Jun
29
2007
0

The Identity Monologue

I have had the pleasure to spend some time with Peterson Toscano a few times. He is a very funny performance artist who spent many years and thousands of dollars trying to become straight. This is one of my favourite monologues of his… enjoy 🙂

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Jun
28
2007
1

I just need to say…

my Crocs boots are FABULOUS! Even if everyone in the office thought they looked like moonboots. The one thing I didn’t realise is that they are so broad across the toes…. my colleague Kate decided they felt like those monster-feet slippers when she was wearing them.

I love them. How glam!

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Jun
27
2007
4

Why…

… oh why did I only find out today that Jonatha Brooke is playing at The Borderline in London tonight? Its an amazing venue and she is an incredible performer. Now I am feeling miserable!

(Neil she is playing in Bristol later in the year… she is well worth seeing if you get the chance.)

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Jun
26
2007
11

I hope none of you ever need a social worker…

Today I have been at the university validating the portfolios of social work students who have been out on placement. Sometimes I utterly despair! Now I don’t want to get all ‘it wasn’t like that it my day’ but I truly am appalled by the standard of some of the work that has been churned out by some of the students. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are brilliant, they have had fantastic placements and they have made the most of the learning opportunities that have been offered to them. Others, however, appear to have little grasp of the English language and I just want to take a red pen to their portfolios and correct their spelling and grammar.

Throughout the day there were moments when I sat with my head in my hands, and at other times I was in gales of laughter at what had been written. Here are two gems (both from the same student!) from the day…

“Throughout this exercise planning has been very important. As a social worker I will have to plan in advance and follow a process. This is a good example of what I will have to do. Therefore by doing it now I am getting trained to do it and so will be good at doing it in the future. Planning is important so that you know what may happen. If the situation changes, then you would have done the relevant planning to know what may happen. Today the exercise went as planned.”

“The three children in the play area were all different ages and played with the toys unaided. I felt a bit uneasy so close to the prisoners. Even though there were several officers around I seemed to be very aware of the fact that there were more prisoners than officers. I had an image in my head that the prisoners would look rough and scary. When I saw them, they looked like ordinary people.”

These sound like they have been written by a 12 year old and she fails to demonstrate that she has any idea of reflective practice, theory to practice or even the ability to write up a piece of work in a professional manner.

The thing that frustrates me the most is that now social workers can start their training at the age of 18 meaning they will qualify at 21. It used to be that they couldn’t start their training until they were 21 so they had to go out and get a bit of experience before they were let loose on the general public. It seems to me that 21 is still very young to expect someone to work with clients who are in potentially vulnerable situations and often times of crisis. When I qualified I was 24 and I was the youngest of my cohort. Looking back now I feel that even at that age I was very young and I’d had several years of experience in working with different client groups.

One if the reasons I agreed to sit on this panel was that I am sick to death of seeing shit social workers qualify who are unable to string a sentence together and who are incompetent to the point of being dangerous. The panel has always functioned as some sort of quality control with practitioners able to query whether someone is fit to practice. Today I have been told that the panel is to be disbanded and there is to be no outside validation. This really worries me as the university is fundamentally a money-making organisation and they show little consideration to the quality of their placements/student social work practice/the sorts of practitioners they allow to graduate. They are mainly concerned with the academic work to the detriment of practitioner ability. The tragic thing is that really vulnerable clients will suffer when social workers who are unfit to practice are given a licence to do so.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Jun
25
2007
10

Crocs!

I have just ordered a pair of these fabulous Crocs Wellies in anticipation that it is going to piss down at Greenbelt! I find normal wellies uncomfortable as they are too flat, and it looks as these will be much better.

Fabulous aren’t they?!!!

Crocs

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Jun
24
2007
5

What Anna needs…

OK, so I have ripped this idea off from both Clare and Katie as I thought it was quite funny.

So what you do it you type “yourname needs” into google and see what you get back…
so here are the things that google thinks I need….

1. Anna needs to be excused from class today
2. Anna needs to be prompted regularly to go to the bathroom or she wets herself
3. Anna needs to get out of the pub
4. Anna needs help and she may be crying out for it by acting so weird and silly.
5. Anna needs to work on technique; confidence and strategy comes later
6. Anna needs to go to Families Anonymous
7. Anna needs a mature guy, someone older who’ll appreciate her and treat her right.
8. Anna needs to balance out, and find peace without extremes. She can never be perfect, but she doesn’t need to overcompensate by thriving on unhealthy escapist behaviors
9. Anna needs to get a grip
10. Anna needs a psychiatrist to deal with her rages

It seems they have my life pretty much down to a tee 😉

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Jun
24
2007
5

Lovely…

Today I went out for coffee with some friends… there were 5 gay boys (sorry to lump you all into one category chicks!), me and Auntie Billie. We were sitting outside in the sunshine having coffee and beer when it started raining so we decamped to the leather sofas inside. I think we must have been quite noisy as we managed to more or less clear the whole area. I don’t think we were *that* embarrassing, but some of the topics of conversation were… er… rather entertaining. James just sat with his head in his hands at times. Oh well 🙂

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Jun
22
2007
14

Blue moon

At this point I suggest all the boys stop reading. Honestly… you will be better off if you go no further.

Anyone left reading… I bought one of these recently. It’s marvellous!!!

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Jun
22
2007
9

Lush!!

And here is the evidence of what a shit week I have had… comfort shopping! I guess at least it isn’t chocolate.

DSCN1877

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |
Jun
21
2007
1

*sigh*

I have decided that being all emotional about things is tiring.

Written by Anna Williams in: Uncategorized |

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