Social work in gibraltar

Hi Jane,

There are many things to consider when planning to move to Gibraltar to practice social work. I am going to briefly summarise the pros and cons so you can have an idea:

Pros- The sun, the beach, the Spanish culture and the salary is not bad if you live in Spain as housing prices in Gibraltar are similar to London.

Cons - The Care Agency are known for having a culture of bullying (throughout the years people keep putting grievances agaisnt senior management), practice is very poor and DANGEROUS because all good and experienced social workers leave so the junior ones do not learn best practices (if Ofsted existed in Gibraltar they would fail terribly), everything is written in Word and the database is in Excel so at any moment your visits can be deleted, little or no supervision is offered, there are only one or two lawyers representing you at Court and both like to instruct social workers instead of being instructed besides having limited knowledge of Family Law. A Guardian (and especially in Gibraltar where you only have one or two Guardians ) needs to be a very experienced frontline social worker who ideally has had significant CP and LAC experience so they can support the Court and also the social worker to achieve the best outcome for children.  This is not the case in Gibraltar where one of the Guardians is not even a social worker. There are some Judges that are open to listen to social workers but again they also have limited experience in Family Law and when you have barristers who are incapable it is a difficult battle.

Another important point is that politics and social work are very closely connected in Gibraltar as it is a small community so with the right 'friends' you will be promoted quickly regardless of your experience and skills. I am not naive and we know that this can happen in many places and countries but when you have unexperienced and incompetent people taking decisions for vulnerable children you need to ask if you are there to protect children or to get a tan. As a 'foreigner"  , because British are foreigners in the land of Gibraltar, it is not common for some of our fellow Gibraltarians to get very upset when British social workers come with new ideas to improve the outcomes for children and they are happy to tell you to return to the UK.

I hope this gives you a brief idea of being a social work in sunny Gibraltar.

RA