The FAMCare Blog

"Social workers are my collective heroes. They sit at the juncture between those with too much power and those with not enough. "

- Gloria Steinem -

A recent article in Social Work Today highlights a true triumph of empathy. In Innovations: New Foster Care Initiative Spotlights Parent Advocates, Debra McCall describes the parents’ pain when social workers have to remove children from their families.

“It is never easy. We enter parents’ lives at the worst possible moment—when the children they love have been removed from their homes. At that point, parents are experiencing shame, anger, and confusion. They are frightened and frustrated by the “intrusion” of the child welfare system into their lives. And they fear losing their children permanently, perhaps because that’s what happened to a neighbor or a friend.” (Social Work Today, Vol. 21 No. 1 P.3)

Paperwork is a dirty word in social services. Social work is not about keeping records, it’s about “hands-on” interpersonal contact with abused children, single parents, the neglected elderly, the abandoned homeless, and other vulnerable populations. As you might suspect, as social work became a more integral part of our society’s fabric, our social workers have been swamped by a virtual paperwork tsunami.

We recently talked to a child and family services case worker in Phoenix, Arizona who, contrary to popular opinion, shed a positive light on all this confounded paperwork.

Social workers tell us that primary care providers are inundated with patients seeking help with psychic symptoms that require the attention of a psychiatric specialist. Family physicians and emergency room doctors often do not feel qualified to deal with this new mental health crisis and need the help of social workers to execute a referral process while helping patients feel more comfortable going to a new and unfamiliar physician.

Case workers in the US have been refining their role in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic by taking inspiration from the pivotal role their Chinese colleagues played in controlling the rate of infection in Wuhan.

Prior to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic our political climate was spewing constant conflict, divisive quarreling, insensitive bickering, and displaying an empathy deficit unparalleled in modern history. Whole nations were in conflict as we initiated a tariff war with China, Britain turned its back on the European Union, Russia continued to threaten the Ukraine and U.S. politicians began erecting a wall between us and Mexico, our closest neighbor.

Social work is hard work. It’s stressful and it often seems like you can never get ahead. There is always so much more you can do, if you only had the time, energy and budget to do it. The holidays can be even more stressful, as many clients deal with tough times during the holidays.

When the draft ended in 1973, women represented just 2% of the enlisted forces and 8% of the officer corps. Today, those numbers are 16% and 18% respectively, a significant increase. Historically, the Air Force has had the highest percentage of enlisted and officer women, however, by 2016 the Navy had nearly caught up. In both services, approximately one-in-five enlisted members and officers are women. The military offers many opportunities for women such as good pay, excellent benefits and career advancement, but there are also significant challenges.

At a recent college career day, this troubling question was asked repeatedly; “What do social workers do?” The question was troubling because it came with the realization that most college age students have no clear idea what social workers do. They are, therefore, less inclined to pick social work as a career choice.