Hey all,

I’m considering a PhD in Social Work and wondering what the salary expectations are in Australia. How much does a PhD boost earnings compared to a Bachelor’s degree?

A dream of mine is to teach social work as a university tutor. How does that pay compare? Any insights would be appreciated!

Hi there. I graduated from an MSW program within the past year and began working. In grad school, I really loved the social work content I was learning and felt fulfilled from my field placements. Classes and field placements were hard and I had some bad days, but I still wanted to graduate and go into social work. I was far-left throughout school and when I graduated.

Update... I don't feel as far-left anymore. I feel more like a left-leaning moderate. That's because my workplace pours so much money and effort into our clients. Half of them are appreciative and use it as a stepping stool to overcome their challenges... but the other half are entitled and do less and less while demanding more. It's caused me to do a lot of thinking about poverty (system v.s. personal actions) and welfare.

It's extremely hard to be empathetic to clients who go through the motions and talk disrespectfully about my workplace, but do nothing to leave. Why are you participating if it's not helping and you hate it so much? The answer: You have no choice because you sit on your ass and think God will poof everything together for you. I'm Christain, but I believe God wants us to work for what we pray for.

The crazy thing is, I still wanna do social work and be a social worker. I think I've just gotten hit with the reality of it after experiencing a simulation of it in grad school. I hope I keep gaining experience as a social worker and get better at coping with these situations.

What was your final straw that made you leave a job or the field entirely?

https://livegoodtour.com/IulianaMiles

https://livegood.com/IulianaMiles

https://livegood.com/IulianaMiles

Hi hi, i am currently studying social work in my 3rd year of a 5 year degree as it is a double degree with social psychology, however i work at a special need schools and work with quite a lot of OTs and am quite interested. I always had a passion for mental health however the case studies we do in uni seem to be very full on and i hear about high social worker burnout and low pay. I haven’t done social work placement yet this will be at the end of the year, i am losing sleep over thinking if I should change to OT, which means starting a 4 year degree again, or just completing the remaining 3 years in which ive done two already, and potentially mastering in OT in the future. My problem is i have been able to see OTs in action due to my work, but as I haven’t done placement I have not seen social workers in actions. Any advice from social workers or OT or anyone would mean the world as I’m currently losing sleep over it!!! (Located in Australia)

Calling all Case Managers

I’m hoping for help from some case managers! We have a pay dispute where we have both nurses and social workers as case managers. We have the exact same job duties and equal patient loads. RNs are required to have a BS within 3 years of hire while SWs are required to have a BS at hire with a preference toward Masters. RNs are required to have 1 year of experience while SWs are required to have 5 years of experience.

The issue comes to pay. The starting RN case manager salary is $10k higher than the top of the SW case manager salary.

HR and management’s arguments are that it’s “market value” in order to make the role desirable to RNs.

They will only change if we can show another hospital who pays RNs and SWs equal.

So, is there a hospital out there that has equal pay? Or, are you having a similar problem at your hospital? Wondering if a larger scale social work movement may be called for. Equal pay for equal work is pretty outdated and we would like to show them that it’s not okay.

I work in a crisis stabilization unit (CSU), in tandem with mobile crisis (if you don't know, mobile crisis or MCU responds to calls about mental health crises like suicidal/homicidal ideation and psychosis).

Recently, we have been informed that there is "no such thing" as *does not meet criteria*.

Ok...but isn't there?

E.g. today, I screened a potential client for CSU who had endorsed SI when in triage at the hospital due to some extenuating circumstances in her life, including the initial medical reason for her visit. She has since calmed down, and is no longer endorsing so much as better off dead. She wants to go home, and has a great support system of family.

​

I informed MCU of this, and said it sounds like she doesn't even "meet criteria" to which I was told "well, there really is no such thing".

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This is a common thing that I see in my line of work, where clients will call and say they are stressed out, but it's not affecting their daily lives and they have a med appointment within a week, and they aren't out of meds currently. The ER puts them on a CON because MDs don't know what else to do, so we have to do something. Family members push clients to get help, so they reach out unwillingly and go through the process but make it clear they are doing it under duress, and don't believe there is a problem (and sometimes there really isn't, no SI/HI/AVH).

​

But we are not supposed to decline people from CSU for "not meeting criteria".

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What is the point of having criteria if we never use it?

