Suggestions for a Social Worker

Today I had supervision with my supervisor at work. This is something the case workers for our program are required to do on a monthly basis in order to receive direction or correction on things we are working on with our clients. Normally this would not seem like a big deal, but the supervisor of our program tends to be very dramatic, and makes a huge deal about very little situations, and tends to draw out the time together where now the case managers dread supervision. Today she wanted to debate that my client does not have a sense of reality and that I need to threaten her with having her kids removed from her care. Um, okay. First of all, I don't threaten my clients, and secondly, it is not that easy to just tell your client that she's close to having her kids taken away when that hasn't been an issue the past 4 1/2 months she's been with our program. And said supervisor gives off this odd impression that she lies awake in bed at night thinking of how to make our cases harder to manage than they really need to be.

But this isn't really the topic of my post. The point of this brief introduction on "how Joslyn's boss approaches supervision" is that she also has a tendency to try and turn our monthly one-on-ones to a counseling session - like today. You see, after we've beaten my cases to death trying to brainstorm every possible referral for services, serious conversation, or ways to threaten my clients, my supervisor gently asks, "so, Joslyn, do you like working for Family First?"

This question triggers a slew full of responses in my head, that I carefully ponder and decide not to voice with her. Instead I say, "What do you mean?"

In an abbreviated version of the rest of the conversation, my supervisor tells me that it appears I have been dragging myself to work lately, and that she was hoping it would get better after I got back from vacation. She said I don't seem very happy at the office and that I am somewhat "negative" about my clientele and is this something I really want to get my Master's degree in? I let her know that I am having a hard time getting to work, and that I am feeling premature burnout, and that I do suffer from mild depression that seems to be aggravated lately, for which I take a small dosage of Zoloft. I tell her that I don't really want to work at all, but I figured getting my Master's in Social Work would open doors for me later in life, after I've had my family and am ready to go back to work. I tell her that all I really want to do is have a family, do the laundry, clean the house, run errands, do educational things with my children, make meals for my husband, help my husband more with his job, and go to play groups with my stay-at-home-friends who have children.

Well, with that bit of news, my supervisor continues by telling me she knows one thing for sure (I'm sure she knows more than just ONE thing for sure... That is such a weird phrase): that I LIGHT UP around children. She says whenever she sees me with my clients' children I am cheerful and pleasant, even during a recent extravaganza (one of my supervisor's favorite words) where I had to literally baby sit a child who was waiting to go into foster care and did not get any work done that day at all, yet she says I was very positive about the situation. She asks me to consider seeing a counselor through our Employee Assistance Program to monitor my dosage of Zoloft...oh, and to reconsider going to graduate school for Social Work...

...This reminds me of when I was a senior in college, majoring in Sociology, when one of my Sociology professors says to me, "Have you ever thought of going into journalism?" What? It's my senior year! I am graduating in 3 months!

What? I've worked in the Social Work related field for 5 years and have always understood my calling to be to work in the social services. Plus I've registered for a Statistics class on SATURDAYS of all days because it's a prerequisite for the MSW program I'm looking at. Now I'm being told to be a teacher or a daycare instructor. Not that those fields aren't enticing to me, but it is a little intimidating to think of changing careers. I realize people change careers far further into their's then I am in mine right now, but I guess I have some things to think about.

The even funnier thing is that just last Monday, Brad asked me a similar question during lunch at McDonald's (when I procrastinated going into work until 1:00). He asked, "why would you get your Master's degree in a field that you are tired of working in?" I don't know. I really don't.