📘 Part 3: Social workers

This episode's vocabulary

Beforehand (adverb) - earlier (than a particular time).

Trait (noun) - a particular characteristic that can produce a particular type of behaviour.

Career path (noun) - the way that you progress in your work, either in one job or in a series of jobs.

Faint of heart (idiom) -  lacking the courage to face something difficult or dangerous.

Intrinsic (adj.) - being an extremely important and basic characteristic of a person or thing.

Facetious (adj.) - not serious about a serious subject, in an attempt to be funny or to appear clever.

To check up on sb (phrasal verb) - try to discover what someone is doing in order to be certain that that person is doing what they should be doing.

Reintegration of former offenders - the process of returning those who have served time to society.

Setup (noun) - an arrangement of things that allows something to happen, or the process that prepares this arrangement.

Patience (noun) - the ability to wait, or to continue doing something despite difficulties, or to suffer without complaining or becoming annoyed.

Distressing (adj.) - upsetting or worrying.

Workload (noun) - the amount of work to be done, especially by a particular person or machine in a period of time.

To mandate (verb) - the authority given to an elected group of people, such as a government, to perform an action or govern a country.

Press on (phrasal verb) - to continue traveling or doing something.

Understaffed (adj.) - if a shop, business, or organization is understaffed, it does not have enough employees.

Overstretched (adj.) - not having enough money, people, equipment, etc.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory, tell me, why do people love being social workers?

R: Well, I mentioned several reasons beforehand. But to summarize, it's probably because they want to give something back, or a trait of their personality that encourages them to go down that career path. It's not for the faint of heart, and the pay isn't, well, particularly more than any other public sector job. So motivation must be intrinsic.

M: What do social workers do?

R: Social work? Sorry, I'm being facetious. They can do all kinds of things from checking up on families with various issues to supporting the reintegration of former offenders back into society to helping out other institutions like health service. When dealing with people who have multiple problems, I suppose it's a very diverse field. And I imagine it will depend on the setup in the countries that you live in.

M: What are social work values?

R: Oh, I suppose that will again, be heavily context-dependent. But generally, you should value human life and want to see things get better for people, or at least not get worse. Being ready for anything and up for a challenge would also be good values to have. And above all else, patience since change and support take a long time to happen and to be effective.

M: What type of person would make an excellent social worker?

R: Well, I suppose anyone who embodies the values I mentioned previously, you have to be able to cope with distressing or stressful situations, a heavy workload and be understanding of people who might not want your support, even though it's mandated by the law, and probably the greater good as well. When I think about it, though, patient, organized people who can press on in most circumstances are what you want in many jobs, aren't they?

M: Should governments create more social work job opportunities?

R: I'm honestly not sure. People always say that they're understaffed and overstretched. So it might be helpful. On the other hand, you have to balance that with the reality of financing these posts. Overall, I think social workers could do with more support, though the extent of, well, the extent of it is up for debate by much more qualified people than me.

M: Really, thank you very much for your answers!

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