Meet Sam, a social worker

Transcript

“I think now in my work with families I’m more patient around when it’s not clear what’s going on. I’m okay with just sitting back a little bit and trying to figure it out patiently rather than jumping in and thinking that I’ve got to have the answer straight away. I’m Sam, I’m a social worker. I work in child protection in Stockport. I was working in a policy admin environment and wanted to work directly with people, and through doing a bit of volunteering realised that social work was the best qualification for me.

I think the social work course differs a lot at the Tavistock from other social work courses around through its emphasis on the psycho-analytic theory. Having such a heavy emphasis on that allows you to really embed it in the way that you practise as a social worker, and also really helps you to monitor and limit the impact it has on the rest of your life. People generally don’t want… They’re not pleased to see you when they meet you for the first time, but having an understanding of where those responses come from made me feel much more confident in my ability to overcome those responses from families.”

Sam Rowlands – Social worker

Sam took an MA in Social Work (M23) at the Tavistock and currently works in Greater Manchester as a social worker. He had worked at an NGO for two years, before getting some experience of social work as a volunteer, and then switching career to do social work full-time.

He reviewed a number of courses before settling on the Tavistock, having been impressed by its reputation in the profession. Having completed the course, and compared notes with other colleagues, he found that the depth of the psychoanalytical training at the Tavistock set the course apart, and gave him an excellent grounding for his work in practice subsequently.

In this video, he explains how he has been able to embed what he learnt on the course into his work, and how it has strengthened his resilience in the very challenging field of child protection.