Independent Practice | What's it all about?

Our first blog for the new year comes from BASW Independent Member, Jonathan Gray. 

Jonathan sheds light on why he decided to make this career change, the opportunities and challenges he has encountered as an agency social worker, and how he has navigated them with support from BASW.

Independent Social Work - My Journey 

I have been a social worker based in Scotland since 1995.

Initially my experience was that almost all social workers worked for local authorities, with rare exceptions working in the third sector. I found that I didn’t really fit into the rigid hierarchical model of working in local authorities with almost all decision making the subject of procedures.

My frustrations grew with the authority I was in, for ten years, so I started looking at agency working in other authorities. My sense was of a lot of similarities to where I was, but I took an opportunity and in 2005 became an agency social worker.

I expected to have short term contracts but that turned out to be rarely the case. On two occasions I was hired to cover for workers who were on long term sick leave and as soon as I started these workers returned and desks and phones were reclaimed from me, I couldn’t speculate why. Those contracts seemed to be destined to be short term, but other work was soon found in one. 

I would say I had a strategic plan, but I didn’t. I just went with the flow. I then saw BASW had a register of independent workers, and I put my name on their list. Initially I got few calls, and most were for workers with a different skill set to mine in London, which is some way from the central belt of Scotland where I was and am based.

My working life was busy. In 9 years, I had a total of nine days gaps between roles, and I was very busy doing agency work. I progressively was asked to do more independent work, mostly reports, I also was getting increasingly long contracts. I went to one contract for up to 13 weeks and was there for 4 plus years. Which also involved increasing responsibilities. As an agency worker I was approached, and actively sought, for roles with more managerial aspects, in particularly developing failing teams, or developing services. It goes without saying, but I will kindly, that the teams with most challenges tend to seek the most agency workers. I have worked in teams which are almost entirely made up of contractors. That being predominately due to professional and managerial issues. 

Now I am almost retired and am doing what I plan to be my last agency contract whilst also doing increasing numbers of independent reports and projects. How I have advertised my skillset has developed and that has increased the time I spend in those roles. As with most elements I have been approached by professional colleagues. As an example, I was approached to register with a solicitor’s organisation by a solicitor to share my availability and experience of preparing expert witness reports. I have and that has opened a route to more opportunities in particular that availability has provoked solicitors to ask for complex community assessments which may or mostly don’t get presented in court. The positive of my registering with a solicitor’s organisation is the credibility I have in the court process.

In tandem with my learning increasingly effectively how to market myself I have also noticed a cultural shift of more independent social worker practitioner. Of particular help to me has been the informal links and supports I have built to share professional questions and experiences. My experience has been that perceptions of what contractors will do and how we work remain a mystery to many whose working life has been in local authorities.

I have joined forums, but some are more helpful than others depending on our fields of working and our focus. The profession skill set I have is shared by a relatively small number of practitioners, so sharing practice issues and experiences has been limited but has grown as there are more people working as I do.

I would suggest that there are shared issues that social workers in the four countries of the UK share across all areas of social work activity. Examples of that includes legal aid rates and scrutiny of claims. Also, the professional standing of social work, I am told often by professionals of other professions their community care assessments with the expectation that I will respect and implement them. I rarely say the actuality that their perspective does not meet all, or more often any, of the criteria for such assessments. 

I kindly suggest more appropriate options. The issue for me is that with managers from other professions who have little perception of resource use and benefits that a perception of a shortage of resources is generated by misuse rather than an actual issue. 

Diplomacy is a skill I have learnt in many ways during my professional life. However, I strongly feel that we need to reflect and project the merits and reasons for social work values more effectively. I have long felt that what social workers do and our skill set is not shared and as a profession we have not shown the benefits of what we offer well.

There are many similarities in local authority workers perspectives and experiences. All authorities have challenges, I am often asked and I can safely say that none are perfect, all have similar challenges and experiences between are remarkably similar.

Independents have grown to over 20% of the membership of BASW now but we have done little to share the qualities we bring to our roles. Perhaps we ought to advocate more about what we do, and the impact I certainly have, on an almost daily basis.

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Are you an Independent Social Worker who would like to share your views and experiences as part of our new monthly feature? If so, please get in touch with us at comms@basw.co.uk 

Learn more about the benefits of BASW Independent membership on our Independent Social Workers Hub here.