Amber142

I'm a LTC social worker, I was reading this because it seems nurses (in all states) do not understand the role of social workers. We are to supervise clinical staff to assess abuse and neglect and unfortunately you might be in a facility where the social worker is not actually a BSW or MSW and they could be a Joe Shmoe off the street acting as a social worker. Turning your back briefly is not something I would be concerned with. But, I will say, we are not given a set of rules by a facility in how we operate. We are trained with standards of a a national organization and accreditation program and most LTC facilities do not train us. We know our job from our education. facilities don't even know where to begin. We are hired to come in and basically police staff and ensure legalities and human rights are abided. The DON does not know what equivalates to absue and neglect most of the time. You have made several comments about her doing your job, but you have picked apart the social work profession not understanding what we do. On top of babysitting the facility staff we have to care plan all 150 residents (not just one hall) we do several of these a day most of the time we can't get them done, we do mental health assessments, we do referrals for mental health, we coordinate discharge, we have to fill out lots of papers to ensure the facility gets paid and you see your check. We also have to document our care plan meeting and assessments, if we don't do our assessments (which nurses find annoying) you don't get paid! If we don't report abuse and neglect we get charged with Felonies. So, our little comments to supervisors are to protect the facility, you and our self. I would just take that as a warning and not do it again. I think nurses fail to recognize that the state runs directly to us when they come in. I can't understand why you all think they are our friend. If they come in and we aren't doing our job, they handle us in court. You get introuble by DONs internally. We get Introuble by APS and we get assigned the State Plan to make changes and we have to ensure those things get done. If we don't, the facility can be closed on our dime. That's a significant amount of pressure.