Leaving when you're unhappy, navigating other people's homes and questioning your judgements with Safia Sheeq
Safia Sheeq. Illustration by Ojima Abalaka
Social workers, according to the British Association of Social Workers, are ‘professionals who support adults, children, families and communities to improve their lives.’ It’s a protected job title, and you need to be registered and hold specific qualifications (typically a Masters in social work) to do it.
Improving our lives feels like one of the defining features of the online landscape (and economy) today. There’s an essay in journalist Jia Tolentino’s recent book Trick Mirror called ‘Always Be Optimising.’ It explores the idea that we (and specifically women) can always be slimmer, smarter, faster, hotter, richer, more successful, more efficient, nicer – for a fee.
People pay Instagram coaches thousands of pounds to tell them how to work, or parent, or organise their home better. Sign up for a monthly online barre class subscription to sculpt their body. Hire an accountant to straighten out their finances. This is viewed as fine-tuning your life, tweaking things to make them (you) better. Investing in yourself. At either end of this exchange – whether you’re the person giving the advice or you’re the person receiving it – it’s celebrated. There is very little shame in saying you’re working out, improving your diet, making positive changes.
Social work is also about introducing positive change into people’s lives, and it requires a lot of expertise and careful training to do it. It’s dealing with the same issues as above – with health, with work, with relationships – yet I’d argue social work is seen as the complete opposite of positivity and celebration. I suspect the difference is that using the services of a social worker is associated with poverty, with an inability to hold a family together, of being at the sharp end of society – of being told by the state, rather than by social media, that you’re not keeping up with everyone else. There are huge amounts of shame involved.
When your job is ostensibly a positive one – to help people improve their lives – how do you deal with these negative perceptions of your work? How can you make people feel better about being told they’re not coping, and how does this work make you feel about yourself? Safia Sheeq is a social worker living and working in London. She deals with a particularly loaded element of helping people improve their lives – her specialism is working with children and their families.
“New parents come with their own baggage. They have their own childhood trauma; they have their own attachment issues, which they brought with them to adulthood. Now they’ve become parents, and they’re just struggling to make sense of everything.”
Olivia Gagan: In a nutshell, what do you do?
Safia Sheeq: I'm a frontline social worker, working in child protection. I work in something called the assessment team. I’m allocated cases with children ranging from birth to 18, and I deal with those cases depending on how serious they are. I think about 60% of my time is home visits – I’m going into people's homes on average three times a week.
Olivia: What's it like, to be constantly going into all these different homes? That sounds like it could be challenging.
Safia: It is. People generally can have negative views about social workers. Before you explain anything, there's already an assumed view – that social workers are going to take your children away. So we meet quite a lot of pushback, and parents are reluctant to share anything with you in case whatever they say goes against them.
But I try to explain things in a way they realise that my work isn’t about taking children away. I say things like, “I'm here to help. I’m here to support you. We heard you might be struggling.” And then, they’ll say, “Oh, okay.” But it's not an easy job. I get quite anxious whenever I visit homes, because obviously you want to get the job done, but you also want families to see you in a positive light, to actually like you.
Olivia: How do you build trust with a parent? Because I imagine the fear for any parent when a social worker arrives at their door would be, ‘Oh my God, they're going to take my child away from me.’ How do you establish trust with someone who is meeting you for the first time, and suddenly you're in their home?
Safia: It depends on the case and on the concerns. It's really difficult, and it takes quite a while. It takes at least three to four home visits, and being consistent and being very clear in terms of what the issues are. To stick to the facts. You also have to really be patient and empathetic and try to understand where someone’s coming from. Especially because concerns about a person’s parenting are often not through their own fault – it’s a socioeconomic reason.
Olivia: It must be really hard when you're coming into someone's home and saying, “there might be an issue”. Because it’s raising concerns about someone’s family, their money habits, their parenting. If anyone gets questioned on those subjects, we all tend to get incredibly defensive. How do you handle yourself when you're in these really highly charged situations, where someone's maybe anxious or defensive?
Safia: It comes with experience. I've been a social worker for five years now, and I definitely remember just crying all the time when I first started! Experiencing really challenging things – I had parents chasing me out on the street. I’ve become a bit more understanding, I realise now that if someone’s shouting at me, it’s not personal. I try to rationalise it in a way that I don't necessarily take it with me, or hold on to it, if that makes sense. It’s about training, reading, getting support. All those things. My politics and my personal values help me too.
Olivia: The vast majority of us aren't allowed to walk into other people's homes and assess how a family interacts with one another. Has having had this access to all these different homes changed the way you behave in in your own home, and in your own relationships? Does it ever make you reflect about how you are as part of a family unit, or as part of a friendship unit?
