It has been over four months since we launched our Choose Social Work campaign to champion the profession and inspire the next generation of social workers.
During that time, we have received numerous heartfelt letters containing advice for future practitioners and stories about why social work is a worthwhile career.
However, at this year’s Community Care Live, we asked social workers directly why they had chosen the profession. And we received so many lovely and inspiring answers, it was hard to keep them to ourselves.
So, here are 28 reasons why practitioners chose social work.
Click on the blue arrow on the right of each slide to move to the next one. Alternatively, you can click on the first image to bring up the gallery, and then go through it by clicking on the white arrow on the right of each slide.
More from Choose Social Work
- ‘We never hear about the children social workers help’: a day in the life of a social work team
- ‘It was wonderful to have somebody show me they really cared’
- When social work becomes a family affair
- ‘The advice that has stayed with me through my social work career’
- ‘You can literally change a young person’s life’: an 18-year-old’s message for social workers
- ‘What I wish I’d known before becoming a social worker’
- Jenny Molloy: ‘Social workers have been so important in my life’
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A trauma-informed approach to social work: practice tips 
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Develop your social work career with Community Care’s Careers and Training Guide 
‘Dear Sajid Javid: please end the inappropriate detention of autistic people and those with learning disabilities’
Ofsted calls for power to scrutinise children’s home groups
Seven in eight commissioners paying below ‘minimum rate for home care’
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This reminds me of the Gary Larson cartoon – with the chicken looking at a sign on the other side of the road which says – why do you need a reason.
This does however highlight that if you are going to survive in this field you really need a sense of humour and a tolerance of hearing things you might not agree with. Something I think community care seems to lack at times.
As someone who qualified as a social worker more than 31 years ago and have been working in the field since 1988 – I really didn’t need a set of post it notes on a board to decide whether to start a career in social work.