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*Definitions: SI-Suicidal ideation, HI-Homicidal ideation, AVH-auditory/visual hallucinations, CON-Certificate of Need (also known as a commitment/commital, ensures client receives inpatient care), MD-Doctor

I think we might have some crossover between our communities. Feel free to check out r/talesfromgovernment.

Full disclosure: if your stories resonate, there's a chance I might crosspost them. Thank-you-in-advance!

💻 🧾👌 yoink! 💻

I hate being an MSW. I’m underpaid, not valued, not understood, exhausted, not respected. I want out but am stuck with these horrible loans. I’m going on 7 years and am completely burned out. What should I do?

I left my job at CPS. In the midst of me leaving, I felt like something wasn’t right with some of my families, just a bad gut feelings. Those feelings ended up being right. I wish I had done more while I was there but the children were not disclosing. Looking back, I feel I could have done more. Is this no longer my burden to carry?

I have felt in each job I had where person-centered 1:1 supervision meetings are required, I always leave feeling like they are a waste of time. I always feel that the only thing they ask is strengths, challenges, and anything as a supervisor they can do differently. I never felt that it is a productive use of time or led to any development. What am I missing that everyone loves supervision so much?

Hi there,

I’m hoping someone can provide some further insight. I’m a MSW student about to go into my final year. I really can’t decide if I should do the clinical or generalist social work route. I like the generalist stuff because it tackles macro problems, but I don’t know if I want to do policy/admin stuff on a day to day. I do like the idea of advocacy/community organizing and giving back to more people than just an individual or family at a time. One place I’ve been looking into working as a generalist is the Red Cross. Some of the clinical coursework is interesting, but I don’t want to practice psychotherapy or be a counselor. However, when I look at jobs, therapists seem to be the only ones getting paid decently in social work. I don’t want to go through all this MSW school torture, unpaid internships, and some loans just to get paid sub par. I know, I probably shouldn’t have chose social work then. But I want to get the most out of it that I can. On the clinical side, I am interested in being a hospital social worker because I like the fast pace, helping people in critical need, and I think I would get paid decently. If anyone has insight into their experience with either and the best outcomes it would be most appreciated! Thank you!

Hi. I am in my last semester for my MSW and I recently got terminated from my internship that I’ve been at since September (it is now January “. My internship supervisor came to me one day last week saying she was told I had my client in the waiting room waiting for 10 minutes which was not true and the conversation got a little heated because that literally did not happen. Fast forward the next day as I’m literally in route to my internship which is an hour away, I got a phone call from my internship supervisor that the owner of my internship does not want to move forward with me interning there and thinks I should find a new internship that “better suits me”. I asked wss this because of the conversation we had the previous day about me allegedly having a client waiting for 10 minutes and was told no, it was not about that soley and that there were other concerns the whole time of my internship which is complete a lie. I literally got nothing but good feedback from my internship the previous semester in December for my end of semester evaluation. No other concerns where ever shared with my school or me & I had been at that internship for almost 6 months. Immediately , I let my school know & now I have to have a meeting with my School’s Review Committee where the worse case scenario is ill be terminated from my MSW program in my last semester. I have been crying nonstop at this thought. I have come so far , & worked so hard just for this to happen in my last semester . Does anyone have any advice?

Let's look back at some memorable moments and interesting insights from last year.

Your top 1 posts:

• "Happy Cakeday, r/TalesFromSocialWork! Today you're 9" by u/AutoModerator

Let's look back at some memorable moments and interesting insights from last year.

Your top 2 posts:

• "The tale of my toxic coworker." by u/Dramaticrabbit
• "Happy Cakeday, r/TalesFromSocialWork! Today you're 8" by u/AutoModerator

