The rewards and challenges of being a frontline social worker in London | Before Our Friends Die #26

The Akhi & Saltfish Digital Network.

Monday, 6 March 2023 - 57 minutes

Being a social worker is a privileged position. You have the opportunity to provide the structure that will (hopefully) see a young person make the best choices available to them when they meet a crossroad in their life. That can change the course of their destiny.
Tommy Gale, Social Worker and Co-Founder of InsideUni, posted on LinkedIn about his average day as a social worker and we were intrigued. Have a listen to our conversation with him where we delve into the career, his professional journey thus far including a degree in politics from Cambridge University and a Frontline training programme.
Tommy is passionate about social work and keen to get across that the variety and direct impact that he can have on a daily basis is incredibly rewarding, as is getting positive feedback at the end of a tough intervention.
He admits the sector isn’t without it’s challenges. Social work, like most public services, is chronically underfunded and the strategy of the government to fund symptoms rather than causes is a frustration for Tommy but in that he talks on the need for decompression and detachment at times in what is a stressful job.
This was an amazingly insightful episode we’d encourage you to watch and share it was a pleasure to speak with Tommy. Stay tuned next week to get to know him.
Our perceptions of social work has certainly changed now, what about yours?
Connect with Tommy on LinkedIn to see his post on a day in the life of a social worker: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6996503833384218624?updateEntityUrn=urn%3Ali%3Afs_feedUpdate%3A%28V2%2Curn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A6996503833384218624%29
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Before Our Friends Die is a podcast on the akhi&saltfish Digital Network. The concept is: "Before Our Friends Die, we want them to know about..." and you, the audience, are our friends. Sometimes it's about having the conversations that often get overlooked yet feel urgent. Equally, it can be about speaking to someone who is where we want to be and asking them how they did it.
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