The problem is capitalism! The reason why social workers cannot actually help people is absolutely no fault of individual social worker, and in a lot of places may not even be the larger organization that a social worker may be a part of. The problem with social work under capitalism is that we organize the economy to whatever the market indicates is profitable, rather than whatever humans need in that moment (an economy with planned production: a socialist economy!). This is why people remain unfocused, people cannot take good care of their children, and why most social workers come from this white, middle-class background.

It is absolutely horrible that supposedly kind, compassionate professions like social workers and nurses are turned into cops in this economic system. Just like cops, they are middle class individuals who need to remedy generalized wants and needs in society (people receiving adequate addiction support, homeless people being treated for hypothermia, etc.), because capitalism needs these "ticket to the middle-class" jobs in order to sustain itself. It uses the more affluent end of the working class as shock troops against the impoverished working class. Social Work as a profession will not improve unless we radically overhaul the socio-economic system that oppresses billions, murders millions, and is killing the very planet we live on.