I really need anybody who uses these approaches in their practice to comment or message me. Just have a question in regard to a case study (fiction) for school PLEASE!!

I have a class project due next week and I am suppose to conduct a zoom interview with a criminal justice social worker.
Is there anyone on here that can help or assist ?

Many thanks.

Typically, do jobs where you are an substance use counselor require you to be sober from everything? Just wondering because sometimes I will drink either Friday or Saturday.

I have been working for a nonprofit in Washington State for the past two years, and have enjoyed many aspects of my job. But one thing I have not enjoyed so far is the management style of the people in leadership. It seems lack of transparency, nebulous, yet simultaneously punitive directives, and borderline union busting are a common thread across many branches of thus organization, per its Glassdoor page. After digging a little deeper, I have found many similar complaints from other agencies in the social services field, ajd spoken to many colleagues who have worked at these agencies and confirmed what those reviews state.

My question is this: why do so many companies in such a critical field seek to suffer from the same leadership woes?

After taking one (1) week off work for Thanksgiving.

As a chaos case manager, I’m honestly surprised it wasn’t higher. I was betting it would be at least 250.

Hi! I did clinical work in 2021 but have been doing more case management since. I’m sure I can shake off the dust fairly quickly but as I ease back into this type of work, what is a good refresher book, podcast, ect to get my mind trending in the right direction?

The intention of a weekly discussion thread is to create a space for members to post anything; it's a place to post things that you want to say but you do not feel it deserves its own thread or you either don't want to make a whole thread out of it. This can mean little celebrations, rants, sharing news articles, shout outs to other members, pointless thoughts, memes, etc.

Got accepted to do my final placement in rural QLD. Main concerns are around 1) lack of accessible services in the region and 2) how to deal with small town gossip/ disclosures/ seeing clients in community.

What should I take? Luckily accommodation is free, shared with other allied health workers on their placements.

Anything I should expect or prepare for in particular?

I had a speciality doctor told me I likely have an illness (not sharing name) where the immune system attacks one of my organs. Apparently it's one people can function "normally" on with meds. I will know for sure in a couple weeks if I have the illness. I have worked in hospital social work for a minute now and am constantly stressed.

I have long worried that social work with acutely ill would make me sick and see this as a sign that I am actually starting to get sick from the stress of the work im doing. Planning on leaving long term but does anyone have any advice how they have handled their social work roles when dealing with chronic physical health illnesses. Have those of you in these situations even stayed in the field or left for a less stressful line of work? Did you even try to make it work or see that event as a sign to switch jobs asap?

Please be kind and thanks in advance!

Hey.

So, I obviously know that if I see clients in public I can't acknowledge them unless they acknowledge me first. My problem is what if they do want to come up and talk to me, but that goes against my boundaries?

I work in a group setting so it's never one-on-one with any clients. They do know about the confidentiality rules when doing an intake, but they are not told about it by me. I don't like talking about my personal life much, even with coworkers. But with the population I'm working with, it's essential to build a comfortable rapport with them, and I can't come across as too clinical and unfriendly (it's not a clinical setting either) causing them to not want to engage in services.

Sometimes I have shared interests with clients. I don't discuss them in depth, and I never bring it up unprompted, but we do talk about some things to build a rapport.

Let's say for example my client and I coincidentally attend the same concert or some other event and they approach me. I could imagine some of them trying to start a whole conversation or even trying to hang out with me. I also sometimes go to these places alone if my friends aren't interested, so I wouldn't be able to use my friends as a "shield" I guess.

So, how would I tactfully reject them? I can't repeat ethical boundaries in social work in a public setting because that would be a violation of confidentiality. This population might not get the hint if I just subtly brush them off or be offended if I have to draw hard boundaries.

Thankfully I haven't run into any situation like this yet, but being in a smallish town makes me paranoid.

LICSW in Massachusetts, mobile crisis. I recently got promoted to program director of 3 programs that all require 24/365 staffing. I also had a baby 6 mos ago. Yes I’m also questioning my sanity.

My job does not turn off. I mostly knew this, I’ve been in management for a while. But the promotion of course means this is worse than ever. It’s been 2 mos and every minute of every day poses the risk that I’ll have to respond in person somewhere due to a staffing gap in a mandated program. It’s killing me when I’m trying to also be a good (NEW) mother.

It’s besides the point but I’m of course salaried in my position too, the only one in the program who is salaried, so I made more money before I took this (because I can’t avoid doing 50-60 hour weeks even now).

I don’t know how to manage and improve quality of life in this situation. I don’t want to leave, I very much like the rest of my job and I’m good at it. But this is not survivable

LMSW here working in a hospital setting. My employer denied my choice of supervisor because they say I must use my manager as my supervisor toward my clinical license.

I had already selected a supervisor and was about to sign the contract. I also needed to inform the hospital that I was not using my manager as a supervisor.

Employer was informed that I was using another licensed supervisor within the organization and they denied me.

Thoughts? Anyone with experience with this? I have already reached out to the state board for their guidance.

