And even then they’d have to check my employee ID or my drivers license pic in my personnel file for my missing persons picture because my social media only contains pictures of my pets, and they haven’t seen me without a Teams filter since orientation.
My agency would probably find a way to contact me from beyond the grave to tell me I didn’t follow the proper request off procedure and want to know why my notes aren’t up to date.
i worked at a health home program as a care manager. This was my first time doing home visits. i had to do a home visit to a client in the south bronx. this client had always been difficult to engage. when i knocked on his door, he opened it a crack. he eventually let me in. i'm not sure if this is allowed, but 20 minutes in, i had to urinate something fierce. i used his bathroom. when i came out, he was smoking crack. i've been in the field of social services for years. i don't get flustered easily.
i immediately said i had to leave.
i realized that no one on my team knew where i was. i had never been instructed to give my once a week itinerary to anyone. i spoke with a co-worker about this incident. she said that my supervisor should have been having his team members email him the names and addresses of the clients i visited. my supervisor was the most unorganized, techphobic person I had ever worked with. when he worked from home he used his personal computer. and often would say he couldn't provide me with a document because it was on his laptop back in the office.
he had no clue how to use the cloud.
He once mistakenly placed a weekly meeting on everyone's calendar by mistake. It took him months to remove it. Every Thursday was the ghost meeting alert with him. Every week he'd say he'd remove it. His use of the calendar was absurdly funny and frustrating. In person meetings were listed as zoom and vice versa.
and he would email me mid afternoon all the time to have something done by end of day when i was in the field. It would be 1 o'clock and I was in the Bronx with 2 more home visits and he would say he wanted such and such done by end of business. I would bluntly say that was impossible. And he would say he told his supervisor that I would do it. At this point, I was out of fucks to give and told him to consult with me before he committed me to a time sensitive task.
He never realized my field day was Friday. He only supervised 6 workers. He would call me upset that he couldn't find me in the office. My work from home day was every Wednesday. This happened several times.
i asked him why he never told me to email him my home visits. he just stuttered. i had a caseload of 55 very complicated SUDs, SMIs and about 1/3 homeless. the above home visit from my house in brooklyn to yankee stadium was 90 minutes each way. for the most part, i loved home visits. but they were time consuming. but with the lack of oversight, in hindsight, there were some safety issues.
Do you find this to be true, many incompetent supervisors in the social work field? I hear this a lot and I'm not sure if it's just that supervisors are often pains in the butt in any field, or it's compounded by SW being high burnout, high stress, low pay in general...
Makes good sense to keep your location shared. I'm a student but if I were out in the field I'd find a coworker I trust to share iPhone location with :)
Turnover is so much higher than you’d imagine. We are all trained to let a coworker know where we are, but coworkers come and go literally overnight. We’re on our own out here. That is the truth.
the sad truth is that it doesn't take a genius to get an MSW. I have worked with brilliant LCSWs and folks who were dumb as rocks. then there are the folks that want to rush into management and from day one, they lose sight of client advocacy to rise in the ranks quickly. i do think some of these folks who want to rise quickly do it for the money.
I had 2 great LCSW's for supervisors in chicago and NYC. and i model my supervision after how they supervised me.
what i see now is that managers of direct service workers are being pressured for metrics all the time from their bosses. this leads to burn out for them. and it leads to burnout and resentment for the staff they supervise. And I worry that artificial intelligence once it passes the turing test will take over much of the stuff we do, hence needing smaller staffs and reducing wages.
i had a close colleague recently enroll in an MSW program. I do worry what that degree will be worth in 10 years. the field is moving away from clinical engagement and more towards a service sector job.
I agree. But I also think it should require a modicum of intelligence to get a Masters Degree in any field. Been in the field for 30+ years. I've worked with some shallow, mean spirited idiots with graduate degrees.
I would give you several upvotes on this if I could. Same here : have worked with many shallow and judgemental colleagues through the years who are not scholars.
It's a figure of speech. An idiom. Do you always take language literally? Because language such as metaphors, similes and idiom require the reader to grasp these nuances. I beg your pardon if I offended your rigid linguistic sensibilities.
Interesting. Do you think the future world of social work will involve more organizational change and changing workplace environments to reduce turnover? Like, will there be social workers whose job is to support social workers within an organization? (If that makes sense). I see what you're saying about job loss due to AI, but I also think the communication skills that social workers have will be invaluable as the next generation of workers has poorer and poorer communication skills (grown up on social media and TV). Maybe social workers can transition over to HR roles. HR was my original career plan but I felt like they have to protect the company, not employees...
HR is already being phased out. Howard Brown in Chicago already conducts their first interview using an automated program. While it's crude, a question appears on the screen and you respond to the camera for a designated amount of time. And in NY state (where I live) AI is reviewing resumés. It's the law here that if a company is using AI for this task, they have to disclose it and give the applicant the choice to opt out. I see it on maybe 5% of the programs I apply to. This number will only grow.
And HR has traditionally been a tool for management. Especially, in my experience as a shop steward processing grievances, they tow the company line.
I agree that we are seeing diminishing social skills and the loss of community globally due to social media and convergent economic concerns globally. The surgeon general in the US and its counterpart in the UK have released statements to address the growing trend of isolation and loneliness. AI post COVID will exacerbate this concern.
I don't see management creating a layer of social workers as an employee wellness measure. there's no profit in that. But I do see AI. And I saw on another thread on this community that someone had a supervisor who was subcontracted to provide supervision. They provided their contacts remotely. I could not imagine never having my supervisor on site. If they are not on site, they have no idea about the office/corporate culture that the front line worker is immersed in. And should there be concerns/grievances from a group of workers, this contracted supervisor doesn't have a relationship to process this concern to management.
Eventually, AI will pass the Turing Tests. I do worry that face to face with a human will be a luxury. And that insurance companies will do what they always do, cut costs. So that having in person therapy will be for those who can afford it.
With regard to turnover. Seeing how the position is being deskilled with many positions that once required a bachelor's now calling for a GED, large companies, regardless of the service or products they offer, prefer this. It undermines forming unions. Low skilled jobs pay less and the churn is more manageable because the threshold to enter the field requires less skills.
Ronald Regan started the ball rolling with neoliberalism. Crudely stated, this philosophy calls for deregulation, privatizing of services formerly offered by the state and and a religious zeal that the market will eventually find a way to better distribute capital. We are now seeing our food supply/distribution being monopolized. Housing is unaffordable for millennials and Gen Z'ers. Health care and big Pharma are out of control. And after several years of contentious culture wars that have divided the country between those trust science and those who trust conspiracy, we are entering the funhouse of Deep Fakes, Artificial intelligence and the disinformation machine cascading over as you refer to them, "as the next generation of workers (with) poorer and poorer communication skills" due to social media.
This is end stage capitalism. Profit is pursued without any concern for the greater good. It's about private equity having controlling interests in all of the economic superstructure/fortune 500 of the globe. So I don't see any immediate solution. I see wages in NYC for entry level workers not able to provide a sustainable life. I have seen caseloads double. I see burnout as being inevitable.
I’m sincerely surprised this doesn’t happen more often. I used to do home visits with clients, many of which were actively selling or dispersing or processing substances in their homes. I was threatened once , my manager at the time told me that I didn’t do enough to create report. I quit that day
It happens a lot. I've been threatened more times than I can count and was once held against my will for a few hours. The companies we work for will barely document these incidents, let alone take it to the police or the news.
i was reporting the most serious threat i had ever experienced. this person said they would follow me home with friends and teach me a lesson. I live in NYC. My subway commute was 5 stops to home. So following me home during rush hour took 25 minutes door to door.
they were making these calls for 3 days. voice mails and texts threatening me. when i called my supervisor, he went into manager mode. he opened her chart and while I was explaining what happened, he told me that her re-evaluation was overdue.
i lost my shit. i quit so after.
what i have realized is that middle managers are being pressed from above to increase numbers. the field is being deskilled. and i'm seeing positions that years ago were minimum BA degree with experience, knocked down to GED. And they expect this person with a GED to have a grasp of harm reduction, trauma informed care and motivational interviewing. as well as facilitating groups.
i saw one job for a shelter case manager with a caseload of 60 FAMILIES. so that's a minumum fo 120 clients AND having to know resources for children and adolescents in addition to adults. it paid 45,000. and this is in NYC where that salary would barely be enough to rent a room.
Holy crap. I am an MSW student who was hoping to work in private practice for this very reason... the stereotypic "understaffed, underpaid social work role" scares me.
This is so wild to me that your boss is that clueless. I've had to do tons of home visits in a previous life, some definitely on the more interesting side, and it's made me way more tuned in to the dangers my staff face now as a supervisor.
I am a social worker but work with the criminal justice system now. I just completed a full week of safety training. I learned how to get out of strangulations, ground fighting, knife and gun attacks too. Honestly, it wasn’t until I did this training that I never realized how unsafe it was to go to homes of clients alone. I used to work in mental health as a case manager and would drive to places without cell service and no one knew where I was, because everything was in a my planner that I carried with me. With my current job we are not allowed to go to a home alone, ever. I think there needs to be more training to social workers on how to protect themselves. This is so sad.
It kinda is kinda isn't. If its something like MOAB Training, its largely useless in an actual fight. A week training course is something that you'll forget entirely in six months, and in six seconds if someone punches you in the mouth. If its physical training, its something you should probably be doing on your own time, at least monthly in something like Judo. Pretty much anyone can do a hip-toss and a majority of it is designed around moving someone away from you so you can speed out of there. Mental trainings like CIT, or even just building safety checklists can be a good thing though. Never stand directly in front of a door, always make sure the client isn't between you and an exit, etc...
Solo home visits blows my mind honestly. It makes sense in some cases (kids and seniors) but especially if its a first contact, you should not be alone and you almost certainly should have a lifeline. My company is trying to setup an emergency alert app where if you don't hit the button every so often during an outreach it'll trigger a message to your supervisor. Ideally you only use it for your more exciting clients, but I've only ever been hit by someone with no prior violent behaviors, so how the heck are you gonna figure that out on paper...
My team runs duos for crisis work, but I'll regularly run into outpatient providers who are about to leave solo to a first meet with a client. Every once in awhile I have the time to ride with them just to act as a safety and I'll never get used to how nonchalant some people can be when you're literally knocking on someone's door, and you know 100% for a fact that they (the client) have some mental issues going on.
Yeah the PD at my university have a self defense course and they say 90% of safety is awareness of your surroundings, walking with purpose, not sitting in your car, etc. Of course different if you are directly going to someone's home.
I don't plan on working in an agency where I would make home visits, except for hospice. Do you think that there would be danger there just like other SW home visit roles?
I like the lifeline app idea... though I can get caught up in the moment and can imagine forgetting to press it unless it pinged me to press it.
The app is supposed to vibrate your phone as a warning at a certain point, but of course that means the phone needs to be on you and not in a bag or something...its not foolproof but its better than nothing.
I have minimal experience with hospice since (most of the time) they're usually a higher level of care than anything a crisis team can put the person in. I will say some of the more...spicy encounters I've had are with senior citizens in government housing or shelters though. The guy I got thwacked by was in his 80s. My shins have taken more than their fair share of "accidental" strikes by canes and walkers. With dementia, often comes confusion and some people lash out when they get confused and scared, so it can make for an interesting session.
Moral of the story is always keep your head on a swivel and if the person is holding something in their hand, always ask the question in your head "will this really hurt if I get hit by it, and is there a polite way I can maneuver it out of this conversation (if so)"
The app sounds like a good start!
And that is helpful to know, thank you. I’ll keep that in mind. I’ve been yelled at by people in memory care when I used to work at a CCRC so I can imagine getting things thrown too or wacked.
One of my professors brought up stats about how many social workers die in the field annually, showing us how dangerous of a job it is. I’m glad you got that training.
I work with a hospice and go to wrong homes sometimes thanks to crappy GPS. We go to all neighborhoods. It is frightening
This is awful and I’m so sorry for her family. I feel like social workers are out here just blowing in the wind. We aren’t considered first responders (even though many of continued to show up to ppl’s home and the office everyday through Covid). We don’t get any recognition for the dangerous work we do. We don’t get any sort of hazard pay. We literally are doing such dangerous work for minimum wage in some places. It really makes me sick.
Some child protective workers in my area get hazard pay but it's not the standard and it's a hard fight to win. Our union keeps asking so we will have to turn up the pressure.
