Dear social worker, I wasn't going to record this episode
this week because I've been unwell, so you can probably hear
it in my voice, and sometimes I'm losing my voice throughout
the week. That might happen on this
podcast episode, and I didn't want to put an episode out that
just didn't have my normal voice on it.
But I thought, hey, we're human. We all understand that there's
moments in time when we're not feeling 100%, when we feel we
have a cold or a flu, whatever it may be.
And I'm having one of those weeks, So I'm sharing that with
you while I am going to talk to you about keeping your word.
Keeping your word is a cornerstone of integrity and
trustworthiness. And when you make a promise or a
commitment to someone, you're not just giving your word, but
also your assurance that you're going to follow through on what
you said. And there's people out there who
really hold fast to when you agree you're going to do
something. Honouring your commitments and
demonstrating that reliability and accountability and your
actions is key to building trust.
But that's not just between you and the person that you're
making the commitment to. It's also about the promises
that you keep to yourself. We know that.
Failing to keep your word that can damage trusted
relationships. So we've always got to be
mindful of the promises that you make to yourself and the
promises that you make to others.
And we know as social workers, we make many promises to others,
whether it's professionals, whether it's children.
By staying true to your word, you not only uphold your own
integrity, but also contribute to building that more
trustworthy and dependable relationship.
But what we do know is that isn't always possible as a
social worker, and that's something we're going to talk
about right now. So let's talk.
I remember when I started as a social worker over a decade ago,
and I was so clear in my mind that I'm going to keep every
home visit appointment, every meeting, I'm going to be on time
wherever I was meant to be and everything will be in order and
in a plan. Now to all the students that are
listening to this, please excuse my voice.
Hopefully next week I'll feel better, but it never goes
according to plan. I would say at least 70 to 80%
of the time. So having a plan, a strategy for
managing people's expectations of you is very important.
So for example, if you are going on annual leave, I would start
preparing people a month in advance.
Don't forget, at the end of the month I'm going to be on leave
for two weeks. So if you want this, if you need
to give me that, please make sure you give it me by that
date. Put that at the end of your
e-mail. Once it's coming up to your
annual leave, make sure you've got your out of office on.
Make sure you're communicating it with your families.
Do you need anything right now? I'm going on leave in four
weeks. It sounds so simple, but if you
don't do that, let me tell you what happens.
You will come back to an e-mail list as long as the piece of
string. People will be expecting for you
to reply, simply because they may need information from you
for that time. Whereas if you let them know
you're going away, whether it's a week, two days, two weeks,
whatever it may be, that's going to help manage their
expectations of A your response and but B of course that you
won't actually be there. So they may just wait until your
you return, which minimizes the amount of emails that may be
coming through during your holiday break.
It's one of the things that used to give me a lot of anxiety was
returning back to work knowing that your e-mail list is going
to be like 250 or 365. Try and manage people's
expectations before that's going to help you manage your time and
manage your stress around managing emails.
I've completely gone off topic around keeping your word right.
I'm going to blame the cold, I'll blame the cold.
But hopefully, sorry. Hopefully you'll get my point
that to be able to keep your word there are going to be
moments where you need to manage others expectations of you, what
is realistic for you and your timetable.
When your manager asks you how long will it take you to do that
piece of work, really give an honest answer and perhaps
negotiate from that honest place rather than saying you know
what, yeah, next week is fine knowing you've got two court
reports and a a child protection conference report to write.
Being honest with yourself is where you need to start and then
work from there. Now the next thing I want to
mention while I'm I'm off topic slightly, so I'm going to just
continue in that direction. The other thing to note here is
around visits Now. I used to group my visits and do
my visits in one day. I felt that worked better for
me. And then I will come in the next
day. The next day would be write up
day slash admin day, right? But some people like to stagger
their visit visits throughout the week.
Some prefer to do half on a Friday morning and half on
Monday morning. It's completely up to you have
the autonomy. Depending on what of course your
government agency tells you to do, they may have their own
policies around that. So me managing my visits in one
day, that was a wave that I could manage the time.
However, what happened? What used to happen to me
sometimes, in fact, it doesn't matter whether it was in one day
or whether it was another day. Sometimes you'd be stuck in
traffic. And those days, yeah, we did not
have the smart mobile phones those days.
We had old school Nokia's. That's bringing back memories
for those experienced workers. You're going to remember we just
had old school Nokia's and I think we used to have some old
school Motorola's. You could only text and you
could only phone. So if you were driving, you
couldn't text to say that you're running late.
Yeah. So sometimes when you are
planning your visits, manage the expectation of the children and
family and say, OK, I'm planning to come for four, give me a bit
of leeway. It may be between 4:00 and 4:34
and 4:15. That way if you're stuck in
traffic or your visit before, there is something that you're
having to deal with which is unexpected and taking extra
time, you may have a call that comes through between visits.
You're able to manage their expectations and keep your word
at the same time. What is this doing?
This is helping you maintain your rapport.
This is helping you maintain that relationship with them, and
it's also helping you manage your time and manage their
expectations. Time is one of the most
difficult things to manage as a social worker and when you're
saying you're going to be there and that doesn't happen, it does
have an impact. Now remember we are working with
children and families where they may have experienced rejections
and let downs and disappointments in their life
and then now looking to you and relying on you as the social
worker to provide a source of support.
