Question from non-nurse

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As my screen name states, I am not a nurse. I am coming here hoping to gain some clarity from professionals with inside information.

Here is the situation: As the sole caretaker for aging parents (father now deceased), I have many years experience dealing with providers in numerous settings. Many hospitals, clinics, and several long term care facilities. By and large, the nurses and physicians I have encountered have been top-notch; thorough, efficient, knowledgeable, and truly skilled professionals.

Additionally, in caring for my parents, I have worked with many social workers in hospitals, long-term care facilities, at the county level, and in private care management. Without fail, social services is always the weak link in the chain of care. Never has a social worker offered any useful guidance or knowledge in response to my questions. Standard response is always "I don't know. I can't help you." They have all been abrupt and eager to end any conversation. The very most help I have ever received from a social worker is when she thrust a list of about 60 nursing homes in my face and said, "here, pick one."

So, my question is this: From your standpoint, are all social workers like this? Or do I just have bad luck?

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Never has a social worker offered any useful guidance or knowledge in response to my questions.

So, my question is this: From your standpoint, are all social workers like this? Or do I just have bad luck?

What specific questions are you asking and what specific answers are they giving? Is it possible that your expectations are unreasonable?

From what I've observed, social workers are generally helpful ...but some families expect "wine from water" and that's just not possible.

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Specializes in Oncology (OCN).

In my experience no, not even close. I worked on a very busy inpatient oncology unit for my entire career. We had an amazing social worker on our unit. She did everything from helping find resources for treatment & medical equipment to clinical trial & hospice referrals. She was an extremely valued member of our team.

The hospital had a team of social workers and on the occasions that I did have the opportunity to work with the others (either because I floated to another unit or because our primary social worker was on vacation/sick) I found most of them to be just as helpful. I can only recall one who was difficult to work with. She had been in social work for an extended period of time (30+ years) and I think was probably burned out.

Some social workers carry an extremely high case loads. (Not trying to make excuses for them.) But the state of healthcare in general is that doctors, nurses, social workers, etc. are being forced to carry such high patient loads that they cannot give the care and attention to each individual that they would like to. Healthcare has become a business and it's all about the bottom line. So healthcare providers are forced to do more and more with less all in the name of money. The system is broken. It's very sad.

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.

From my standpoint, most social workers serve as a tremendous resource to families. I'm sorry that your experience has been otherwise.

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Examples of my interactions w/ SWs over the years:

Me:"Are there any nursing homes on this list you gave me that have better reputations than others?"

SW: "I don't know."

Me: "Are you aware of any nursing homes that care for (fill-in-the-blank-condition) better than others?"

SW: "I have no idea."

Me: "If you were in my position, how would you deal with the overwhelming responsibilities of caregiving? Are there any resources in the community that I can turn to?"

SW: "I don't know what to tell you."

Example of bad advice: Looking for a nursing home for dad. Hired a SW from a very expensive private case mgmt firm. SW's top choice was a facility that was closed six months later due to deplorable conditions and years of state and federal violations. (Dad died before we placed him in LTC.)

I could go on and on...

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Specializes in Med/Surg, Ortho, ASC.
Examples of my interactions w/ SWs over the years:

Me:"Are there any nursing homes on this list you gave me that have better reputations than others?"

SW: "I don't know."

Me: "Are you aware of any nursing homes that care for (fill-in-the-blank-condition) better than others?"

SW: "I have no idea."

Me: "If you were in my position, how would you deal with the overwhelming responsibilities of caregiving? Are there any resources in the community that I can turn to?"

SW: "I don't know what to tell you."

Example of bad advice: Looking for a nursing home for dad. Hired a SW from a very expensive private case mgmt firm. SW's top choice was a facility that was closed six months later due to deplorable conditions and years of state and federal violations. (Dad died before we placed him in LTC.)

I could go on and on...

Again, sorry for your experiences. I have no doubt that you have undergone some bad experiences. But please do not transfer previous experience onto your current social workers. He/she deserves a clean start.

