Should social workers have more training?

Question

Curious if anyone else here thinks that social workers need more training surrounding adoption related issues?

A reply I just saw in another question, by a self proclaimed "social worker" left me shocked.

"Having a baby and then getting on welfare is ignorant enough. If you can't support a child, then you need to be on birth control or simply keep your legs closed."

"Giving the baby up for adoption would be the upmost respectable and unselfish act that this woman can do, since she obviously knows that she is incapable of supporting the child on her own and realizes that this baby would interfere with her own schedule."

Babies change schedules, unplanned pregnancies happen, it doesn't mean that women should surrender their children to adoption. Shouldn't a social worker be working towards keeping families intact as long as abuse isn't involved?

Answer 1

Perhaps she has been working in the system for so long, that she is worn out from working with dead beat moms and dads who make promise after promise to stop their drugs or get a job or find an apartment or stop beating their child or kick their molester boyfriend out that she is just highly opinionated about this topic.  She has a right to her opinion no matter what job she has, and may not perpetuate this view in her work as she does on a public opinion board.  There is a professional hat that we all must wear at work, which I dare say is pretty different from most of our responses on public boards like this.

Answer 2

Ya, that sounds like a crappy social worker. She needs to find a new job!!

Answer 3

If that's the comments of a social worker, you  bet!  My degree is in social work.  I used to be a county social worker for children and family services.  Our stated goal was to keep families together.  If the court had removed the children from the home, the goal was always reunification.  The department paid for any services needed to help keep the family together.  If reunification could not happen, and termination of parental rights was ordered by the court, then adoption by family members was preferable.  Adoption by outsiders was the last option.   That was in the 1980's.  

The matter of fact way these "social workers" present adoption as if it's the best thing since sliced bread if a woman has an unplanned pregnancy is amazing to me. These children are someone's flesh and blood for cryin' out loud!  That needs to be kept in the forefront of our minds always when deciding a route to go.  It's very disheartening to me, as a former social worker, to see how much the goals for families have been perverted.

These workers need to be trained in helping families make it, not in how to cheerfully break them apart and move the child elsewhere.

eta: Oh yes, and passing judgment was never part of the job description.

Answer 4

Hi Gershom,

First of all, I don't believe it's a social worker's place to pass judgement nor comment on a woman's s*x life.  By the way, we never hear those types of comments directed at the fathers, yet the conception did not happen without him.  

The social worker should be more concerned with trying to find the best homes for children who are already available for adoption instead of trying to create additional children to feed to the adoption machine.  Yes, I agree their role should be geared towards helping families rather than tearing them apart.  For those families who are already separated through adoption, social workers could make themselves more helpful by aiding the search & reunion process rather than hindering it.

As I understand it, social workers need only be certified in general social work, not specifically in adoption, and they are still allowed to work in the adoption field.  I agree that they should get training surrounding adoption related issues.  They should study adoption from all angles, not just as baby brokers.  I will go a step farther & say I think they should also receive regular continuing education on the subject as it evolves over time.  It boggles my mind that some consider themselves to be "experts" in the subject when they have never had any education in how adoption affects adoptees or natural families in the short & long run.  Being an adoptive parent, in and of itself, does not qualify someone as an expert in adoption either.

In my opinion, that social worker who said that was out of line.

julie j

reunited adoptee

Answer 5

<<Shouldn't a social worker be working towards keeping families intact as long as abuse isn't involved?>>

Well, that's the problem isn't it? Many adoption social workers do their utmost to diminish mothers of healthy white infants. They don't use these lines on black mothers. Instead, they tell them of all the support that is available.

Answer 6

I could be writing all night on this. Yes social workers need more training and should be acountable for their actions. Most s workers will go behind the father's rights and not inform them on what to do if they want the child.

  In my son's case he never even contaked him. If it wasn't for a social worker for the hospital my son would have not known what to do and what to file. She also filed a complaint with the state board on this social worker and my son is waiting for him to take his punishment besides this social worker id being sued. Thank God there are good social workers at the hospital that kbnow what is right and what is wrong.

   If nothing else happens in my life I will tell every father that is being ran over and not informed of his rights to take the social worker  to the state board and see what they think. My son's social worker got 2 years probation suspension and 6 more hours of ethic's. I don't think he will do it aagain if he want's to stay a social worker and the money he is out for 2 years to pay the state board to look over every paper he signs.

  By the way I met a adopted mother that went through a divorce and is on welfare now. So not all adoption are pretty and they all don't stay together.

  So to end this YES YES YES social workers need more training and should pay the punishment for their action. I wonder what the social worker from Texas feels like when she took 2 little girls out of a home because the mother couldn't aford electrity for that month only to put one of the girls in a foster home where the little girl was beat to death by the foster mother's natural son the child was 6.

Answer 7

From my experiences I agree social workers need more training. I think they definitely need to take an ethics and professionalism training course. All but one of the 6 social workers I've encountered as a foster parent need serious guidance. The problem is that no one wants to challenge CPS; and everyone accepts their behavior. Case managers certainly have a invincibility complex.

Answer 8

how much training more do they need? I guess one could ask that same question of any profession.  One could say not enough training for any job, huh?  There are good social workers and there are bad ones. they get burnt out or some are more opinionated than others.

Answer 9

There should be a specialty or certification within the field so social workers could be specifically trained in the particulars of adoption. Many other fields have this.  You wouldn't want a family practice MD taking out your appendix  would you?  Social Workers who have Masters Degrees (MSW) get very broad training much like a family medicine doctor.  But they are not trained AT ALL in adoption issues...as least I wasn't when I was in grad school.  So social wokers must train on the job. If you get a new one, watch out!   And those are the trained social workers. There are many who do not have masters degrees  who are given the title .  YIKES!

Answer 10

I hope the social worker is reported.

Some people go into social work, because they really want to make a difference. They really want to help people. Others go into the field because you they don't have very high GPA's and that's the best they can do. They are an embarrassment to the ones who really do what they do, not for money, but because they want to make a difference. They want to help people. I am not a social worker, but I do know a few who came from very well to do families and they don't need the money, but they do want to help people. Believe me, they are just as outraged and disgusted with the system as we are. I know they find it hard to deal with the ignorant people who managed to squeak through school, yet not learn anything.

Answer 11

Just a quick note...this is the internet. Anyone can say they are anyone or in any profession, so this person could simply have been misrepresenting herself. (Actually, those statements are so outrageous, I'm inclined to think she was being a troll.)

Answer 12

Based upon these comments - heck yes, a refresher course is long overdue!

Answer 13

I guess I was lucky in that only the social workers with Master's were allowed to apply for the Adoptions department and were then sent through more training specifically for that.  Maybe it was just a county thing or a state thing, I don't know.  I do know that 10 years later that I contacted the same office to ask some questions because I needed help and the workers were rude and very ugly to me.  So ugly, in fact, that three of them got suspended for a month without pay.  So, I don't know what happened between the time I adopted and 10 years later, but obviously the criteria required to be an Adoptions worker had been seriously lowered.

Answer 14

When it comes to the adoption industry, I think that the term "social worker" is used very, very loosely.  I think that a lot of young innocent women go to adoption agencies thinking that they are dealing with a social services organization when, in reality, they are dealing with a business that needs to make money to survive.  The people that they encounter there should be called adoption workers, not social workers.  Their main function is to broker a business transaction with maximum profit, and it is not in the adoption workers interest to help the women keep their children.

I doubt that more training will be adequate.  I feel that there should be full disclosure laws that require adoption workers to reveal to any pregnant woman who walks in their door that their source of income is dependent on the expectant mothering giving her baby away.