A new occupation

Social Welfare Department

My most successful and enjoyable job ever was the community social work job I started in late 1980 and ended in early 1988. 

The Department of Social Welfare took at least six months to appoint me, and I had almost given up hope of ever getting an answer by the time they phoned to say the job was mine. 

I had some apprehensions, understandably enough, about moving from teaching to social work, but I need not have worried. The Social Work boss, Ron Nattrass, and his superior, the Director, George Barclay, wanted a new kind of social worker. It was my job to develop this idea. 

They wanted someone who could encourage the involvement of volunteer helpers with the social work tasks, or at least with some of the peripheral tasks that came along with the central thrust of the social work, which was to turn around kids who had gone astray or looked like they were going to. 

My social workers' course at Taranaki House 1981

For six months I learned what social work was all about: I attended a three week training programme in Auckland, at Taranaki House, Avondale, for beginning social workers, which was very helpful, and I understudied some of the existing social workers in the office at New Plymouth. In those days we were housed on the first floor of the Government Life Building on the corner of Gill and Liardet Streets. 

I did this steep learning curve in company with another new chum, Gaye Watts, who became a good friend of our family as a result. We tried our hands at helping young people, and talked at length to our superiors, like Carol Jeffs, and Ray Roebuck, both with years of experience, and both with loads of common sense and good humour.

Gaye had been an occupational therapist, so between us we made a good team! 

The first months on the job were interrupted by my bout of cancer. Only three weeks in, I was whisked off to hospital in an ambulance, and diagnosed with testicular cancer by the Base Hospital surgeons. They removed the offending organ the next day and then prescribed radio-therapy, which in those days was done in New Plymouth; I was relieved to be able to do it during my lunch hours. 

My bosses were extremely accommodating and gave me the flexibility to keep working while I recovered, making it clear that sitting at the desk and reading about the new job was adequate while I recovered.  I did very little of that, however, as I got better rapidly once the radiotherapy course was completed. 

 

And a New Direction

About six months into my employment, Ron Nattrass outlined the new direction they wanted me to take.  What he had in mind was something like a neighbourhood support scheme for Social Welfare, but it took me several years for the whole vision to dawn on me.  Meantime I got on with the tasks he detailed: a volunteer team of up to 100 people, picking up the ordinary common-sense parts of the load of a social worker. 

Ray Roebuck had been leading a group of volunteer (ladies) who visited the Girls High School each week to run classes in community work with the girls. So these folk were my first team of volunteers. We continued what Ray had started, but it soon faded away; untrained ladies trying to teach fourth form (Year 10) girls was not the most successful way to conduct social work.

 

(to be continued)