I work in child welfare and recently about three DV cases fell into my lap. I’m already beginning to realize how frustrating it is to work with these types of families. Sometimes I’m answering questions for the perpetrator that I don’t realize are traps to set up his wife. Sometimes the DV victim is sharing information with me and begging me not to tell her husband (the perpetrator) that she shared it with me. I try my best to not share the information in order to protect the victim and keep the door of communication open. But then the perpetrator asks me a question outright about what I’ve been asked not to share. Can I lie to him? It’s almost impossible to keep track of all the lying, misinformation, and what I should not share in order to protect the victim. I sometimes feel like this job is a lot deception to get to the truth and it feels ethically dubious. I also feel like I’m being put in the middle of marital unease. Does anyone have this experience? Have you found any helpful strategies to address it? Greatly appreciate any help you can provide!

EDIT: if you grew up in a DV household, I’d like to hear your thoughts on what you think would have been helpful from a caseworker coming in to your family.

I'm doing internship at a place with people with a disability and today someone got a beginning of a panick attack. I know how to handle panick attacks as I get them myself too sometimes but another college intervened but in a very unhelpful way, so that the whole groups attention was on her.

She thought she forgot her medication but finally another college said she already gave it so the whole blow up was for nothing if I just thought to ask the other collegues before.

Some of the other people w disability started saying she should calm the heck down and it was just so unpleasant to be in front of everyone, but I didn't step up to take her to a private space

I'm aware I'm only doing internship but it's the first time I regret how I handled a situation and I notice I take it home when I regret my own actions

I'm sure it will happen again as I'm learning so any advice how to let it go and not cringe everytime I think of it?

Hi social work friends. I am renewing my license and am curious if/when/how I will be requested to show proof of my CEU’s? It was not part of the renewal process.

Thanks for answering this silly question! Appreciate you all and our community.

hi!! baby social worker here (about a year and a half into my career) looking for some recommendations on any books that might bee beneficial in advancing my practice!

some areas i’m interested in/wanting to facilitate some growth around are:

• empowerment and relational lenses and approaches
• harm reduction
• navigating and/or preventing burnout
• anything on attachment theory
• advocacy skills
• boundaries

i’m also doing a masters in counselling psychology right now so anything clinical is also super interesting to me!

thanks for any suggestions y’all can provide!

Looking for something other than therapy. Ideally, I’d like something more fast paced, in the community with people in need or at a hospital. But I’m also open to something online. I worked in community mental health for some time while gathering my clinical hours and although I dont miss the bureaucracy and the stress of meeting productivity, I do miss the clients that I worked with. Currently in private practice and I love it, but I’m bored

This thread is to alleviate the social work main page and focus commonly asked questions them into one area. This thread is also for people who are new to the field or interested in the field. You may also be referred here because the moderators feel that your post is more appropriate for here. People who have no questions please check back in here regularly in order to help answer questions!

Post here to:

• Ask about a school
• Receive help on an admission essay or application
• Ask how to get into a school
• Questions regarding field placements
• Questions about exams/licensing exams
• Should you go into social work
• Are my qualifications good enough
• What jobs can you get with a BSW/MSW
• If you are interested in social work and want to know more
• If you want to know what sort of jobs might give you a feel for social work
• There may be more, I just can't think of them :)

If you have a question and are not sure if it belongs in this thread, please message the mods before submitting a new text post. Newly submitted text posts of these topics will be deleted.

We also suggest checking out our Frequently Asked Questions list, as there are some great answers to common questions in there.

This thread is for those who are trying to enter or interested in Social Work Programs. Questions related to comparing or evaluating MSW programs will receive better responses from the Grad Cafe.

I saw a posting for a PRTF. Every single review was about how poor management is. Am I too bright eyed and bushy tail for thinking I could apply and help build it back up? I have the experience and tons of ideas for process improvement. I also don’t want to ruin my own mental health trying to do so.

Hi and happy post tgiviiing yall! my private practice encouraged us to use PsychToday for prospective clients. We do have a waitlist sometimes but it's mostly couples. I don't do couples therapy. I have felt like stagnant at my. job- mainly health concerns that are increasing burnout tenfold. Infertility and early menopause at 33y.o. Anyways- My job wants me to get more clients and my Psych today is totally empty- like no new requests. Slimmed out for a few months. I'm not sure why or how to improve my profile so people request more- I know there is a lull over the holidays. How do you guys get your clients mostly? I feel kinda powerless and the business I work for seems to be unhelpful for most part.

If I'm licensed but want to move to a different country, what would the process usually look like? I would like to move outside of the US at some point, but I was wondering if I would need to go through extra hoops for social work or pursue something else. Obviously, education requirements are going to vary quite a bit but I was curious if anyone has gone through this process or experienced something similar. Was it worth it?

She has asked me to post this on her behalf.

