7 minute read
Meet the social worker behind 'LaLaLaLetMeExplain...'
If you’re a fan of the ‘Gram (Instagram, to those of us not so in the know…) then the name LaLaLaLetMeExplain is one you may be familiar with.
The anonymous love, sex and relationship educator has gained a massive following since launching her page back in 2017, bringing her distinct brand of no-nonsense quick wit and fierce female charm to advice and guidance on everything from porn, and abusive relationships, to infidelity, and the realities of dating as a single mum.
Five years on from her first blog, LaLa - as she goes by - is now a Sunday Times Bestselling author, writes a regular column in Okay magazine, and has accrued 210,000 followers, including celebrity fans such as Katie Piper, Winnie Harlow, and Laverne Cox.
But what is perhaps lesser known is that Lala is a registered social worker, with 11 years under her belt working as a children and families practitioner for a local authority.
"People sometimes ask when I stopped being a social worker, but I feel as if I still am, just in a different way," she explains with a smile.
“When I first qualified, in 2007, I’d planned to work in adult services, and had a real interest in work in prisons, and with people with HIV, which were my two placements. However, I ended up making the move to children’s, and simply never left.”
It was here, LaLa explains, that she found herself getting very quickly caught up in the damaging cycle of high caseloads, high stress, and a lack of time and support which leads to burnout in so many social workers, and - she reveals - she was no exception.
“I’d say I encountered burnout early on in my career - from my first week to be honest,” she confirms.
“I had the privilege of working for a few years under a Labour government, and then for a few years under a Conservative government, and the difference was stark. I started as an NQSW with 75 families on my caseload, so it always felt like too much, but then after the Tory government came in, and austerity really hit, it felt almost unmanageable most days. We existed in crisis at all times.
“I remember at my interview, I was really honest about my lack of experience in children’s services. I was told they’d provide a mentor, that I’d have an induction week, and that I’d be shadowing an experienced social worker to begin with. In reality, there was none of that. I turned up, and was thrown in at the deep end.
“These days, I know things are even worse. In 2007, when I started, we had so many resources within our department - a teen pregnancy team, teen drugs team, a team for parents struggling to manage under 5s - but it all just got cut to the point it felt like we were barely functioning, and unless someone’s head was falling off, we couldn’t help.”
LaLa reveals it was during this time, while working as a social worker and spending her days helping people to identify abuse in their own relationships, that she was first inspired to blog about her own life.
“I was spending my days helping people to leave abusive relationships, and all the while I was dating men who were treating me with ambivalence, who were emotionally abusive, and I wasn’t connecting the dots with what I was dealing with professionally.
“I wasn’t applying any of what I knew to my own life.
“After ending a bad relationship in 2016, I finally had an epiphany, as I realised that I deserved to be treated in the same way that I was spending my days telling other people they deserved to be treated. It was a lightbulb moment, and I decided to write about how I was feeling.”
Lala began a blog, sharing insights and opinions garnered from both her personal and professional lives, and people quickly began to take notice.
“Suddenly people were reading what I had to say, and sharing it with their friends and colleagues.”
LaLa recalls that that first year was incredibly difficult, as she worked hard to keep on top of her job, care for her son as a single mum, and put in hours each week building LaLaLaLetMeExplain - blogging, and responding to letters and messages from her growing band of followers.
"In the end, my decision to leave statutory social work in 2018, and take the plunge with LaLa full time, came about quite organically, after the local authority I was working for underwent yet another restructure - its third in four years.
“Good people were losing their jobs, rubbish people were being made managers, and there was a lot of nepotism. Our team was great, but every time the management changed, they’d start over from scratch, with no interest in the opinions of those of us who’d been there through it all.
“I eventually decided I couldn’t do it anymore. It had been a long time coming.
“For the first year, I never mentioned I was a social worker in my LaLa blogs. It was only after making the leap to do this full time that I revealed I was a social worker, and suddenly things really began to take off, as it became clear to people there was some real knowledge and education behind my advice.”
Today, in addition to her blogs and podcasts - many of which can be used by social workers for CPD accreditation - LaLa also holds one-to-one sessions with people who reach out to her, listening to their relationship problems and offering guidance and advice.
“People have very varied needs, and I enjoy working with people to help give them perspective on their situation. I’m very clear with them that I’m not a therapist, and I pay for supervision of all my calls, which is expensive but important.”
And while she says she always knew her work would see her retain her anonymity, that doesn’t mean it is always the easy option.
"And the reality is, there are people out there whose children I removed at court, and I don't need them seeing my face in the media, or knowing where I am, and what I'm doing," she says.
“It does, though, make me feel a bit like I’ve lost my identity sometimes. There are only a small group of friends who know the truth about what I do, and I hate feeling like I’m lying to people when I bump into former colleagues who enquire what I’m doing now, and I can only mutter something vague about ‘doing some consulting work.’
“Lala has had some fantastic success, and as much as I’d like to shout loud and proud about being a Sunday Times Bestselling author, or writing for Okay magazine, my celebrations have to be clandestine and sometimes that can make me feel a bit disconnected.
“Of course I absolutely love what I do now, but I do miss having colleagues, people to sound off to about things, and I miss the fast-paced urgency of the work I did, but not enough to ever want to go back.
“That’s not to say that I wasn’t proud to be a social worker. I’m so proud of the work we do. Maybe one day, the media will stop painting us the way it does, the public’s perception will shift, and we won’t have to feel we have to hide our occupations when we meet people at parties, or during the ‘get to know you’ chat on first dates.
“Until then, to all social workers out there, I would say keep on going. I’ll continue to do my part, shouting loud and proud about how wonderful social workers really are.”
