Social Workers

Children, Schools and Families employ social workers that work with children.  There are different types of social workers and different jobs that a social worker might do. 

There are those that might come out and see a family in an emergency, at any time of day or night, the Emergency Duty Team.  There are social workers who work out which families might need their help, the “Assessment Team”.  Then there are social workers whose job it is to help you sort out your problems and check that you are OK for the whole time that you are in care.  They are part of the “Care Management Team”.

Social workers employed by Children, Schools and Families also work in Youth Offending teams, The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service or Family Placement Teams (fostering and adoption) and they all have very different roles. 

You may come into contact with social workers who work with National Children Homes (NCH) who run amongst other things services for the under 10’s and care leavers in Hertfordshire.  The National Society for The Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) also employs social workers.

Sometimes you may not have a social worker allocated to you.  This could be because Children Schools and Families is waiting for a new social worker to join a team or because it takes a while for new children and young people to be allocated to a worker.  In some cases you may find the person allocated to your case is a Professional Assistant.  This will usually be someone with experience of working with children in care but who has not trained as social worker.

Your social worker, (the person given the responsibility of managing your time in care) should visit you regularly.  They should explain to you things that you don’t understand, and keep you informed of everything that is planned for you.  Your social worker will ask you about how you are feeling and what it is you would like to happen in your life.  It is quite likely that while you are in care you will have more than one social worker as people often move on to other jobs or move to different parts of the country.  This can make you feel quite fed up, but it is not your fault that people move jobs and you should never think that it is!

If you really don’t get on with your social worker this can be a big problem.  After all you need to be able to talk to them about lots of important stuff.  Try discussing it with your carer or an advocate and see if they can help.  Sometimes it is possible to change your social worker.