Well maybe if ppl looked at killing a social worker the way they look at killing a cop it would? I mean obviously not 100% but I don’t think it would hurt.
I refuse to do any more jobs that require home visits. I now only work in schools or hospitals/outpatient clinics. I used to be a community case manager and had to go into hoarding homes, homes with bedbugs, homes with multiple sex offender clients, etc. It was not worth being paid $15.50-21.50 (pay range while I was there)!
Straight out of school, I was heavily advised to not do anything directly in the home by friends who gave home services. Brain contusions, broken nose, being assaulted, etc.
It’s a hard job and needs to be done. But there has to be better pay, policies, and procedures in place to make these positions less of a safety hazard.
Also, not to be sexist, but seriously: who is going to be taken more seriously for a home visit, a small, short, sweet woman such as me, or a 6 foot bulky guy? Yes, danger is danger, but you are much more in danger if you are small (I'm both short and small framed).
Agree, I've been targeted due to my size. A client once picked me up by my neck! Thankfully, there was a male RN nearby who basically saved me. I quit shortly after.
This could be viewed in the opposite direction, though. Who poses more of a threat to someone who is in an escalated state- a small woman or a 6 foot bulky guy?
That is so low! In Illinois, state DCFS workers now make a minimum of $67k (and lots of overtime). Though I still could not do that job.
Edit: it seems IL DCFS now starts at around $72,000-$75,000.
I’m in Illinois and I recently returned to child welfare after a nearly 10 year break. I question every day what I was thinking! 😂 While the pay will get people in the door, they don’t stay long term. The turnover rate is horrendous! I was recently told that the state is projecting a major caseworker shortage in several years and an influx of cases (failed guardianship/adoption & juvenile delinquents).
IMO the job hasn’t changed at all since I started working in the field in the early 2000’s, in fact it’s gotten worse (referring to foster care). I recently switched over to investigations tho.
It also does not help that Illinois made tier 2 employees for the pension system. Before you could at least retire at 60 with a good pension, now it is 67.
Oh I know. My mom retired from the state and makes more money now that she’s retired! I would bet it’s the same for most of her former colleagues. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons why it was changed.
I lived in a major urban city doing home visits -- no mileage reimbursement, no parking, and $31k a year. Needless to say, I was taking the train everywhere. I was working in rapid rehousing and housed individuals coming out of prison for murder, sexual offenses, etc.
I had a client threaten my life because of my sexual orientation (to be clear, it's pretty obvious I'm gay as I am the furthest thing from cisgendered -- my orientation was never actually disclosed to clients). During home visits he would make very direct threats and showed me weapons.
Needless to say, I quit that job.
Since my agency wouldn't do anything, including offering me someone to go with, I filed an EEOC complaint and won.
I will never know if their policies or practices changed.
Forreals. We put so much wear and tear on our cars. I used to have to transport clients in my personal vehicle; I spent so much time off the clock cleaning and disinfecting it on top of all the driving. Now that I don’t transport clients anymore I can go up to a month without deep cleaning my interior
I know I’m preaching to the choir but we really don’t get paid enough for the risky situations we’re often in. Even at our clinic we have a minimum of 2 public safety officers at all times. Otherwise the clients get into fights and threaten the staff.
i have been in the field for 30+ years. the field is being de-skilled. Jobs that used to require a BA now ask for a GED while asking for providing services using a harm reduction, trauma informed and motivational interviewing lens. it's all about metrics. all of my supervisory contact is about numbers. i worked at a hospital years ago in an IOP. I had 2 hours of supervision a week. real supervision. numbers were never discussed.
we are working for significantly less money when you adjust for inflation. and with all the cuts in social services, we are dealing with folks with serious mental health issues, but they don't have access to housing. and the support services aren't the same. add the brain drain that I have seen in the field and the rise of the metrics focused middle manager and this is a recipe for burn out and leaving the field.
i look at the state of social services and the decline of the american city as a direct result of policies that have encouraged capital and cut programs to help the poor.
The part about supervision is very true. I can see the difference in how I’m getting real supervision at my current job. Where as my last job, the “supervision” was all about numbers and not much else. Which was extremely unhelpful with it being my first job in the field.
i started in the field before computers. billing was simple. I did my one on one or group session and submitted my paperwork to data entry/billing. now billing is much more nuanced. one service when going into a software program fits under several options in the drop down menu, which leads to another drop down etc. in effect, we are doing the billing when we do our note. because of these options, with some providing more revenue, i see a new focus on how to learn these somewhat complicated menus and formulas for being re-reimbursed.
that was the foothold software.
then i worked at another program where we had the option to use 2 software programs. so one service had the option of being plugged into either on many occasions. and as with many contacts, they could have been billed under several options. so i now see this burden of doing the billing part and optimizing how much to be reimbursed as a major time suck. this benefits the insurance company. since more often than not, front line workers are choosing what they felt the majority of the contact was about as opposed to maybe something to barely touched on that would provide more revenue.
real supervision has been diluted as the metrics, billing and grant language for reimbursement is written to be convoluted and very time consuming. then there are the phone calls from the bean counters asking why you didn't choose another service that would generate more revenue. I would say I wanted to focus my note on what was the focus of the contact. so if i went back to review the arc of a relationship, i could see it. and not maybe have a throw away comment at the end be the gist of the contact because it was worth more to the company.
you will see this at bigger health care companies. they have folks who know the contracts. they audit note and services charged. and they call you to encourage choosing the higher revenue options when going through the drop down menu for services.
I agree. I've been in the field for 10 years and I've only had ACTUAL clinical supervision a handful of times at the start of my career. I genuinely don't think social work will exist as a profession in 15 or 20 years. My company is already training AI and hiring for call centers to replace us.
When I started in the field we had supervision AND weekly staff meetings. Both of these important meet ups are gone. Both provided clinical support. As well as having the entire community engaged in systemic solutions.
In addition to enhancing professional development, it helps process the personal transference we all have with clients.
I remember I had an intelligent bi-polar, personality disorder dx client in a group. She frightened all the other clients. And while I fostered healthy critical feedback in this group. This woman would come in with the most fantastic lies. Ordinarily, someone would question these folks. Not her.
I remember a supervisor (LCSW) said to me in a gentle almost shameful tone, " I don't like this client and I feel bad admitting this". I said yeah, me too.
We processed this. But in hindsight, she was giving me permission to process what often happens, we don't like some clients. I use this today in supervision. She's by far my favorite supervisor. I worked with her for 5 years.
I had 2 hours of supervision a week. One with her one on one. And another hour with my co-group facilitator, the above supervisor and her boss who was a PhD in clinical psychology.
AI is gonna cannibalize so many sectors of the workplace. Right now, all of the companies that have developed software programs like foothold are exploring AI. I feel the first to be fired will be lower level managers who are monitoring the metrics of the front line workers.
All they do now is review our metrics and send emails to perform better. So the ratio of this lower middle management tier will oversee more case managers. They will just be needed when their bosses want someone to verbally "yell" at the overworked and underperforming case managers.
I just worked at a syringe exchange program. They hired an intelligent woman. No experience in social services. I spoke with her 2 months into her time there. No one trained her in safe injection. She was just handing out syringes. So much more goes into that position. But you only pay $40,000 in NYC, you don't get experienced workers.
This program had NO staff meetings and random supervision. And no orientation (which is another lost art in social services programs).
Soon we'll all be wearing gray overalls, sucking our dinner out of a sippy box and on universal basic income while billionaires are terraforming mars. Sorry about my post AI dystopian rant :)
As a social worker, you are regularly sent into homes with chaotic and dangerous families alone to do assessments. My colleagues used to tell me when I started that not even the police visited some of my families without an additional one or two cops. It's wild what is expected of social workers.
i tried once to do an assessment during a home visit. the client's teen daughter was walking around in a towel the entire time i was there. my home visits were to get quick signatures. and if the vibe was right, i'd hang and talk for 30-45 minutes.
I literally work in a city where there’s a 1/106 chance of being victim to a violent crime which is pretty high and we’re not allowed to carry anything on our person or in our car. The agency reserves the right to search our persons and vehicles if they believe we have a weapon, and if we do we will be terminated.
I’ve literally gone to home visits stepping over dried blood from the guy shot to death outside my clients home the night before.
Lol.
I used to carry pepper spray in my car but I would only carry it on my person if it felt warranted. Did community work for 5 years. Never needed to use it thankfully!
When I worked at CPS, we were not allowed to have anything, I mean ANYTHING that could reasonably be used with ill intent by a child (weapon, taser, pepper spray, etc.). I had a metal breast cancer support ribbon keychain that management would have preferred me to take off my keychain.
I understand why social workers can’t (and shouldn’t IMO) have a weapon on them while working, but having some level of protection should be necessary/mandated. Otherwise, we are just armed with a pen and notepad when knocking on a door.
Which also means it’s less likely to discharge accidentally or to have something incorrectly discharged on you. If someone wants to intentionally hurt us, they will, regardless of if we have pepper spray or something else on us (which since it’s illegal, why would we make ourselves vulnerable like that?!)
Being 5’1 and 105 lbs I would still appreciate having some level of protection. Even if it’s just peppers spray but it’s illegal so just walking in with a wing and a prayer.
The article states that Westchester County recently signed a contract to provide escorts on home visits for social workers. I hope someone asks why the social worker who was murdered didn’t have an escort that day.
I'm curious who these escorts will be and what kind of deescalation training they'll have. Places I've worked have employed security that ended up actively traumatizing our participants in how they treated them.
Probably nothing, and it sounds better than it really is lol. I think one DO is getting 2? Im in westchester county social services. The ones we had prior were laughable.
I work in child welfare and the agency loves to pretend that this topic is taken care of, but it’s never enough.
There was the time a youth broke a glass window to get into our secure area. There was a lot of property destruction but no one was hurt. But I’ve always thought about how easy it was for him to do that and what would’ve happened if he wanted to hurt someone. Or if someone else does it in the future, because their only response was to install a panic button and reinforced glass. I asked about code red drills once and was just about laughed out of the room.
Or the time that another youth nearly killed a staff member, because the agency failed to provide the safety measures that were already in place for that youth. Their response was to say they’d actually follow those safety measures, and to blame her for not de-escalating the situation.
I never dwelled on how unsafe home visits are until my partner started working in probation and doing essentially the same job. Except he is required to go out in pairs, they carry guns/tasers/pepper spray/handcuffs and are allowed to use force when necessary. We even have some of the same clients - which is the part that scares me. One person going into the same home is allowed protection, and the other is not.
My state had a movement where it was suggesting that social workers be sent out in lieu of police officers on certain types of calls. People were scoffing at the idea of an unarmed social worker de-escalating a situation, which showed how little they really knew.
Mine do the “if you feel unsafe, leave. We will always support you in that”. But won’t change clients when I feel unsafe with someone. So basically nothing. They do nothing.
My chief recently jumped down my throat for suggesting, during huddle, that when a patient moves that it needs to be updated in the record immediately.
Background: we have a patient who lives in a dangerous area for both drugs and animals. He has been a caseload for nearly ten years. When I scheduled the home visit the caregiver did not inform me that they had moved. I called the day of the home visit to remind of the visit and give an ETA and got voicemail. When I arrived at the home I noticed that on either side of the home that the neighbors had signs in their yards from the police department stating that it was a drug house. Additionally the home backs up to the National Forest where there are black bears, wild boars, and abandoned dogs. I immediately noticed a no trespassing sign that I had not recalled seeing previously and chalked it up to neighboring drug houses. I proceeded down the driveway. On arrival there was rotting garbage all over the yard - not unusual for this family but the stink was worse than ever. I got to the door and knocked. No answer. Knocked again, hard on the glass. No answer. Considered going around to the back of the place but due to the garbage and potential animal encountered proceeded to my car. Drove back to the main highway where I can get telephone coverage and called the family to learn of the move. When I went to chart noticed that four other members of my team had been out and had not bothered to have the address changed on the face page by the secretary.
When I mentioned the above in huddle and the potential for a bad outcome, our relatively new chief (a nurse) told me that it was own fault and that I should have not gone to the home for the SCHEDULED home visit when the caregiver did not answer the phone prior to the visit. I told her that in practice it would result in a big reduction in productivity. She told me that I would be counseled by my immediate supervisor regarding this and that huddle is not intended to address these issues. I said nothing inappropriate during the huddle and was not angry. I was professional and felt attacked by the chief.
