Thanks Paul and Bill for your responses. Yes, I think too many Social
Workers do forget why they came into the profession, or even more
worryingly, the new "Care Manager" type of job seems to require
different skills from those which were seen as key ones when I trained
12 years ago. This became apparent when I completed my final degree
year on Open University in 1996, in which I took a course on Social
Policy, and in part of the course we considered the issues of the
changes being brought about in Social Work - sadly I feel that they are
more akin to gatekeeping roles now (the term seems to have been around
for a long time), and in particular is often linked with health issues.
I was at a party this weekend and met a lady who works in our local
casualty department. She said she used to be a nurse there, but now has
the job of "assessing people who come to casualty and who may need
admitting". It is her job to provide "services" which then result in
people not being admitted" . Surely that's gatekeeping? rationing
services? making judgements about whether someone is ill enough to be
in hospital? Whilst I appreciate that many people do go to casualty when
its not always necessary this definitely seems to suggest that you start
from a premise that somehow admission is a "last resort" service.
I wholeheartedly agree with Bill that what one does and the way in which
one does it is more important than your title, but often people just see
the title and have a ready made image of what this means, and you have
to work doubly hard to change that image sometimes. I really will have
to search my conscience if this type of role becomes a reality in any
future employment I go into, as I really do prefer to be in the mode of
empowering others.
Janet Iles
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