Children and Families Social Work Service

Social Workers and Support Workers are people you can speak to if you and your family need help, or if you are worried about a friend and what’s happening to them at home.

• They work with children and young people, and their families or carers, to make sure they grow up safe, healthy, do well at school, are well looked after, are active, respected, responsible, and included.  
• They do something called an assessment. This means they look at what children and young people need, and take into consideration how well they are looked after, so that they can see how they can help. 
• They include children and young people, their parents, and carers to work out the best plan to make sure they are happy and looked after. 
• Sometimes, it’s just not possible for children and young people to stay with their families.  If this happens, they will plan for them to be cared for in another family.  Even if this happens, we make sure children and young people are able to stay in touch and spend time with their families, wherever possible. They always do everything they can to plan for children and young people to go back to families if they think this is best for them.  
• Sometimes, it makes sense to work with people from Schools, the Doctors, the NHS, and the Police, as well as people who work for other organisations that you might have heard of, such as Relationship Scotland, Advocacy, Women’s Aid, Action for Children. 

Social Workers at Orkney’s Children and Families Social Work Service are here to make sure that all children are happy and healthy. To them, the most important people are always children and young people who are growing up in Orkney.

You can contact them from Monday to Friday, between 9am and 5pm by calling 01856 873535 and asking for the Duty Social Worker. You can also contact them at other times on 01856 888000.  This will take you to The Balfour Hospital switchboard then you ask for the Emergency Social Worker.