i am a child welfare social worker. i typically manage (roughly) 9-10 hour days, sometimes hitting 12-13hours if coerced into “volunteering” for a foster home. coerced meaning, if we don’t sign to volunteer, they threaten to assign us overnight shifts watching kids (who are very aggressive and can put you at risk since you’re alone).
i’m doing, also, on-call shifts 3-4x a month including weekends.
today i worked from 9am-5pm, then began working again at 7pm-11pm to transport kids hours away from my house. in the morning, i pick up a child at 6 am an hour away from my house, then another at 7, and take them to my court hearings with me since I won’t make their new housing arrangements in time.
proceeding, i have the rest of the 9-5(ish) day.
i’m getting compensated 100$ for the 24hour on call with .44cents per mile for driving. no car maintenance included.
i drive all over doing home visits and have to submit manual logs of the hours, so sometimes i even forget to document my driving, though that’s on me.
it was really dimmed down how much driving i would be doing for this job. i typically work 90-100hours per 2 weeks.
the 6 hour in between shifts is really bothering me.
are there any laws that can protect how many hours you can work? i’m going crazy. has anyone else been worked like this? i’m so depressed and also in school. is this normal?