What makes a good child protection social worker

Workers often talk to the referring party, parents or guardians, and the children involved in the case to begin to make a determination the next course of action.

From interviews to collecting physical evidence, the job requires daily interaction, investigation, and report writing to document all findings. In cases where abuse, neglect, or endangerment is substantiated, a protective services worker will petition a judge in order to issue the order of removal. Many times, this requires a social worker in this specialization to testify and submit reports for various court proceedings. In other cases, a decision to remove may not be made directly after a referral.

Often, though, enough evidence of some lack of parenting or other circumstance could alert a case worker in protective services to possible need for additional resources. As of the date of this publication, the most recent statistics on abused and neglected children comes from , in which there were more than 3. With statistics like these, the need for social workers in this area is clear.

Child protection social workers need to have at least a bachelor's degree in social work or a related field, such as psychology or sociology. However, an increasing number of child protective social workers have a master's degree in social work, or MSW, and some even have doctoral degrees.

In some cases, your employer may pay for your education, although this is highly dependent on need and location. Although the educational requirements vary by state, there is often a preference for candidates who are bilingual, especially for positions in metropolitan or urban areas.

Child protection social workers need to complete job-specific training before they can work in the field. What other profession requires you hold, juggle and analyse such a huge amount of complex information, and make sense of it? The complexity can be astounding, but it will be a personal challenge to get through it.

And when you do, it will be worth it. Remember to be aware of cognitive bias, from yourself and other professionals; it will be one of your biggest challenges on this road. The profession needs experienced workers, and children need experienced workers. And most importantly, you will make a difference. This may not be in quite the way you thought when you came into the post, but nevertheless you will. They may be enormous, life-changing events such as adoption, that you have been instrumental in progressing.

They will mostly be small shifts or changes that you never thought possible. When the situation calls for it, separating a mother and father from their children can be the hardest part of the job.

There are lots of emotions surrounding the removal of a child—relief, fear, and doubt about whether you are making the best decision are just a few. Sometimes, the only thing you can do is go home at night and reflect that you made the best decision with the information you had at the time. The wide array of emotions needs to be untangled. For me, an important part of child protection has always been supervision and debriefing. If you cannot discuss and examine details of a case at length with a supervisor who is smarter or more experienced than you, you will burn out.

One way to process information is through talking and examining situations, and child protection is no exception to the process.

I have often thought that child protection social workers should have partners, like police officers do—one person you can conduct meetings and investigations with, one person to bounce ideas off of, and two assessments of each situation.

This also allows for comradery and the feeling that someone else has shared your experience, traumatic or happy. There is a comfort in that. Regular supervision provides the ability to talk about and look at your experiences from different perspectives.

A good supervisor allows you to talk about your personal feelings about a situation and reflect on what could be done differently. The more years I work in child protection, the more I realize it is more important to have a good supervisor you respect and trust than to have a higher paying prestigious position. There is no one theory or approach that works in each situation. Each person and situation is different, and the best we can do is to be flexible and meet the clients where they are.

Seek advice from experienced workers if you are having trouble, and be able to acknowledge when what you are doing is not working. These are my experiences, and I am writing as an average child protection social worker.

I am not advocating a particular approach to practice, and I am not advocating you practice as I do. My practice is not always spot on, and no one is perfect.

Child protection is a difficult job for many reasons. I used to wonder why my year-old self would choose this as a career path. Why would I purposely subject myself to people who are in constant emotional pain, and to children who are physically hurt or killed by the people who are supposed to love and protect them?

But it is the best we have from intake to investigation to court. She worked in child protection for six years in Northern rural communities. In , she graduated with her MSW degree and moved to Australia to practice child protection. Cathy has moved back to British Columbia and resumed her work in child protection.

Three years, and no one has commented on this little gem: "And I have been attracted to a client. I hope her supervisors saw this article.

She needs help immediately and should not be around children if she finds herself attracted to them. JC more than 2 years ago. Thank you for your comment.

She doesn't say that she was attracted to a child--clients can also be the adults in the child's life--so I would not make that assumption based on what she wrote in the article.

I am studying to become a childrens social worker right now and was in the system as a teen. Your article not only inspired me, it motivated me even more. I honestly would love to know more and maybe even get a few pointers to help me on my journey. I'm actually enrolled online in college working on my bachelors of science in child studies degree and it is my first year.

TerraLyn Lehman more than 2 years ago. Social workers often struggle with secondary PTSD from working with those who have been traumatized. If you don't get help now, you're setting yourself up for more intense psychological damage. College is not easy, and students are often triggered by the material they study-- let alone the people they work with. Your college likely has free counseling.

Go as soon as you get to campus. Keep going until you can talk about your trauma without any stress or anxiety. It's great you want to be a social worker, but you MUST take care of yourself before you can take care of clients. Learn how to manage your emotions, learn how to set boundaries, and get medication if you need it. I have worked in Social Services and having the mental illness enabled me to have a understanding of the Clients I had that had mental illness and, I was able to get through to the individual under the illness!

I also caution you that some people are very dangerous and must be observed constantly and you have to have the people that can help you If the situation becomes violent!?! I am disabled but I am very active in the Mental Health Awareness and the Domestic Violence Survivor Speaks Advocate and I have been fighting with the FDA and our rights to personal Medicine because one size does not fit all and I have had experienced life threatening adverse effects from medications that they prescribed!!

Nancy Janitz more than 3 years ago. You so beautifully captured the entire experience of this system and I thank you deeply for doing so. It is such a roller coaster of feelings and experiences, but I admire you for being able to keep your heart protected enough to still have the mission clear.

I teared up at my desk and immense respect for you. Please keep up the good work and writing. Those families are lucky to have you. You are a light worker. Both for yourself and your clients. It balances and heals so quickly. Sam Mendis more than 3 years ago. Love your article. It really gets across so much of what we do. I am a former social worker with CPS, and I recently finished a memoir about reproductive choices.