The years that I have been in the helping profession have been many and fruitful. We have a profession that many like to claim has no definition, no clear cut professional role or boundaries, as if doctors and lawyers had those apparent clearly defined roles! There is a marked difference between our profession and at least those two: we strive for good. All professional roles had become diluted in this post modern society and lawyers , doctors and such came from roles that were non existent 2 centuries ago to highly structured and professionally organized bodies. We, I feel, are the glue that hold the lose strands of society together and without which it would unravel.
My experience has often been on the edge! I prefer the hard cases, the Hopeless, but hopeful, the damned and the fool. I have lived burn out, and as the Phoenix, came out of the proverbial ashes! I left work today, late, again, because I had been promised by some nincompoop at a Medicaid health agency that all the case workers were in a meeting and would be available by 5PM. I took the work. I wrote the letter, got it signed and sent it off, 2 minutes to 5. I then started calling and when around 5 :45 someone answered, and informed me that all the case Workers leave at 5. I went off on a soliloquy that would have been worth taping! I continuously apologized for the nice woman who was there taking my call, and I dug into the ill conceived prejudiced, give them what they deserve approach that health insurance companies and ended by telling this woman who I think agreed with me that I was a disgrace that in our society we are starting to invest more in our pets than in our poor! I was outraged and I brought it home. If there was an infinitesimal chance of being able to solve this, I would have stayed until midnight! A woman had done the right thing and now has a night to sleep on the floor with serious health conditions. We could have repaired it. People with private insurance get to sleep in hotels! Rich people, those sleep wherever they want! They are lucky and luck is what social worker are supposed to even out. As I have said before life is a crap shoot and social workers are there to improve the odds! With empathy, with respect and with the knowledge that the Other who sits across from me is as human as I am. Not more not less. Just like me!
It appears that my discourse was heard. sometimes you just have to let them have it!
