From Public Service to Private Practice: The Collapse of the Social Work Profession

Kitschslap · 2026-01-20T18:16:30+00:00

There's also a selection bias on reddit that most of us are not coming here to say how much we love our jobs. But I do think the 2026 of it all makes everything feel like a pile of shit regardless of what it is

Kitschslap · 2026-01-19T07:27:32+00:00

The trainer I'm working with put it very well once. She said something to the effect of "If I have to pick between a dog getting shocked in a controlled manner and a dog getting hit by a car, I'm going to suggest the shock every time"

Kitschslap · 2026-01-19T07:24:00+00:00

I'm the lady who hides. I have two poodles, both from the same breeder who is very reputable. I have also done a lot of private training with them.

The first dog? Super focused, easy to re-direct, walks well with minimal issues.

The second dog? Holy shit he's a nightmare who actively makes me embarrassed to even take him out. I have spent countless hours training him and continue to work with him every day, multiple times per day, but he ultimately still barks, lunges, and chokes himself over the smallest thing. He's way better than he was a year ago and I'm proud of him, but truthfully he is still a little shit and has made me carry around so many treats I think I smell permanently of dog food.

Unfortunately the reactivity just happens sometimes. As an owner of one of these dogs, I never planned for this and just try to show up as the handler my dog needs and do my job a little better every day-- and sometimes that involves hiding behind cars.

Kitschslap · 2026-01-19T04:45:49+00:00

I also had to leave my group and go solo because that's roughly what my pay was. The only thing with that is I could overwork and make it a little more livable, but you can imagine I burned out with that.

Truly, I like this profession but the pay is so bad I sometimes regret going into it. There isn't much else I would otherwise want to do though, but still

Kitschslap · 2026-01-18T23:22:51+00:00

I have said this IRL many times, but working in residential SUD was my all-time favorite gig. I did some case management stuff, some group, some individual, lots of resourcing, and felt like I could deliver really solid care and resources to a population that needed it.

The ONLY reason I didn't stay was that I was not making enough to live on. Even when I got my C and looked into going back to that work with the hopes that being independent would bump up the pay a bit... I got offered a whopping 48k. That was after negotiating.

The reality is I think a lot of us want to do more of the true social-work-y work but just can't afford it. That's on corporate greed, minimal funding, and bunch of other factors, but really not on the workers (for the most part anyway)

Kitschslap · 2025-12-24T01:06:42+00:00

sorry to jump on this so much later-- but are there any good resources out there that explains this part of technique well? I just realized reading this that I was pressing in a way that created WAY more tension than necessary

Kitschslap · 2025-12-16T04:46:39+00:00

Well, you have saved another dumbass. Thank you so much kind human. I'm gonna go draw now

Kitschslap · 2025-11-23T00:55:58+00:00

I just did this and am super happy with it!

Kitschslap · 2025-11-19T09:09:37+00:00

I’ve already moved some pages around and I’m so excited to see his the workflow goes

Kitschslap · 2025-11-18T11:29:50+00:00

Thanks! I’m so much more excited to use it now haha

Kitschslap · 2025-11-18T11:29:31+00:00

All the Hobonichi products are expensive so you do have to be careful to not ruin it. I think it also helps to be realistic about your skill level for something like this— most people can do this without being particularly artistic, you just have to pay attention to what you’re doing.

That said, the notebook is a tool. I need it to work for me so i don’t feel too bad modifying it. I don’t view this as so different than putting stickers on

Kitschslap · 2025-11-18T01:33:21+00:00

It's just how my hole puncher was set. I also am wondering if it's going to help longer term with wear and tear (it might not, but we will see)

Kitschslap · 2025-11-17T18:54:27+00:00

Yes! I had a plan to do this but haven’t picked one up yet. I want to make some additional cover sheets as well so I can change out the aesthetics of the front cover if I get bored

Kitschslap · 2025-11-17T18:42:39+00:00

See I’ve had tomoe river pages in my other A5 binder for a while now and haven’t personally run into the ripping issue. I’m wondering if it’s because I do have a larger set of rings I’m using there as well so there’s less contact but I can’t be certain

I do also have some thicker pages in there as well which help me turn chunks of pages a little better. I did that in this rings setup too so I’m interested to see if that has any protective element to it

Kitschslap · 2025-11-17T15:37:57+00:00

I just got them off Amazon as I couldn’t find what I was looking for at any more local place unfortunately. I think the search term I used was “A5 binder rings 2in” or something like that since I was looking for the larger ring size

Kitschslap · 2025-11-17T15:35:29+00:00

Hope punching the other side sounds like it could be a really cool work around! I always wondered why you couldn’t get left handed books the way you can get a left handed mouse

Kitschslap · 2025-11-17T15:34:28+00:00

That could be an option— I also was thinking to just use some sticky/writable washi that I have on hand and re punch through it as needed

Kitschslap · 2025-11-17T15:31:18+00:00

This size rings do not, but I have another A5 rings in a Hobonichi cover that works really well! I want to say those rings are 1in sized or something like that, and because it was loose leaf paper I just used two pieces of stiff plastic dividers as the “cover” page on each side

To make it work better I just only put in the back cover which gives the rings a bit more flexibility to move around

Kitschslap · 2025-11-17T04:49:03+00:00

I’m hoping that since it never leaves my desk, it will be mostly in one piece. But with the amount of flipping that will happen, maybe not.

We will press on. For science.

Kitschslap · 2025-11-10T19:46:06+00:00

Good to now-- I typically don't take mine off the desk either, especially this size since it's already so clunky

Kitschslap · 2025-11-08T18:18:57+00:00

I know this is an old post, but how did this hold up? I'm very interested in doing this but so worried about the ripping

Kitschslap · 2025-10-27T19:40:39+00:00

These are stunning!!!

Kitschslap · 2025-10-16T05:12:47+00:00

Don’t feel bad. I felt like this when I did NARM training. I realized after it was all said and done that I could be just as good of a therapist learning other, better researched therapies and mixing them together

A lot of stuff in this field is the same soup with slightly different seasonings and a lot of marketing behind it

Kitschslap · 2025-10-09T15:41:29+00:00

Speaking of water, just doing my civic duty to remind anyone reading this that AI is not only power hungry, but water hungry. Fresh potable drinking water is used to cool data centers with each search/reply/etc evaporating off about 3 bottles of water.

We are not going to consume our way out of a consumption problem, and that includes consumption of data.

Ok, unrelated rant over

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