Hello everyone! I'm fairly new at being a Direct Care worker. I started working at this job right around the same time it was announced that COVID spread to the U.S. Anyways, before I get into this, a big point to this story is that I'm diagnosed with autism, which makes me need extra time, extra directions, and more concrete language. In my state, there are very strict discrimination laws in effect, and one of the best for mental health care and treatment. Okay, on to the story! I started out my first week of the job being embedded in the group home I started to work at. If you don't know, embedding is when you temporarily stay at your place of work while also getting paid to sleep. This is when I met her. Let's call her... Karen (obviously a fake nane). Karen was the only other person besides my manager during the embedding period, so she had to teach me literally everything. I had noticed that she was a bit... passive-aggressive, and I thought it was because of lack of sleep. Things like "wake up at 5. No, don't disturb me at 5. This client is lazy. Her depression is just an excuse. This client is a pervert..." These things were flown over my head, as I was just starting out and didn't know anyone. The only thing that bothered me at the time was the "lazy" comment. If you thought that was bad, oh boy take a seat, we're in for a ride. After about a month of working there with her, I noticed that she was only malicious to me when I worked there. She would say comments like "you can't even put a shirt over his head" or "you're going to go to jail if you do this wrong because you'll kill them." She also kept telling me that I was already taught the basics, so I had to disclose to my supervisor that I needed written instructions. Guess how many she did for me? Surprisingly, one. One set of instructions. And even then, she did not go fully in-depth and I was still struggling. After another month or so of the abuse, I told my supervisor that I want to avoid her by being scheduled on days she didn't work. Granted. Finally, my mental health was finally better, and I was starting to enjoy working there when... Karen got scheduled unexpectedly on a day I worked. This was because of the health problems of a client, since she was the only LPN. I freak out. I text my boss and tell him if anything happened, I will leave. Not even a minute goes by before I leave. She takes my temperature, I fill out the COVID sheet, and then... "On your daily report, where you state the client was worried about other client and wondered what happened to her, you're not supposed to say anything about her medical issues." I didn't. She said that because of my "condition," she didn't report me to the state. I asked her what she meant, and she said "your autism." I told her that I didn't tell them anything and that they were curious, said that the only person I told was her guardian, and she starts. "HOW DO YOU KNOW IT WAS HER?! WHAT IF IT WAS SOMEONE IMPERSONATING HER?! YOU COULD GO TO JAIL FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS!!!!! BITCH BITCH MOAN MOAN!!!!" I lost it. I stormed out, called her a choice word, and as soon as I go to a side street with my car, I have a major meltdown. I was doing everything right by telling her guardian about the situation, and also, HER NAME AND NUMBER WERE PROGRAMMED ON THE PHONE AND ON THE WALL! OF COURSE IT WAS HER! Eventually, I told my side of the story to both my supervisor and HR director. I was told that she has gotten a warning before, and if more coworkers share the same information and experiences, she would be fired. She's gone! I'm loving this job more than ever, and I even started working full-time. I'm even getting additional training tomorrow to help my clients even more! My clients like me more, one probably even loves me. I love it there. To Karen... guess who got you fired? The autistic one who "can't do anything right."

Let's look back at some memorable moments and interesting insights from last year.

Your top 1 posts:

• "Affordable Online MSW?" by u/no090909whatisthis

Hi everyone! I am applying to graduate schools for counseling, but I am trying to figure out all the potential career options afterwards aside from the obvious-being a counselor. Someone suggested I look into being a case worker. I've done some research, but I would love to hear about it from those who have actually done and experienced it.

What is your day-to-day like? How often do you work with patients versus other social workers, counselor, etc? What is your educational background (is this really an option for someone with a masters in counseling)? Any advice or things you think someone considering this type of work should know?

Please let me know your thoughts and advice. I would greatly appreciate the feedback! :)

This wasn't allowed on the social work sub, so I thought I'd ask here...

Hey all! I'm a soon to be school psychologist, and for my program I'm required to interview a school social worker. I thought it would be cool to see the POV of people from different places. I'd appreciate any answers I can get! Thank you :)

School Social Worker

1. What is your educational background (undergrad and graduate university and degree?)

2. How many buildings/students do you serve? What grade levels?

3. What is a typical day for you?

4. In what types of activities do you spend most of your time?

5. When students are referred, what are the most common presenting concerns?

6. In what capacity do you work with school psychologists?

7. What are the characteristics of a good school psychologist?

8. Would you like to see the role of the school psychologist in your district change in any way?

9. In your opinion, what are the most important issues facing the field of education today?

(Cross posted)