Safia: It is bizarre that I could actually go into the house of anyone who lives in the local authority I work for. I’m always very conscious of being in people's homes. People can just be so scared of you – and you can see that reflected in things like them cleaning their house just before I arrive. It makes me feel incredibly guilty and awkward, because I can see the power dynamic playing out in front of me. In that situation I'm so conscious and aware of my power. That is one thing that's always in my head. I’m acutely aware of that. But I don’t apply that dynamic to my personal life. It’s quite a negative power.
“Concerns about a person’s parenting are often not through their own fault – it’s a socioeconomic reason.”
Olivia: What did your Masters prepare you for and what did it not prepare you for? What did you just have to learn on the job that, you know, no education could have taught you?
Safia: The practical side, the nitty-gritty of dealing with really stressed or aggressive parents, of having to make split-second decisions. My job is to assess risk immediately, and to sometimes make a snap decision based on what I observed in 10 minutes. I don't think I was prepared for that.
Olivia: Making snap decisions must require having quite a bit of faith in your own judgment. Do you ever get moments when you're second-guessing yourself? How do you develop that trust in your own decision-making?
Safia: I’ve struggled a lot with that. “Oh God, have I made the right decision? Is that child gonna be all right tonight?” It's really hard. To counteract that, I try to really read the history of a family, to see where things went wrong. I talk to people who have more experience. I have friends who are social workers, who I have long chats with. Particularly about things like emotional abuse. The problems that you can’t visibly see can be the hardest ones to make a call on.
A lot of cases we deal with is mainly because parents come with their own baggage. They have their own childhood trauma; they have their own attachment issues, which they brought with them to adulthood. Now they’ve become parents, and they’re just struggling to make sense of everything. So, what we are trying to do is to help them see what's happening, whether it's that they’re taking drugs to numb their emotions, or carrying out domestic violence to distract themselves. And then you're trying to say to them, “listen – this can’t happen anymore, because you have a child and you’re a parent now. You need to think about that child.”
And then you offer support. Sometimes people take it and sometimes they don’t. It's like therapy in a way, but with concrete advice. You make a plan for the family and try and help them stick to it. And then you review that plan weekly until something tangible changes. [OG note: this is called a child protection plan].
Olivia: It must be incredibly rewarding when it does when things do improve.
Safia: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
Olivia: But there's no guarantee that because you're dealing with very complex, messy emotions that we have all the best planning in the world, I guess you can't always ‘make’ people change.
Safia: Exactly. And that's when people can end up in courts. We have to give families lots of opportunities and work with them before that happens. But we're human beings, and it's just complex, and especially when people have addictions or long-term mental health issues. It gets complicated.
Olivia: Do you think it requires a certain type of personality to do the work you do?
Safia: You do need a slightly thick skin. I sometimes think that as someone who immigrated to the UK – I came at quite young age – and had to learn a different culture and a different language, it kind of prepared me for this job. It gave me an ability to see and to read other people's situations. And also – to care, to empathise, I think. To give a shit. There is a lot of inequality and injustice and you know, just unfairness out there. It can seem so entrenched that I think you need the ability to think you can make a difference.
Olivia: Do you think you now look at the world differently as a result of the work you've done?
Safia: Social work can be such a loaded and controversial environment. Certain local authorities don't have enough money. There aren’t that many services available to families that are struggling. And those families who are struggling might end up being in a child protection plan. So what I've learned is to be resourceful and to use my knowledge and my values to make sure that I don’t put children into child protection plans, just because they’re poor. To make sure that I fight for those children and to make sure the assessments I make are balanced and contextualised. Nowadays I look at family problems as environmental, structural issues – I dig deeper.
Olivia: But I guess it’s impossible not to bring your own biases into any interaction you have with anyone. It sounds like there must be a lot of work you personally have to do to be able to set aside your own experiences and beliefs, to just try and see what's happening directly in front of you.
Safia: Massively. Because social work is, at the end of the day, partly based on personal judgments. And if I don’t step back and question why I think someone’s house is a mess, or why I feel a particular way about the way a parent is behaving, it can be incredibly dangerous. Because you’re bringing in your own privileges, your own social class, your own race.
Olivia: There's a difference between assessing someone’s family dynamics, and being judgemental about them. That's another line you've got to try to stay on the right side of. It must be hard not to be judgmental sometimes.
Safia: Oh, yeah. I work in a very multicultural, multi-ethnic environment, and I’ve learnt you can’t just make sweeping statements about any family. So it's really, really hard! And that's why social work often has a bad reputation. But I really, really love it. I love my job.
Olivia: I know we're talking about all the stuff that's really tough here, but what's the good stuff?
Safia: When authorities are making decisions which are not the best decisions for a family, and when I’ve been able to challenge that and make a difference for that family. That's something I've been really enjoying. The more I gain experience, the more confident I feel in challenging power.
Olivia: You mentioned that you're dealing with complex cases, and there can be legal consequences for families and for local authorities if things don't go right. That sounds like a lot of pressure to me. How do you manage pressure now, versus at the start of your career?