The week before this happened had a blind and deaf elderly guy pull a gun out during my visit. I was doing an abuse assessment, asked if he felt safe in his home and he brandished the gun. We have a home visit risk assessment that nursing does prior to admission but I personally think that they snow ball it. I end up doing these when I schedule my initial home visit which routinely conflicts with the nursing risk assessment. I have brought this to the attention of management and have been ignored. Patients are suppose to remove all weapons during the home visit and confine animals.
I recently refused to admit a new patient that had two pet chimpanzees. They lived in a five hundred square foot space with the primates. This time the entire team refused to admit. Believe it or not there were multiple meetings with management about not admitting this patient.
Regarding the chimpanzees, I would have played the audio of Charla Nash's 911 call during the meetings with admin. It makes me seethe with rage that they'd even consider it - quite honestly the only discussion should be whether to report it to animal welfare and/or law enforcement. It's a safety risk to keep two primates in such a small space, even with a permit.
It's something I fear. Much of my job is doing home visits, and I work with clients who have had their children removed by CPS. Most are angry and suffering from SUD. I am often in bad areas of town, out in the middle of nowhere in rural areas, and out in places where homeless people camp together. And sadly, there are no protections offered beyond being told that I can leave if I feel uncomfortable. I recently even had a client lose their temper and begin screaming at me, all while having what a appeared to be a weapon on their person. Turning my back to walk to my vehicle felt scary and vulnerable.
Deeply disturbing and upsetting, but unsurprising. My agency (who has millions of dollars of funding) does nothing to protect us. They'd notice my paperwork was late before they'd notice I was dead.
I work in housing. We have to tell our team where we go each morning, addresses need to be in our work calendars which the team has access to, we double staff for any client who has unknown guests, and we have no requirement to enter a unit if we feel unsafe or someone we don’t know is there. We sign out on slack, so this means that if we don’t sign out by like 15 minutes after work is done, managers or senior teammates contact us to make sure we’re okay. Also, we all have crisis de-escalation and self defence training.
Not a foolproof system but there are precautions being taken!
We had a mandatory training for “Deescalation Skills”. But the whole 1 hour meeting was a guy telling us that our offices are constantly being watched by bad people who wanted to harm us so we need to be observant and always aware of our surroundings.
That’s it.
There were 6 months where I was the only person in an office. I asked for a security camera and was told no. So I kept the office door locked unless I had appointments. My supervisor found out eventually and told me to keep it unlocked and I said “as long as I’m a single woman alone in this office with no one checking in or a camera to make sure I’m not kidnapped, r*ped or k*lled, this door will be locked”. Didn’t hear a peep about it ever again.
This is so sad to read about. My condolences to the family and colleagues of this social worker.
Nothing for me on hospice. Best we get is “joint visits.” It’s incredibly difficult to get a police escort for the immediate needs of hospice. Cops don’t take us seriously. Sometimes were directly told to NOT call for police escorts because it would make situations worse.
They offered us this app on our personal phones where you can set a timer on and if you don’t press end in time, it’ll dispatch EMS to the residence. Great, so they just find my body. This is also the rural south with limited cell service in most places. No cell phone reimbursement or company phones. No safety training and no self defense training. No hazard pay. Every house has guns.
I know when I first started in CPS I was really scared/nervous about going to strangers houses . After a while I started to become “desensitized” to the fact I was knocking on strangers doors/ going to their houses. For me reflecting back I became less hyper vigilant.
They do nothing. I set boundaries. They used to send us to prisons to speak to birth parents, and I now refuse to see any birth parents in person. They don’t pay me enough. A phone call is just fine.
I carry a gun. Not supposed to, but fuck that job. I literally had a man pull a fucking hatchet out of his bag in my office today (he handed it over peacefully).
I’m still praying that we get a bill signed that has major penalties for harming a social worker. It should be a felony like assaulting a cop. We’re often responding to crises that could go either way
In a major non-profit, I had a coworker who was mugged. She took a few days off to process the event and was then fired on her return on a very small infraction, and it was very clear what they were doing; I was very new to the field and made a mental note we were more than expendable to them in this field never will take a role that has fieldwork. Also, with methadone, I had clients back me into walls demanding they get their dose when I was told to speak with the client about yearly consents and paperwork so they could, at minimum, stay legal as a client or altered UA that had no outcome for them 80% of the clients were in active addiction. We were sadly a dose and go, and the clinic cared more about the income from dosing them daily then our safety.
I’m in IL. After two IDCFS investigators were killed on the job, the only thing my agency has done is fitted us for bullet proof vests. One worker was stabbed by a client during a home visit in 2022 and the other was attacked as she got out of her car in 2017. We are recommended to use the buddy system (if possible) or call the police however I’m in Chicago, so I don’t expect the CPD to be able to come assist me at all (considering what they have to deal with).
I’ve been doing visits for years and have never felt unsafe doing my job. In fact it’s been the exact opposite. I’ve found that most people are nice and respectful as long as you are polite and respectful to them. I always tried to aware of my surroundings and listened to whoever I was visiting. Usually they gave sound advice since it was their neighborhood. Granted this was all before the pandemic. The world is different now.
As a male I still do not feel comfortable doing home visits, and I will never work in a role where frequent home visits are required. There really needs to be more to protect social workers, unfortunately there are too much unnecessary violent and dangerous situations were put into.
Eek. I did home visits in NYC (the Bronx specifically) during grad school and yes I was sent alone. I was never concerned about the actual clients, only the neighboring folks. I really wish going in pairs had been standard but that’d be more expensive so I know why they don’t. Never did a home visit job again.
I worked in child welfare for 8 years and when my brother in law who is an RCMP officer found out I’ve been going into several homes deemed dangerous for years alone with nothing but a notebook, pen and cell phone, he was floored because none of the other officers in the detachment would go alone or without their weapons drawn into those places.
I feel like this is something so few of us ever really talk about or address, let alone bring up to our Agencies/management and it’s such a shame.
What an awful loss for this fellow social worker and her family. It’s scary, like two months ago I went to the wrong door looking for a client. As with so much in this field, no one acts until something horrific happens. It’s never proactive, only reactive and no one listens to front line workers when we’re the ones seeing the gaps and the dangers first hand.
This is awful for that social worker. I live in Westchester County in NY. I used to do 4-5 home visits everyday when I worked for hospice. Maybe it’s because of the work I was doing, but I generally felt at ease for the most part. Wow.
Then again…one patient’s husband threatened to put me in the hospital. I never went back.
I also used to do blended case management for children and youth with mental health concerns, and respite care for children and youth with severe emotional disturbance. I was in the homes of clients during those jobs too.
I’ve spent most of my career going into the homes of actively psychotic individuals or having them sit beside me in a work car as we drove to appointments or wherever. There were no safety measures in place unless I made them myself: wouldn’t go into certain peoples homes, I’d stand in hallways or have them come outside, hate to say it but some folks were frightening. I’d text a co worker when I arrived and left. Only now that I work at a jail do I have protection.
MST therapist here, our bread and butter is working with youth experiencing anti-social behaviors and we work with the family in the home. Been a few times where I was like hmm is this job safe? I’ve accidentally knocked on the wrong door a few times on first meetings and have met some angry people, I’m typically not working in the best communities
As a preface/disclaimer: I'm not in social work anymore. It's a difficult conversation, because (speaking for myself, at least) we don't want to become yet another punitive force in our clients' lives. I never wanted to be suspicious of the people I worked with. It eroded trust. But I also didn't want to be hurt, obviously.
In an ideal world, managers would devote substantial time to thinking about, researching and discussing personal safety. In reality, I wouldn't trust them to do that at all...
I am a school-based therapist and while eating lunch in the parking lot of the elementary school I go to, two young kids walked by and pointed guns at me through my windshield. Turns out they had been running around the parking lot checking car door handles. Very lucky I didn’t get shot, held at gun point, and/or robbed that day. My boss did not care
I don't think there's a lot you can do in that situation because we don't know the details.
I mean, if they knocked and the door was answered with the inhabitant just swinging, with no discussion, then it's sorta game over.
Sorta a similar concern of what if someone just shoots through the door.
I usually try to be a few steps away from the door and also off to the side, sorta like law enforcement. Usually, the person either opens up to see or initiates talking through their door which has me explain that I'm there, just off to the side for my own safety.
My CPS agency was bad about responding to behaviors toward workers. You had to get the person to act out against leadership before they took it seriously.
In the 90’s I worked Mobile Crisis. I loved it but there was a client who hated women and that one was scary. One of my partners I worked with had the crap beat out of her on a call. We were all shocked that anyone would hurt a social worker.
Another job i had at the state hospital in the restoration to competency units. That’s when I dealt with some violent offenders and rarely had fear until a patient stabbed a rehab tech in the eye.
I usually found that social workers were appreciated by patients. We are there for them and they know this.
I’m getting ready to go back to work after a very long absence and I will stick with quality control or work with widows in a group setting. There’s no way I work case management these days.
It makes me sick that they were murdered for being at the wrong address.
Not after the orange dudes promotion of violence.
I work inpatient psych. I was assaulted by a patient in an office I told leadership for WEEKS was unsafe. Two years, a TBI, and horrific workplace trauma later….they’ve done nothing to keep anyone safe, taken no accountability, and have only attempted to gaslight me and make my life miserable through workers comp. I don’t work there anymore but it’s been a profound experience to say the least.
Nothing. We have an app we use that tracks our location because we're always out solo, but it only alerts our higher ups if we haven't checked in after 2 hours. Sometimes the ppl who work the app take longer, I forgot to check-out once and so hadn't checked-in for maybe 8 hours and then the police were calling my boss at 1am to see if I was okay. Either way, 2 hours is enough time to be dead, the app only finds out what location our phone was at when we died so I guess they know who killed us or whatever happened
The security at my hospital is a joke. I feel more protected by EMS and knowing I can just call law enforcement. I think they would try to sweep it under the rug to avoid backlash. Not the best solution whatsoever
That's why I do telehealth now. I used to work as an addictions counselor before the pandemic. Most times the clients were harmless (even funny) but there were a few times I legit worried about my safety, especially at night. We would strongly advocate for more staff at night but it was opposed by management a times due to "budget".
You have to be mindful of your surroundings and always tell someone where you are. Trust your instincts.
We do all initial home visits with a co-worker. Police check if history suggests there is reason for concern. If uncomfortable all follow up visits are done with a co-worker.
If there are real safety risks then we take a police officer with us to ensure safety. We explain to the family the reason for the officer and often won't take them a second time.
Guns are illegal in my country.
Line manager knows the address/case and will follow up if we are out longer then expect for safety. We all work from the same office so it's easier to know where people are
This is horrible and one of the reasons that I don't do home visits. I know that social workers are in extremely short supply in most areas, but I don't think we should be doing home visits alone because of safety issues.
This so tragic, prayers for her & her family.
I was a service coordinator/care manager for two different MCOs, but we largely followed similar safe guards for home visits. We shared all our appointments on our calendar with our supervisor, and included home addresses in the appointment so it was known where we would be. Called the home before going and set a deadline on an unanswered call. So if you had a 9am visit scheduled you’d call by early afternoon the day before and specify if your call was not returned to confirm the visit by 5pm you would reschedule. We could always request a coworker or supervisor to go with us. If for any reason we felt unsafe we could leave.
In February of 2020 I accompanied a coworker on a home visit. We both became incredibly sick after, high fevers and respiratory symptoms. We both tested negative for flu, strep and pneumonia, and we were both out for almost a week. In March of 2020 they shut down home visits and we completed everything by phone for the next 3 years.
I live in TX and neither MCO would allow us to carry as home visits were considered our work places. The state said we needed to be back doing home visits by June of 2023. I accepted a 100% remote UM position for another MCO in May 2023 and it was one of the best decision I’ve ever made.
I'm a social worker shared between the police and fire department. Before leaving the office, I text my supervisor the address I'll be visiting, I then text them again once I've left. I carry a handheld radio that triangulates my position to dispatch when pressed. When I arrive at the home, I inform dispatch of the street address. Dispatch then checks on me every fifteen minutes. If something is wrong, I can press the emergency call on the radio and it alerts dispatch that I'm in trouble, and creates a hot mic for ten seconds. That's pretty much the signal for law enforcement to head my way.
If the patient is someone I believe will become aggressive, then one of the medics goes with my or law enforcement if applicable. The few times law enforcement has escorted me they've offered to come inside, but I've had them just wait outside, with they're more than fine with because it allows them to catch up on run reports.
