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.

After a handover from

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

calls begin.

[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?

Sam's next case is a woman at a local

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

into Social Work through an admin job.

I was appointed a social work assistant

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

register as it was known at that time

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

years until the job came up in EDT

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.

Back at the

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

right then thanks Linda bye!

It seems to be good news and Sam will

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.

A phone call to

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.

I've arranged to meet the psychiatrist

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.

As evening falls EDT manager

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

you then if that's all right.

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.

They are families where daytime services

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.

We'll need to you know

check the family home; let's see if the children are in bed make sure

that there's enough provisions but generally that things are okay and mum's coping well.

There are nearly 200 children in Telford under social services protection. Sam and the

emergency duty team regularly undertake these checks for their daytime colleagues.

She was in bed when we got there so she was quite defensive I

suppose understandably if we'd woken her up, but the children were asleep in bed

there was no suggestion that she'd been drinking which is the major concern

really it's about her drinking rather than her lifestyle.

You expect to have some defensiveness when somebody's calling at your house at that time really

It is quite late really... in fact it's now after 11 p.m.

Helen goes home to sleep before her Monday starts but Sam's shift continues.

There's still work to be done on several referrals from the morning.

A mother of three is claiming her jealous partner has threatened her.

It's in relation to a child protection matter, a domestic violence incident.

The man's already wanted by officers. If he's in custody Sam can take the opportunity to speak to the woman.

She's now checking that with the police.

He's made threats to burn

down the house with the children in it... so he's not been arrested he's not

in custody at the moment okay great thanks for your help, cheers bye!

Ok the situation remains the same so I'll just hand that out back

to safeguarding in the morning and let them know that he's still not been

arrested and they'll just liaise with the police again in trying to coordinate something.

Fifteen hours after the start of her

shift the calls keep on coming. Many are from carers reporting looked after

children who've outstayed their curfews. Sam risk assess each case.

The outstanding thing now for me is to write all the work up that I've done today so

that's really going to take up my time over the next few hours and hopefully

try and get a bit of rest period as well.

I guess really the rewards of the job

are the outcomes whether it's the outcomes for children for any client

group really it's the diversity of the work really you come on duty you really

don't know what what you're going to be faced with that day and I

enjoy that and it's challenging, there's a lot of on-the-job decision making,

quick thinking that's what I enjoy. As an emergency duty worker I guess one of the

rewards is, for instance, for an older person you know there are a lot of old

people who want to be at home and they feel safe at

home that's where they want to be and quite often we just get referrals saying

this person can't be at home they've got to go into into residential care and

there are ways of avoiding that sometimes and it's good if the outcome

means that we can provide support to enable that person to to maintain their

independence. The same can be said I think of people with learning

disabilities it's good to feel that you're helping people with learning

disabilities to maintain their independence and to become a part of the

community really.

It's Monday morning and Sam's shift is completed. Her colleagues now take over

and they're another part of what she finds rewarding about the job.

There is some good work that takes place and there's a lot of people who work really hard

and there's a lot of humour, in the day time service there's

certainly a lot of team and support for each other and and whilst we might not

get the recognition for it for the reasons of confidentiality or

that the human rights legislation all kinds of reasons for

that, but what's good about daytime services certainly is that you can

actually recognize it with each other and you can say to each other you did a

really good job there and that was a tough decision but it was the right

decision and you did well and I think the thing about Social Work is that we

learn we learn a lot from each other really, you know that that's a good thing

and there is a lot of camaraderie really between individuals and yeah we do

overlap sometimes you know and because that's the sort of thing that keeps you going.