So be mindful of the family's emotional disposition is going
to inform how you help to manage their expectations.
Yeah, we don't want to create hurt by being super late or not
getting there at all. We know there's lots of crises
to deal with all the time this is happening.
You know, every day whether you've got a visit or not,
whether you've got a meeting or not.
Some of this is simply about communication and just taking
that little extra step that's going to help maintain those
relationships because you don't want them questioning your
reliability and your sincerity of the work that you're doing.
Now part of this is about you keeping your word to yourself,
and I want to just insert the personal development element
here. Because making those commitments
to yourself with the the same level of importance and
integrity as you would someone else is key, right?
Setting those realistic and achievable goals to yourself is
how you grow in confidence. So when you say I'm going to
write 3 conference reports in one day and you can just about
get one done because of complexity, you're going to feel
a way about yourself to yourself.
So be specific about what you want to achieve and be realistic
about that. So you are managing your own
expectations for yourself because only you are responsible
for holding yourself accountable and tracking your own progress.
So make sure that when you're making decisions about what you
want to do and how you want to go about things, be honest with
yourself as well. I know as social workers,
because you're being pulled in three or four different
directions in any one hour, let alone the day.
Right? Remember, I've been there, so I
know, yeah, it's very challenging to keep up
sometimes. So if you've made a commitment
to yourself, I'm going to go on lunch every single day, perhaps
starting with two to three times a week.
This way you're building that self trust with yourself, that
self-discipline, that consistency that's going to help
you look after yourself in a role like this.
Furthermore, practice self-awareness and self
reflection. We know this is part of what we
do anyway. We know that it can be very
difficult to make it happen in a busy week.
Make use of your supervision. Make use of your coaching.
If you've got access to coaching, be honest with
yourself about what you need to. Think about, what you need to
debunk, what you need to rant about.
Often keeping things in your mind and not speaking them out
loud or writing them down is going to create and perpetuate
stress. So practice self-awareness and
reflection. Be honest with yourself about
your motivation, strengths and limitations.
Limitations is key. You can't be good at everything.
As a social worker. Some of you are great at direct
work, but don't particularly like writing reports, right?
So instead of dreading that task as you're coming up to it,
decide on your strategy so you can make it happen.
Make it easier for yourself, make it manageable, and you're
able to keep that promise to yourself.
And I want you to leave this podcast acknowledging the
importance of keeping the word, keeping your word to yourself.
Just to reiterate, it helps to build yourself esteem and your
confidence, and it gives you a sense of accomplishment.
And who doesn't want that? So when you find yourself unable
to keep your word to yourself or to others, it's important to
handle the situation with honesty, empathy, and
accountability. And that's going to help you
maintain the trust to yourself with respect to yourself and to
others. So with a focus on maintaining
relationships with your children and families, I'm going to give
you 3 tips and then I'm going to give my voice a rest.
And I'm sure you'll all understand.
Number one, I've mentioned this communication is key.
Be proactive in communicating with your children and families
or your professionals or people affected by the the the change
in plan. Explain the reasons.
You know, I've had someone say to me, yes, I'll agree to do
that, Lisa ran. But two weeks later, no reason
given. No, I'm not able to do that.
That breaks the trust and it diminishes the the meaning of
your word to them. So explain the reasons behind
the situation honestly and respectfully.
Could be due to unforeseen circumstances. 9 times out of 10
that is going to be the case. You might be ill, you know,
there might be crisis intervention.
You may need to help another colleague.
Someone could fill, one of your team members could phone in
sick, and you need to step in and do something that's urgent
on that side. The list is endless.
But the point is communicate. Yeah, have that transparency
help mitigate those feelings of rejection or hurt that may
result in you being unable to keep your word #2.
Offer alternatives and solutions.
I'm not able to make it at 5:00, but I can make it tomorrow at
6:00 or Wednesday at 7:00. I know we're not doing visits at
6:00 or 7:00 PM, but you get my point.
If you're not able to fulfil your original promise, explore
alternative ways to do that so you're able to somewhat meet
their expectations. Offer assistance.
Offer alternatives, all in the name of maintaining that
relationship despite you not being able to do what you
originally planned #3 Take responsibility and make amends
where you can. Ownership of your actions and
the impact that they have on others is necessary.
And I it's it's I would say if you need to where you need to
just apologise, but sincerely for any inconvenience or
disappointment caused by you being unable to keep your word,
it may be completely out of your hands.
Why that is the case, It doesn't matter.
Just focus on maintaining that relationship.
Yeah, taking accountability, Demonstrating your commitment to
your own accountability is going to help to build that trust, is
going to help them understand what's happened and why, and
that you're you're offering to address the situation and that
can help to strengthen the relationship.
I want to see you all at the Empowering Social Workers
Conference on Saturday the 13th of April 2024 in London.
Go to socialworkcoachinghub.com/events
to get your tickets. Now, for those of you who are
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all I have for you. This week you've been listening
to Lee Surran and dear social worker, let's talk the podcaster
is here to support you. The podcaster is here to support
your personal development and help you grow into the
practitioner that you want to be, giving you all the wisdom
and the mindset gems. Then your cup is full.
You're able to pour into others. Remember you're not alone and
keep me in your prayers this week as I try and get over this
cold, fluy thing. I'll see you all soon.
God bless. Have a blessed week.