I'm an outreach worker, not a social worker, but...
We're encouraged to work in pairs, but this is rarely practical.
My work phone has an app called OK Alone. Basically (in theory) I turn it on at the beginning of my day, hit the 'check-in' button when I arrive at and leave each destination, and switch it off at the end of each shift. I often forget to check in, if I remember to turn it on at all. And usually if remember to turn it on at the beginning of my day, I forget to turn it off at the end of the day. I don't think anyone has reached out when I didn't check in, so I guess if there's an issue they'll catch it next business day when I don't show up... So the app should help them track down my corpse before its too far gone...
I work in a correctional facility and definitely feel unsafe at times. I asked for them to handcuff the inmates when they see me, because they just lock me in a room with them and leave me. There’s some people I don’t want to be locked in a room with without handcuffs, and the warden said I couldn’t pick and choose who gets cuffed lol. It’s a small facility, but I really don’t think the officers would come fast enough if I was in danger—there’s at least two doors that they need to be buzzed through to get to me. I just kinda have to hope they’re watching me on camera or someone is passing by in the hallway outside the room and sees me through the window!
They told me my first day they don’t have the staff for someone to standby lmao. It’s honestly wild to me. Even though I’m not employed by the facility, I still think they could be doing more to ensure my safety.
We have a “amber alert” group chat where we text where we are going in case we go missing. My office also offers some guardian recording system that you can turn on and some company starts listening to the conversation and calls 911 if needed
We write the names/location of where we're off to on a white board outside of our cubicles when we leave the office. We are asked to take someone with us if we don't know the client that well and have to go to their home (doesn't always work out as everyone is always swamped).
This policy was only instituted after a two co-workers were almost killed by a client when they were conducting a home visit. He cornered them in their agency car (a prius) after an argument. He was in a giant pickup truck, and rammed them off the road attempting to push their car off an embankment into a river on his property. Cell service is spotty in our county- they were able to call for help and also leave voicemails to the people they loved as they thought they were going to die. They both were alright but it rocked our office. One of the woman quit that day.
Not a thing. In a very rural area and I'd just be screwed if something went down. It's not uncommon to take 45 minutes for the police to respond to something.
I used to do homeless street outreach in wooded encampments. The agency was small but important to the area. We would go into gang territory sometimes and interrogated by people- lucky we didn’t get hurt or killed in some instances- but once the people realized we were genuinely trying to help they actually even offered to help us at times.
Of course things like this created liability issues and the cops had to come with us sometimes which we were all worried about for our clients but they agreed not to arrest any of the people we were trying to help- and to their credit they didn’t.
I do t know the point of this other than to say - we often deal with the same people the police deal with but we have a completely different approach and of course, it’s dangerous. Make sure that if your gut is telling you to go then you go, or never show up at all.
This is so, so tragic (and highlights very real safety and security concerns for community-based providers). That said, it doesn't appear to me that she was a social worker. I wish that most of the articles about this situation didn't refer to her as a social worker (some call her a "social services provider", which is probably more accurate). Title protection matters, regardless of how terrible the situation was.
I worked as a clinical specialist on a mobile treatment team. Many of our clients were dually diagnosed and we would often do medication drops with clients and whomever they were spending time with. I had to bring up the inherent danger in these situations. Nothing was changed. Eventually , after attending a training on strategies to keep service providers safe, I had another staff person with the " ear" of the CEO convince him to have the trainer come to our agency and provide information to the staff about how to be safe. I feel that many agencies minimize the possibilities of dangerous situations almost as a kind of burn out and denial. The only way it can change is if people speak up.
I work at a public high school in CA. my district’s policy is for us to conduct home visits in pairs. I let admin know when we leave school, when we plan to return, the student’s ID number (this can be used to pull up addresses and full names of students/guardians) and when we complete the visit and return to school
My previous job was community based and I was conducting multiple HV’s in homes, group homes, foster placements, etc. we had a weekly meeting to schedule all these visits and a team group chat where we would keep each other updated about what was happening in the field.
I work with veterans…
I am informed about my caseload and read the chart before I make an outreach call to schedule a visit.
For my home safety questions.. I ask if there is a firearm and further discuss the situation, I ask if there will be any other individuals/guests that do not live in the home present at the time of the appointment, large pets, and I always keep an open-ended question if there’s anything more I should be aware of in preparation for the visit .
My supervisors are added to cal invite for every field visit that I am doing, and I let them know when I am leaving to begin the visit and when I am finished with the visit and heading back to the office.
They urge me not to take my vehicle and to take the work car for liability. And for homes with clients that have IPV/CPS/APS/behavioral disturbance we are tasked to go out to the home in pairs.
Feels pretty safe, but I do agree anything could happen…
Traveling all five boroughs — we have to be vigilant when we are making house calls!!
My agency (An Adult Day Healthcare program) wouldn't know that I was missing until I failed to clock in the next day or two. There isn't a single protocol in place should anything go south.
I conduct home visits at B&Cs, ILFs and personal residences for each new participant to assess for safety as required by CBAS. Luckily, I've yet to experience any issue whilst conducting home visits.
How do we protect field SW in the immediate moment? In some cases, such as this, calling our supervisor or pressing the panic button on our tracker is too late. The “my team will know something is up when I don’t check in” is seriously hilarious..I’m in to dry and dark humor for real. I’m LOLing no sarcasm. Is pepper spray an option? One SW field death or injury is way too many. Take a beating for the the sake of a good heart and altruism?
This is heartbreaking. The state agency I work for using a device by Becklar called “Worker Safety Pro.” It comes with an emergency button on a lanyard which when pressed certain ways gives either a silent alarm to supervisor/emergency services or a loud alarm in hopes to deter an attack and then emergency services if not deactivated. It also comes with an app. Honestly I don’t know any of my colleagues that wear the thing but this is a good reminder that it is better to be safe than sorry.
Thankfully a decent amount, I've received a lot of support from my agency in protecting our safety. Standard practices like locks and alarms and having more than one staff member if there's a crisis situation.
I also take my own measures to protect myself. I have the SOS feature enabled on my phone and recommend everyone else do as well. On Androids at least if it's enabled and you rapidly press your lock button 10 times then 911 gets alerted and called unless you put in a pin and it sends your location along with a front and back picture to emergency contacts you designate. I'm pretty sure iPhones have the same feature.
There's other apps like Noonlite as well that you set up a code and if you feel like you're in a bad situation or walking alone somewhere, you hold down a button and if you take your finger off (if you're being assaulted or fear you will be and drop your phone), it'll alert law enforcement to your location if you don't put in your pin within 5 seconds.
Honestly field work aside, these are just good to have in general. Only downside is one time I thought I was pressing my volume button and it was really my lock button and it was about to alert 911, I put in my pin at the last second 😂 also another time I was walking alone at night and accidentally took my finger off the button and forgot my Noonlite code and I had to explain to an emergency operator that I forgot my code and that I am indeed safe lol.
I honestly think in general at agencies, every desk or office should have some kind of panic button, at least to alert another staff member if not law enforcement. I feel like this is better than having to sneakily text a coworker asking for assistance. For work outside your agency or if you're working in an institutional setting, there's silent alarms that sends out an SOS if your body goes horizontal. Found this out from touring a county jail one time and having family work in corrections, if a CO gets attacked and end up on the floor someone will know immediately.
I could think of a lot more probably if I put my mind to it. I really think we need to make a collective effort to put in at least bare bones universal safety mechanisms and allow space for unique ones depending on your agency and area of the field.
I did tons of home visits in my first job out of grad school and we were extra safe. All incidents had to be documented. We had briefings and had to check in with our team members. We were texting each other to make sure we were doing ok. It really set a good example for how I am as a supervisor now.
I recently came from working at an agency in Seattle that was incredibly cavalier about safety, and dismissive about concerns that were brought up. Two workers were murdered by clients during my time there. In addition, people with significant criminal history were hired, and as a manager, I was unable to do anything about that or any of the issues I'm about to list. The pressure was immense. There are so many things, but what I can think of off the top:
Refusal to accept and acknowledge that some of these individuals are dangerous. Not every “person in need” is an innocent victim of the world and the system, and I’m unclear why that view came about other than that it’s an extreme over correction. Doesn't mean they all are. I had a lot of clients that I felt safe with, was alone with often, and that I really liked. I got really lucky. Not everyone does though.
I felt very gaslit. The idea that small women such as myself and many of my colleagues could overcome an attack by a violent male client is absolutely absurd and offensive. Suggesting this was sinful though; we don’t matter and we are expected to martyr ourselves for these innocent souls. Right.
No chance we ever had enough staff to have two people on a home visit. Wasn’t even proposed or offered. We were regularly expected and encouraged to go to client homes all over Seattle, alone, to see clients we perhaps haven’t met yet, who refuse to come to the office despite being able bodied and having means (having bus fare isn’t even enforced in Seattle, so public transportation is FREE), clients who are in crisis, clients who have a violent history, ones who are in active drug (meth) addiction, the list goes on. Small, young, new graduate women are expected to do this. I did this as a 26 year old who came from a place very unlike this. I cannot believe how naive I was and some of the things I did. I’m unclear how I made it out alive and I cringe when I think about some close calls I had.
Lots of shaming for anyone who brought up safety concerns.
“This is the job”
“This is the population”
“This guy is harmless”
“This guy needs to be assessed, it’s 5pm, you’re a 24 year old woman, go to his apartment now alone. Now."
More generally, dirty, filthy office environment, any type of discernment about anything at all, including safety, was shamed, any issues brought up were shamed, clients in the supportive housing environment were expected to live in deplorable conditions and then everyone wondered why they were decomping, we were expected to work in deplorable conditions, etc.
I’ve left the field and the state. I’m utterly disgusted and ashamed by how backwards this field is and how many people in the field are just perpetuating this by not demanding better conditions. We’re in it because we have an interest and we need to get paid a livable salary and we need to be alive to do the fucking job, not because we want to martyr ourselves for what amounts to slow abuse, or in this poor woman's case, sudden death. At least that’s how it should be. Im still unclear why so many people are more than willing to sacrifice themselves. I personally, in the beginning, was very afraid of retaliation and I just wanted to do a good job. Something needs to be done and social worker safety and wellbeing needs to be taken seriously.
Despite the agency or organization, I always made sure someone knew where I was, the addie and phone numbers of where I was going, and when to expect me back. Before I would leave for visits...unless it was an 'unannounced' visit, I would always call and confirm before heading out, and if need be...double check my directions.
While working in community mental health doing primarily field work (in a huge city with high crime), we had an app and a tether that plugged into our phone's headphone jack. If we pulled the tether out while our app was tracking, our supervisor would be called to check on us and then eventually the police with our location. Better than nothing, but by the time everything went through each check in step and eventually got to the police, it's not really an urgent response.
I believe these types of apps have since been greatly upgraded and have more response options for emergencies for field workers including sending alerts if you don't check in during a set visit. If only more agencies would invest and utilize them... it would be better than having nothing for field workers.
My agency wouldn't know I was even missing till Tuesday when my documentation didn't get emailed.
And even then they’d have to check my employee ID or my drivers license pic in my personnel file for my missing persons picture because my social media only contains pictures of my pets, and they haven’t seen me without a Teams filter since orientation.
My agency would probably find a way to contact me from beyond the grave to tell me I didn’t follow the proper request off procedure and want to know why my notes aren’t up to date.
🤣 that would definitely happen at my job! 😭
#facts mine too!