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Specializes in Case mgmt., rehab, (CRRN), LTC & psych.

In addition to the insight provided by previous respondents, please keep in mind that social workers are overworked and horribly underpaid. What other professionals are educated at the master's degree level and still earn in the $40,000 range per annum?

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Specializes in HH, Peds, Rehab, Clinical.

The sw in the facilities I have worked in have been incredibly helpful and tremendous resources for families. Please don't write off an entire profession based your unfortunate experiences

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Maybe salary and workload should have been researched before pursuing a profession that requires six years of school? Not sure those are legit excuses for shirking basic job duties.

I don't know...maybe I'm just frustrated and bitter. It's just weird that literally every.single. experience I've had with this profession has been negative.

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Specializes in mental health / psychiatic nursing.

I've had one negative interaction with a social worker as a family-caregiver. In retrospect I suspect this woman was in early burnt out, and perhaps what I was looking for was outside the resources she had available to work with. The experience sucked but I was ultimately able to find other resources to help my situation.

In general though as patient, family-caregiver, and professional social workers have been amazing people for me to work with and I have a huge amount of respect for anyone who goes into this profession and survives- it's a lot of work, a lot of pressure to be a "miracle worker" and for very low pay.

I wonder if in your specific situation of looking for nursing homes the social worker is not allowed to influence the choice of nursing home families chose. I know working in hospice none of us could recommend a funeral home even if families asked - we had to just had them the sheet of facilities with basic information and contact details and let them work it out on their own. It was sometimes very frustrating when we knew the family was going to be unhappy with the funeral home they chose, but it was policy.

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Specializes in HH, Peds, Rehab, Clinical.

Maybe you could find a website meant for social workers to crash and get some answers to your questions?

Maybe salary and workload should have been researched before pursuing a profession that requires six years of school? Not sure those are legit excuses for shirking basic job duties.

I don't know...maybe I'm just frustrated and bitter. It's just weird that literally every.single. experience I've had with this profession has been negative.

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Specializes in Oncology (OCN).
Examples of my interactions w/ SWs over the years:

Me:"Are there any nursing homes on this list you gave me that have better reputations than others?"

SW: "I don't know."

Me: "Are you aware of any nursing homes that care for (fill-in-the-blank-condition) better than others?"

SW: "I have no idea."

Me: "If you were in my position, how would you deal with the overwhelming responsibilities of caregiving? Are there any resources in the community that I can turn to?"

SW: "I don't know what to tell you."

Example of bad advice: Looking for a nursing home for dad. Hired a SW from a very expensive private case mgmt firm. SW's top choice was a facility that was closed six months later due to deplorable conditions and years of state and federal violations. (Dad died before we placed him in LTC.)

I could go on and on...

I'm sorry for your negative experiences. It must be frustrating to reach out for help and not find it. If I may offer some insight into why you may not be receiving some of the answers you are looking for. (And please, please, please do NOT take this as criticism. I promise it is not intended that way. It is intended only to help you.)

Depending on who the social worker works for they might not be able to answer your question due to restrictions placed on them by their employer's policy and procedures. For instance, if you ask which nursing home has a better reputation, or is better than another? They may be provided a list of 15-20 in the community. Per their P&P they cannot recommend one over another because they could then be accused of showing favoritism or the reverse (for lack of a better way to put it slander) by saying "don't go to so-and-so nursing home. Still "I don't know." isn't a professional response. "I am not permitted to make recommendations." would be much more appropriate. Or in the case of the nursing home with complaints, telling you where you can go to find the information on which nursing homes have complaints filed against them by the state would be appropriate. I hope this makes sense.

Maybe some questions you can ask instead:

How do I find the best nursing home for my parent?

What questions do I need to ask when I am looking for a nursing home?

How do I know if a nursing home has had grievances/violations filled against it by the state?

As far as them not knowing what resources were available to help you, well in my opinion, there's no excuse for that one. I truly am sorry you have had such bad experiences. By and large I think most people go into the field of social work with the intention of helping people.

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