I am a community case manager. In the summer, during a last meeting with a client, I had the client bring me into a nature trail (i had no previous safety concerns and it was a public and busy trail). This was our discharge meeting and he was being transferred to a long term case management program within my agency. He asked me if he could have my personal # now that we didn’t have a working relationship. I was caught off guard and told him no and why I cannot do that. I gave an example scenario as well so the client could visualize why this was inappropriate. the client went on to slightly escalate and proceeded to tell me why he disagrees with these policies and rules and why he thinks he deserve to have access to be my friend in my personal life. I got scared. I gave him my personal #. I knew right away I fucked up but I felt really backed into a corner & coerced. I struggle with boundaries interpersonally that I am actively working on but I feel entirely put in a situation I wasn’t personally or professionally equipped to handle (there is also trauma here. i only struggle to hold these boundaries with men). I understand client-worker relationships are imbalanced because the worker has power, however there is another power imbalance at play as i am a young woman and he is a man twice my age pressuring me into giving him what he wanted. I continued to text him once a month for maybe 2 months when he would reach out to me because I was worried about how he would react if I didn’t reply. I felt obligated to reply , like he had this massive power over me. Well. Time passed & I stopped answering. I didn’t want this person to have this power and control anymore. Well, it took maybe 2 months of me not answering him & he has now told his case manager in my agency, and this case manager has come to me telling me the client has told him everything and he’s really upset that I am not answering his messages in my personal time. This case manager states he is going to deal with this and i have nothing to worry about (i didn’t ask him to do this) but I can’t help but feel like my life is entirely over. I know I made a mistake but the context in this situation matters greatly. Please can someone offer some advice. I’m so worried I ruined my career.

TIA.

The day before Thanksgiving, a long term client comes into a community resource center to inform a case manager that the laundry vouchers were not the same value as they said on the ticket. This is the third client to make this comment. The laundry mat had cancelled their phone line and the case manager was in between meetings, and would not have time to drive over to the laundry mat. The client had started their laundry and didn’t have money to dry it. The weather was cold, damp and raining over the past week. It is unethical to give the client cash to dry their clothes? If so, why?

I won’t get into details but I work in the disability support field and a client has not been in the right head space causing them to get physical with me.

What are your recommendations for dealing with this? Have you experienced it? Any words of advice would be appreciated please and thank you!

Hi!

For contexts I am a SNF social worker. I am also not the director, I am just the full time social worker.

In our building we split it pretty evenly. We also try to help where we can if needed.

The director of social work did a discharge for a patient who left last week. They set them up with services and sent over a hospital bed for DME. Basically they managed this entire case. Well today the director was off and the patients family called and stated they needed a hoyer lift they did not get and a nebulizer machine. I hurried up and ordered everything so it was in process but everything won’t get there until Monday. I am worried for something coming back on me, since the patient didn’t have the items at discharge. I wasn’t working this case so I didn’t know. I am always worried about patients and wanting to make sure they are safe and I am meticulous with my discharge plans. This case I did not handle and things were missed.

I am worried about this falling back on me. Does anyone have any good insight to help this feeling?

Social work reddit has always been so helpful to me and I’m so grateful for such a supportive community 🩷

Does anyone have any tips or tricks to making a genogram or a preferred software? Making one for class and I could throw up it’s so confusing. Also do people actually use this in professional situations??? I have a hard time finding this more helpful than just writing out the relationships and such.

Hello! Just curious if y’all have any social work book recommendations- whether it be a book that changed your whole career, something you think every new grad should have, a not so known “holy grail”, the one textbook you still refer back to, etc. I’m always looking to learn and grow my own personal professional library, and was curious as to what clinicians outside of my own bubble would recommend. Thanks and happy reading!

I have been qualified for just over 18 months. I work in community care, much of my work is case management and long term care assessments/reviews/support plans/carers assessments.

All throughout uni I was told how stressful social work is as a profession and I felt I was fully prepared for this. My placements came and went and I thoroughly enjoyed them, I didn’t feel stressed once but put this down to being a student with a protected case load and simple cases.

However, I’ve now been qualified and in my job for over 18 months and I just don’t feel the stress. I love it. Everyone else is flapping about and highly stressed and we’re running with the same caseload and I just don’t feel the stress. Don’t get me wrong, some days are crazy busy and I feel like all I’m doing is put out one fire after the other, but I don’t feel stressed. I thrive from those kind of days, I get a buzz from it.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and or me to start becoming overwhelmed but it just doesn’t seem to be happening. Maybe it is the field I’m in. I don’t dread Monday, my days and weeks go super fast. I feel so fulfilled in my job and I honestly don’t even feel like I’m working.

It’s actually to the point I wonder am I doing something wrong as everyone else is so stressed and I’m just not? It’s not laziness I get my stuff done, never had a complaint from management. I actually find this the easiest most enjoyable job I’ve ever had.

Does anyone else feel this way?

Hi all, Seeking information, feedback, research, policy, etc. regarding care planning and behavioural flags on patient/client charts. For context, I’m currently working in a community health clinic. We’ve been having conversations about patient care planning and use of chart flags (e.g. patients labelled as aggressive), and how this can create more bias or assumptions that escalate patient encounters. Does anyone have thoughts about how this might be approached in a more trauma informed way? Would love to know your workplace procedures if anyone has any to share. Cheers!