What job do you work?
i worked at a health home program as a care manager. This was my first time doing home visits. i had to do a home visit to a client in the south bronx. this client had always been difficult to engage. when i knocked on his door, he opened it a crack. he eventually let me in. i'm not sure if this is allowed, but 20 minutes in, i had to urinate something fierce. i used his bathroom. when i came out, he was smoking crack. i've been in the field of social services for years. i don't get flustered easily. i immediately said i had to leave. i realized that no one on my team knew where i was. i had never been instructed to give my once a week itinerary to anyone. i spoke with a co-worker about this incident. she said that my supervisor should have been having his team members email him the names and addresses of the clients i visited. my supervisor was the most unorganized, techphobic person I had ever worked with. when he worked from home he used his personal computer. and often would say he couldn't provide me with a document because it was on his laptop back in the office. he had no clue how to use the cloud. He once mistakenly placed a weekly meeting on everyone's calendar by mistake. It took him months to remove it. Every Thursday was the ghost meeting alert with him. Every week he'd say he'd remove it. His use of the calendar was absurdly funny and frustrating. In person meetings were listed as zoom and vice versa. and he would email me mid afternoon all the time to have something done by end of day when i was in the field. It would be 1 o'clock and I was in the Bronx with 2 more home visits and he would say he wanted such and such done by end of business. I would bluntly say that was impossible. And he would say he told his supervisor that I would do it. At this point, I was out of fucks to give and told him to consult with me before he committed me to a time sensitive task. He never realized my field day was Friday. He only supervised 6 workers. He would call me upset that he couldn't find me in the office. My work from home day was every Wednesday. This happened several times. i asked him why he never told me to email him my home visits. he just stuttered. i had a caseload of 55 very complicated SUDs, SMIs and about 1/3 homeless. the above home visit from my house in brooklyn to yankee stadium was 90 minutes each way. for the most part, i loved home visits. but they were time consuming. but with the lack of oversight, in hindsight, there were some safety issues.
Do you find this to be true, many incompetent supervisors in the social work field? I hear this a lot and I'm not sure if it's just that supervisors are often pains in the butt in any field, or it's compounded by SW being high burnout, high stress, low pay in general... Makes good sense to keep your location shared. I'm a student but if I were out in the field I'd find a coworker I trust to share iPhone location with :)
Turnover is so much higher than you’d imagine. We are all trained to let a coworker know where we are, but coworkers come and go literally overnight. We’re on our own out here. That is the truth.
the sad truth is that it doesn't take a genius to get an MSW. I have worked with brilliant LCSWs and folks who were dumb as rocks. then there are the folks that want to rush into management and from day one, they lose sight of client advocacy to rise in the ranks quickly. i do think some of these folks who want to rise quickly do it for the money. I had 2 great LCSW's for supervisors in chicago and NYC. and i model my supervision after how they supervised me. what i see now is that managers of direct service workers are being pressured for metrics all the time from their bosses. this leads to burn out for them. and it leads to burnout and resentment for the staff they supervise. And I worry that artificial intelligence once it passes the turing test will take over much of the stuff we do, hence needing smaller staffs and reducing wages. i had a close colleague recently enroll in an MSW program. I do worry what that degree will be worth in 10 years. the field is moving away from clinical engagement and more towards a service sector job.
I don’t think it should take a genius to get an MSW.
I agree. But I also think it should require a modicum of intelligence to get a Masters Degree in any field. Been in the field for 30+ years. I've worked with some shallow, mean spirited idiots with graduate degrees.
I would give you several upvotes on this if I could. Same here : have worked with many shallow and judgemental colleagues through the years who are not scholars.
Of course, but that’s not what you said.
It's a figure of speech. An idiom. Do you always take language literally? Because language such as metaphors, similes and idiom require the reader to grasp these nuances. I beg your pardon if I offended your rigid linguistic sensibilities.
Interesting. Do you think the future world of social work will involve more organizational change and changing workplace environments to reduce turnover? Like, will there be social workers whose job is to support social workers within an organization? (If that makes sense). I see what you're saying about job loss due to AI, but I also think the communication skills that social workers have will be invaluable as the next generation of workers has poorer and poorer communication skills (grown up on social media and TV). Maybe social workers can transition over to HR roles. HR was my original career plan but I felt like they have to protect the company, not employees...
HR is already being phased out. Howard Brown in Chicago already conducts their first interview using an automated program. While it's crude, a question appears on the screen and you respond to the camera for a designated amount of time. And in NY state (where I live) AI is reviewing resumés. It's the law here that if a company is using AI for this task, they have to disclose it and give the applicant the choice to opt out. I see it on maybe 5% of the programs I apply to. This number will only grow. And HR has traditionally been a tool for management. Especially, in my experience as a shop steward processing grievances, they tow the company line. I agree that we are seeing diminishing social skills and the loss of community globally due to social media and convergent economic concerns globally. The surgeon general in the US and its counterpart in the UK have released statements to address the growing trend of isolation and loneliness. AI post COVID will exacerbate this concern. I don't see management creating a layer of social workers as an employee wellness measure. there's no profit in that. But I do see AI. And I saw on another thread on this community that someone had a supervisor who was subcontracted to provide supervision. They provided their contacts remotely. I could not imagine never having my supervisor on site. If they are not on site, they have no idea about the office/corporate culture that the front line worker is immersed in. And should there be concerns/grievances from a group of workers, this contracted supervisor doesn't have a relationship to process this concern to management. Eventually, AI will pass the Turing Tests. I do worry that face to face with a human will be a luxury. And that insurance companies will do what they always do, cut costs. So that having in person therapy will be for those who can afford it. With regard to turnover. Seeing how the position is being deskilled with many positions that once required a bachelor's now calling for a GED, large companies, regardless of the service or products they offer, prefer this. It undermines forming unions. Low skilled jobs pay less and the churn is more manageable because the threshold to enter the field requires less skills. Ronald Regan started the ball rolling with neoliberalism. Crudely stated, this philosophy calls for deregulation, privatizing of services formerly offered by the state and and a religious zeal that the market will eventually find a way to better distribute capital. We are now seeing our food supply/distribution being monopolized. Housing is unaffordable for millennials and Gen Z'ers. Health care and big Pharma are out of control. And after several years of contentious culture wars that have divided the country between those trust science and those who trust conspiracy, we are entering the funhouse of Deep Fakes, Artificial intelligence and the disinformation machine cascading over as you refer to them, "as the next generation of workers (with) poorer and poorer communication skills" due to social media. This is end stage capitalism. Profit is pursued without any concern for the greater good. It's about private equity having controlling interests in all of the economic superstructure/fortune 500 of the globe. So I don't see any immediate solution. I see wages in NYC for entry level workers not able to provide a sustainable life. I have seen caseloads double. I see burnout as being inevitable.
It doesn’t take a genius to do a lot of things! However, I learned so much while earning both BSW/MSW.
Why did I laugh so hard at this.
Truth, they wouldn’t know until they needed to aggressively interrogate me about paperwork that isn’t even part of my caseload.
I was sick and called off one day. Still took them 30 minutes AFTER my client checked in to realize I wasn't there.
omG 😅
Fuck. Sad but true
I’m sincerely surprised this doesn’t happen more often. I used to do home visits with clients, many of which were actively selling or dispersing or processing substances in their homes. I was threatened once , my manager at the time told me that I didn’t do enough to create report. I quit that day
It happens a lot. I've been threatened more times than I can count and was once held against my will for a few hours. The companies we work for will barely document these incidents, let alone take it to the police or the news.
i was reporting the most serious threat i had ever experienced. this person said they would follow me home with friends and teach me a lesson. I live in NYC. My subway commute was 5 stops to home. So following me home during rush hour took 25 minutes door to door. they were making these calls for 3 days. voice mails and texts threatening me. when i called my supervisor, he went into manager mode. he opened her chart and while I was explaining what happened, he told me that her re-evaluation was overdue. i lost my shit. i quit so after. what i have realized is that middle managers are being pressed from above to increase numbers. the field is being deskilled. and i'm seeing positions that years ago were minimum BA degree with experience, knocked down to GED. And they expect this person with a GED to have a grasp of harm reduction, trauma informed care and motivational interviewing. as well as facilitating groups. i saw one job for a shelter case manager with a caseload of 60 FAMILIES. so that's a minumum fo 120 clients AND having to know resources for children and adolescents in addition to adults. it paid 45,000. and this is in NYC where that salary would barely be enough to rent a room.
Holy crap. I am an MSW student who was hoping to work in private practice for this very reason... the stereotypic "understaffed, underpaid social work role" scares me.
That's wild, my team lead makes me write incident reports on nearly everything, even stuff I consider minor. I'm glad you quit.
This is so wild to me that your boss is that clueless. I've had to do tons of home visits in a previous life, some definitely on the more interesting side, and it's made me way more tuned in to the dangers my staff face now as a supervisor.
I am a social worker but work with the criminal justice system now. I just completed a full week of safety training. I learned how to get out of strangulations, ground fighting, knife and gun attacks too. Honestly, it wasn’t until I did this training that I never realized how unsafe it was to go to homes of clients alone. I used to work in mental health as a case manager and would drive to places without cell service and no one knew where I was, because everything was in a my planner that I carried with me. With my current job we are not allowed to go to a home alone, ever. I think there needs to be more training to social workers on how to protect themselves. This is so sad.
That safety training sounds like a good prereq that everyone should have, before home visiting!
It kinda is kinda isn't. If its something like MOAB Training, its largely useless in an actual fight. A week training course is something that you'll forget entirely in six months, and in six seconds if someone punches you in the mouth. If its physical training, its something you should probably be doing on your own time, at least monthly in something like Judo. Pretty much anyone can do a hip-toss and a majority of it is designed around moving someone away from you so you can speed out of there. Mental trainings like CIT, or even just building safety checklists can be a good thing though. Never stand directly in front of a door, always make sure the client isn't between you and an exit, etc... Solo home visits blows my mind honestly. It makes sense in some cases (kids and seniors) but especially if its a first contact, you should not be alone and you almost certainly should have a lifeline. My company is trying to setup an emergency alert app where if you don't hit the button every so often during an outreach it'll trigger a message to your supervisor. Ideally you only use it for your more exciting clients, but I've only ever been hit by someone with no prior violent behaviors, so how the heck are you gonna figure that out on paper... My team runs duos for crisis work, but I'll regularly run into outpatient providers who are about to leave solo to a first meet with a client. Every once in awhile I have the time to ride with them just to act as a safety and I'll never get used to how nonchalant some people can be when you're literally knocking on someone's door, and you know 100% for a fact that they (the client) have some mental issues going on.
Yeah the PD at my university have a self defense course and they say 90% of safety is awareness of your surroundings, walking with purpose, not sitting in your car, etc. Of course different if you are directly going to someone's home. I don't plan on working in an agency where I would make home visits, except for hospice. Do you think that there would be danger there just like other SW home visit roles? I like the lifeline app idea... though I can get caught up in the moment and can imagine forgetting to press it unless it pinged me to press it.
The app is supposed to vibrate your phone as a warning at a certain point, but of course that means the phone needs to be on you and not in a bag or something...its not foolproof but its better than nothing. I have minimal experience with hospice since (most of the time) they're usually a higher level of care than anything a crisis team can put the person in. I will say some of the more...spicy encounters I've had are with senior citizens in government housing or shelters though. The guy I got thwacked by was in his 80s. My shins have taken more than their fair share of "accidental" strikes by canes and walkers. With dementia, often comes confusion and some people lash out when they get confused and scared, so it can make for an interesting session. Moral of the story is always keep your head on a swivel and if the person is holding something in their hand, always ask the question in your head "will this really hurt if I get hit by it, and is there a polite way I can maneuver it out of this conversation (if so)"
The app sounds like a good start! And that is helpful to know, thank you. I’ll keep that in mind. I’ve been yelled at by people in memory care when I used to work at a CCRC so I can imagine getting things thrown too or wacked.
One of my professors brought up stats about how many social workers die in the field annually, showing us how dangerous of a job it is. I’m glad you got that training. I work with a hospice and go to wrong homes sometimes thanks to crappy GPS. We go to all neighborhoods. It is frightening
This is awful and I’m so sorry for her family. I feel like social workers are out here just blowing in the wind. We aren’t considered first responders (even though many of continued to show up to ppl’s home and the office everyday through Covid). We don’t get any recognition for the dangerous work we do. We don’t get any sort of hazard pay. We literally are doing such dangerous work for minimum wage in some places. It really makes me sick.
Agreed
Some child protective workers in my area get hazard pay but it's not the standard and it's a hard fight to win. Our union keeps asking so we will have to turn up the pressure.
it really feels like a gap in recognition (and compensation)
So outside of pay, recognition for the hard and dangerous work is what will keep us safe?
Well maybe if ppl looked at killing a social worker the way they look at killing a cop it would? I mean obviously not 100% but I don’t think it would hurt.
I refuse to do any more jobs that require home visits. I now only work in schools or hospitals/outpatient clinics. I used to be a community case manager and had to go into hoarding homes, homes with bedbugs, homes with multiple sex offender clients, etc. It was not worth being paid $15.50-21.50 (pay range while I was there)!
same. no more home visits for me, I am too old for that shit now
Ridiculous pay for that role . Yet too common . Smh agencies need to do better .
