Combining Social Work with Therapeutic Interventions

As an agency we are fortunate to work with really interesting and dynamic practitioners. Carey Buchanan is a qualified social worker from South Africa who has recently completed a counselling course and now works part time as a locum social worker through Firefly whilst practising as a counsellor the rest of the time. We asked Carey to send us an insert for the blog to demonstrate how adaptable a career in social work can be and how it can complement other interests. Here is Carey’s story:

My name is Carey Buchanan. I trained as a clinical social worker at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. I moved to London in 2007 after I graduated and embarked on my social work career. My first job was as a locum in a child protection locality team. I remember feeling completely overwhelmed and unable to understand what my role was as my training in South Africa hadn’t prepared me to work in such a regulated and bureaucratic system. I was also very interested in therapeutic work with clients and my training at UCT had focused on therapeutic interventions with families and individuals. I eventually left that role after four months as it just wasn’t the right sector for me! While it was a terrible experience at the time it was actually the best thing that happened to me as I was forced to look at my situation and decide that my passion is actually for therapeutic work. I also realised that working as a child protection social worker is not for me. After that I moved to working with vulnerable adults for various local authorities while I researched counselling courses available to me. I very quickly found an amazing course with an organisation called LC&CTA (Lewisham Counsellors and Counsellor Training Associates). I was able to attend the fourth year of the post graduate diploma in person-centred counselling and I recently graduated. I would recommend the course to anybody who isn’t afraid to be open and to learn more about themselves through the process. I am still working as a social worker in an older people’s team which I enjoy. I also volunteer one day a week as a play therapist for an organisation called Place2Be. If anyone would like to contact me for advice my email address is carey.buchanan@gmail.com.

These are some hepful links if you’d like to consider a career in counselling:

http://www.lcandcta.co.uk

http://www.bacp.co.uk

http://www.bacp.co.uk/information/education/choose.php

http://www.theplace2be.org.uk

http://www.nhscareers.nhs.uk/details/Default.aspx?Id=896