fan of the expression ” the cycle of deprivation” but it could be used to describe the passing on of a very limited life view from one generation to the next. It is , of course, creating a culture of its own and there is a view that no one should be trying to find ways to change that and to do so denies those families choice. I struggle with that knowing that there is so much wonder ,excitement and joy to be found in the world and hold to the opinion that everyone should have the chance to find their own way into sharing new experiences and cultures. Not understanding the concept of a carnival or that milk comes from a cow in a field( same young man) is a level of poverty of life I find unacceptable. Today in the age of amazingly easy access to information and knowledge these examples are probably outdated and would not apply but the principle remains.

Is it any different for children in public care, many of whom will come from backgrounds with very little opportunity of any kind? Targets are certainly set for educational achievement and have made us more attentive to ensuring good school attendance and outcomes even though for some this is a struggle with all the other competing issues in their lives. But how would we measure the giving of life experience and its outcome which for some may be more important and critical to how they live their adult life, the job they choose and their sense of self belief than their O level tally. Perhaps it is why it is not a priority. Recording of a child’s care experience is now so sanitized that records are unlikely to contain more than a passing reference or request for funding. So it is difficult to measure retrospectively and for young people looking at their records to pick up threads of childhood experience extremely complicated. Those in good foster homes probably fare better as the family will have interests, hobbies, holidays etc that they will share. But I have known children in foster care who have not always been included or have been given the choice to reject activities and often that rejection is based on a fear of something new. For those in residential care their experience will be limited only by the imagination and previous experiences of the care staff and is therefore something of a lottery.

Digging into the dim and distant past of my career there was a time when social workers would put together ideas for trips, activities, experiences, theatre ,music, some free( I could always talk some freebies out of someone) holidays etc. I have tried all sorts of things from taking children on a trip to London who had not been on a mainline train never mind the tube even though they live only 20 miles away from the city, to a UB40 concert at Wembley , climbed mountains, canoed, camped, cooked outdoors, theatre trips, stately homes, amusement parks and yes carnivals and everything in between. Funded largely by the Local Authority who to their credit thought that it was a good use of their finances, or from free offers and sometimes from local businesses who would want to support children in the community without using it as a publicity stunt and guess what social workers gave their time for free or were able to take some time in lieu with their employers blessing. These may have been golden days but I now meet adults who have those memories, for whom the events opened doors that they have since used to further their careers, education or a life long interest and many who have shared something they did then with their own children. It seems to me that even in these days of austerity and stricter health and safety requirements the lack of funds and the need for a risk assessment should not prevent us from giving such a gift to our young people.

PS We might even have some fun together!! x

Social work, child care and history of social work

A Desk of my very own please

July 21, 2017 Jenni Randall

Of course giving every social worker a desk of their very own is not a solution to the serious workplace issues faced by the profession but it is an indicator of how we are perceived and valued by our employers. In a report published this week by Dr Jermaine M Ravalier of Bath Spa University supported by BASW and the SWU he concludes ” that working conditions for social workers across the UK, irrespective of job role, are extremely poor”. Later in his report he goes further to describe them as “unacceptable” and likely to lead to both physical and mental ill-health. I know this to be true at both a personal level and anecdotally. So it’s not news but a good supportive piece of research nonetheless. But will it get us any further in making the changes required. As a profession we have been complaining about our work conditions for years. No one apparently listens and successive politicians and managers tighten the noose when there is a tragedy or mistake.

Can history, looking back, help us at all? I try not to look back over 50 years using my rose-coloured specs but to be more objective about how the past could help this undoubted crisis in our profession. First can I dismiss any debate about training, initial, continuing or anything else. Our training is good for the most part and is always an easy change target. Better than my training? Different but still relevant to the job. The good news is that Ravalier’s report highlights that we are “highly engaged with our job” despite the other negative aspects of our world. So our motivation is high, we want to help our very vulnerable members of society to improve their lives and we have the skills to do this. We do not according to the report even want lots more money! BUT, there is always a BUT in my writing. This BUT is that the systems and structures of our working world are, in my opinion, rubbish, as they almost exist as a separate entity and certainly are not fit for the purpose of getting the social work job done. The public image and perception of our work is equally bad but that is for another blog.

