Looking for advice about long-term direct work
Hi all, I am a social worker in an LA that is transitioning away from having assessment teams (which I was in) to the family help structure meaning everyone does everything from start to finish (unless it goes LAC of course). I personally don’t enjoy long-term work but I am aware that one of the reasons for this is because I don’t feel that I have the skills to complete long-term interventions.
For context, I believe that my strengths are around the crisis management, immediate safety planning, assessing risk ect. When I was previously in a long-term team, what I felt that I struggled with is creating interventions beyond just “having a conversation” about what needs to change and what the worries are. I feel that there have been times when I have done one or two very good sessions with a young person or parent, but most of the time I just leave a visit feeling like I have done an informal counselling session where someone has told me the same difficulties for the 800th time and nothing has changed.
The issue lies with the fact that I don’t feel that I know how to access support to change this or feel more confident around this. When I have supervision with my manager (who is very supportive), we’re both so busy that it just feels like we are writing a to do list of all the actions that need to be completed rather than reflecting on any direct work or opportunities to learn.
Can I ask for any advice about this? How do people get better at this?
I also didn’t qualify in the UK (qualified 5 years ago), I have since come to realise that my university may have been a pretty sh*t place to study because I feel like I’ve had to learn everything on the job rather than feeling equiped as I entered the workforce. Any advice would be appreciated.