The good, the bad, the ugly

My soror e-mailed me requesting me to let her know what I have found beneficial about living and working in the UK for a scholarship essay she is applying for to study in the UK. I thought it would be proper to post it here for anyone else curious. This is my email reply to her so please excuse any grammer.



That is such a hard question to answer because there are times that I ask myself that same question, why am I here? A lot of bad things have happened to me while I've been here: personally, professionally, financially. However, what I can say as being the best thing about living and working in the UK is that I have been removed from every familiar element from the last 26 yearsof my life, dropped in an island that might as well be speaking a different language, not know a single soul, and expect to fend for myself. The only good thing that can come out of that is some major soul searching, major humbling experiences, and being forced to do things I have never done in my entire life.

I wanted to move here after I studied abroad in 2005. That was a fantasy life b/c FSU's dorm is in Russell Square, basically the CENTER of London. NO ONE lives there that isnt rolling in family money so my perception of London was absolutely skewed. I thought, wow, what an amazing city!
Jump to 2009, I am actualyl living a part of London where "normal" folks reside, I have a real job, taxes being taken out.... the only way to SEE a country is to work in that country. Live where the people live, walk their shoes, shop where they shop. Working in the UK has taught me that America really is the top dog. Every single action I do here, I have to THINK.... Ok I'm at the cross walk, which way do i look? Ok, at the supermarket.. what do I buy? All these brands are forgeign to me. I'm ready to cook. Shit is in celsius. The measuring cups are in metric. Ok.. im going shopping, whats my size? Met some brits.. what the heck does that slang mean? Where do I go for this, for that? Damn everythign closes at 6pm in London and I just got my period and I live alone, now what? I came home from work and my front door is wide open and my place is trashed and all my electronics are gone.. what is the police number? Ok I got it, but they cant come till tomorrow??? Ok. they are here, now what? I cant carry a gun? I cant carry a knife? Really?? I'm stranded in central london, the train stations are closed till 6:30am and I only know 2 people with a car and one of them is not answering. What do I do? How do I get home?

Working in the UK is nothing special, its just like any job you would have back home. To answer your question, what have I found beneficial about living in another country? I've found that I'm not as strong as I thought I was. I only have myself to rely on. I have to be my own cheerleader when I find myself being my own worst enemy. I have to learn to trust complete strangers in order for them to become friends. After 2 bachelors, 1 masters degree, and plenty of work and life experience, none of that taught me how to become and adult because I always had a safety net. I had my family, friends, my car, even my familiar cities in Florida to catch me if I fell. Here, I have to pick my own ass up when I fall, dust it off, and keep on going.

On top of that, I have seen Tower Bridge, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, the Stoneheges, the Roman Baths, Barcelona, next Prague. I have met and conversed with Italians, Swiss, Irish, Pakistans, French. I've seen Wicked, Mama Mia, the Lion King, Thriller Live. I was on a bridge in London at 2am, watching the skyline light up, one by one. I've shopped at Camden Market, Portobello Market, Brick Lane. I've seen in person paintings by Van Gogh, Picasso, Da Vinci. I've eaten the best Indian food of my life. I have a nice group of friends that I enjoy going out with and getting to know that I may not ordinarily have come across in Florida. I've seen and done so much in the short 4 months of being here that granted, life sucks at times, but life sucks at times while being in London.

Mama Mia

The nerve of a parent to decide they no longer wish to be parents! How, as a human being, do you have the audacity to change the locks on your child and inform social services you are through with him because he stole from you? Are you saying that money is worth more to you than the sanctuary of a child's LIFE? Where do you get off collecting benefits for having him, then not wanting to care for him? I'm sure you are the same type of woman that will sit there with your friends sipping tea and eating bisquits talking about how abortion is morally wrong, how the government sucks, how your children are the death of you. Getting an abortion inutero is no different than throwing your child into the streets before he is even old enough to drive a car. Your killing him. YOU are the one that is sending him straight to the drug dealers house for some goods to sell. YOU are the one that will scar him so bad he won't ever be able to form a healthy relationship with a woman, much less know how to be a father. As a woman, how can you sit there and calmly speak in the phone and tell me you are done with him and you dont care if you go to jail for it. Are you really picking prosecution for abandoning your child rather than family counseling to regroup? Who are you?? How can you call yourself a "good christian woman"?? I feel sorry for him to have a horrible woman has a mother because you obviously don't care about anything but yourself. I am embarassed that you are a mother, a woman, a minority woman at that. Children are not like old shoes. You can throw them away because they dont fit your style anymore, because they are cramping who you want to be. This is YOUR child, fuck, this is A child.

