“Scare: the social workers are fleeing the profession”
“An extreme workload. Threats, violence and harassment. A new report shows serious flaws in the socialsekreterares work environment. In several places, fleeing the social workers from the profession.”
“During the three years, the Swedish work environment authority visited welfare offices in half of the country’s municipalities. All have been improvements.”
“– It is serious that we see that all the welfare offices had it so set that in each and every supervision has had to make demands. It does not look out, ” says Eva Karsten, project manager and inspector at the Swedish work environment authority.”
“the Examination shows that the pressure on the social secretaries are extreme and that people are fleeing from both the workplace and the profession.”
” We have during these three years have seen a workload that is generally very high. It is too few simply to and it has also been an incredibly high turnover of staff. It has partly been due to the fact that it has dimensions so poorly that we could not manage to be left behind, ” says Eva Karsten.”
“There are major problems with threats and violence. More than every third person in the profession indicate that they were vulnerable.”
“– It is everyday life for the social secretaries. At the same time, there is a great tendency to normalize threats and violence, ”
“social workers can also withdraw in order to report on the violence of fear in order to make their own shortcomings exposed.”
“– But it is not acceptable under any circumstances to be exposed to threats or violence at work. This is the unhealthy working conditions that need to be highlighted much more.”
“All of this affects the social secretaries, both sickness absence and poor mental health are high.”
“– There are extremely tough demands on social workers to help the most vulnerable in society. Is you get and with difficult complex cases, and has for some time it becomes in any way a consumption activity, a wasting organization. It erodes the social secretaries, and it is eating away up in the ranks within the social services also, Eva says Karsten.”
“Of the 19 cases, these weaknesses have been so severe that municipalities are being threatened with fines of up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. A lot of the cases have concerned the layout of premises.”
“– It is that one has not had visiting rooms which have been secure, that it did not have any escape route in the event of a serious and threatening situation. We have seen very serious in this supervision, ” says Eva Karsten.”
TT: What are the shortcomings of the consequences for those who need its help?”
“– the Social services are a hugely important role to play in society. In any way undermining it, this is the samhällsfunktionen and it claims to offer. And it is serious. Here are people in need and many times can social support be life-changing.”
“the Working environment for social workers in half of the country’s municipalities have been inspected.”
“All of the 145 welfare offices that were inspected have been demands for improvements.”
“a Total of 1 101 standards have been laid on measures to improve the preventive work environment management.”
“the Supervision has also resulted in 19 submissions on penalty of a fine.”
“Source: the Swedish work environment authority”