Safia: I try not to take the job with me when I finish. I try to meet up with friends and go away, maybe go camping, go to Wales, stay in a cottage. And I do lots of self-care. I make sure that every three months I take some time off. It’s a case of always keep learning, isn't it? Everyday I’m reflecting and learning from my actions and trying to better myself. That’s by going to training, listening to podcasts, always reading different things.
Olivia: There's been a lot of conversation about burnout in your industry and the toll social work takes on practitioners. It sounds like you've got some strategies in place to avoid burnout, like making sure you take a holiday every few months. Are there any other things you've developed that help keep your energy levels up or help keep you feeling sane?
Safia: When I’m stressed, when I think I'm burning out, say I have lots of cases and things aren’t slowing down. Then I try to kind of address it within the service I work for and, and if that doesn't change, I leave. I’ve left a few local authorities. It’s not the right place for me if I don't feel I've been listened to.
Olivia: It sounds like you're prepared to leave a situation if you’re not happy. Not many people are!
Safia: Oh yeah, absolutely. Don't get me wrong, I’ve worried whether I was going to get another job, but people were encouraging me. There were other colleagues who had done the same thing.
Olivia: Do you end up forming quite intense friendships within your industry, or is everyone just too busy working to form friendships? Is there a sense of camaraderie in such a difficult job?
Safia: There definitely is. I met one of my best friends through social work. It's really good to have someone who, when it gets really difficult, you can say, “Hey, can I talk to you for a second?” You might not necessarily want to go to your manager, especially when you first start out. So, we help each other. It's an incredibly stressful job, so you kind of need to make sure the people you work with are sympathetic and helping each other.
Olivia: What would you say are the biggest misconceptions about social work?
Safia: People always say, “Oh, social work is such a hard job. I wouldn’t be able to do that.” Sometimes I find that annoying. People assume it's 24-7: continuously, relentlessly difficult. But it's not. It's not always relentless.
I think the most common misconception is that people think that children’s services take children away from their parents. The decision to remove children is not an easy one, and ultimately is only made by judges in court. In this situation children’s services only provide evidence-based information that a child is suffering significant harm.
Olivia: How do you measure success in your work? A carpenter could build a shelf perfectly, and he's clearly done a good job. But when you're working with families…families are messy. So what's your personal markers of success in your work?
Safia: Say I'm dealing with a complex case, say where there's a family history of not working with professionals, or of being really hard to reach. And this family might be at risk of their children being removed. Then we start working with them and then doing some intensive work with them, and by the end of it, they’ve agreed to work with us and as a result of that, we avoid taking children into care – that’s success.
Or success is protecting a young person who's at risk of being exploited, or going missing. Or maybe’s there's a situation that could really escalate, and has the potential to go really badly, but then for some reason – maybe just because you’re persistent, or maybe the way you speak to a person means they start to like you – something happens, and the situation, all of a sudden, changes for the better.
Olivia: So sometimes it literally hinges on making a positive connection with someone.
Safia: Exactly. It's really a very thin line.
Olivia: What are your ambitions for yourself personally, and for your industry?
Safia: I'm interested in doing more therapeutic practice, where I move from frontline child protection, constantly firefighting, to doing more systematic, long-term family work. So that's my plan, but I’m also interested in commissioning too. I feel like if we invest in early healthcare services, it would mean children wouldn't have to come into child protection later on. Ensuring people are supported well before they become families with children who would have to go into the system.
Olivia: So earlier prevention?
Safia: Yes. But in terms of social work in general, I feel like as long as this current Tory government is in place…there's been a lot of cuts to local authority budgets. And within social work as a profession, there’s been a lot of change and policies being implemented without consultation with the people who work on the front line. So I feel the policies that the government have implemented can be problematic, and are not taking into account a lot of things, or looking into the general societal issues.
Thank you Safia! Our interview made me think a lot about what we deem socially acceptable help, how we attempt to prove to others that our lives or homes are working – and why, despite the relationship and family problems Safia describes existing at every single level of society, it’s largely the poorest families who are referred to social workers.
Reading list
Here’s my friend and social worker Sara’s recommendations on learning more. Thanks to her, I’ll be reading Erving Goffman’s The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life – a book which predates social media by fifty years, and argues that we all engage in ‘impression management’. This is where we try (consciously or unconsciously) to influence other people’s impressions of us – and avoid negative judgement – by constantly managing and adjusting how we present in social settings and interactions.
Erving Goffman writes a lot about social stigmatisation, which forms due to the gap between our virtual and actual social identity. He’s worth a read.
If you want a bit of background around positive social work approaches, check out the ‘Strengths Based’ approach – it’s about getting people to realise their own strengths and assets, and giving them the confidence to problem solve. It’s a move away from traditional service/resource led social work, and hopefully a way of reducing stigma.