The first thing we need to do is to turn the whole thing on its head. We need to return to the principle of the primary task so eloquently described by the late Richard Balbernie in Residential Work with Children 1966. It is the task that the enterprise must perform to survive. Social work has lost sight of it’s primary task, it is clouded by the agenda’s of many stakeholders, politicians, local councillors, Ofsted, managers, private enterprise shareholders and owners to name but a few. Each of these groups require information and proof of outcomes that suit their individual enterprises, so we as social workers have our working days defined not by the needs of our clients but by the agenda’s of others. We know why we joined the profession, we know why we get up in the morning and go to work, we know what we want to achieve together with our clients. We need to help others refocus on the social work task thus regaining control of our profession. We need to move back to the days I remember when the public understood what social workers did and thought it to be a highly regarded occupation.

Regaining control will mean reassessing how all management systems service that task, how processes need to behave in order to achieve our assessed and agreed outcomes for the client. This means that timescales,for example, will be set by the work we are doing not by outside influencers. We will be judged by those outcomes. Inevitably then there will be a shift to individual social workers taking responsibility for their own success or failure. The days of social workers blaming managers who do not understand their work will be gone and as professional individuals we will stand accountable to the public and to our employer. Taking professional control should then reduce caseloads, improve impossible timescales, and provide client centred administrative systems. Yes we will still face computers, fill in forms and provide quantitive data but we will be clear about why. Sadly I don’t think that anything will stop us having to work long hours some days, unsocial hours on others and occasionally when we are not feeling 100%. That is the nature of the work and the spirit of a social worker.

Let’s think about our immediate work environment for a moment. I have worked in some awful old buildings mostly now sold off by local authorities and I have worked in newly built call centre style offices. The former may have been cold in the winter but were more conducive to the task than the modern call centre environment. If we are to be able to provide the reflective and responsive supervision that being a social worker requires to develop personally and achieve professionally then we need supervisors at least to have their own offices. Spaces that have to be booked in advance may be fine for tasks that are more predictable in nature but frequently there is a need for space to talk and think with a senior/supervisor/manager on return from a visit in the here and now. Ravalier does state that peer support among social workers is good and the cynical part of me thinks that we have had to develop this in the face of such poor working conditions. I have had many supervision sessions going through a spreadsheet to see if I have completed all my timescales and never discussing the client or my direct work. However, back to the desks, hotdesking is a non starter. I do not want to share a computer or office space with trading standards, though I am sure they are very nice people. What does that do to confidentiality or should I have peer conversations in my car or the corridor? Hardly professional behaviour. Our employers clearly do not understand the nature of our work. I want to be able to come back to my own space and think and write, analyse and discuss, share despair and delight, understand and be understood, offload and relax. I am a professional dealing with complex life changing work and my employers should treat me as such not as a local authority bureaucrat. Thankfully I have had this, now a luxury, all my working life and I cannot emphasis enough the value of sharing an office with my peers and having my own desk. This applied equally when I was a manager, having my own office and being able to be available when staff needed me or when difficult conversations were required.

These things were there for me in my early career as were administrative staff who understood the task, knew my individual clients, reminded me of deadlines, made me tea when I was upset after taking a child away and provided a dedicated service to a small group of staff and their clients for consistent periods of time. They were an invaluable support in good customer service. My managers were engaged with my work, they knew my clients, they remembered events in the young people’s lives and asked about their progress outside of any formal arrangement. It felt as if they were in this collaborative effort on the part of the organisation, working with me not against me. In this weeks PSW there is an article from Dr Andy Gill, the new chair of BASW England where he talks about slowing things down and returning to what brought us to the profession in the first place. I recommend it to you.

Let us turn things around. We can do this but we need to maybe look back to refocus on what really matters, to rediscover why the profession began, remains necessary, and why we choose to work in what should be the 4th emergency service( apologies AA). By reclaiming our professional place we will significantly improve the outcomes for those we help and so many things will come right for us too.

References

UK Social Workers: Working conditions and Wellbeing. Dr Jermaine M Ravalier. Bath Spa University pub 14.7.17 j.ravalier@bathspa.ac.uk

Slow down, you’re moving too fast. Dr Andy Gill. Professional Social Work pub British Assn of Social Work. July/August 2017 http://www.basw.co.uk

Social Workers Union. admin@swu-union.org.uk

Residential Work with Children. Richard Balbernie. Pergamon 1966

Social work, child care and history of social work

Flood and Fire: Some reflections

June 26, 2017 Jenni Randall

Countless words will be spent on the disastrous fire at Grenfell Tower over the coming weeks and months, together with many tears, much anger and an overwhelming desire for this never to happen again. The media, politicians, experts and others will analyse every moment , every inch of the building and no doubt at some point there will be legislation to ensure everyone living in highrise housing a safer future. All this will be necessary to move on from this catastrophic event, to answer the questions from the residents and the families of the dead, missing and injured and to prevent further such disasters involving seriously underfunded and neglected public housing.

