Social Workers Facing Burnout & Challenges

“Am I the A-Hole? I had a new client this past week, intake, which started via telehealth stating "You don't have your camera on," which I instructed them it was, and requested they close and open their browser and see what happens. They then state 'I still don't see you!' which I told them how to move to the correct page. We get started and I am doing my housekeeping items, reviewing expectations and screener tools; all of theirs are 0's, as well as their initial qu”

“Looking for some perspectives on a boundary issue and how i should respond. Here's the situation: a hospice social worker was on a family's care team. During that time, they asked the patient's primary caregiver, a relative of the patient, for financial help, saying it was an emergency, and the caregiver lent them a significant amount of money. It never got fully resolved and ended up as a formal legal matter. The social worker has agreed to the facts. The complication is that in my”

“My team works with people experiencing homelessness. Occasionally something will come up for a former client, and we redirect to the housing stabilization CM. Recently, there has been a lot of attention on a client I worked with a few years ago. More police attention due to certain behaviors, and negative attention from some other entities we answer to (for example, our city, which provides a lot of our funding). Usually in these situations, my supervisor would redirect the outside entity to bri”

“Hi all! I am a home-based therapist for a nonprofit organization that works with CPS-involved families. A good portion of our families have an open case due to home conditions, often things like cockroach infestation, mice, fleas, bedbugs, etc.. How can I best protect myself from getting bit by these bugs, and prevent myself from carrying any back to my home? submitted by /u/torilaluna [link] [comments]”

“Curious if I am crazy to want to give up adult protective services to move to child welfare? I am in California and currently an APS social worker with Contra costa county for 4 years. I have worked In home support services in Riverside and Marin County and also did APS in Marin as well. I have also done medical social work in home health and in hospitals per diem. I am getting tired of adult population and feel like trying child welfare since I haven't done child welfare. Everyone thinks im”

“I started working as an ECM case manager about 3 months ago. This client was brand new at the time and had been with me since the start. She has CPTSD and stopped working about a year ago. She now can’t afford her mortgage payments and has exhausted her 401k. I found resources that provided her with $500 for utilities and another program for single mothers that could give her some financial support. But she used to be a nurse and doesn’t feel that the money is enough. In the past week she compla”

“I started working as an ECM case manager about 3 months ago. This client was brand new at the time and had been with me since the start. She has CPTSD and stopped working about a year ago. She now can’t afford her mortgage payments and has exhausted her 401k. I found resources that provided her with $500 for utilities and another program for single mothers that could give her some financial support. But she used to be a nurse and doesn’t feel that the money is enough. In the past week she compla”

“I do intakes for adults at a CMHC, and my supervisor emailed me about two clients I referred to the wrong programs within the agency. For the first client, I saw them back in March and I only vaguely remember them. After reviewing my assessment, I agree with my supervisor that they should have been referred to a different program. From what I remember, I think I chose the program I did because the location and scheduling worked better for the client. Looking back, I think I focused too much on w”

“Just an update: I’ve decided that leaving this case is what’s best for me. I care deeply about my client, but between the severity of her behaviors and constantly feeling like I’m being expected to accommodate Mom’s work and personal schedule rather than the child’s actual schedule and needs, it has become too much. The day after the funeral, I still went to work, and Mom relieved me about 30 minutes late again even though she knew I had to go directly to my second job. Mom was also upset that I”

“I work as a case worker in an emergency residence program for adolescents. Our program has a boys’ side and a girls’ side. Each side normally has a clinician and a case worker. I am the case worker for the boys’ side , and the majority of my caseload is on that side. My job requires me to be involved in basically everything going on with my cases — therapy, psych appointments, providers, updates about what’s happening in their lives, communicating with the clinical team, documentation, etc. Bein”

“Hi All. I’ve been working for CPS since about February now. It was my first professional job after college. I work in a relatively small county, where the populations about 7,000. When I started there were 3 caseworkers for the county, and instead of being specialized into initial assessment or ongoing and court, they just do all of it for every case. During my time shadowing everything seemed manageable. I was watching my co-workers, some with 29 years experience having a caseload of 50 and han”

“Hello! Not currently a case manager but just recently hired as one although not new to the social work field. My previous jobs were hybrid/WFH. When I asked about this possibility for my new position, obviously meet with clients in person, but was told all documenting could be done wherever. Are there any case managers who do technically “WFH”? Not a super important aspect of the field but was just genuinely curious as I do not know anyone else personally that works as a case manager myself. TIA”

“Hello! I just recently transitioned out of my old case management role working with families and now will be working with veteran DV/SA survivors. I have been in the DV advocacy field and worked with veterans but not case management with either. In my old role, I decorated my office with posters relevant to the population I was working with and had print outs for goals they commonly had. Now, however, I’m struggling to find print outs or posters that are appropriate for DV survivors (i.e. poster”

