Janie, there's no way in Heaven that you are or were a failure. I have followed this discussion from start to finish, and can say you, and Bobert have been in the trenches, yet it appears you have done well for yourselves and your clients. Burnout is a major result in many who work in Social Services or Public Health. It is at times a thankless job, fraught with many obstacles, poor pay, little cooperation at times between agencies, sometimes obstruction by those agencies...I've met many a mean, rotten civil servant, and I use the term "civil" loosely, in my encounters with the system...and neither you or Bobert are disgruntled or discouraged or burned-out. I would've loved to have worked with you both. What we need is more social workers like you...and MORE MONEY. What is also needed is more historical perspective like the two of you were providing.

I worked in Public Health for a few years. My first job in it was for a Family Planning clinic in upstate NY. I was a clinic manager, which really meant doing everything at one point of time or another...in addition to being in charge. It was during the Reagan administration, so I know Bobert is spot-on, to borrow a British expression. I took a $2000 cut in pay to accept the position. All of my friends were making $11,000 starting pay. You do the math...it was huge! But, I wanted to do it. I loved that job.

Back then, Family Planning clinics were allowed to counsel clients on all forms of birth control...we gave out free samples generously...and we did pregnancy testing as well as treat STDs...there were only a few then...in all of NY state there were only 2 remaining cases of syphilis! Gonorrhea was just starting to become sensitive to penicillin...and there were the usual female disorders....if only we'd known then that HPV causes most cervical cancers...still we treated that, too. AIDS was not even an inkling. We didn't know about it.

I got a real bird's eye view of social services; we had our own social worker, and she was a peach. Our staff was multicultural...we had blacks, hispanics, and whites. Our clients were also from different age groups...I can't say how old our youngest was, but our oldest patients were in their 60's - 70's...getting pap smears and breast checks. We had a sliding scale, so we serviced any and all who came through our doors. We did have some rich people.

I don't have time to get into more specifics, but we did patient education with every prescription or IUD or any of our procedures. It was, at times, an uphill battle...eyes would roll...sighs were audible, and yet one could feel good knowing that you'd done your best. You can give out tools. You cannot make someone use them. We did not do abortions, but we were allowed to do referrals...at least up until I left and went on to another job in Public Health. Things changed rapidly. The first to go was our overtime...such as it was. We were obliged to fulfill county, state and federal mandates. Usually if we fulfilled the federal ones all others were covered. One of the mandates said that we needed to contact individuals under certain circumstances at least three different times of the day...morning, noon, and night...and since most of the clinics only ran till 5PM, we'd have to bring our work home with us...for which we were reimbursed. Needless to say, we all kept doing that part of our jobs despite no longer being paid for it. I could go on, but I did see what the poor, the working poor, and middle-class, upper-class get out of life.

I know I'm rambling. What I wanted to say is that it seems no matter what it's called, health, education, and welfare always get the most cuts...while, as someone far more eloquently pointed out, the rich companies get tax breaks, breaks on pollution, breaks on just about everything...and the poor? They get trounced on. I, too, btw, have been on both sides of the counter. It's not pretty. But, please, keep this thread going. It is important and very informative. And, thank you.