A novel
We Don’tStealBabies
The Secret Diary of a Newly Qualified Social Worker
Her first year in child protection. The kids she couldn’t forget. The barrister she should have.
People ask social workers at parties if they steal babies. This is the answer.
Maisie MacDonald is twenty-five, newly qualified, and armed with a one-eyed cat, a lanyard and the belief that she can save everyone.
Over one year in Coventry she will keep a boy’s toy car safe until he is ready to stop running. She will wait outside a door while a fifteen-year-old tells a camera the worst thing that ever happened to her. She will watch a young mum she fought for walk back to the man who broke her. She will fall for exactly the wrong barrister, and find out how wrong in open court.
Told through Maisie’s diary, her anonymous blog and the case files in between, this is a novel about the job nobody understands and the people who do it anyway. It is funny. Then it isn’t. Then it is both, in the same afternoon.
September 2015
Monday 7th September
- Cups of tea: 4
- Acronyms pretended to understand: 12
- Toilet cubicle crying: 0 (minor victory)
- Mentors fallen slightly in love with: 1
The smell of warm bread drifted up the stairwell before the alarm. My unofficial snooze button…
Start here
Day one
A lanyard. A cardigan that took twenty minutes to choose. A one-eyed cat called Mr Whiskers, and twelve acronyms before lunch.
The whole of Maisie’s first day is here to read, free.
Who wrote it
Maisie
Maisie MacDonald is the pen name of a social worker who has spent many years working with children and families in England. The people and cases in the book are invented. The job is not.
She drinks her tea too strong and leaves it too long. She believes in lists.
One year, told three ways
The diary. The blog. The file.
The diary
Where she is honest. Written late, in pyjamas, with whatever was left in the fridge. The doubt, the wrong man, the right one, and what she could not say in supervision.
The blog
Where she is braver than she feels. Anonymous, wry, and read by more people than she expected. One of them nearly works out who she is writing about.
The case file
Where she disappears. Third person, court-ready, and accurate. It records everything that happened to a child and nothing about who they are.
While you wait for the kettle
Have a wander
Do social workers steal babies?
The short answer is on the cover. The longer one takes about four minutes.
Acronyms I pretended to understand
A field guide to the language of children’s services, for people who nodded along in the meeting.
Who are you on the duty desk?
Seven questions. No wrong answers. Several worrying ones.
Things people say at parties
What happens when you tell a stranger what you do for a living, in order of frequency.
Who’s who
Ray, Heather, Jo, Mr Whiskers and a three-legged dog called Doris. No spoilers.
To whoever starts on Monday
A letter for the newly qualified. Contains biscuits.
The Secret Diary of a Social Worker
Anonymous dispatches from the frontline of child protection
The 2015 archive
The blog, as it was
In the novel Maisie keeps an anonymous blog. This is it: seven posts from 2015 and 2016, the comments underneath, the sidebar, the visitor counter, the lot.
It is part of the story, so it is fiction. It is also the best place to find out whether you like her.
For teams, ASYE groups and students
Talk about practice without anybody’s real case on the table
A free discussion guide in six sessions, each built on a case from the novel: recording, thresholds, going at the child’s pace, boundaries, and who looks after you.