Save the Social Worker

MAY 16, 2023

When I was a social worker, I used to be complained about. A lot. Granted, I wasn’t the best social worker. But I was trying. And if you’re a social worker today, or you work in social care, or heck, you just have difficult clients to deal with , you are going to be faced with complaints. Some day. You’re here wondering how best to get the complainant off your back.

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Save the Social Worker

MAY 9, 2023

First, a caveat I was a social worker in a Family Service Centre from October 2019 to October 2021, and used the SSNET One system then. Some of these suggestions may thus be outdated, and if they are, please suggest some I can improve on. Ah, remember our dear SSNET? Oh dear SSNET, could you be faster? By now, you’re probably bored by the loading figure on your SSNET.

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Save the Social Worker

MAY 9, 2023

Here’s a trick question. What do you take when you go to do an assessment? If your answer was paper and pen, you are forgiven. Especially in a time such as this, where there seems to be more clients than social workers. You might be burning out, but still struggling with the same issues during assessments. The common problems during assessment Ever walked out of the assessment, thinking that you got everything you needed, only to go into the BPSS assessment you’re supposed to write, and suddenly

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Save the Social Worker

APRIL 10, 2023

Breathe. Your 3 year old is not beside you, yelling. Nor is he refusing to eat his food, flipping his bowl onto the table, and shouting, No! You’re here, reading this article now. We’ve all been there. Where despite our best efforts to entertain, and educate our child, they have come to this point where they just don’t seem that cute anymore. Maybe your child doesn’t seem that cute anymore.

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Save the Social Worker

DECEMBER 27, 2021

How was your year? Tough question, isn’t it? As you wind down the year and look forward to a new year, what do you remember about this year? What did you overcome? What could you have done better? Can I tell you a secret? I don’t have a job. Maybe that’s why you shouldn’t listen to me. But being without a job has allowed a break, and to think about where we can go from here.

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Save the Social Worker

AUGUST 23, 2022

Two years of doing social work Two years after working full-time as a social worker, it ended. It wasn’t an active decision on my part. It just happened. My contract expired after two years. It was as simple as that. There was no ‘Big Bang!’ Celebrating the end of my time as a social worker. It just ended. In many ways, it symbolised how my career as a social worker ended with a whimper.

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Save the Social Worker

APRIL 4, 2023

Kudos to you. You want to do good and have a social service career in Singapore. Well, it’s not going to be that easy. Don’t wilt in your social service career. Let me qualify that. It’s easy to get a foot in If you have the qualifications, such as a social work degree, or a psychology degree, getting a role in the frontlines of social service is not difficult.

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Save the Social Worker

MARCH 13, 2023

Money is the one thing we don’t often talk about when we are in social work. You may think that because you’ve joined the non profit sector, you can’t talk about money. And you can’t think about money. Because you’re trying to do good, and these two things simply don’t square together. Well, well. I’m going to talk about it. After 2 years being a social worker in a Family Service Centre (FSC) in Singapore, earning all of $3600 per month, before having a pay bump to $3690 in my second year (which

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Save the Social Worker

MARCH 7, 2023

As the world faces growing concerns about food security and sustainability, an unexpected hero has emerged – noodles. But these are no ordinary noodles. W0W noodles , made from upcycled spent barley grain, offer a unique solution to increasing resilience to the global diabetes epidemic and food production challenges. W0W noodles may hold the key to unlocking nature’s restorative ability to deliver a healthier future.

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Save the Social Worker

NOVEMBER 28, 2022

I remember the first time I walked into a client’s room as a student social worker. It smelled dank, and there were bottles of alcohol in the corner. There were pieces of trash on the table, and clothes strewn across the sofa. The client quickly cleared the clothes so that I could take a seat. Deep down, I was feeling uncertain and anxious. I didn’t know how best to talk to him about his struggles with alcohol.

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Save the Social Worker

NOVEMBER 9, 2022

When I was a student social worker in the U.K., my supervisor used to drive me to the clients we would visit. One day, we were really busy. Back to back meetings in the office, followed by home visits. My supervisor’s sandwich in the car made me wonder if there was a better way to handle the overwhelming nature of social work. My supervisor took out her sandwich, and started having it in her car.

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Save the Social Worker

OCTOBER 9, 2022

The aircon blew gently. Outside, the 33 degree celsius heat made me grateful to be seated in the room. I was seated in front of a client, listening to her talk about how difficult life was for her. As hard as I tried to get into it, I couldn’t. And as hard as it was for me to admit it at that time, I finally realised the truth. I didn’t care. As much as I wanted to, I did not care.

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Save the Social Worker

AUGUST 23, 2022

Two years of doing social work. Two years after working full-time as a social worker, it ended. It wasn’t an active decision on my part. It just happened. My contract expired after two years. It was as simple as that. There was no ‘Big Bang!’ Celebrating the end of my time as a social worker. It just ended. In many ways, it symbolised how my career as a social worker ended with a whimper.

