Podcast: celebrating a long career in social work

As Community Care marks its 50th anniversary this year, we wanted to find out how social work has evolved through those years and how that has shaped practitioners’ careers.

For the Social Work Community Podcast, senior careers editor Kirsty Ayakwah spoke to independent social worker Gretchen Precey, who celebrates 47 years in children’s services this year, to learn about her experience of the past decades.

Gretchen qualified in 1977 and spent over 20 years working directly for local authorities before establishing herself as an independent social worker.

In her role, she combines direct assessment work with children and families with consultancy to practitioners.

In this episode of the podcast, Gretchen tells us what keeps her in the sector after so many years and what advice she would offer to the next generation of social workers.

Listen to “Celebrating a longstanding career in social work” on Spreaker.

Read the transcript here

About the podcast

The Social Work Community Podcast explores the issues that matter to social work practitioners in their working lives.

Kirsty and fellow host, careers editor Sharmeen Ziauddin, interview experienced and inspiring guests, including frontline social workers who speak from the heart about their jobs, the sector and society.

Our first season went down a storm and was nominated in this year’s British Association of Social Workers (BASW) Social Work Journalism Awards. We recently launched season two with an episode on whether we need more men in social work.

Although the podcast is available on major podcast platforms, Social Work Community members will get special early access to each episode.

So sign up to the Social Work Community to be among the first to catch each episode and to connect with fellow practitioners in a safe space.

Otherwise, check out the Social Work Community Podcast on the following :

• Spotify
• Apple Podcasts
• Spreaker
• Audible (Amazon)

Click ‘follow’ or ‘subscribe’ on your podcast app so you know when a new episode is published.

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