It isn't easy for social workers. I knew one who was dealing with about 30 cases. Sometimes they don't only deal with children, but also with the elderly and with families in general. They also deal with children and adults with disabilities.

How can one person take all that on – read all the paperwork, make visits, attend meetings, and also be able to spend time with their loved ones? Would you be able to parent 30 children in different parts of England, make big decisions, and do your best for all of these people? Social workers also take a lot of abuse from families, newspapers and their bosses.

Good social workers make sure children are looked after, that they are on the right path and that the child's family isn't in a bad space. For example, I had one social worker who I worked with in Islington for years. We got along, we used to laugh and joke together, but what I didn't know was that my family used to give her hassle. She would listen to issues I had with life in general. One day she surprised me and took me to Southend for a day out. She tried to support me quite a lot like a parent would. But she took a lot of work on. She used to go on leave a lot, so she was hard to get hold of. Her workload affected her health – in the end she had to quit what she loved doing because it was too much, so I ended up with a new social worker.

I always advise my friends not to do this type of job. It isn't easy, it can consume your life, and most of the time you can't make a difference because you have to follow the rules and do everything by the book. You can't take chances in this job, it is too much responsibility.

I hope that the next generation of children have a better experience than me. Getting a good social worker who is non-judgmental, who you can trust, and who still loves what they do is hard – there aren't many. They say that money can't buy love, but having supportive social workers and foster carers can make all the difference in the world.

I've had a lot of first-hand experience with social services. For many years, I had a really bad view of them, and they made me and my family very uneasy. Social workers seemed very cold, like they only wanted to get the job done and were only doing it to earn a living.

These days I realise that not all social workers are bad. I've learned from some of them, and they have supported me a lot too. But when I was younger I didn't fully understand the situations around me.

I never really saw social services be heartfelt or understanding. For example, social services first turned up at my family's home because I stopped attending school. They questioned my parents, asking them what they had done to solve the issue. They thought that my parents had not done enough to discipline me. Actually, it was my own decision not to go to school. It wasn't to do with my parents. But they didn't ask enough questions to find that out, or ask me why I had made that decision.

I think social workers need to come into the family home with an open mind. They must be willing to work with the family to help them resolve problems. They should be supportive towards the parents, and advise them how they can help their children – working with the parents, not against them. I am a mother now too, and I think this can only benefit the children. I've had different foster carers, some short and some long-term. Most of them were single women.

Looking back, my personal view is that I needed two adults to foster me and help me deal with personal issues. I've also come to the view that social services should place children with foster carers who match with their needs, like they do with adoption. It seemed from my experience, that foster children just went to anyone who fosters. But stuff like this can affect a child because their needs aren't being met. It was important to me that I felt I had things in common with my foster parent. A child needs to feel comfortable and also welcome, so that they can fit into the family environment.

Children need to be cared for and loved, they want to feel normal, and wanted. Being from London I feel that this is so important, as we often have to move further away from our families because there aren't enough people in London fostering.

From my experience, some social workers need to improve. For example, the way children are physically moved to a new foster carer could definitely be done better. At one point, I was put in a taxi by myself, and I had no idea where I was going. Another example is how some of them deal with a child who is upset and confused; instead of doing nothing, they should actually work with them to make sure they are ok.

If children have issues or are not coping with a new environment, social workers should not force them to see a psychiatrist if they don't want to. Maybe they have someone else they can talk to if they are stressed and need a new view on things? Not everything should be by the book. These are people's lives, and whatever social workers do affects the children they work with and could damage their wellbeing or mental health.

Shannon Corkish is a care leaver

iMPOWER's essay collection, Shining a Light Volume 2, can be downloaded here. It follows the success of its first collection of children's services essays