"I wanted to go into Social Work following a sixth form work experience with young people in a children’s home in my hometown of Coventry. Though challenging, I found the experience rewarding and I wanted to support and encourage young people to achieve their full potential and not let their background hinder them in achieving this.
I studied Social Policy and Administration for my undergraduate degree at the University of Hull and then decided to remain in Hull to complete my two-year social work training where I achieved a Diploma in Social Work and Master’s in Social Work. During my time at Hull, I volunteered for the Education and Welfare service and this experience provided a firm foundation for training in social work. I would support students whose grants were late, dealt with student housing issues such as landlords refusing to undertake repairs along with more sensitive issues such as counselling a student around their options for an unwanted pregnancy. I really enjoyed the varied nature of the work and feeling that I was making a difference in students’ lives. Through the Education and Welfare service I developed firm friendships which have lasted more than thirty years. I also volunteered with the Hull University Social Services Organisation (HUSSO) for a reading scheme supporting primary school children.
When I qualified as a social worker in 1992, my plan was to always become a lecturer in Social Work so that I could train social workers of the future. I needed to obtain hands-on social work experience and so I moved to London and worked as a Children and Families Social Worker in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. I later moved to co-ordinating a respite care scheme for children with disabilities at Westminster Council. I have also worked for a charity supporting foster carers and looked after children.
The challenges I have faced in my career is ageism - at the start of my career in respect of not being taken seriously enough due to my relatively young age when I qualified as a social worker. I have also experienced racial discrimination both at an organisational and personal level. As a result, I feel it is important to act as a positive role model for the students that I teach and to encourage students to advocate for themselves and the service users they are supporting.
Social work is a challenging and yet rewarding profession to enter. It can open so many doors and enables you to make a real difference to a person’s life when they are at their most vulnerable. It may be that you don’t ever see the difference that you have made. I was fortunate to teach a young woman I had supported when she was a teenager. The initial meeting with her when she said that I had been her social worker was very emotional for us both.
I am pleased and humbled to be nominated for the award as Amazing Social Work as part of the British Association of Social Work World Social Work month. I think my approach which is appreciated by students’ centres around promoting the student perspective and appreciating the many competing demands that students have nowadays. I seek to be open and transparent in my dealings with students and I use humour to sometimes get a point across which I think students appreciate. I demonstrate a calm and measured approach in the delivery of my teaching, and I think that students find me approachable.
My advice to future social workers is that it is a varied and rewarding profession, but I would say to social workers of the future, that it is also a very demanding role and it is important for you to maintain your wellbeing in order to be effective in your role."
