Assistante sociale : une sentinelle de l’ombre

Myriam Gaillard recounts a professional life spent serving others. Beginning as a memoir, the book traces the origins of her vocation, her training and, above all, forty years of professional experience in two very different settings: generalist area-based social work and a centre for early medical and social intervention. The account is filled with concrete situations, each more moving than the last.

Many concern women, teenage girls or mothers. The narrative conveys a love of the profession, a desire to help and a commitment to building collective practice for the benefit of social service users.

Unfortunately, it ends on a bitter note following the changes imposed on social workers: quantitative evaluation of their work, cost-cutting targets that reduce both staffing and financial resources, increasingly authoritarian management, and the destruction of work and team cohesion.

Review by Sandra Déraillot, L’inFO militante / Force Ouvrière. Éditions Les 3 Colonnes, 132 pages.