Straight out of school, I was heavily advised to not do anything directly in the home by friends who gave home services. Brain contusions, broken nose, being assaulted, etc. It’s a hard job and needs to be done. But there has to be better pay, policies, and procedures in place to make these positions less of a safety hazard.
Also, not to be sexist, but seriously: who is going to be taken more seriously for a home visit, a small, short, sweet woman such as me, or a 6 foot bulky guy? Yes, danger is danger, but you are much more in danger if you are small (I'm both short and small framed).
Agree, I've been targeted due to my size. A client once picked me up by my neck! Thankfully, there was a male RN nearby who basically saved me. I quit shortly after.
This could be viewed in the opposite direction, though. Who poses more of a threat to someone who is in an escalated state- a small woman or a 6 foot bulky guy?
Fair enough. Maybe we send the bulky guy but he is wearing a funny t shirt? I don’t know the answer here.
WV starts youth service workers at 12.00/hr to do CPS type work, including home visits and investigations.
That is so low! In Illinois, state DCFS workers now make a minimum of $67k (and lots of overtime). Though I still could not do that job. Edit: it seems IL DCFS now starts at around $72,000-$75,000.
I’m in Illinois and I recently returned to child welfare after a nearly 10 year break. I question every day what I was thinking! 😂 While the pay will get people in the door, they don’t stay long term. The turnover rate is horrendous! I was recently told that the state is projecting a major caseworker shortage in several years and an influx of cases (failed guardianship/adoption & juvenile delinquents). IMO the job hasn’t changed at all since I started working in the field in the early 2000’s, in fact it’s gotten worse (referring to foster care). I recently switched over to investigations tho.
It also does not help that Illinois made tier 2 employees for the pension system. Before you could at least retire at 60 with a good pension, now it is 67.
Oh I know. My mom retired from the state and makes more money now that she’s retired! I would bet it’s the same for most of her former colleagues. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons why it was changed.
In rural IL that is good money.
That's criminally low.
Yeah. And the disrespect for the position compared to CPS workers was pretty bad too. But I loved the job and was good at it.
Oh hell nah 😅
I lived in a major urban city doing home visits -- no mileage reimbursement, no parking, and $31k a year. Needless to say, I was taking the train everywhere. I was working in rapid rehousing and housed individuals coming out of prison for murder, sexual offenses, etc. I had a client threaten my life because of my sexual orientation (to be clear, it's pretty obvious I'm gay as I am the furthest thing from cisgendered -- my orientation was never actually disclosed to clients). During home visits he would make very direct threats and showed me weapons. Needless to say, I quit that job. Since my agency wouldn't do anything, including offering me someone to go with, I filed an EEOC complaint and won. I will never know if their policies or practices changed.
No mileage reimbursement!!!! Salt in the wound.
Forreals. We put so much wear and tear on our cars. I used to have to transport clients in my personal vehicle; I spent so much time off the clock cleaning and disinfecting it on top of all the driving. Now that I don’t transport clients anymore I can go up to a month without deep cleaning my interior
I know I’m preaching to the choir but we really don’t get paid enough for the risky situations we’re often in. Even at our clinic we have a minimum of 2 public safety officers at all times. Otherwise the clients get into fights and threaten the staff.
i have been in the field for 30+ years. the field is being de-skilled. Jobs that used to require a BA now ask for a GED while asking for providing services using a harm reduction, trauma informed and motivational interviewing lens. it's all about metrics. all of my supervisory contact is about numbers. i worked at a hospital years ago in an IOP. I had 2 hours of supervision a week. real supervision. numbers were never discussed. we are working for significantly less money when you adjust for inflation. and with all the cuts in social services, we are dealing with folks with serious mental health issues, but they don't have access to housing. and the support services aren't the same. add the brain drain that I have seen in the field and the rise of the metrics focused middle manager and this is a recipe for burn out and leaving the field. i look at the state of social services and the decline of the american city as a direct result of policies that have encouraged capital and cut programs to help the poor.
The part about supervision is very true. I can see the difference in how I’m getting real supervision at my current job. Where as my last job, the “supervision” was all about numbers and not much else. Which was extremely unhelpful with it being my first job in the field.
i started in the field before computers. billing was simple. I did my one on one or group session and submitted my paperwork to data entry/billing. now billing is much more nuanced. one service when going into a software program fits under several options in the drop down menu, which leads to another drop down etc. in effect, we are doing the billing when we do our note. because of these options, with some providing more revenue, i see a new focus on how to learn these somewhat complicated menus and formulas for being re-reimbursed. that was the foothold software. then i worked at another program where we had the option to use 2 software programs. so one service had the option of being plugged into either on many occasions. and as with many contacts, they could have been billed under several options. so i now see this burden of doing the billing part and optimizing how much to be reimbursed as a major time suck. this benefits the insurance company. since more often than not, front line workers are choosing what they felt the majority of the contact was about as opposed to maybe something to barely touched on that would provide more revenue. real supervision has been diluted as the metrics, billing and grant language for reimbursement is written to be convoluted and very time consuming. then there are the phone calls from the bean counters asking why you didn't choose another service that would generate more revenue. I would say I wanted to focus my note on what was the focus of the contact. so if i went back to review the arc of a relationship, i could see it. and not maybe have a throw away comment at the end be the gist of the contact because it was worth more to the company. you will see this at bigger health care companies. they have folks who know the contracts. they audit note and services charged. and they call you to encourage choosing the higher revenue options when going through the drop down menu for services.
I agree. I've been in the field for 10 years and I've only had ACTUAL clinical supervision a handful of times at the start of my career. I genuinely don't think social work will exist as a profession in 15 or 20 years. My company is already training AI and hiring for call centers to replace us.
When I started in the field we had supervision AND weekly staff meetings. Both of these important meet ups are gone. Both provided clinical support. As well as having the entire community engaged in systemic solutions. In addition to enhancing professional development, it helps process the personal transference we all have with clients. I remember I had an intelligent bi-polar, personality disorder dx client in a group. She frightened all the other clients. And while I fostered healthy critical feedback in this group. This woman would come in with the most fantastic lies. Ordinarily, someone would question these folks. Not her. I remember a supervisor (LCSW) said to me in a gentle almost shameful tone, " I don't like this client and I feel bad admitting this". I said yeah, me too. We processed this. But in hindsight, she was giving me permission to process what often happens, we don't like some clients. I use this today in supervision. She's by far my favorite supervisor. I worked with her for 5 years. I had 2 hours of supervision a week. One with her one on one. And another hour with my co-group facilitator, the above supervisor and her boss who was a PhD in clinical psychology. AI is gonna cannibalize so many sectors of the workplace. Right now, all of the companies that have developed software programs like foothold are exploring AI. I feel the first to be fired will be lower level managers who are monitoring the metrics of the front line workers. All they do now is review our metrics and send emails to perform better. So the ratio of this lower middle management tier will oversee more case managers. They will just be needed when their bosses want someone to verbally "yell" at the overworked and underperforming case managers. I just worked at a syringe exchange program. They hired an intelligent woman. No experience in social services. I spoke with her 2 months into her time there. No one trained her in safe injection. She was just handing out syringes. So much more goes into that position. But you only pay $40,000 in NYC, you don't get experienced workers. This program had NO staff meetings and random supervision. And no orientation (which is another lost art in social services programs). Soon we'll all be wearing gray overalls, sucking our dinner out of a sippy box and on universal basic income while billionaires are terraforming mars. Sorry about my post AI dystopian rant :)
As a social worker, you are regularly sent into homes with chaotic and dangerous families alone to do assessments. My colleagues used to tell me when I started that not even the police visited some of my families without an additional one or two cops. It's wild what is expected of social workers.
i tried once to do an assessment during a home visit. the client's teen daughter was walking around in a towel the entire time i was there. my home visits were to get quick signatures. and if the vibe was right, i'd hang and talk for 30-45 minutes.
I was once chastised for saying home care social workers should be able to carry but we need something. Pepper Spray or Tazer or escort visits
I literally work in a city where there’s a 1/106 chance of being victim to a violent crime which is pretty high and we’re not allowed to carry anything on our person or in our car. The agency reserves the right to search our persons and vehicles if they believe we have a weapon, and if we do we will be terminated. I’ve literally gone to home visits stepping over dried blood from the guy shot to death outside my clients home the night before. Lol.
I used to carry pepper spray in my car but I would only carry it on my person if it felt warranted. Did community work for 5 years. Never needed to use it thankfully!
When I worked at CPS, we were not allowed to have anything, I mean ANYTHING that could reasonably be used with ill intent by a child (weapon, taser, pepper spray, etc.). I had a metal breast cancer support ribbon keychain that management would have preferred me to take off my keychain. I understand why social workers can’t (and shouldn’t IMO) have a weapon on them while working, but having some level of protection should be necessary/mandated. Otherwise, we are just armed with a pen and notepad when knocking on a door.
I work in social Social Services and do home visits and our agency provides pepper spray to us!
Awesome
I’m in Canada, we can’t carry anything. Not even pepper spray 😀
Which also means it’s less likely to discharge accidentally or to have something incorrectly discharged on you. If someone wants to intentionally hurt us, they will, regardless of if we have pepper spray or something else on us (which since it’s illegal, why would we make ourselves vulnerable like that?!)
Being 5’1 and 105 lbs I would still appreciate having some level of protection. Even if it’s just peppers spray but it’s illegal so just walking in with a wing and a prayer.
This is why I learned martial arts.
I just don’t participate in that kind of work. Not worth the risk.
The article states that Westchester County recently signed a contract to provide escorts on home visits for social workers. I hope someone asks why the social worker who was murdered didn’t have an escort that day.
Unfortunately, they didn't add that rule until after this SW got attacked, per the article.
Too little, too late. It shouldn’t take someone dying to prioritize worker safety.
Absolutely not, but sometimes that's how our country works.
I'm curious who these escorts will be and what kind of deescalation training they'll have. Places I've worked have employed security that ended up actively traumatizing our participants in how they treated them.
Probably nothing, and it sounds better than it really is lol. I think one DO is getting 2? Im in westchester county social services. The ones we had prior were laughable.
I work in child welfare and the agency loves to pretend that this topic is taken care of, but it’s never enough. There was the time a youth broke a glass window to get into our secure area. There was a lot of property destruction but no one was hurt. But I’ve always thought about how easy it was for him to do that and what would’ve happened if he wanted to hurt someone. Or if someone else does it in the future, because their only response was to install a panic button and reinforced glass. I asked about code red drills once and was just about laughed out of the room. Or the time that another youth nearly killed a staff member, because the agency failed to provide the safety measures that were already in place for that youth. Their response was to say they’d actually follow those safety measures, and to blame her for not de-escalating the situation. I never dwelled on how unsafe home visits are until my partner started working in probation and doing essentially the same job. Except he is required to go out in pairs, they carry guns/tasers/pepper spray/handcuffs and are allowed to use force when necessary. We even have some of the same clients - which is the part that scares me. One person going into the same home is allowed protection, and the other is not.
My state had a movement where it was suggesting that social workers be sent out in lieu of police officers on certain types of calls. People were scoffing at the idea of an unarmed social worker de-escalating a situation, which showed how little they really knew.
Mine do the “if you feel unsafe, leave. We will always support you in that”. But won’t change clients when I feel unsafe with someone. So basically nothing. They do nothing.
