Astudiaeth achos
Social Worker, Rachel
Lewisham Council
Watch the film and find out more about Rachel's job as a social
worker in a local council.
Rachel's
interview
Video transcript
"My name's Rachel Wilson and I'm a newly qualified social worker
in the children and young people's section in Lewisham Council. So
basically, I have about nine to 15 case loads, which is nine to 15
families, who I work with on daily basis. My job is basically to
look at the safety and protection of children in those families,
and working with families to try and protect the children and look
at their holistic needs and things like; their health and education
and whether they're safe in the family environment basically.
I worked in my gap year in Africa and that really affected me
and made me know that I wanted to work with children that were
slightly more disadvantaged than myself. There was an orphanage
with about 150 children who had been orphaned through AIDS and we
basically provided them with a home.
I think I went there thinking that I was going to an environment
where the children were sad, upset and forlorn but in fact I went
to an environment were the children were just as happy as they are
as in the streets in Lewisham; that puts a lot of things into
perspective really. Equally I was faced with things I hadn't seen
before, children obviously with terminal diseases and dealing with
the issues that come with that and the loss that comes with that as
well, things I've never dealt with in my life.
I think in social work there's a lot of scope for doing
different jobs. Just because I'm in child protection now doesn't
mean I'll necessarily be in it in five years. In social work,
because you have a generic, so kind of an overall qualification, I
can do anything in social work at all. I could go into adoption, or
elderly care, or mental health, or young offending and it's very
easy to swap into different jobs, which is quite exciting and quite
interesting for the future really."
You may also be interested in an interactive resource produced
by the Open University exploring a day in the life of a social
worker:
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/body-mind/social-care/social-work/try-day-the-life-social-worker
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