Anne Raud has spent her entire social work career in Barnsley. As Anne plans her retirement, she reflects on her time in Barnsley here in her own words….
“I wanted to take this opportunity to reflect on my social work career with Barnsley. I married and had my family young, and it wasn’t until I started caring for my mum, that a job in social care ever crossed my mind. My mum had dementia and lived with me for a long while, and I was her full-time carer. There were challenges at times, and I reached out for support, and it was then I first experienced social care staff and learnt firsthand what a difference they could make to your life. This stuck with me, and when my mum sadly passed away, I started thinking about what I wanted to do with my life.
This led me to my first role in Children’s Services, as a Family Support Worker. I remember going home after my first day with my mind well and truly blown, thinking what have I done! but I grew to absolutely love my job working with families, and working alongside social workers to try and make things better for children and their families.
I was later given the opportunity to consider what would now be called a social work apprenticeship, but I didn’t apply the first year. When I look back I think I lacked the self-belief that I could do it. Luckily, those around me maybe saw things in me that I couldn’t see myself and with the encouragement of my manager, and my team, I applied and was successful the following year.
Starting university in my 40’s I was a little anxious about how I would get on, would I enjoy it, would I be the oldest student there !! and also initially questioned could I do it. Yes, was the answer to all of those, other than not been the oldest student. There were several mature students on my course, and just like me were all beginning a new stage in their lives. I embraced my course and made some lifelong friends from my time in university. No one was more amazed than me when I got a first! Doing my degree, through this employment-based route, made me feel I was a ‘home grown’ Barnsley social worker, and I wanted to give back, another reason for never considering a move elsewhere.
From qualifying, I spent the majority of my career in front line child protection social work and successfully progressed throughout my time there. Those initial doubts I had when becoming part of children’s services certainly diminished and I enjoyed my work. There was the occasional day, or week, when it sometimes felt like ‘I can’t do this anymore’, but with the support of my manager and my colleagues I always got through those times, and that is something that has been really important to me, the relationships you make at work. Teamwork is truly invaluable, and I feel fortunate to have always been part of supportive, hardworking and amazing teams.
My work with families has always been focussed around keeping children safe, to hopefully stay within their families, as long as it was safe for children to be there. I would always tell a parent or carer this when I first met them, as I recognised the inevitable barriers when social work intervention was necessary. I have always truly believed that being open and honest with families is important, regardless of how difficult some conversations might have been. I felt taking the time to get to know the children and the parents, to understand their stories and to dig beneath what you see on the surface gave the foundation to work with people, to try and support change. This is the approach I have worked from all my career.
A few years after I qualified as a social worker, I achieved my Practice Educators award, and have always appreciated and loved this opportunity to support the next generation of social workers through their learning. I would add that I also learnt a thing or two from students on the way!!
Towards the end of my career, I moved to work in adoption. This has allowed me to experience a very different area of social work and to support children and their new families in a different way. In my current role as an adoption social worker, I regularly deliver training / workshops, which is something if you had asked me at the beginning of my career I wouldn’t have done in a million years!
I also became a panel member, sitting on both fostering and adoption panels, and this is something I will continue to do in my retirement, now my full-time social work role is coming to an end. Maybe this is because I’m not quite ready to move away from social work all together just yet.
As I look back over my career in social work, I recognised how as a social worker you are always learning, no two situations are the same and I truly feel that I have grown, not only as a social worker but as a person.
Being a social worker in Barnsley has always been important for me too. I was born and raised In Barnsley. One of the reasons I have never thought about leaving Barnsley is because of the people and the sense of community and being part of the organisation which consistently strives to deliver. There have been lots of changes in social work in Barnsley over the years, but the people and the place have always been special to me.
When I look back on my career, I have enjoyed being a social worker. It’s a massive part of my identity, it is part of who I am and I speak about it proudly. My journey through social work brought me from a place where I didn’t have a lot of self-belief and encouraged me to develop as a person, and that in turn also developed me as a social worker. I had the right people around me, I have had regular supervision, and good colleagues around me, many who will be friends for life. Social work a really challenging job but if you are willing to push yourself, the rewards are amazing. I feel proud to have had my career in Barnsley.”