Hello
I qualified as a social worker three years ago and am currently working within the field of child protection, where I have been for the past 18 months. However my real interest (and probably skills too!) is in mental health, although unfortunately I have no statutory experience yet in this area, and didn't do any of my placements in mental health. I have a year's experience as a mental health support worker (which I really enjoyed) but am not sure whether this coupled with my statutory child protection experience would be enough to be considered for interview.
Does anyone who works in the mental health field have any advice on this?- should I just start applying for jobs with the experience I have, or are there any other avenues that would be useful to try, e.g. volunteer work, shadowing. Thanks in advance- any replies will be much appreciated!!
Child mental health or adult?
Hello,
Perhaps some voluntary work in MH. This is always considered alongside paid work experience as part of a recruitment process.
Before I started my career I worked as a volunteer advocate with all adults including people experiencing mental health difficulties. I did this for 4 years, as and when I could while I was at uni and also after I had qualified. This still goes on my job applications now even though I stopped volunteering nearly 10 years ago.
The LA where I work really values things like working for the samaritans- an example of an organisation that supports many vulnerable people.
Best of luck :)
Adult mental health, sorry.
Thanks willowwoo, yes I agree that some employers value volunteer work highly.
I have also heard that secondments can be a way in.
There's no particular reason you shouldn't apply for MH jobs. Your child centred work will give you an advantage over some people as there is a reasonable level of working with families where there is an adult with poor MH and child care issues in most, if not all, CMHTs.
If you are going to apply get yourself up to speed on local issues and policies - if you have any contacts in MH services talk to them. I wouldn't spend too much time on legislation, but try to understand the relationship between the various bits of legislation, particularly Mental Health, Mental Capacity and Human Rights Acts.
You will need to think if are there differences between working in a SW team and a Multi Disciplinary Team.
As someone who began as a child protection SW, moving to MH was probably my best career move. But having the child care experience has been invaluable, particularly in combating attitudes and understanding that mental illness and/or substance misuse doesn’t make you a bad parent per se.
Thanks logperiodic! I was hoping that my experience with children and families would be enough, so will think about applying for jobs.... once everyone starts employing again as that certainly doesn't seem to be happening at the moment! Cheers all :)
Ellen, since qualifying I've been working in a fostering service, although adult mental health is what I really want to do. While browsing one day I happened to stumble upon a secondment vacancy within the council I work for so applied and have an interview in 2 weeks.There are very few external vacancies around for mental health at the moment it seems, so keep an eye on your own employer's vacancies as that might be a good way in.
Remember, the basic skills will be largely the same as in your current post, but the knowledge will differ so read upon the legislation, policy and theory etc.
I moved from Childcare to Adult Mental Health fifteen years ago. The team really valued my previous experience and it certainly gave me the advantage over other applicants.
Don;t underestimate your experience in working with people with mental health problems, I am sure you work with issues around drug/alcohol, personality disorder depression, anxiety . At interview tell them you do work in mental health its just that your clients have children as well!!!
Hey there,
I am a mental health social worker and absolutely love the work, I'd highly recommend it! In my opinion your experience in children's services would be very valuable as I think somebody already mentioned that many of the service users referred into the cmht are parents. I guess the main thing to get your head around is the fact that as a mental health social worker you are there to work with the parent first and foremost...now obviously all professionals have a responsibility to do their best to ensure that any children involved are protected by information sharing etc...but you will find in many of the cases of the people you will work with who have complicated family dynamics, there will be involvement from children's services.
My manager actually comes from a children's services background and I have to say is one of the best managers I have ever worked for. This may be coincidence, she may just be a great manager but I feel that the experience she has in both fields makes her a very knowledgeable and well rounded manager.
Just my thoughts anyway...best of luck!
You have no worries whatsoever about entering mental health. The recent is to take on newly qualified Social Workers who are lo-cost. Experience is not an issue in the current climate.It used to be valued for the benefit of the service user, but budgets have taken over from other values so go for what interests you and the service user will benefit from your enthusiasm, by default. Be prepared to be managed by health professionals who do not have Social Work backgrounds and read about insitutionalisation before you work in a mental health team or you may be puzzled by the environment you find yourself in as a worker.
thanks so much everyone, all of this is really useful and encouraging! it's good to know that my experience in child protection hasn't been for nothing and will be valued. unfortunately there still isn't much out there at the moment but will keep looking...
hi ellen, your post has interested me. Have you found any leads yet? I too am looking for some MH shaddow work. Any ideas? I keep finding people cannot take the risk due to governance issues. Any thoughts here? Good luck anyway.
Think of the other experience you can get too - request training on mental health issues, citing the need to understand parental mental health needs in your current role, get in contact with your CMHT/ AOT and get networking, arrange to spend the day with the duty team or on the ward as study time/CPD. You could access training through some voluntary agencies to be an appropriate adult for police interviews, that'll get the duty worker at the CMHT calling you up for a favour!
I love working in mental health, but I am a lone LA voice in a health team. My manager is health. I fight daily to get the social perspective over, and the battles, let alone the war, is nowhere near being won.
Worth thinking about whether you would be prepared to do AMHP training, a useful selling point to convince interviewers they could add someone else to the rota when you qualify and get brownie points with the rest of the team!, doesn't work when competing with AMHPs tho.
Oh and don't forget to search for vacancies in the crisis/home treatment/access and liaison/assertive outreach team as an entry point into mental health, it is not only made up of CMHTs.
Good luck
thanks 2tinkas, yes it's a shame people don't value the social perspective more as that's such a crucial factor in mental health issues and people don't seem to understand this fully yet.
sorry psychotherapist, i have not done any shadowing days yet as we are so busy in our team and it's hard to take a day off. but i'll def let you know if i do get some as i'm going to be asking around other authorities about this.