‘No two days are the same and you can make a real difference’: four social workers reflect on their careers

Many social workers describe themselves as ‘fixers’, working in partnership with the people they’re supporting to make meaningful changes. Photograph: Maskot/Getty Images

Clare Guiry remembers clearly the first time she realised she had made the right decision to give up her job running a children’s entertainment business to become a social worker.

She was working in adult social care, and the 96-year-old woman she was supporting wanted to move out of the care home where she was living, craving a more independent life. “Everybody thought it wasn’t a good idea but I helped her move into a flat where she had carers on site,” says Guiry, who works for Oxfordshire county council. “Now she’s so happy. It’s not that she was unhappy with care at the care home – she told me she just wanted to live somewhere where she could make herself a cup of tea without having to ask somebody else to do it.”