As Community Care marks its 50th anniversary this year, we wanted to find out what the social work landscape was like through those decades and how that shaped the career of a social worker.

Community Care’s senior careers editor Kirsty Ayakwah, spoke to Gretchen Precey, an independent social worker, who celebrates 47 years in children’s services this year - almost as long as Community Care has been around – to find out.

Gretchen qualified as a social worker in 1977 and spent over 20 years working directly for local authorities before establishing herself as an independent social worker.In her role, she combines direct assessment work with children and families and consultancy to practitioners.

In the latest of our Social Work Community Podcast, Gretchen tells us what keeps her in the sector so many years on and what advice she would offer to the next generation of social workers.

The Social Work Community Podcast explores the issues that matter to social work practitioners in their working lives.Kirsty and fellow host and careers editor Sharmeen Ziauddin, interview experienced and inspiring guests, including frontline social workers who speak from the heart about their jobs, the sector and society.

Our first Season went down a storm and was nominated in this year’s British Association of Social Workers (BASW) Social Work Journalism Awards. You can listen to all of the episodes on the leading podcast platforms, including Spotify , Audible (Amazon) and Apple podcasts.

Read the transcript here.

Carry on the discussion on the Social Work Community.
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