Unconditional love is the ONLY thing a child needs to make it in this world. If you can't give this to your own flesh and blood, you dont even deserve the title of MOTHER, you are simply put, a baby mamma.

Welcome Back

Its been a long time coming, I know.
There are many reasons why I havent graced this blog with my words for awhile. I've found that the easiest times for me to write is when I'm in love and when I feel there has been injustice towards others. Anything inbetween gets locked away in my mind to fester away while I go on with my business, trying to ignore the thoughts racing in my mind, hoping they will go away.

What has been going? Why did I stop writing?

It started with getting burglarized. I dont like to be or feel attached, especially to material items but I was highly attached to my laptop for more reasons than it was expensive. The departure of my laptop took with it what makes me me. My grad school papers, my music, my writings. WOW. I just remembered. I have so many poems and personal writings on that laptop. A piece of me was robbed along with my possessions and I went into a place of not really caring anymore. I stopped caring about my work, my personal life, myself. It took a lot in me to not pack up my bags and say F-U to Croydon and there backwards way of doing things.

Professionally, I stopped writing because things on this floor have calmed down substantially. A new group manager was hired for the sole purpose of turning things around in which she has done a fabulous job in doing so. I now feel safe working here, I feel that there is someone that actually cares about the decisions that we make and is genuinely a good manager. When things are going well there just isnt much to write, but, I will do a better job, professionally, in updating my blog in what I am learning here. One of my reasons for coming to London to begin with is to really learn the ins and outs of child welfare in this country, go back to the States and see about doing my PhD in child welfare, comparing and contrasting the States ways of doing things versus UK's ways, taking the good and bad of each one and submitting proposals to the States on how these agencies should be run for an effective and manageable agency. Sometimes I worry that being here might actually harm me professionally because they are so ass backwards in their ways. I was given a book to read on parenting assessments and the research behind it. In the States, any research older than 10 years is basically thrown out. Here? These books that have been published within the last 5 years still quote research done before I was even born. I worry that I will be re-trained to think like the British then go back to the States and not be up to date on research and findings. I may have to read these old books to understand where the UK social workers are coming from, concurrently with reading American research. But who's right? Why do I think that the American way is the right way just because I'm used to it ?


And my last reason for taking so long to update my blog is that I can only do it at work, which means I get interrupted 50 million times while writing one paragraph. SO I must end here because its 1pm and time for lunch.

Ill be back, I promise.

ET come home.

When things are unsettled at home, expect for your life to follow right behind it. I've learned that its nearly impossible to carry on a functional day if the home life isn't right. Aside from sightseeing in London, my days working in Croydon have been unbearable. Granted, I dont have any cases yet but the atmoshphere on this floor is thick from the moment the elevator doors open. For some strange reason I have the tendency to work in environments that are chaotic, and not on the clientele level but on a professional level. At Childrens Home Society supervisors lost touch on the amount of work and pressure on the case workers; in Apalachee the Detox unit was the ugly stepchild of the ward; with Florida Therapy Services having Medicaid be my employer was like doing community service hours for the devil; at Refuge House, I was the only Domestic Violence counselor and had about 40 women I counseled which limited the time I can see each one. Here at Croydon Council, I get the eyebrows raised, lips tighten, pity look from other departments when I hear Im in Assessments. It had only been 3 weeks and I absolutely dreaded going to work in the mornings-- and I hadn't even been given a caseload yet. Why was it so terrible? Its a shame to have essentially 85% of the social workers here warn me about management, see social workers in tears leaving a supervision meeting b/c of the degradation she just endured, hearing managers not support their social workers when a parent threatens to go to the media [media and papparazzi are HUGH in the UK and they will chew you up and spit you out quicker than when tasting anchovies for the first time]. One thing I HATE more than anthing in the world are people that are unjust [fits my field huh? I spent my entire adolescence fighting for my rights as a teenager to spend my entire adulthood fighting for the rights of others].