I, along with everyone else, watched with horror and felt the panic rising in me for those trapped and dying. It is everyone’s worse nightmare and we cannot begin to imagine the horror.It is equally a nightmare for the rescue services whose sole motivation for choosing such a career is to help and save lives and who, in a tragedy of this scale, cannot save everyone. They will see things that no person should have to witness in civilian life. It is probably only paralleled by the witness of those in war zones. I can relate to the need to rescue, to help, even if as social workers the term rescue does not sit easily. It is however what we sometimes do and the desire to help is the reason we join the profession. As I watched the great and good come forward to visit and to offer condolence I recalled my own experience of being flooded out from my home and reflected on what may really matter to each individual in these grave circumstances. Way behind the media pictures and the high profile visits are individuals struggling with unthinkable losses, grief and desolation. It is pain that thankfully few of us ever have to experience and that in the normal framework of our lives we cannot imagine. Under all the hours of media coverage and bags of aid are individual stories , lives that have been lived and that have to be lived.

My own closest experience is now at some distance in my life but there are a few things that stay with me. I lost no one, only things. It is the small personal moments that mattered not the grander gestures. I recognise the need in everyone to feel that they want to do something or is it that some fear censure of they are not seen to respond. Sorting through the remains of my music memorabilia irretrievably stuck together with a mixture of mud and water;the soundtrack of my life heading to the skip, I was not about to go out to see the Environment Minister and the local MP walking through town in their new wellies. Of course they had no answers and would have new jobs by the time any promises ‘to do something’ ever come to fruition. What did matter was the army of local people whose names I will never know who appeared with brooms and buckets to help clear the mud, water and debris from my home before moving on to the next home. What mattered was the lady I met in the park while walking the dog and who having listened to my story about the dog’s toys floating off to be lost left a small bag of dog toys tied to my door handle. The note saying they were from her dog reduced me to tears. I still have that note. But during those endless midwinter days of clearing and cleaning with no heat or electricity the pizza man who was giving away food free in the first few days was nowhere to be seen!!

I was not found accommodation by officials, the dog proved a problem and I needed to declare myself homeless by going to the nearest council office some ten miles away. I was offered free wipes and masks to help with the cleaning though!! Another chat with another dog walker produced the offer of a dog friendly holiday cottage belonging to his friend. I hear the complaints that the local community should not have been left to sort the immediate response to this current disaster but thinking back that is nearly always the case and isn’t that what our communities are about and do best. Isn’t that why we spend much of our time creating and maintaining a sense of belonging , of partnership, cooperation and friendship within our community? We are our community and they are us. We are together in both good times and bad, when we celebrate with street parties or open community centres in a disaster we are together. No statutory body can do what we can do. Their role is different and limited and we need to be clear about that. Later they provided flood doors to my house at no cost and made me feel much more secure but it took time. We need them to help us create our communities and to support our efforts by listening and understanding to what we need. There are many things that require statutory and official intervention and many that are best left to the people.

I have some reflections for the media too. I know you have a job to do. But I still have a picture in my head of the arc lights and cameras lined up waiting like vultures for high tide to come and demolish our medieval bridge. Waiting for that picture, that moment , the competitiveness between the networks; it would have been such a moment of sadness for the town but that was not important the story was all. I remember clearly a Sunday morning, cold miserable December and Christmas approaching, emptying dehumidifiers and cleaning , then hearing a live radio broadcast outside my house and a reporter saying that the town was back to normal and that all signs of the flood had gone. I wanted to scream out of the door…You want to come in here! You are a pretty insensitive bunch. If you can’t work with empathy then go away and remember that for those involved the trauma and tears go on quietly behind closed doors for years and for some for ever.

I have forgotten the material things I lost, much of the days events and the Environment Minister’s name but with me stays the sense of community, of neighbour helping and supporting neighbour, the broom and bucket army. The worth of recognising what is important to every individual cannot be over emphasised. It may seem small, insignificant and unimportant in the midst of the chaos. The dog’s toys meant nothing to anyone except me. The recognition of that detail for me was priceless. And when the public clamour of anger and grief has died down and the media have moved on the struggle to overcome and survive goes on behind the closed doors of the those caught in the maelstrom of such horror.

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