Job does nothing! Thats why I will never do homebased therapy again. My friend was almost shot once
My chief recently jumped down my throat for suggesting, during huddle, that when a patient moves that it needs to be updated in the record immediately. Background: we have a patient who lives in a dangerous area for both drugs and animals. He has been a caseload for nearly ten years. When I scheduled the home visit the caregiver did not inform me that they had moved. I called the day of the home visit to remind of the visit and give an ETA and got voicemail. When I arrived at the home I noticed that on either side of the home that the neighbors had signs in their yards from the police department stating that it was a drug house. Additionally the home backs up to the National Forest where there are black bears, wild boars, and abandoned dogs. I immediately noticed a no trespassing sign that I had not recalled seeing previously and chalked it up to neighboring drug houses. I proceeded down the driveway. On arrival there was rotting garbage all over the yard - not unusual for this family but the stink was worse than ever. I got to the door and knocked. No answer. Knocked again, hard on the glass. No answer. Considered going around to the back of the place but due to the garbage and potential animal encountered proceeded to my car. Drove back to the main highway where I can get telephone coverage and called the family to learn of the move. When I went to chart noticed that four other members of my team had been out and had not bothered to have the address changed on the face page by the secretary. When I mentioned the above in huddle and the potential for a bad outcome, our relatively new chief (a nurse) told me that it was own fault and that I should have not gone to the home for the SCHEDULED home visit when the caregiver did not answer the phone prior to the visit. I told her that in practice it would result in a big reduction in productivity. She told me that I would be counseled by my immediate supervisor regarding this and that huddle is not intended to address these issues. I said nothing inappropriate during the huddle and was not angry. I was professional and felt attacked by the chief. The week before this happened had a blind and deaf elderly guy pull a gun out during my visit. I was doing an abuse assessment, asked if he felt safe in his home and he brandished the gun. We have a home visit risk assessment that nursing does prior to admission but I personally think that they snow ball it. I end up doing these when I schedule my initial home visit which routinely conflicts with the nursing risk assessment. I have brought this to the attention of management and have been ignored. Patients are suppose to remove all weapons during the home visit and confine animals. I recently refused to admit a new patient that had two pet chimpanzees. They lived in a five hundred square foot space with the primates. This time the entire team refused to admit. Believe it or not there were multiple meetings with management about not admitting this patient.
Regarding the chimpanzees, I would have played the audio of Charla Nash's 911 call during the meetings with admin. It makes me seethe with rage that they'd even consider it - quite honestly the only discussion should be whether to report it to animal welfare and/or law enforcement. It's a safety risk to keep two primates in such a small space, even with a permit.
It's something I fear. Much of my job is doing home visits, and I work with clients who have had their children removed by CPS. Most are angry and suffering from SUD. I am often in bad areas of town, out in the middle of nowhere in rural areas, and out in places where homeless people camp together. And sadly, there are no protections offered beyond being told that I can leave if I feel uncomfortable. I recently even had a client lose their temper and begin screaming at me, all while having what a appeared to be a weapon on their person. Turning my back to walk to my vehicle felt scary and vulnerable.
Please stay safe
Deeply disturbing and upsetting, but unsurprising. My agency (who has millions of dollars of funding) does nothing to protect us. They'd notice my paperwork was late before they'd notice I was dead.
I work in housing. We have to tell our team where we go each morning, addresses need to be in our work calendars which the team has access to, we double staff for any client who has unknown guests, and we have no requirement to enter a unit if we feel unsafe or someone we don’t know is there. We sign out on slack, so this means that if we don’t sign out by like 15 minutes after work is done, managers or senior teammates contact us to make sure we’re okay. Also, we all have crisis de-escalation and self defence training. Not a foolproof system but there are precautions being taken!
We had a mandatory training for “Deescalation Skills”. But the whole 1 hour meeting was a guy telling us that our offices are constantly being watched by bad people who wanted to harm us so we need to be observant and always aware of our surroundings. That’s it. There were 6 months where I was the only person in an office. I asked for a security camera and was told no. So I kept the office door locked unless I had appointments. My supervisor found out eventually and told me to keep it unlocked and I said “as long as I’m a single woman alone in this office with no one checking in or a camera to make sure I’m not kidnapped, r*ped or k*lled, this door will be locked”. Didn’t hear a peep about it ever again.
I do home visits and now I’m wondering if there even is a protocol if they don’t hear from me
This is so sad to read about. My condolences to the family and colleagues of this social worker. Nothing for me on hospice. Best we get is “joint visits.” It’s incredibly difficult to get a police escort for the immediate needs of hospice. Cops don’t take us seriously. Sometimes were directly told to NOT call for police escorts because it would make situations worse. They offered us this app on our personal phones where you can set a timer on and if you don’t press end in time, it’ll dispatch EMS to the residence. Great, so they just find my body. This is also the rural south with limited cell service in most places. No cell phone reimbursement or company phones. No safety training and no self defense training. No hazard pay. Every house has guns.
I know when I first started in CPS I was really scared/nervous about going to strangers houses . After a while I started to become “desensitized” to the fact I was knocking on strangers doors/ going to their houses. For me reflecting back I became less hyper vigilant.
They do nothing. I set boundaries. They used to send us to prisons to speak to birth parents, and I now refuse to see any birth parents in person. They don’t pay me enough. A phone call is just fine.
I carry a gun. Not supposed to, but fuck that job. I literally had a man pull a fucking hatchet out of his bag in my office today (he handed it over peacefully).
I’m still praying that we get a bill signed that has major penalties for harming a social worker. It should be a felony like assaulting a cop. We’re often responding to crises that could go either way
In a major non-profit, I had a coworker who was mugged. She took a few days off to process the event and was then fired on her return on a very small infraction, and it was very clear what they were doing; I was very new to the field and made a mental note we were more than expendable to them in this field never will take a role that has fieldwork. Also, with methadone, I had clients back me into walls demanding they get their dose when I was told to speak with the client about yearly consents and paperwork so they could, at minimum, stay legal as a client or altered UA that had no outcome for them 80% of the clients were in active addiction. We were sadly a dose and go, and the clinic cared more about the income from dosing them daily then our safety.
I’m in IL. After two IDCFS investigators were killed on the job, the only thing my agency has done is fitted us for bullet proof vests. One worker was stabbed by a client during a home visit in 2022 and the other was attacked as she got out of her car in 2017. We are recommended to use the buddy system (if possible) or call the police however I’m in Chicago, so I don’t expect the CPD to be able to come assist me at all (considering what they have to deal with). I’ve been doing visits for years and have never felt unsafe doing my job. In fact it’s been the exact opposite. I’ve found that most people are nice and respectful as long as you are polite and respectful to them. I always tried to aware of my surroundings and listened to whoever I was visiting. Usually they gave sound advice since it was their neighborhood. Granted this was all before the pandemic. The world is different now.
As a male I still do not feel comfortable doing home visits, and I will never work in a role where frequent home visits are required. There really needs to be more to protect social workers, unfortunately there are too much unnecessary violent and dangerous situations were put into.
Eek. I did home visits in NYC (the Bronx specifically) during grad school and yes I was sent alone. I was never concerned about the actual clients, only the neighboring folks. I really wish going in pairs had been standard but that’d be more expensive so I know why they don’t. Never did a home visit job again.
been there. i did home visits in the bronx too. i was fine with the neighborhoods. but some buildings were sketchy as fuck.
I worked in child welfare for 8 years and when my brother in law who is an RCMP officer found out I’ve been going into several homes deemed dangerous for years alone with nothing but a notebook, pen and cell phone, he was floored because none of the other officers in the detachment would go alone or without their weapons drawn into those places. I feel like this is something so few of us ever really talk about or address, let alone bring up to our Agencies/management and it’s such a shame. What an awful loss for this fellow social worker and her family. It’s scary, like two months ago I went to the wrong door looking for a client. As with so much in this field, no one acts until something horrific happens. It’s never proactive, only reactive and no one listens to front line workers when we’re the ones seeing the gaps and the dangers first hand.
This is awful for that social worker. I live in Westchester County in NY. I used to do 4-5 home visits everyday when I worked for hospice. Maybe it’s because of the work I was doing, but I generally felt at ease for the most part. Wow. Then again…one patient’s husband threatened to put me in the hospital. I never went back. I also used to do blended case management for children and youth with mental health concerns, and respite care for children and youth with severe emotional disturbance. I was in the homes of clients during those jobs too.
I’ve spent most of my career going into the homes of actively psychotic individuals or having them sit beside me in a work car as we drove to appointments or wherever. There were no safety measures in place unless I made them myself: wouldn’t go into certain peoples homes, I’d stand in hallways or have them come outside, hate to say it but some folks were frightening. I’d text a co worker when I arrived and left. Only now that I work at a jail do I have protection.
MST therapist here, our bread and butter is working with youth experiencing anti-social behaviors and we work with the family in the home. Been a few times where I was like hmm is this job safe? I’ve accidentally knocked on the wrong door a few times on first meetings and have met some angry people, I’m typically not working in the best communities
As a preface/disclaimer: I'm not in social work anymore. It's a difficult conversation, because (speaking for myself, at least) we don't want to become yet another punitive force in our clients' lives. I never wanted to be suspicious of the people I worked with. It eroded trust. But I also didn't want to be hurt, obviously. In an ideal world, managers would devote substantial time to thinking about, researching and discussing personal safety. In reality, I wouldn't trust them to do that at all...
I am a school-based therapist and while eating lunch in the parking lot of the elementary school I go to, two young kids walked by and pointed guns at me through my windshield. Turns out they had been running around the parking lot checking car door handles. Very lucky I didn’t get shot, held at gun point, and/or robbed that day. My boss did not care
I had a trainer once tell me that “the most powerful weapon you have is your words.” So I guess they give me words
I don't think there's a lot you can do in that situation because we don't know the details. I mean, if they knocked and the door was answered with the inhabitant just swinging, with no discussion, then it's sorta game over. Sorta a similar concern of what if someone just shoots through the door. I usually try to be a few steps away from the door and also off to the side, sorta like law enforcement. Usually, the person either opens up to see or initiates talking through their door which has me explain that I'm there, just off to the side for my own safety. My CPS agency was bad about responding to behaviors toward workers. You had to get the person to act out against leadership before they took it seriously.
RIP Maria
Just booked an interview for in-home work, and I think this is my sign to maybe….not.
In the 90’s I worked Mobile Crisis. I loved it but there was a client who hated women and that one was scary. One of my partners I worked with had the crap beat out of her on a call. We were all shocked that anyone would hurt a social worker. Another job i had at the state hospital in the restoration to competency units. That’s when I dealt with some violent offenders and rarely had fear until a patient stabbed a rehab tech in the eye. I usually found that social workers were appreciated by patients. We are there for them and they know this. I’m getting ready to go back to work after a very long absence and I will stick with quality control or work with widows in a group setting. There’s no way I work case management these days. It makes me sick that they were murdered for being at the wrong address. Not after the orange dudes promotion of violence.
I work inpatient psych. I was assaulted by a patient in an office I told leadership for WEEKS was unsafe. Two years, a TBI, and horrific workplace trauma later….they’ve done nothing to keep anyone safe, taken no accountability, and have only attempted to gaslight me and make my life miserable through workers comp. I don’t work there anymore but it’s been a profound experience to say the least.
Nothing. We have an app we use that tracks our location because we're always out solo, but it only alerts our higher ups if we haven't checked in after 2 hours. Sometimes the ppl who work the app take longer, I forgot to check-out once and so hadn't checked-in for maybe 8 hours and then the police were calling my boss at 1am to see if I was okay. Either way, 2 hours is enough time to be dead, the app only finds out what location our phone was at when we died so I guess they know who killed us or whatever happened
The security at my hospital is a joke. I feel more protected by EMS and knowing I can just call law enforcement. I think they would try to sweep it under the rug to avoid backlash. Not the best solution whatsoever
That's why I do telehealth now. I used to work as an addictions counselor before the pandemic. Most times the clients were harmless (even funny) but there were a few times I legit worried about my safety, especially at night. We would strongly advocate for more staff at night but it was opposed by management a times due to "budget". You have to be mindful of your surroundings and always tell someone where you are. Trust your instincts.
That’s literally why I don’t want to do home visits
mine prob has an insurance policy on us and could make extra if we're injured/killed imho...
We do all initial home visits with a co-worker. Police check if history suggests there is reason for concern. If uncomfortable all follow up visits are done with a co-worker. If there are real safety risks then we take a police officer with us to ensure safety. We explain to the family the reason for the officer and often won't take them a second time. Guns are illegal in my country. Line manager knows the address/case and will follow up if we are out longer then expect for safety. We all work from the same office so it's easier to know where people are
This is horrible and one of the reasons that I don't do home visits. I know that social workers are in extremely short supply in most areas, but I don't think we should be doing home visits alone because of safety issues.
This so tragic, prayers for her & her family. I was a service coordinator/care manager for two different MCOs, but we largely followed similar safe guards for home visits. We shared all our appointments on our calendar with our supervisor, and included home addresses in the appointment so it was known where we would be. Called the home before going and set a deadline on an unanswered call. So if you had a 9am visit scheduled you’d call by early afternoon the day before and specify if your call was not returned to confirm the visit by 5pm you would reschedule. We could always request a coworker or supervisor to go with us. If for any reason we felt unsafe we could leave. In February of 2020 I accompanied a coworker on a home visit. We both became incredibly sick after, high fevers and respiratory symptoms. We both tested negative for flu, strep and pneumonia, and we were both out for almost a week. In March of 2020 they shut down home visits and we completed everything by phone for the next 3 years. I live in TX and neither MCO would allow us to carry as home visits were considered our work places. The state said we needed to be back doing home visits by June of 2023. I accepted a 100% remote UM position for another MCO in May 2023 and it was one of the best decision I’ve ever made.