My mind was unsettled because even after work, I went home to a flat that wasnt' really "mine", and still living out of a suitcase. My routine back in Tally was work, dinner, gym, shower, watch tv, talk to the boys [my roomates] and go to sleep. Here in Croydon... its been work, dinner....then nothing...everything here closes at 5pm so I cant window shop or go to the mall [yes even the mall closes at 5pm] The streets are deserted by 6ish and since I dont know the area that well I just dont think its safe to even go for a walk when there are no other souls on the streets.

Finally, finally finally, I moved into MY flat on Wednesday [the one I mentioned previously] and miracously, I woke up on Thursday refreshed, a big smile on my face, and ready to take on the bullshit world of Assessments. Since moving in I have felt rested and ready. Today I was assigned 3 cases to work on and now that my home life is settled, I feel ready and prepared to tackle the many crisis my families think they can't handle on their own.

If you feel your life is unsettled, go home and see whats going on. Home is where the heart is and if your home is not feeling right, neither will your heart.

Terrible Twos

I see the face of innocence and know that this is why I'm here
I hear the anguish in carer's voice and realize that my presence is needed.
I forgot for a minute about the important things in life
Life is not meant to be easy
Life of a social worker was never guaranteed to be fair
I may not have asked for this calling but I chose this path that I'm on
And I chose this career that led me to this living room
The sadness that it is when a 2 year old has lived 2 years of hell
Is a reminder that I must be grateful for all that I have been given and all the love that I felt in my life
My purpose is not to bitch about management, my purpose is the feeling I feel when I look into the eyes of innocence and see nothing but pain.

Breathing Excercises

The best way to describe the differences between child welfare in the UK vs US is this: Our pros are their cons, and their cons are our pros.

I have been thrown in a department where cohesiveness and common sense are as foreign to them as to words chav and bloke are to americans. [BTW: Chav- a hoe, Bloke: a man]. As mentioned in my previous blog, there is only 1 manager with a permanent position and the rest are locum. Since they come and go as they please, they really dont have a sense of commitment or responsibility for the welfare of their team.

I am putting that aside however because granted, no social service agency is perfect, especially when it comes to management. The front line workers will always feel like management has no clue, and management will always feel like the front line workers have no clue. It is what it is.

What is alarming to me however, is how high the threshold for abuse is in this country. In the states, if I felt like a child was in immediate danger all I had to do was make a phone call to my supervisor, the attorney, and thats it. The child comes with me. Here? HELL NO. We leave the child in the home, try to persuade the manager to allow us to get a court date, get a court date that is weeks away, and ask permission to the parents if we can take their child in custody. Yes. You read it. We have to ASK THE PARENTS for every and anything. If they dont feel like they can benefit from our services, case closed. My jaw fell to the floor and shattered in pieces when I realized that everything here is about parental consent. I cannot speak, do, touch, see, hear, smell, feel nothing without the consent of the parent. As someone else said it, "we are their professional secretary." Its a croc of shit.

Now, there isnt much I can do about changing the law. As I said before, it is what it is. The reason that Croydon is like this is because there is such a large transient population that they kind of have to raise the threshold b/c if not, we'd have SO MANY children in care. We need to take cultural differences in mind when it comes to corporal punishment.

Put aside the management, put aside the law, the Assessments team is still in disarray. As I reviewed charts I kept reading assessments that made absolutely no sense for the safety and concern of the child. There are are blatant obvious reasons why a child is misbehaving but they havent seemed to make that connection. For example, Ill see two sentences in an assessment that goes like this: "The mother's new boyfriend is said to be physically and mentally abusive to the child. The child has been misbehaving in school and frequently runs away from home. The child states he doesnt not want to go home because his mother does not love him. The mother request for his behavior to improve otherwise she will place him in care" ..........

Let me take a real deep breath here because if I read one more assessment that has that kind of stupidity attached to it, I'm going to scream. It does not take a degree in SW to figure out WHY this child is misbehaving. Yet, the case plans all revolve around making the life for the parents easier. Lets diagnosis this child with antisocial behavior [the UK version of Oppositional Defiant Disorder]. Lets call the police on him when he doesnt come home. Lets put him in counselor. How about we open our eyes and use our common sense in figuring out that this boy doesnt want to go home because his mom's boyfriend is beating him. How about you take your own words and do something with it! I have read so many files that sound like the above and it seems like the obvious deduction of the child's behavior just goes over their heads because we cant piss the parents off. If the parents dont like our assesssment, time to rewrite it!

