Social Work Pre Placement Meeting

Had my pre placement meeting yesterday. As some of you know I’ll be going on a social work placement for 2 months in January. It’s going to be in a home which is for Parents who are sent their for up to 3 months , once there they are focussed on in regards to child protection, risk assessment, child development, parenting skills and supervised contact. So some of these parents are on the child protection register or have drug or alcohol issues and they need to prove to the social workers that they can look after their babies, if not then the babies are taken away. Some of the babies are born with addictions to heroin cause the mothers were using when pregnant. It’s a pretty heavy situation but the house does allot of good and sometimes the parents leave there been able to look after the babies. I was shown around a bit and it’s a really warm and homely environment, sometimes I’ll need to stay over and sometimes I’ll just do day shifts. Pretty much my role in my second month will be to help them with things like...

• To make in-depth assessment of parenting skills.
• To support parents in their parenting role
• To build on emotional and social development
• To promote social inclusion
• Apply Psychology theory to practise
• Apply relevant Legislation
• Interviewing and Assessments’
• Assess Physical development of children

While I was there I got to see the crèche which is used when the parents are been assessed etc , one of the little boys thought I was his dad and started freaking out so I had to leave , turned out his dad had been sexually abusing him. That kind of brought it home for me cause the last year and a half I have been studying this kind of stuff but now it’s real.

It’s pretty heavy and once I qualify I don’t think I want to work with children but think it’s going to be really interesting.