Adoption Social Workers: good or bad?

This is one of the first posts I envisaged writing, so I am glad I have the opportunity to finally get my feelings off my chest.

I used a metaphor in my last post comparing adoption social workers to the likes of Nazi war criminals, but purely to illustrate a point. Before anyone gets upset, I am not so much beating a hasty retreat, as I am explaining I actually have a huge admiration for them (social workers, not the Nazis), and why I have such an admiration.

My job, to a greater or lesser extent, is to ensure that my clients (who are publishers of well-known magazines) are kept happy, and by doing that, I have to keep their customers happy.

I worry (probably too much) about a number of things that affect my relationship with the client, I have been known to wake up in the middle of the night sweating over whether a subscriber in Welwyn Garden City received their June issue of Red.

Adoption social workers don’t worry about magazine subscriptions; they lie in bed, tossing and turning over different problems.

They worry if the child they saw that day will find a family to love them.

They worry if the same child they saw will be abused overnight by their drunken father.

They may even worry if that child will be alive the next day.

They worry about a pregnant mother filling herself with cocaine and alcohol, and they worry about her unborn child.

They worry about whether the courts will grant their recommendation to remove a child from a home where paedophiles readily come and go.

They worry about the mother of the child who they have just removed – and if she will commit suicide or not.

They worry about the thousands of children in care, up and down the country, and they worry about whether they can improve these children’s lives.

Adoption social workers have a job that I don’t envy, and they have real problems; literally life and death problems to worry about.

Sued for removing a child one day, charged with criminal negligence for not the next – a rock and a hard place does not do it justice; it doesn’t even scratch the surface.

So when you next read an article in the paper about a supposed sub-par social worker, don’t presume the journalist has reported all the facts, and don’t cast judgment on someone who has, in all likelihood, done everything they can to make a decision about a child’s future; a decision made in the most horrendous circumstances, and under enormous pressure.

Have a think about what you have to worry about on a day to day basis, and what social workers have to.

No, I don’t envy them, but I am bloody grateful we have them.

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About the Author: Andrew McDougall

Andrew is an adoptive father, and stay at home dad. Having adopted his son in January 2013, he is a new adoptive parent, but well versed in the adoption process. He is a married, coffee drinker, Xbox addict, and a graduate of Marketing. Andrew McDougall is an alias he uses to protect the identity of his adopted son.