The following response is to The Guardian’s “Ten changes to reinvigorate children’s social work – Free social workers from bureaucracy and let them do their jobs”. My immediate response is followed by further insight (hopefully).
“The entire profession depends on government, from academics to government work as agents for the state (force by government – anybody with a heart would get stressed out by carrying out the forceful agenda of the State).
Non-profits have to cozy up to government to get funding and to get tax breaks and on and on. We lobby the criminal class, we beg them for attention, and we pose proudly for pictures with them.
Social workers are the middle class, intervening with the lower class, so that the upper class does not have to think about social problems (or so that they can focus on creating them).
Social workers are not exempt from falling prey to the superstition of authority, and many I have worked with take great pride in being enforcers (especially if they work for government, and they think their ability to stay alive depends on cutting services to others). CPS is notorious for being the gateway to further/worse abuse.
Humans love plans and programs, even if they don’t work – they end up being another piece of the bureaucracy. If we are being honest, calling for change across THE system is nothing short of calling for anarchy.
The idea that systems are broken and just need to be fixed needs to stop, because you cannot fix something that was not designed to work in the first place (VA in USA, for example).
It is obvious that most of us got into social work because we wanted to help others and make the world a better place. However, we are pawns being used for an elite cabal who do not care about any of us.
Instead of lamenting that we are not regarded as highly as we would like (our poor feels), it might serve us better to take a look at just what it is we are really doing that results in this. “Thou shalt not kill, unless by means of government, then it is perfectly fine.”
Politicians have no problem with people who are willing to die for their causes, and they are adept at getting us to find ways to spend other people’s money.
Until the issue of government force and corruption is addressed, and as long as we continue to validate their system by asking for things, or telling them to stop, we are willing participants in the charade who will be writing plans to fix social work 25 years from now.
I urge my fellow social workers to step out of the box for a moment, and THINK this through a bit more. People having issues with us is not just bad press.”
I included a link to a Larken Rose video. The following is some of what came up later:
A call for anarchy? That sounds extreme, yet it is the inevitable conclusion reached once the root of the problem is addressed. It is a terrifying and stunning conclusion, so it is easy to understand that people fight anything that would result in the global changes that they seek.
How are the governments imposing austerity really going to do anything to help? What does it take to get government social workers to understand how their employment is financed? How do so many social workers, believing they can make change, keep leaving the field of their original interests?
As someone who has worked for several government agencies and non-profits, I still put this forward: How many social workers are just doing their jobs? I mean, how many who are just trying to survive, like everybody else, do what they are told because it is their job? It’s a bit of a digression, but social workers are all about “putting the client first.” Really? I understand the value of that and I agree about what makes for a good social worker, but let us stop kidding ourselves: we put clients first because we put ourselves first. While social workers do not always make decisions that protect their jobs, doing so tends to be the first priority.
Mind you, this is in within the context of battling my own demons in regard to employment. Honestly, after two years of convalescing after a broken neck, paralysis, surgery, heart attack, surgery – I am in dire straits when it comes to finances. I am not even sure if I capable of working at the moment, yet the only jobs that resemble anything familiar to me, and for which I am qualified, are in human services.
What choices I make in this regard remain to be seen, but it weighs heavy on me. I have never been paid for anything that I did not take seriously. Even so, it would be easy for me to tell myself a nice story to justify having some financial security and safety. As has been said, he who is willing to sacrifice liberty for safety deserves neither.
Social work is the bureaucracy, and in most situations, social workers are agents and enforcers of/for/by “the system.” Working in such a capacity does wear people down, and as noted in the article, the burn out rate is high. However, it’s not like graduates are unaware that they are entering dysfunctional systems.
It may be their zeal that tends to overcome this. In the excitement of their work culminating in a degree that might finally allow them to make real change, the concept of being an agent of the State – employing the use of force by means of government – is just not there. They are freshly matriculated agents of change, so they think.
Some things get lost during the indoctrination process. Students are not educated simply what to know, but where to look. It is just as easy to direct mass attention to something, as it is to draw the attention of the masses away from something.
I understand that I can come across as sarcastic and jaded, and that is because in many ways, I am. What I wish to be clear is that I have gone through all of the same motions, obtaining three degrees from three colleges/universities, and found after much debt and literally nearly killing myself with stress, the veneer/veil of the profession (any profession, really) disappeared.
Like many other social workers, I lived a life of quiet desperation, hoping that someone would recognize all of the good that was being done by the folks in our profession, and reward our studies and the letters after our names with better salaries, while somehow managing to provide better services, during budget cuts.
To those who have managed to do good working in the system without become of the system, hats off to you. For everybody else, identifying the problem is the first step toward fixing it. However, these plans and programs presented by people to fix the government rely on government for nearly everything. Indeed, without government, social work would not exist. Certainly not as the punitive and disempowering hierarchy that it is today.
In sum: Grow up about what you do and who you work for. If you are going to do it, at least be honest with yourself about it. It would be a nice step for social workers at least to acknowledge the beast that butters their bread.
Filed under: Academics/Education, Globalization Of Social Work, Government/Politics, Social Justice? Tagged: Behavior Modification, Children's Services, Government, liberty, Perception, Reform, Social Justice, Social work, social worker, Systems