“I’m one month and some change into casework for a family centered service agency and today I had two clients share in a staffing that they feel like I don’t help them and I’m not good at my job. Social work is not my background and I feel like my agency has not had adequate training or onboarding at all. We had barely any staff in my role at our office location so I have no one to ask questions to or vent to. There is no sense of community among the team because there is barely a team (besides t”

“I am a CPS supervisor. I've been working in child welfare for almost 15 years, and for the last 6 years I've been a supervisor. I work for a small county and directly supervise 6 workers. There is only one other supervisor in child welfare in my agency, who also supervises a team of 6 workers. I find myself progressively more unhappy and isolated. I'm burnt out on the child welfare field as a whole, but I did not realize when stepping into supervision how different it would be as far”

“I am working in court mandated and community mental health with many unhoused clients. They feel powerless and most recently our housing resource all ran dry. There is no more section 8, it closed after the waitlist passed 5 years for the families priority list. The SNAP benefits are reduced to $50/month per person. SSI is max $400. There are no more motel vouchers, there are no more bus passes or gas passes. Every resource I was taught about is useless in my county. At this point, I've coin”

“Hey guys. New here. I think I screwed up. I work in child welfare, hadnt even been in the field for a year when this happened. Was informed that one of the children on my caseload had touched another child inappropriately and was being moved to another respite by their licensing agency that day. I did everything I could to facilitate the respite change. I spoke to two supervisors about the incident immediately after finding out and neither of them told me to file a report with the county the inc”

“Hi, I work in community mental health as a case manager in New England (U.S). My case load is about half non-English speakers and half English-speakers. They all have a mental health condition in order to qualify for our services. The role itself is very vague, as our job is essentially to support the client in connecting to resources, developing social supports, and just learning how to live independently. My job is essentially to help my clients to need me anymore. Over the last few years, the”

“I graduated as a social worker over 7 years ago and currently work in child protection. I work in a specialised program that investigates criminal matters with a main focus on child sexual abuse. However we also take severe cases of physical abuse and neglect on babies and young children. Working in child protection I know we are often looked down on by the public and our clients and it’s never bothered me before because I know the system is super broken but most case workers are trying their be”

“I have worked in Child Welfare for coming on 5 years and I am getting exhausted. The work, the system, the caseload, the attacks from providers/attorneys/court. We never seem to do enough. I want to be a part of change solutions and policy changes but I never get bites on applications I submit. Its disheartening. Does anyone have any advice on what other options are out there? Honestly. That means I want to know what career changes y'all have made out of human services if you have? Thanks &#”

“Hi all. I'm a LCSW in NJ. I was just contacted by a parent about providing court ordered co-parenting services. I frequently do parenting training for clients, however I have never done court ordered before. Im wondering if there is anything to be aware of/pitfalls that I should be aware of. I have not done any formalized CEU's on it recently submitted by /u/lilivader76 [link] [comments]”

“For context I work in community case work. Throughout my career in other jobs I’ve been berated by clients, physically assaulted by clients, experienced racist micro aggressions etc. And I’ve been able to handle it and move on. But for this client it seems that I can’t shake what she said to me. After a misunderstanding she called me self entitled, a poor decision maker and impulsive. I’ve talked to other members on the team who agree that the client should not have said those things to me and i”

“I have been in community mental health with a nonprofit for about 2.5 years as an adult case manager. This job, I feel,is the essence of contradiction due to the sheer fact that you deal with human beings, yes, but those struggling with mental illness/substance use/etc everyday. As I have told my own therapist, it’s a job I love and hate. I love the support I have from my coworkers, some of my clients are enjoyable to work with, but so often I feel like a parent who is “touched-out” by their kid”

“I was going to say, this def isn’t the supervision environment necessary to work through sexual attention from clients.”

“All valid points that need to be considered. I would also add that if the family and client have not been given explicit details of the concerns and considerations for leaving/not accepting the client back - they should, so they are aware and can continue to work on these things.”

“I'm unsure how to handle this situation. I had to ask my supervisor to advocate for me in front of my boss, who was dismissive of my concerns about a client. I'm a 27-year-old woman who had a client on the spectrum removed from my caseload due to crossing boundaries, aggression, and asking inappropriate questions. During our first session, while taking him to an appointment, he leaned in and smelled my hair, saying I smelled good. I reported this to my boss, who told me to stay on the ca”

“Hello , I started my cps journey in the middle of March . Today I started to question if this is the path for me . I got an email from a parent that made it seem like I was belittling a child and not being clear with everything and that honestly hurted my feelings. I know I was told to not take everything personal but I’m quiet , keep to myself and feel the need to help everyone. I’m shy and I hate confrontation but i know it is needed and I know I need to be firm . I was in tears on the way hom”