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Save the Social Worker

JULY 18, 2022

I confess. I’m no expert on social work. I’ve been complained about many times from clients. In my last placement, my supervisor wanted to fail me. Twice. You may feel cautious reading this. But those experiences in social work, however much of a ‘failure’ it was, taught me what not to do, and how the small, micro skills in social work could really make a difference between a happy client, and a not so happy one.

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DECEMBER 27, 2021

How was your year? Tough question, isn’t it? As you wind down the year and look forward to a new year, what do you remember about this year? What did you overcome? What could you have done better? Can I tell you a secret? I don’t have a job. Maybe that’s why you shouldn’t listen to me. But being without a job has allowed a break, and to think about where we can go from here.

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Save the Social Worker

NOVEMBER 24, 2021

Introduction. When you graduated from university, threw your mortarboard, and entered the world of work, did you ever expect this? Not doing well at your job. Feeling incompetent. Asking stupid questions all the time. Staying silent in meetings. Not being interested in your job. Why? Why do you dislike your work after working so hard to get to a job?

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Save the Social Worker

NOVEMBER 22, 2021

Introduction. After 2 years in social work, I admit. I haven’t used the self that well in social work. It came as a surprise, really. As pompous as this might sound, I thought I wasn’t that bad a social worker. After all, a first-class honours degree should have been a stamp of guarantee that I was good, right? I don’t say this to boast. But I share this because I want you to know that 2 years of life on the frontlines, led me to see how little university had taught me about social work.

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Save the Social Worker

DECEMBER 17, 2020

Table of Contents. 1. What is social work interviewing? 2. Why interview? 3. Who do you interview? Involuntary clients. Voluntary clients. 4. How do you interview? Just before that…. 5. How do you interview better? Know where you are. Verbal. Vocal. Non-verbal. Ease people in. Be mindful. 6. Conclusion. Think about social work interviewing… and your mind might hark back to the scenes in CSI Miami.

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Save the Social Worker

DECEMBER 28, 2020

Table of Contents. 1. Introduction. 2. Who are you to tell me this? 3. Because let’s face it…. 4. Strategy is playing people chess, not people checkers. 5. Successful strategy is in the day-to-day course correction. What are the practical steps? 6. Successful strategy is a habit. 7. But I’m just a member of staff! Be active, not passive. Manage your boss.

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Save the Social Worker

DECEMBER 29, 2020

You probably already know this. You need good supervision to progress as a social worker. Not supervision that tells you what to do. But supervision that works with you, for you. How do you do that? But more importantly, why should you do that? Let’s start with what good supervision looks like, before we go into how to make your own supervision better.

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Save the Social Worker

JANUARY 1, 2021

Introduction. First week of 2021 … and you’re looking for motivational quotes already ? Finding quotes that will do the trick in upping your motivation to return to work, after the long break? To see clients again? To find out why you continue in this difficult sector? Well, if you’re looking for that here, look no further. You won’t find it. I don’t have it.

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Save the Social Worker

JANUARY 3, 2021

Introduction. It was a Saturday afternoon. 3pm. My dog is having a nap. I’m working on my case-notes. Tallying up the numbers, uploading it to the system. At some point, I look at what I type. And continue looking. Nothing seems to flow anymore. Then I ask myself: Why am I doing this? No really, why am I doing this? You’ve probably had a similar experience.

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Save the Social Worker

JANUARY 4, 2021

Introduction. Hear the word ‘blogs’, and your mind immediately shifts to those with pithy, shallow content. Blog posts that seem stuffed with keywords. Blogs designed to optimise your ‘conversion’. That hit you with pop-ups telling you to key in your email for a free BONUS! Gosh, we’ve had enough of those, haven’t we? Before touching on what blogs to read, let’s chat about how not to read blogs.

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Save the Social Worker

JANUARY 26, 2021

Theory? What theory? I threw that out of the window after university! My colleague started laughing. I couldn’t see the humour in that. During my first placement, I was very curious. I asked many questions. In fact, I asked so many questions that there was a dedicated time at the end of each day to answer my questions. That afternoon, I asked my colleague what theories she used in her work with clients.

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Save the Social Worker

JANUARY 30, 2021

Please note that all client stories have had identifying details changed. As a social worker who was just starting out, I longed for a long list of social work interventions which I could look through whenever I had a client problem I couldn’t solve. Like a list of hacks to help people. Okay okay, maybe no intervention is that easy, but you get the idea.

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Save the Social Worker

FEBRUARY 20, 2021

By now, it’s a bit of a running joke, isn’t it? That what you learn in university doesn’t seem to apply in practice. 15 months after qualifying as a social worker, here are 7 things I wish university taught me. If you’re newly qualified, you may find this helpful in reflecting on your own work after a year in social work. I hope it reveals new ways you might think about your own work.

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Save the Social Worker

MARCH 24, 2021

Introduction. I must confess. I have been wanting to quit social work. It’s not because the work isn’t fulfilling, or that the work isn’t meaningful. It’s that I keep falling over the same things, over and over again. I keep struggling whenever a client raises difficult emotions, especially at me. I have no idea how to manage it. I think: Maybe this just isn’t for me.

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