can't help noticing that the children's services part of this forum is getting more posts that this part. I am surprised as adult services are always seen as the poor relation - for example abuse of vulnerable adults never gets treated with the same furore as child abuse. I want to hear more of social workers in adult services in this forum because their voices need to be heard in the debate

Hi there

I was just wondering, I don't work in Adult Services but I would be very interested to know your thoughts on whether workers within childrens services would benefir form undertaking Dual Diagnosis training as we do work with parents with both mental health issues as well as substance ismuse issues? I feel that it might be beneficial personally as it may bring about a better understanding of why people misuse.  

hi there i am just new to this site and the first thing i find is that there is not a lot of ppl in here that work with the adults of our communities.  Well i do and have done for over 10 years and u are right the voices of the older ppl are not very often heard and this is very hard at times for me to handle as i see every day one of the ppl i care for going down hill or finding it difficult to put two words together.  They are in very vulnerable positions every day of their life and have to rely on total strangers to help them and to understand them....it is very sad.

I work with adults. I have worked on quite a few adult abuse (or Safeguarding Adult - as they are called now) investigations. The powers to protect are woeful and embarrassing.  You can identify abusive behaviours but do nothing about it because, for example, someone with dementia does not make a 'reliable' witness as far as the CPS is concerned. Just thinking of some of the situations I've been involved with personally makes my blood boil.

Hopefully this is something that the review of the Community Care Law will be looking at and strengthening. It is decades overdue 

I'm not qualified yet but I want to work with adults.  My placements have been with adults and I work as a Support Worker with adults .

That's interesting Mandy. I was talking to a director the other day who said that new graduates in children's services had told him that most people on their courses were keen to work in children's rather than adults' services.

Does this square with other people's experience?

hi, quite a few people on my course, we are coming into the third year in september of the degree, want to work in adults services. i also want to work in adults services.  

When I was studying (I qualified in 2000) most (at least 3/4)  of the people on my course wanted to work with children. And it was the same the year before and year after.. 

I have just finished my degree in social work and chose to specialise in working with older adults. Out of about 80 students on my degree course, only approximatley 10 chose the older people's specialism and a similar amount chose to specialise with adults with disabilities.

I feel that this reflects the lack of attention given to adults services and the ageism that is rife within society. I feel that social work professionals working with adults and older people have to use many skills and creativity to provide services and to protect adults as the lack of legislation relating to working with vulnerable adults also highlights.

As one of the younger newly qualified workers from my course I have a passion for working with older people to challenge this discrimination if only on a small scale to begin with.  

 Pretty similar to my own thoughts, do_gooder. I think there is a massive amount to be done in the field of older people, safeguarding adults and providing older adults with an exceptional service that is deserved. Actually I expect it to be one of the most dynamic areas of social care in the future - it absolutely needs to be on the cutting edge. 

Hi I'm new to the forums.

I'm a Senior Practitioner working with Adults/Older People with physical disabilities and Older People with mental health issues. In my experience (approximately 15yrs worth) Social Work with Adults, and in particular Older People, has never had the same status as Social Work with Children & Families.

I do think that Safeguarding Adults procedures are starting to gain pace and the police are definitely working more in partnership with us now than they ever have. We do still have a long way to go though and I really worry that the Personalisation agenda will be used as an excuse by LA's to cut the cost of employing qualified staff in Adult services.