Well, Who Is Telling You That It Is..?

Joanna Nicolas is puzzled about her role as a social worker:

When a child is the subject of a child protection plan, the social worker only has to see the child once every two weeks. How can social workers redress the inequalities in our society when they barely have time to see the child?

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Social workers work within the thresholds for intervention set out for them. The focus is on the child and their need for protection, not the social injustice that may have led to that family being in the position they are.

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The role of the child protection social worker in today’s world is not to strive to redress the imbalance of our society.

Well, who on earth ever told you that it was, for heaven’s sa…

Oh.

Isabelle Trowler, the government’s chief social worker for children and families, said recently that social justice is at the heart of what social workers do. I was at the meeting where she made these comments, and they made me think, because I disagree. I don’t disagree that it should be, but I disagree that it is.

*sighs*