In the latest book review by Community Care readers, Gordon Kennedy, manager of Mold and Flint Community mental health teams, gives his take on a survival guide for newly qualified social workers…
Managing a community mental health team, I take on students at all levels and looked forward to reading The survival guide for newly qualified workers in adult and mental health services.
Unfortunately I don’t believe many newly qualified social workers (NQSWs) would be able to “hit the ground running” having read this book. Instead they would likely face a slow trudge, burdened by the weight of the book’s recommended reading, and a sense of doom at the prospect of what work will entail.
To be really able to help a NQSW there needs to be much more about what the job actually entails. This probably requires many more case scenarios rather than descriptions of concepts like, for example, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
That said, I feel the book could be useful to supervisors and managers in considering the difficulties that a NQSW could face without good support and supervision.
I felt the book was too dry and academic to engage the newly qualified reader. The authors say that book can be dipped into as well as read cover to cover but this might be difficult as the themes run from the beginning to the end and do frequently refer back to earlier chapters.
However, the book does contain some useful tips for NQSWs: ask about support arrangements at job interviews, prepare for ‘reality shock’, preparation for supervision and being proactive in seeking support are examples. The chapter on stress was also informative, but should, perhaps, be included in social work degrees.
Overall, in my opinion, there are a number of social work blogs with links on Community Care’s web site that give a better insight into the day to day workings of social workers in mental health and adult services.
The Survival guide for newly qualified social workers in adult and mental health services: hitting the ground running by Diane Galpin, Jenny Bigmore and Jo Parker is available from Jessica Kingsley Publishers.