Work at Dept. of Family and Child Services? Tell me About it!

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I have graduated with a lovely Psych Major/Soci Minor BA degree! Wheee!!
Uhhh, now what?
Well, I don’t want to go to graduate school right now. I need to pay down some
debt and start earning income.
The corporate world doesn’t seem to like me. And I don’t want to be a drone for
the rest of my life.
The Dept. of Family and Child Services in my state, Georgia, is hiring! I figure this
would be a great way to start a career and doing something vaguely worthwhile
for the community.

If you have worked in such a place, what is it like?
What should I know to talk me into/out of working there?
Or should I persue some other career path?

Any information would be great, thanks.

2

Ahhh…new psych grads abound! :slight_smile:

Psych Prof. Checking in - first of all, breeeeath!! Everything will be fine. DCFS (Department of Children and Family Services) can be a very rewarding place to work, and on the same token can be very difficult emotionally. Most people I know in DCFS are social workers with a case load. Some uppper echelon are in administrative positions and get paid slightly well, but are mostly there for the wonderful state benefits.

A new psych grad is an asset to any DCFS department, as most of the over flow case loads and jobs get passed to you. If you can stick it out and show you are and will remain, a good asset to the department they will back off slightly and you can settle in. The 3 month trial period is just that, a 3 mos trial.

Going away from the DCFS category, and back to you, I’ll offer some advice for you as a new psych grad. Get those bills paid down, pay them every month, even if it is below the minimum. Keep your credit nice and in good standing, and work where you can find a suitable job that you don’t mind terribly too much getting up in the morning to go to.

Above all, pay yourself first. Try not and get bogged down with heavy emotionally challenging jobs right off the bat. Take it easy and find something you like. Don;t lose sight of the fact that you just joined the 15 million other 20 something’s out there looking for that first job, or that better income.

Anecdotally, I bartended all throughout my under-grad and graduate work. The for a brief time after grad school. Then I got picked up by my alma mater to work as an adjunct prof. it’s all history since then :slight_smile:

Good luck!

p.s. one more thing. A functional resume may be the best way for you to go at this point in your life. Google it to find out more

3

Former elder abuse social worker checking in.

Congratulations!

It’s a dirty job but somebody has to do it.

Seriously, the victims of family violence and neglect, and families that are the victims of administrative heavy-handedness, need hard-working clear-thinking people who are willing to go into battle on their behalf. You don’t win them all but it’s a genuine good work when you do, most of the time, something of which you can feel quite proud. That’s not the dirty part. The dirty part, which you need to acknowledge, accept, and cope with emotionally and intellectually before you go in if you aren’t gonna burn out in 2 years, is that the policies and applicable laws victimize people at least as often as they protect people.

And…well, at some point in your life you’ve seen the “swamp” poster, right? “It is our goal to address the needs of our clientele, advocate on their behalf, streamline the workflow, and see each task to its rightful conclusion. It is important at all times to remain focused on the goal. However…when you’re up to your ass in alligators, it is hard to remember that your original task was to drain the swamp”.

Family law, including custody, protection issues, testimony issues, financial issues, the very definition of “family”, and a host of other things, is going to be what you go up against at least as often as it’s what you rely on to help people and to intervene and protect people. And the procedural regulations, policies, and practices of your own agency will probably fall into that category as well. This can demoralize you if you aren’t expecting it from the outset. (Yes, some social problems are officially labeled as “The Good Guys”). Many are the discouraged social workers who drop out after deciding, a few years in, that their own organization and the systems it connects to are the real swamp that is breeding the alligators they get paid to go wrestle with in the mud.

My supervisor used to say: “Imagine you’re in a boat and you keep coming across drowning babies in the river. After rescuing a couple, you realize someone upstream is pitching babies into the river. Well, someone has to keep rescuing babies, even while some folks run along the shoreline to get to the bridge and stop whoever is tossing babies over the side, because otherwise they’ll continue to drown in the mean time.” The ones who go after the evil one tossing babies into the river is the policy wonk, and ultimately the politician. The ones who save as many babies as they can, here and now, those are the case workers, the ones who have actual clients."

So…be brave, be knowledgably skeptical and appropriately cynical about systems and organizations, care about your clients, and do what you can do. Don’t underestimate the swamp.

4

I see on re-read of your OP that I’ve made the unsupported assumpion that you’d be doing case work. If, instead, you’re going to be working in a more administrative capacity (even support / office services), everything I said still applies. It means you’ll be one of the ones on the shoreline, working towards the dredging of the swamp while others wrestle today’s alligators, or that you’ll be helping to stop the guy pitching the babies off the bridge. It can seem disconnected, can sometimes be boring and tedious, but it’s every bit as necessary and heroic as field work and direct practice work with clients. And you’ll get just as frustrated sometimes. Don’t expect a pure shining idealistic organization working hand in hand with other pristine agencies and bureaucracies that Embody Good and instead take pride in the ones you can win and the good that you can do, and it can shape up to be the best job you’ll ever have.

