Name: What is social work? Emergency Duty Team
Uploaded: 2020-01-22T10:28:17.000Z
Duration: 13 min 30 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Sunday morning, and Sam Swann an emergency duty social worker is starting

a long shift. Sam, like all EDT colleagues works when others don't.

Weekends, nights and bank holidays. The work is diverse and the caseload usually heavy.

We cover the whole spectrum of Social Work really in terms of working

with children and families, mental health services, people with learning

disabilities and people with physical disabilities and also old people; so

really we cover a wide spectrum predominantly and nine times out of ten

we work on our own, we work through the night which means that we have to

prioritise work, we have to do assessments and investigations so

there's a lot of responsibility and accountability really because obviously

we have to stand by those decisions that we make at that time.

the colleague she's relieving, Sam's work starts. Almost immediately the phone

[On the phone]  That's custody okay appropriate adult okay...

A 16 year old is being held at Telford's main police station suspected of carrying an

offensive weapon. By law an appropriate adult must be with him to safeguard his

welfare and ensure that he understands all procedures and any charges being

brought against him. As his parents are refusing to attend that role will fall

to Sam. So the officers are ready to go but the sister is not there.

Ok, well if you can give me a call when the solicitor has gone into consultation

I'll come along then ... all right then so we'll give you a ring just before we arrive ok?

hospital who's causing staff concern. Sam may need to undertake a mental health

assessment. She discusses the case with the co-cited community nurse crisis team.

She's been placed on a ward where she's continued to complain of physical

complaints but their medical sort of investigations don't

identify that there's  any medical problem okay so she's

known to us - she's care coordinated is she?

presumably they'll let us know if they become concerned about her behaviour.

Jointly, they decide that no immediate action is needed as the hospital will

hold the patient until Monday and Sam's phone is ringing again it's the call

she's been expecting from the custody suite [On the phone] She's in consultation okay

so we'll come over see you shortly bye-bye - that was sergeant from custody

there the solicitors arrived so we need to make our way over - to custody.

The EDT role demands experience and Sam has plenty. She left school at 16 and came

and I also had a varied caseload at the time I worked at the local psychiatric

hospital I also had a few cases where children were on the child protection

I qualified in 1995 and chose to come back

into predominantly child protection, I became team manager covering the

north side of Telford and stayed in team management for probably about four

Very rare opportunity for a job to come up in the emergency duty team where I am now so it

was an ideal opportunity really to go back in as a practitioner because

you have that experience and knowledge base I think it's fair to say

that we all feel fairly confident in doing the job but that's not to say that

it's not tough at times and sometimes you do question 'is this the right thing to do?'

Well this one acutally was record time I would say we were in and out really within probably

an hour which is pretty amazing, that's pretty good. He admitted it, he was

charged and he's been bailed to go to court a week on Wednesday.

office there are concerns that an elderly woman is not coping alone at

home [on the phone] because she's having four calls a day isn't she so she'll have had a

morning one. Sam checks in with the woman's home care service so it's the

same carer going in so that's good so she'll notice if there's

any change won't she if there's anything she's worried about okay all

continue to monitor the situation. In the meantime there's a new message waiting...

That is our shop doc, our out of hours GP service who wants help with a lady who's

suffering with severe anxiety and some symptoms of depression.

the doctor who has visited the patient reveals the woman's condition could be

serious. The fact that she's not eating and drinking from a medical point of view

how will that impact? She sounds very unwell

So I've got a coordinator for Mental Health Act

assessment on this lady - she's a 64 year old lady who he says is not actually

previously known to mental health services and has had problems with

anxiety now for the past month or so, things have escalated in the last 10

days. This assessment now takes priority over Sam's other referrals and she

swings into action. Several phone calls later she's on the road as an approved

mental health practitioner Sam's job is to coordinate and take an active role in the assessment.

and another GP at the address the three of us have to assess and agree a plan really.

It's up to Sam to look at alternatives to hospital and ensure the

woman's rights are protected. We need to talk to the husband and get his views

about the situation and then make a decision then about the best way forward

Over the course of two hours, Sam and the doctors decide the woman does need to be admitted to psychiatric hospital.

The woman's husband agreed to support the decision of the team.

Mental health assessments are always well...

they're just difficult really it's quite stressful she was really very sad but

I think the way we wrestle with that is you have to decide what's in the best

interests of the of the service user really.

Helen Jones arrives to discuss the day's caseload with Sam

what sort of the day if you had today then?

It's been pretty busy actually, in fact I'm glad you've come in because there's one or

two things we can probably pass over for tomorrow but I need just to run them past

Sam agrees with Helen that it would be best

if they attend the next case together. It's a child protection matter and requires a home visit.

have got concerns about neglect and issues around a lack of supervision and

the parents' lifestyle so in the daytime it's difficult to

obtain evidence if that's what's needed, of what's actually going on in the

families in the evening so that's what we're going to do.