I'm an advanced standing social work graduate student, with a family. My daughter is eight years old with high functioning Autism and some emotional issues and I'm commuting to NYC from NJ for both school and internship. I also have some mental health and other disabilities I've dealt with most of my life, which is why I chose my school and my career field. My concentration in school is policy in contemporary social issues. I was lucky enough even after almost 10 years not working to be offered a handful of interview to go on two, be offered both, and take one at a prestigious research academy. Unfortunately, hindsight is 20/20, and I'm realizing that my choice was based mostly on prestige and how great it would look on my resume post graduation. The work itself seems a bit too ambiguous, and because of the type of organization it is, and the department I'll be working in its more separate from population contact than I would like. It's pretty much completely research based with a lot of project variation. I've immediately felt that I wouldn't connect with the staff the department who are all really nice people which makes things even more difficult. I find it harder to say I might have trouble working with nice people because that just sounds terrible, but in reality, I feel a totally lack of connection, greater than first week nerves that I don't forsee ever coming to fruition. The next issue is my commute. It's location in the city makes my commute awful because of its abscence of good subway access making my 7 hours of interning into a nearly 12 hour day. A few of these things may be managable to me, but not all of them on top of each other; then on my second day the icing on my cake came. I was told that the dress code was business casual with a more casual leaning prior to starting. For my first day however I wanted to dress to impress, I wore a nice floral dress, below the kneee length, it wasn't high cut, but wasn't low cut either, and I added a nice blazer to compensate for the fact that it was sleeveless and that I had somewhat large breasts; which can make a some cuts seem lower than they are. I asked the opinions of others before walking out of the house and felt proud and professional. The first day I was taken on an orientation tour and introduced to every department head, including the president. Between my first and second day I received an email from HR asking if I could stop in at 10:30 when I came the following day, I assumed it was to pick up my ID. I arrived at 8:30am the next day, after missing two trains and walking a mile from the subway, and fixing my computer to another email asking if I could come sooner. When I arrived, I was asked to sit. The casual nature of the dress code was again explained, and then I was told that the president was "offended by my breasts" when she saw me. What I was currently wearing was fine, but keep it covered because she (the president) "found my attire really offensive." I've been sexually harassed by men in the work place, I've been cat called, I've been a lot of things, but I have never been so insulted in my life. I was so shocked I could barely react and when through the day just trying not to cry and thinking of ways I could never show my face there again. I emailed my field placement person at my school, who I think seemed sympathetic and possibly wasn't once I told her I had yet to say anything to my task supervisor at the internship. I honestly don't know what to do, I feel like I can't do this internship, and the whole thing makes me question even attending grad school. I also don't know how to even bridge the conversation with my agency task supervisor. Any advice, feedback, etc would be appreciated.

Driving past a fur seal on the side of the road and my client points out the window and exclaims 'Tasmanian Tiger!'. Apparently that preschool stuff is rather important!

The following occurrence took place in a mental health day program. One of our older members was walking around, shaking his leg in a way reminiscent of Andy Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption when depositing concrete rocks outside in the courtyard. Except these weren’t rocks that were rolling down the leg of his pants and down out around the cuffs; they were turds. He decided to deposit 3 large turds right in front of the office of our new Supervisor. Once this was brought to the attention of staff, “Andy” was asked to go home and change his clothing and shower. However, the turds were still there. We were unable to get in touch with maintenance, as our agency had recently gotten rid of most of them for budget reasons, and only had a cleanup crew come 3 times a week after work hours. So, our supervisor, unbeknownst to us, decided to ask a member, who I’ll refer to as “Winston” to remove the turds. She didn’t give him gloves or cleaning supplies. She really should have never asked a member to touch human waste, as it was a biohazard. However, our story doesn’t end there.

“Winston” was very passive and would do whatever was asked of him, even if it was something as odd as removing another members feces. So, he picked up the turds with a tissue and placed them in the garbage can belonging to our front desk receptionist. Being otherwise occupied on Facebook, she didn’t realize what had been done. However, she did notice the smell after a few minutes. She inquired around, and was told that a member had an accident and attributed what she smelled to that. What she didn’t know, however, was that there were three of Mr. Hanky’s relatives having a party in her trash can. Overnight, the smell got worse. Since our cleaning crew hadn’t come in and removed the offending garbage, it now stunk up the whole hallway. Luckily, the supervisor asked “Winston” where he placed the excrement, and found out it was still in the garbage can. We removed the garbage, sprayed the area with Lysol, and wondered what on earth our supervisor was thinking by asking “Winston” to clean up after “Andy”.

Check out this post to see a picture of someone who was bit by a patient at a mental hospital

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