I worked as a child protective service worker for DCFS 1985 to 1997. In the mid 1990s I was the vice president of the union which tried to negotiate with the DCFS management. The main issue was always our effort to get management to lower the high caseloads, which force social workers to pay attention to paper work (looking good on paper) rather than getting out and seeing kids. The social workers were constantly under stress to prioritize paperwork vs. casework in the field. People got promoted for looking good on paper and sucking up to mgmt. I always did my field casework if possible and then did reports up until 1 AM. The cleaning people often had to tell me to leave the building when they locked up. It was certainly not just a 40 hour/wk job. Corners always had to be cut to get it all done. I did not have a family, so I cut my sleep time, my relaxing time with friends. I worked a lot of overtime. Since social work is traditionally a female dominated field, DCFS workers have gotten less respect and less money from the county than does the Probation Dept, which deals with the same families and their dysfunctions from another angle. I wonder how close the two departments are now as to wages, benefits, hours and workload. We were trying to negotiate wage and benefit parity when I was a non-paid elected representative on the union bargaining team. So I did my social work AND I tried to represent the issues workers were having with management. I eventually burned out in 1997. Management helped to get rid of me. Its a long story. Both social work and union work are tough jobs.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 23:18:23 +0000
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