As Camden has a duty of care to employees and must take action to protect their health, safety and wellbeing whilst at work, managers must be able to recognise when social workers are struggling with the emotional impact of their role and that action is taken as soon as possible to help them address any trauma.

Social workers should be given an opportunity to discuss their emotional wellbeing in a safe space, such as supervision, and encouraged to open up about any difficulties they may be having. Managers should be aware of the offer of help available from the following:

• Camden’s Employee Assistance Programme can provide information, advice, counselling and support to help social workers manage the challenges of their role. This resource should be approached first in order to put in timely support for social workers. Details are available at: Employee Assistance Programme (sharepoint.com)
• The Tavistock Clinic offers Camden social workers up to 4 sessions of counselling and signposting on to other support and resources. The offer can be accessed via CAMHS and managers should contact the CAMHS Clinical service manager to discuss the social worker’s needs confidentially and the CAMHS representative will contact the Tavistock to make arrangements for a worker there to make contact with the social worker to organise sessions. Although every effort will be made to ensure social workers see a clinician promptly, this is not an extensive service and staff may experience delays.

• CAMHS can also offer up to 2 meetings to support and debrief teams following a death or serious incident that affects the entire team. Team managers can contact the CAMHS Clinical Service manager to discuss accessing this resource.

CAMHS Clinical Service Manager: Patricia Pemberton – ext: 8797 – [email protected]