Christmas treats for the soul

So Christmas is just another day. I'm guessing, thanks to China, more people in the world do not celebrate it than do.

My Christmas got off to a dodgy start with me having to work for 24hrs but luckily my colleagues pooled together and I did not have to wake up at the office. I couldn't go to England to spend it with my folks so I bought a good substitute, cheap red wine. My Christmas eve turned into quite a party due to dancing and singing along, with a Glaswegian, to John Belushi by the Broken Family Band.

This morning I went to work and had to deal with situations such as service-users in tears because they were missing their family who never contacted them anyway. Another woman tried to phone her sister only to be told she'd moved out the flat and left no details, but after handing the phone over to me the new owner told me why ... their father had been arrested for murder and the sister's partner was in prison for attempted rape. The usual stuff. My shift ended with one of the new polish colleagues getting a pretty good slap across the face and a big enough dose of shock to keep her crying for an hour. All the pretty stuff that everyone thinks of on Christmas.

After work I took up a kind invitation from a friend to join him and his family, luckily I arrived just in time for dinner and it was a superb evening with all the relatives. From there we took his grandparents to their home and his granny proudly showed me their open fire which they wouldd spend the rest of the Christmas night infront of. From there we went onto visit friends of my friend, a very close family. The father asked me what I did and I told him social work as a career and photography as a hobby .. and hoping to combine it into photojournalism at some point. He called me away to look at some autobiographies he had, then let me read a write up about a soldier who'd given up his limbs to courageously protect a town that wasn't even in his home country, and after that he told me about one of his children who'd died tragically a few years ago. He spoke about where he tried to get his inspiration from to keep believing that he should keep going. I listened. Then he asked where I, being rather young, got my inspiration for life from.
He probably won't realise it but his kind words and the time he took to talk to me is what will make me return to work tomorrow and keep going. Thanks Joe.

I just do not understand ....

How, why ... what? The 'social state system' makes little sense to me. It's great, people who earn more money pay more tax etc, which provides a decent amount of money for the 'less privileged' to live on. Great. Does it work? I don't know. Do you?

Social work is not a fun or glamorous field, it's problem solving everyone else's problems. The pay isn't good and staff don't get much out of it, but they do it because they care.

And then they don't do it because they care.

Not long after starting my new job one of my colleagues had something thrown at her by a 'service-user' which caused a black eye. Nothing much was said about it. My colleague was back at work the next day, an incident report was written out and things went back to normal. No discussions held or apologies said.

A few weeks later, I am starting to form a decent relationship with the psychotic woman who never talks. She starts to trust me enough to give me a hug at the beginning of each visit. I get pulled up by my colleagues and am told this is not allowed, we are here to do a job, which is making it easier for her to live her life the way she wants to, and not be a friend. Not that she has any contact with friends or family. She was also told that hugs are inappropriate.

A few weeks later, one of the service-users slaps me (and then gives me the thumbs up sign). I was high bemused so I questioned what had gone wrong. Nothing apparently, natural reflex was the answer but I said that was not a good enough reason. I tell all my colleagues, a report is completed. Nothing else happens.

Today one of my colleagues took a service-user for a routine walk. 200m away from his flat he starts to 'kick off' (shouting, screaming, throwing himself into the wall and so on) and he grabs hold of her wrists and does not want to let go. She fears she's about to have her arms broken. The passers-by cross over the road and keep walking (???). Luckily I stumble into the situation, my colleague is in tears but we manage to get him to let go of her and return to his flat. She starts sobbing with shock and her arms are all red. After a cuppa, I speak to my boss, we sedate the chap and leave him to 'cool down'. Later I go see him and tell him that he needs to have a proper think about his behaviour as it was highly inappropriate and violent. He agrees and wants to apologise. Even later a different member of staff who has worked there for five years visits him with me, she tells him that there's nothing to worry about, he is not in trouble.

What? Am I fighting a battle worth fighting? Why are people here so scared to discipline, to speak out about against what is wrong and what is potentially a dangerous situation. If you watch the news you'll see that most street attacks are done by kids who say they did it "for Fun"? And what happens after that news report? ...