5

My wife is an an adoptions social worker for the state DFCS. I just asked her for advice to give to you and she said “run for the hills”. Granted, today was worse than most. First, she had a foster parent call and demand that her foster child be removed and placed elsewhere. Then she had two adoptions being finalized in court. The first adoption went haywire when the child’s grandmother backed out at the last second from the adoption. The second adoption proceeding had to be continued to a later date because the jackass judge lost part of the paperwork. Unfortunately, days like these are all too typical. She spends more time putting out fires and dealing with other people’s screw-ups and subsequently not enough time helping the children.
My wife is hardworking, dedicated, and very good at her job…traits her supervisor recognizes and rewards by giving her a caseload heavier than the rest of the workers. At the same time, the state is deep in debt and her pay and benefits are being cut and there’s not enough money to even buy office supplies.

My wife agrees with what AHunter3 eloquently put forward. It’s rewarding work, but be prepared for much frustration (and much time spent in therapy dealing with said frustration)

6

I’ll first say it depends on what exactly you’ll be doing. I imagine there’s a big difference between working with foster families and, say, signing people up for welfare/disability/etc.

My mom was a social worker for 7 years (KY), CPS. She would tell you to run like hell.

They don’t pay jack, to start. She had some of the most depressing, heartbreaking, unfair, downright awful cases you could ever think of. Got shot at once while she was pregnant with me. 99% of her clients were the scum of the earth, I’m sorry to say. The only “difference” she says she ever made is taking newborns away from their mothers before their fathers had a chance to do God knows what to them, or their mothers had a chance to neglect them to death.

And that’s just the stuff I can bear to write about. You wouldn’t. Freaking. Believe. some of the stuff she saw.

There are probably divisions of social work where you are dealing with people who are motivated and want to change their situation, and I could see how great it would feel to watch someone pull themselves out of poverty and make something of themselves.* I think some parts of social work, as in my mother’s case, would just leave you bitter and cynical about people, considering child abusers don’t change, and you’re not allowed to shoot 'em.
*(I’ve considered social work myself but I have busted my butt to get through school and I’m not about to work for $16,000 a year once I graduate. Yes, $16,000; welcome to West Virginia.)

7

I appreciate all the advice and personal history.
To be clearer about my position:
I’m 29 1/2 grumble, grumble, sigh and not at all a doe-eyed 22-23 year old.
I certainly understand what I would be getting into with a DFCS job.
I could, that is physically able, get a job in the illustrious restuarant industry
in management. I could start out at $35-50k depending on the restaurant type.
However, I’d rather dip myself in honey and let fireants eat me alive than do that.

Right now, I have no clue what I want to do. My choices are limited with a psych
degree, I know. The corporate world seems well-paying, but so far, every job I’ve
tried to get there has been met with: “Thanks but we have guys with 20 years of
experience and doctorate degrees trying to get this $35k a year job.” The other
“serious” offers I have gotten are, “MAKE AN UNLIMITED INCOME RIGHT NOW;
K#$2981kKfd32409!!!1111” type offers. :rolleyes:

I need to start making a decent amount of cash money. In Georgia, the job I
would be applying for is a " Social Services Case Management Associate." It
starts at $26k with a raise at one year to $29k. Apparently, after a year, you
get promoted to " Social Services Case Manager."

Thanks for the replies and please keep them coming if you have the desire to
talk me into or out of this.

8

Abbie points out an important consideration: how much you get paid can vary greatly from state to state. You may be able to take your degree and do better elsewhere in the country. My parents are living in West-by-gawd-Virginia and are constantly hounding us to move there. They don’t believe us when we tell them that both of us (I’m a high school teacher) will see a 50% drop in income if we do…and it certainly doesn’t cost 50% less to live there than here in CA.

Also, you don’t have to be saddled forever into one type of social work. My wife’s first job was in adoptions. We moved and she did foster home and day care licensing. We moved again and she did CPS. We moved (for hopefully the last time, ever) and she’s back doing adoptions. She prefers adoptions…building families is so much preferable than tearing them apart (go figure :wink: However, I’m certain that an undergrad degree in psych is insufficient for my wife’s line of work, she has an MSW and is beginning work on her LCSW. So, YMMV with regards to my advice.

9

You’re not even limited to the obvious casework jobs . I have an undergrad degre in psych, and I started out as a caseworker in CPS.I then became a parole officer, a job that I didn’t really know existed until I saw my coworkers leaving CPS for parole in droves. ( it was a much higher paying job, and there was more concern for worker safety)

10

Interestingly enough, this is another option I have looked into.
doreen if you don’t mind, could you give me the skinny on being a parole
officer?
I would greatly appreciate it.