I have my education in social work. I have been licensed to practice social work in our state for 25 years. For the majority of those years I worked for county social services. This is a very demanding agency to work for because there are so many different branches of government dictating how to perform your job.

After all the years of trying to make a difference in others people’s lives and at the same time trying to follow all the rules and regulations, I have decided to leave the field and pursue other employment options.

Social services are governed by too many facets. The federal government creates policies and procedures for how programs are to be set up. The state government creates policies and procedures that at times correlate with the federal guidelines and at other times do not.

The local government on a county level determines the budget allotments of how much each service area is allowed to spend. As a result many times clients simply do not get served because even though they may qualify for programming based on federal or state guidelines, the local government has not allocated funding for that service.

Doing social work and dealing with people during some of their most vulnerable times is difficult enough, but when you have to deal with the red tape of three branches of government in addition, it becomes impossible. The workers for social services seem to fall in three different categories.

The first category are those of us that simply get tired of all the bureaucracy and quit, there are others that give up trying and simply do what they are told and collect their pay checks, and the other group that fight the system and provide social services to clients despite budget restrictions and are constantly in trouble or let go because of their efforts.

This means that often times social services agencies are made up of new comers and burned out workers waiting for their pensions. The people that truly care and want to make a difference are forced out of the field because they do not want to follow rules and procedures that are created by people that are very distant from the clients that need the services.

Social services are not immune from special interest groups. There are many lobbyists and family members that will push for funds for a certain disability or disorder. This means that funding for areas that are not represented by the special interests groups gets cut. The political entanglements of social services were impossible for me to work with.