Old friends

I saw the managing director of our department in the corridors when visiting another office today. Although i tried to be polite, as he began shooting the usual civil excitements at me,'aren't we doing well?' 'Is this a great time to be part of the new changes?' etc, he finished with, 'oh isn't it great we have a cool new team to keep kids out of care!?' I couldn't nod along as the power dynamic obliged me to. I strongly disagree. Im not sure you are supposed to disagree with the suits. I stated that the new team seemed to be remarkably similar to my old team, which he deleted 4 years ago. Unlistening he made a remark so smoothly it was obvious it was interchangeable with 'yeah....yeah...whatever'. And we parted ways.

I am still annoyed with the way they deleted my team, which was effective, homegrown and dynamic. Although personally i miss my job, and my team. I also miss how essential and raw it was. I believed in this team. I believe that it is integral to social work to try our hardest to keep families together. For children to grow up with their parents. For parents to experience their children in all their fullness.

I kept my own statistics and i kept 95% of my clients out of care. And this is what bugs me about social work and the critical difference between workers and management. Admittedly it is his job to structure a service that works and can be financially boyant, but i cant help but feel we live in different worlds, within the same borough.

I can tell you the names and stories of the 9 children on my caseload that went into care (E.F, P.F, M.M, E.D, E.D, G.P, M.H, E.P, T.W). I can give you the initials of almost 100 more that didn't, from memory. i shared these children's lives, i looked into their eyes when they were hurt and angry, i negotiated with their parents, i stood up for them at school meeting when the whole world made them feel wrong; for a short period of time i was more intimate with their families than their own grandma's. I cared. And i still care now.

I am shocked by how many i can name.
How many can Mr Suit name?
How many of their stories can he really understand without having sat in their houses week by week, shared a McDonalds with them discussing the latest school exclusion, or sat in the back of a police car with them pleading with them to make steps to move away from their pimp boyfriend. I honestly think if these suits had connected with just a small number of clients on this level they would never ever work the same way again, they too would hold these children's names in their hearts everyday.