Forum • Non-Gaming • Social

Social care work

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  Deleted user 11 January 2005 11:51:18

  I'm seriously considering doing some part-time work with either kids or young adults on the autistic spectrum. As some of you are aware, I have an 8 month old girl (who is by all accounts perfectly healthy and sociable and definatley not autistic) and new instincts have kicked in which has made dealing with autisitic kids a natural skill for me. My partners family foster and there a couple of autistic kids in the house that I have gotten to know well and help over the last year. With no formal experience or qualification I am being advised to gain 6 months voluntary experience with Barnardo's or similar. This was advice from a newly established Social care agency and my other option is to gain a reference from the fostred kiddies social worker.....only there is a huge shortage of social workers, and none assigned to the fostered kids yet! Does anyone here know of any other way in? Voluntary is gonna be hard as things are very tight and I need to be earning when working!

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  Spanky 11 Jan 2005 11:57:06 15,037 posts
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  You can get qualifications in social care(SVQ's in scotland methinks, england must have an equivalent). My sister and dad has just been through it all, it is meant to be pretty hard when you start getting onto hnd levels, a lot of paperwork and preemptive pc thinking required, but at the end of it you've got a job and pay. From what i'm told and seeing it is pretty soul destroying though, the general management and infrastructure are meant to be gawd awful but i'm sure you're aware of it... Good on you btw

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  Deleted user 11 January 2005 12:01:49

  Spanky wrote: You can get qualifications in social care(SVQ's in scotland methinks, england must have an equivalent). My sister and dad has just been through it all, it is meant to be pretty hard when you start getting onto hnd levels, a lot of paperwork and preemptive pc thinking required, but at the end of it you've got a job and pay. From what i'm told and seeing it is pretty soul destroying though, the general management and infrastructure are meant to be gawd awful but i'm sure you're aware of it... Good on you btw Cheers Spanky! my partner is a play leader and works with kids high on the spectrum and yes...here in Wales, the whole service is in crisis; especially with a massive lack of social workers and foster families. What is happening a a result is that many kids are slipping through the net into well-dodgy families as the social services have no resources. Recently, one fostered girl age about 3, died as her foster mother could not be bothered to feed her and was more concerned with going out. Know what she did? She just fed the girl pure salt until she died..........for real......

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  Spanky 11 Jan 2005 12:14:28 15,037 posts
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  That is fucked up but no surprise really, these things can happen even with the best screening, you can't account for plain human evil. My other sister is currently trying to adopt two wee girls whose mother(her school friend) died(alcholism, heart attack, mid 30's), the mother who let them get human foot and mouth and some other disease(impetigo or sommat), of course this womans other 50 kids are in care. Thing is social services left the kids with the (un-vetted) neighbours when the mother was found, then my sister barged in and took the kids with the socials blessing, then they never contacted my sister, they just left them with her, luckily my sis is an angel but ffs all the same.

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  pjmaybe 11 Jan 2005 12:19:58 70,666 posts
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  Good for you mate. One of the best jobs I had was designing human/computer interfaces for a school where kids were a mixture of SLD, Autism, and mental/physical handicaps. Built some pretty nifty devices like a screen pointing system built into a teddy bear etc. All worthwhile stuff, then the government closed the school down and that was that. Last time I went there it had been bulldozed for a block of rabbit hutches, sorry "Lifestyle Town Housing" Peej

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  Deleted user 11 January 2005 12:24:41

  There are two boys in my partners house who were born of alcoholics who fed them fried foods......from when they were born, and gone off milk. The one boy turned up @ 18 months of age, the size of a 6 month old and was completely listless. he has auburn hair and green eyes (like me) and I have spent a lot of time with (in between loving my daughter..) him because he was nearly dead when he turned up but there was a spark...... Now, he is 2.5 and the size of an 18 month old but does not have much speech as he was ignored for the first year of life. he is due to be fostered again in a couple of months which is going to be hard as heck... His brother recently arrived and he was in such a state that its still difficult to talk about it as he is only starting to come accross as a normal baby....... There are many economic initiatives going on across the UK to regenerate areas and social care but these projects will take at least another 5 or so years. people are desperatley needed, and I think the people needed are those who have compassion for the realities of life and not just 'lifestyle....'

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  Deleted user 11 January 2005 12:27:23

  pjmaybe wrote: Good for you mate. One of the best jobs I had was designing human/computer interfaces for a school where kids were a mixture of SLD, Autism, and mental/physical handicaps. Built some pretty nifty devices like a screen pointing system built into a teddy bear etc. All worthwhile stuff, then the government closed the school down and that was that. Last time I went there it had been bulldozed for a block of rabbit hutches, sorry "Lifestyle Town Housing" Peej ;0) I've seen a software programme similar to the one you describe, where it acts like a 'cover' over the XP interface with kiddie graphics and such. The aim is to protect the access of kids from porn etc whilst developing literacy and numeracy. is that the sort of thing you were involved with?

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  pjmaybe 11 Jan 2005 13:04:19 70,666 posts
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  Madder Max wrote: pjmaybe wrote: Good for you mate. One of the best jobs I had was designing human/computer interfaces for a school where kids were a mixture of SLD, Autism, and mental/physical handicaps. Built some pretty nifty devices like a screen pointing system built into a teddy bear etc. All worthwhile stuff, then the government closed the school down and that was that. Last time I went there it had been bulldozed for a block of rabbit hutches, sorry "Lifestyle Town Housing" Peej ;0) I've seen a software programme similar to the one you describe, where it acts like a 'cover' over the XP interface with kiddie graphics and such. The aim is to protect the access of kids from porn etc whilst developing literacy and numeracy. is that the sort of thing you were involved with? Sort of - bear in mind that this was back in 1987 so the most sophisticated GUI I'd come across was on the Apple Mac! Most of the stuff involved writing WIMP environments for Beebs and old PCs, then building a control interface for 'em (to do stuff like trigger programs, play games etc) Was a great job and if the funding hadn't folded I'd probably still be there now... Peej

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