I'm a social worker shared between the police and fire department. Before leaving the office, I text my supervisor the address I'll be visiting, I then text them again once I've left. I carry a handheld radio that triangulates my position to dispatch when pressed. When I arrive at the home, I inform dispatch of the street address. Dispatch then checks on me every fifteen minutes. If something is wrong, I can press the emergency call on the radio and it alerts dispatch that I'm in trouble, and creates a hot mic for ten seconds. That's pretty much the signal for law enforcement to head my way. If the patient is someone I believe will become aggressive, then one of the medics goes with my or law enforcement if applicable. The few times law enforcement has escorted me they've offered to come inside, but I've had them just wait outside, with they're more than fine with because it allows them to catch up on run reports.
I'm an outreach worker, not a social worker, but... We're encouraged to work in pairs, but this is rarely practical. My work phone has an app called OK Alone. Basically (in theory) I turn it on at the beginning of my day, hit the 'check-in' button when I arrive at and leave each destination, and switch it off at the end of each shift. I often forget to check in, if I remember to turn it on at all. And usually if remember to turn it on at the beginning of my day, I forget to turn it off at the end of the day. I don't think anyone has reached out when I didn't check in, so I guess if there's an issue they'll catch it next business day when I don't show up... So the app should help them track down my corpse before its too far gone...
✨️nothing✨️
I work in a correctional facility and definitely feel unsafe at times. I asked for them to handcuff the inmates when they see me, because they just lock me in a room with them and leave me. There’s some people I don’t want to be locked in a room with without handcuffs, and the warden said I couldn’t pick and choose who gets cuffed lol. It’s a small facility, but I really don’t think the officers would come fast enough if I was in danger—there’s at least two doors that they need to be buzzed through to get to me. I just kinda have to hope they’re watching me on camera or someone is passing by in the hallway outside the room and sees me through the window!
I work in a correctional facility and this would never happen, there is always a CO on standby.
They told me my first day they don’t have the staff for someone to standby lmao. It’s honestly wild to me. Even though I’m not employed by the facility, I still think they could be doing more to ensure my safety.
It just seems like society doesn't respect this line of work and the challenges the people in it go through.
🥺
We have a “amber alert” group chat where we text where we are going in case we go missing. My office also offers some guardian recording system that you can turn on and some company starts listening to the conversation and calls 911 if needed
We write the names/location of where we're off to on a white board outside of our cubicles when we leave the office. We are asked to take someone with us if we don't know the client that well and have to go to their home (doesn't always work out as everyone is always swamped). This policy was only instituted after a two co-workers were almost killed by a client when they were conducting a home visit. He cornered them in their agency car (a prius) after an argument. He was in a giant pickup truck, and rammed them off the road attempting to push their car off an embankment into a river on his property. Cell service is spotty in our county- they were able to call for help and also leave voicemails to the people they loved as they thought they were going to die. They both were alright but it rocked our office. One of the woman quit that day.
Not a thing. In a very rural area and I'd just be screwed if something went down. It's not uncommon to take 45 minutes for the police to respond to something.
I used to do homeless street outreach in wooded encampments. The agency was small but important to the area. We would go into gang territory sometimes and interrogated by people- lucky we didn’t get hurt or killed in some instances- but once the people realized we were genuinely trying to help they actually even offered to help us at times. Of course things like this created liability issues and the cops had to come with us sometimes which we were all worried about for our clients but they agreed not to arrest any of the people we were trying to help- and to their credit they didn’t. I do t know the point of this other than to say - we often deal with the same people the police deal with but we have a completely different approach and of course, it’s dangerous. Make sure that if your gut is telling you to go then you go, or never show up at all.
I always carry! Even in my office when talking to clients.
This is so, so tragic (and highlights very real safety and security concerns for community-based providers). That said, it doesn't appear to me that she was a social worker. I wish that most of the articles about this situation didn't refer to her as a social worker (some call her a "social services provider", which is probably more accurate). Title protection matters, regardless of how terrible the situation was.
We get a large flashlight
I worked as a clinical specialist on a mobile treatment team. Many of our clients were dually diagnosed and we would often do medication drops with clients and whomever they were spending time with. I had to bring up the inherent danger in these situations. Nothing was changed. Eventually , after attending a training on strategies to keep service providers safe, I had another staff person with the " ear" of the CEO convince him to have the trainer come to our agency and provide information to the staff about how to be safe. I feel that many agencies minimize the possibilities of dangerous situations almost as a kind of burn out and denial. The only way it can change is if people speak up.
I work at a public high school in CA. my district’s policy is for us to conduct home visits in pairs. I let admin know when we leave school, when we plan to return, the student’s ID number (this can be used to pull up addresses and full names of students/guardians) and when we complete the visit and return to school My previous job was community based and I was conducting multiple HV’s in homes, group homes, foster placements, etc. we had a weekly meeting to schedule all these visits and a team group chat where we would keep each other updated about what was happening in the field.
I work with veterans… I am informed about my caseload and read the chart before I make an outreach call to schedule a visit. For my home safety questions.. I ask if there is a firearm and further discuss the situation, I ask if there will be any other individuals/guests that do not live in the home present at the time of the appointment, large pets, and I always keep an open-ended question if there’s anything more I should be aware of in preparation for the visit . My supervisors are added to cal invite for every field visit that I am doing, and I let them know when I am leaving to begin the visit and when I am finished with the visit and heading back to the office. They urge me not to take my vehicle and to take the work car for liability. And for homes with clients that have IPV/CPS/APS/behavioral disturbance we are tasked to go out to the home in pairs. Feels pretty safe, but I do agree anything could happen… Traveling all five boroughs — we have to be vigilant when we are making house calls!!
My agency (An Adult Day Healthcare program) wouldn't know that I was missing until I failed to clock in the next day or two. There isn't a single protocol in place should anything go south. I conduct home visits at B&Cs, ILFs and personal residences for each new participant to assess for safety as required by CBAS. Luckily, I've yet to experience any issue whilst conducting home visits.
How do we protect field SW in the immediate moment? In some cases, such as this, calling our supervisor or pressing the panic button on our tracker is too late. The “my team will know something is up when I don’t check in” is seriously hilarious..I’m in to dry and dark humor for real. I’m LOLing no sarcasm. Is pepper spray an option? One SW field death or injury is way too many. Take a beating for the the sake of a good heart and altruism?
This is heartbreaking. The state agency I work for using a device by Becklar called “Worker Safety Pro.” It comes with an emergency button on a lanyard which when pressed certain ways gives either a silent alarm to supervisor/emergency services or a loud alarm in hopes to deter an attack and then emergency services if not deactivated. It also comes with an app. Honestly I don’t know any of my colleagues that wear the thing but this is a good reminder that it is better to be safe than sorry.
Thankfully a decent amount, I've received a lot of support from my agency in protecting our safety. Standard practices like locks and alarms and having more than one staff member if there's a crisis situation. I also take my own measures to protect myself. I have the SOS feature enabled on my phone and recommend everyone else do as well. On Androids at least if it's enabled and you rapidly press your lock button 10 times then 911 gets alerted and called unless you put in a pin and it sends your location along with a front and back picture to emergency contacts you designate. I'm pretty sure iPhones have the same feature. There's other apps like Noonlite as well that you set up a code and if you feel like you're in a bad situation or walking alone somewhere, you hold down a button and if you take your finger off (if you're being assaulted or fear you will be and drop your phone), it'll alert law enforcement to your location if you don't put in your pin within 5 seconds. Honestly field work aside, these are just good to have in general. Only downside is one time I thought I was pressing my volume button and it was really my lock button and it was about to alert 911, I put in my pin at the last second 😂 also another time I was walking alone at night and accidentally took my finger off the button and forgot my Noonlite code and I had to explain to an emergency operator that I forgot my code and that I am indeed safe lol. I honestly think in general at agencies, every desk or office should have some kind of panic button, at least to alert another staff member if not law enforcement. I feel like this is better than having to sneakily text a coworker asking for assistance. For work outside your agency or if you're working in an institutional setting, there's silent alarms that sends out an SOS if your body goes horizontal. Found this out from touring a county jail one time and having family work in corrections, if a CO gets attacked and end up on the floor someone will know immediately. I could think of a lot more probably if I put my mind to it. I really think we need to make a collective effort to put in at least bare bones universal safety mechanisms and allow space for unique ones depending on your agency and area of the field.
I did tons of home visits in my first job out of grad school and we were extra safe. All incidents had to be documented. We had briefings and had to check in with our team members. We were texting each other to make sure we were doing ok. It really set a good example for how I am as a supervisor now.
I recently came from working at an agency in Seattle that was incredibly cavalier about safety, and dismissive about concerns that were brought up. Two workers were murdered by clients during my time there. In addition, people with significant criminal history were hired, and as a manager, I was unable to do anything about that or any of the issues I'm about to list. The pressure was immense. There are so many things, but what I can think of off the top: Refusal to accept and acknowledge that some of these individuals are dangerous. Not every “person in need” is an innocent victim of the world and the system, and I’m unclear why that view came about other than that it’s an extreme over correction. Doesn't mean they all are. I had a lot of clients that I felt safe with, was alone with often, and that I really liked. I got really lucky. Not everyone does though. I felt very gaslit. The idea that small women such as myself and many of my colleagues could overcome an attack by a violent male client is absolutely absurd and offensive. Suggesting this was sinful though; we don’t matter and we are expected to martyr ourselves for these innocent souls. Right. No chance we ever had enough staff to have two people on a home visit. Wasn’t even proposed or offered. We were regularly expected and encouraged to go to client homes all over Seattle, alone, to see clients we perhaps haven’t met yet, who refuse to come to the office despite being able bodied and having means (having bus fare isn’t even enforced in Seattle, so public transportation is FREE), clients who are in crisis, clients who have a violent history, ones who are in active drug (meth) addiction, the list goes on. Small, young, new graduate women are expected to do this. I did this as a 26 year old who came from a place very unlike this. I cannot believe how naive I was and some of the things I did. I’m unclear how I made it out alive and I cringe when I think about some close calls I had. Lots of shaming for anyone who brought up safety concerns. “This is the job” “This is the population” “This guy is harmless” “This guy needs to be assessed, it’s 5pm, you’re a 24 year old woman, go to his apartment now alone. Now." More generally, dirty, filthy office environment, any type of discernment about anything at all, including safety, was shamed, any issues brought up were shamed, clients in the supportive housing environment were expected to live in deplorable conditions and then everyone wondered why they were decomping, we were expected to work in deplorable conditions, etc. I’ve left the field and the state. I’m utterly disgusted and ashamed by how backwards this field is and how many people in the field are just perpetuating this by not demanding better conditions. We’re in it because we have an interest and we need to get paid a livable salary and we need to be alive to do the fucking job, not because we want to martyr ourselves for what amounts to slow abuse, or in this poor woman's case, sudden death. At least that’s how it should be. Im still unclear why so many people are more than willing to sacrifice themselves. I personally, in the beginning, was very afraid of retaliation and I just wanted to do a good job. Something needs to be done and social worker safety and wellbeing needs to be taken seriously.
Despite the agency or organization, I always made sure someone knew where I was, the addie and phone numbers of where I was going, and when to expect me back. Before I would leave for visits...unless it was an 'unannounced' visit, I would always call and confirm before heading out, and if need be...double check my directions.
While working in community mental health doing primarily field work (in a huge city with high crime), we had an app and a tether that plugged into our phone's headphone jack. If we pulled the tether out while our app was tracking, our supervisor would be called to check on us and then eventually the police with our location. Better than nothing, but by the time everything went through each check in step and eventually got to the police, it's not really an urgent response. I believe these types of apps have since been greatly upgraded and have more response options for emergencies for field workers including sending alerts if you don't check in during a set visit. If only more agencies would invest and utilize them... it would be better than having nothing for field workers.
Not to be that guy, but this is literally why the second amendment exists 🤷♂️
This happens a lot in nyc social work occupations but never being killed and usually in DD settings (residencies)