Could working in children’s social care be the next step in your career? Carry on reading to discover more about the complexities of this role, including day-to-day responsibilities, necessary qualifications and desired characteristics.
What to expect
As a children’s social worker, you’ll be working with a number of families with varying issues from mental health problems, to addiction and abuse. Therefore, your primary responsibility will be to support vulnerable people to give them the chance at a happier life.
Building relationships is another key part of social work, as you’ll be expected to liaise with the child’s family members, teachers and other influential figures in their lives. It goes without saying that empathy is paramount here as you will encounter people from all walks of life who are relying on you to provide the best care.
Although mundane, filling out forms also takes up a large slice of the typical social worker’s day. This is necessary to minimise risk, protect against potential lawsuits and for general record-keeping purposes.
Necessary qualifications
In order to become a social worker, you’ll need a degree which is approved by Social Work England. You can search the full list of courses here.
Desirable skills
Empathy
Perhaps the most important characteristic of a good care worker is empathy. It is your responsibility to listen to what your client is saying, in order to build a trusting relationship and get the best outcome based on their specific needs.
Strong organisation
As we mentioned, there’s a lot of important paperwork involved in this kind of role so you need to stay on top of it!
Flexibility
Each day in this profession will bring new challenges. To be a successful social worker, you need to expect the unexpected and be good at rapidly responding to stressful situations.
Resilience
You may encounter some difficult people and unsettling situations during your social care journey. Maintaining your composure is key in these scenarios and remember your main objective is to deliver the best outcome for the child under your care.
Critical thinking
In order to make the best informed decisions, you’ll need to analyse and make observations based on conversations with your client. This includes thinking critically without the interference of bias.
Interested?
Here at Imperium Solutions, we are helping tackle the social care crisis by providing local councils with project-based transformation solutions.Depending on what the local authority needs, we provide the client with a whole team of social workers, including project managers, team managers, QSWs, QAs, and business support. We have two dedicated delivery infrastructures, one specialising in solutions for adult services and the other for children’s social work activities.
Our Children’s division currently provides teams who manage backlogs of cases by providing additional capacity with the support and project oversight of a senior manager. Using our proven methodology, we can add value as a managed service whilst ensuring an instant impact.
As part of a project-based social work role, you get assigned a project lead, who will be your reliable point of contact and provide you with 1-1 support opportunities throughout your role and in every aspect, including your continued professional development so you can grow and develop your career. Together, we can use project-based solutions to reduce the backlog of social work cases and continue to improve the lives of service users.
So, if working in children’s social care sounds like the role for you, fill out our opportunities form here and our specialist team will place you based on your preferences. Email us at info@imperiumsolutions.co.uk for any additional queries.
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