We need more men as social workers
beyond the call of duty.
A major revamp is going on in CYF at the moment in response to an expert panel report released in April. The report outlined a new model for CYF which includes ‘‘prevention of harm through early intervention and intensive intervention when concerns escalate’’.
In other words, pretty much common sense. Social workers told the panel about a myriad of frustrations – with the system, the amount of time spent on administrative tasks and getting services for the children in need.
One telling sentence in the expert report says: ‘‘Staff spoke about work priorities being driven predominantly by crises, and this prevented the time and attention needed for effective engagement with families.’’
Social workers also have to negotiate the slippery slopes of cultural responsiveness to ‘‘maintain the integrity and distinctiveness of Maori values and practices’’.
‘‘My situation is quite interesting because I’m Maori, Samoan and male. What impacts my work is that because I’m the Maori male here, I get told, ‘We have this hui happening, can you do the powhiri?’, or because I’m male, ‘Oh, I need to go and see an angry dad, can you come with me?’ It’s rough – the whole tokenistic approach, when it suits,’’ one social worker told the panel.
Let’s look at some hard figures. In the 12 months to June 2015, physical abuse (emotional and sexual abuse come under different headings) was substantiated for 3118 children.
In 2014/15, CYF received 150,905 notifications of child abuse or neglect, including police family violence notifications. About a third needed further action by CYF.
No wonder social workers told the panel ‘‘that the nature of the work was inherently stressful, managing high levels of risk and engaging with people who were often upset and traumatised. All saw burn-out as a legitimate risk of the role. Social workers also spoke about the impact of stigma and negative public perceptions of their role as ‘taking children away from their families’, and how this affected their ability to effectively engage with families. When asked to describe their roles, social workers used words such as ‘supporter’, ‘navigator’ and ‘mediator’.’’
Nowhere in the report as far as I can tell is there even a hint that more men should be encouraged to be social workers. Would they get better outcomes? Who knows but men should at least be shouldering more of the burden.
CYF will no doubt go through steady reform over the next five years but social work is essentially people working with people.
More of those people should be men.