Another deep breath.


I have so much more to write but I'm starting to feel my blood boil right about now so Ill just save that for another day.

Organized Chaos

Introduction to Social Work is a class undergrad level students must take if they have any desires to continue in the tract of social work, at least at Florida State. In this class, we learned about the history and theories of social work and its home base being the United Kingdom and Europe area. With this basic knowledge, I was under the assumption that practicing this field in the UK would be much more advanced in its ideals and theories than the United States.

Give me a minute while I laugh my head off.

I feel like I have stepped into a time machine and went back 20 years. These people here have NO ORGANIZATION or any clue how to run a child welfare agency. As much as I bitch and complain about Florida's DCF and child protective service agencies, I must say that they know exactly what they are doing to keep children safe. Granted, its only because they need to secure more state funding, grants, and private donors, but at least there is some kind of organization and checks and balances in the system.

First example: In Florida, Child Protective Investigations is just one position. Someone in this position would receive a referral, go to the home in either 24-48 hours, conduct interviews, obtain collaterals, staff with their supervisor and/or attorney, then make a necessary outcome: close the case, transfer to protective services while remaining in the home, or transfer to protective services while [whilst as its stated here] removing the child.

In Croydon? There is a duty officer that makes the intial investigation. There was a time that they could do the investigation over the phone [HOW SO???] but now they are forced to actually go SEE the child and inteview the parents/school teachers/guidance counselors. If they feel they need an assessment, it goes to Child in Need [my team]. We [I] will have 7 days to do an assessment. If I feel like services need to be in place, I'll transfer it to another team that will provide the services. Seeing that I've done DCF in Florida, I can somewhat appreciate the division of responsibilities, but this also causes disorganization and is frankly a waste of time. There is a backlog of cases dating back to... OCTOBER! Yes, OCTOBER. Calls that have come in from October have yet to be investigated. The problem is that the retention in the Croydon staff is extremely hard, primarily because they have staff that are "Locum" which means that they are not permanent Croydon Council staff, but contracted agency staff that can pick up and leave whenever they want. In my team, only the Americans [2 from my group, 3 from the March hires,] 1 South African hire, and 1 supervisor are permanent staff. The rest of the supervisors [called Line Managers] and staff are Locum, which results in turnover to be extremely high.

Throughout the day the other American social workers from the March hire group came in to the office and gave us the nitty-gritty on what it will be like. This is not America, they said. Get that idea out of your head. You're say really won't matter too much because all you are doing is assessing the case, and passing it on to whomever will provide the services. Frankly, this is the reason WHY I chose assessments. I love my profession, I love children, I have an advocacy voice when it comes to abused children, but I cannot take my work home with me [mentally] and I want to leave at 5pm like any normal adult does. This specific team will allow me to do so in that once 5pm hits, I AM DONE.

This afternoon I sat in on a Refocus and Reform group where restructing of Croydon Council was discuss. They are very open to hearing how its done in America and I recommened that they ask us Americans to bring our organizational chart that we use to compare to the drafted organizational chart they are trying to create. I am pleased that she was very open and interested [and genuinely interested] in seeing how its done. She planned a meeting for Friday to speak with us Americans to get our feedback on what she presented and what we are used to back in the States.

Personally, it does not freak me out that there is so much disorganization. My way of thinking is that this is just an means to an end. This is my job, not my life, and I came here to Travel and enjoy the fruit of my labor as much as possible. In the meantime, if I can change and improve the structure of this council, so be it. If I cant, hey, I will at least have tried. Given the fact that all the managers are locum, it was said that once our 6 month probabtionary period is up and if we feel confident enough, we can apply for a manager position. I am not one to stay in a bottom position for too long and I will only stay with an agency long term if I can continue moving up the ranks. I am very pleased that I chose this team, despite the looks of the locals when I stated I am in assessments [the OH CRAP PLEASE DONT QUIT look].

Everything in life is about overcoming challenges and I am not one to back down on a challenge.