Social worker

The social worker is an NPC featured in The Sims series who will take away a baby, toddler, child, or pet if their needs drop too low, or in later games, if there are no more older Sims remaining in the household (i.e. due to death). They also will come to deliver adopted kids to their new family.
==The Sims and The Sims Bustin' Out==
In The Sims, the social worker is an NPC in the base game. The social worker is a woman named Sylvia who will come to take neglected babies from a Sim household (after a baby cries for a protracted amount of time). Unlike The Sims 2 and The Sims 3, social workers in The Sims only take away babies.
A glitch exists in The Sims Bustin' Out for console where the player will not get a notification that their baby is being neglected, resulting in the social worker confiscating the child without warning.
==The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories==
In The Sims 2, in addition to removing babies, toddlers, and children whose needs fall too low, the Social worker will take any who are left home alone or are orphaned (i.e. the last teen or older Sim in the household dies), as well as children who are getting an F in school. If The Sims 2: Seasons is installed, the social worker will also come if a toddler or child becomes too cold or too hot. Unlike The Sims, if the social worker takes away a child, all other children younger than teen will also be removed from the house.
If a child dies, the Grim Reaper will instead take away the child.
Once they are taken away, they will all be available for adoption by a different family (or families). Once a person has the memory of having a child taken away by the Social worker, they are ineligible for adopting ever again. It has been noted that Sims may not always get a memory of their children being taken away, but this is relatively uncommon.
The only way to stop the social worker from taking away children without cheats is the "Plead with Social Worker" interaction, which is only available in The Sims 2: FreeTime as an aspiration benefit for Sims with Family as their primary or secondary aspiration. Even if there is a wall around the children or if the social worker can't reach the child, she will teleport the child out of the structure and to her car.
Visits from the social worker are not always negative; in The Sims 2: Nightlife, the gypsy matchmaker may drop her as a blind date, and she also delivers adopted kids to their new families. After an The Sims 2: Open for Business patch, social workers are no longer in the dateable Sims pool.
Oddly, should a family adopt a child taken from another family, the child Sim will have lost all memories associated with their blood family up until the point they arrived in their adoptive home. The family tree does not get erased, however.
Social workers are considered to be non-playable NPCs. A neighborhood will have three social workers, who are known simply as "Social Worker". They are all adult females, and all have the same hairstyle and outfit. Social workers do not have last names, so if the player cheats to make a social worker have a baby, the baby will have no last name. It is possible to meet a social worker via being lectured without using cheats. 
Oddly, social workers do exist in The Sims Castaway Stories. While they have the same function as in The Sims 2, they sometimes make the child teleport, regardless if there is nothing to block the child's way, rather than taking them off the lot. However, there isn't an adoption service in Castaway Stories, so it's unknown whether the child can be placed in a household again.
===Pre-made social workers===
====Pleasantview====
PleasentviewSocialWorker1.png
PleasentviewSocialWorker2.png
PleasentviewSocialWorker3.png
====Strangetown====
SocialWorker.png
StrangetownSocialWorker2.png
StrangetownSocialWorker3.png
====Veronaville====
VeronavilleSocialWorker1.png
VeronavilleSocialWorker2.png
VeronavilleSocialWorker3.png
====Riverblossom Hills====
RiverblossomHillsSocialWorker1.png
RiverblossomHillsSocialWorker2.png
RiverblossomHillsSocialWorker3.png
====Desiderata Valley====
DesiderataValleySocialWorker1.png
DesiderataValleySocialWorker2.png
DesiderataValleySocialWorker3.png
====Belladonna Cove====
BelladonnaCoveSocialWorker1.png
BelladonnaCoveSocialWorker2.png
BelladonnaCoveSocialWorker3.png
====Four Corners====
Social Worker (1) FC.png
Social Worker (2) FC.png
Social Worker (3) FC.png
====Four Corners (Free Play)====
Social Worker (1) FP.png
Social Worker (2) FP.png
Social Worker (3) FP.png
====Bitville====
Social Worker (1) BV.png
Social Worker (2) BV.png
Social Worker (3) BV.png
====Mesa Flats====
Social Worker (1) MF.png
Social Worker (2) MF.png
Social Worker (3) MF.png
====Tutorial====
Social Worker (1) (Tutorial).png
Oddly, there are images of Brigit the Maid from The Sims hidden in the character files of all Social Workers, in both Maxis and custom neighborhoods. It is unknown why these images are there, especially knowing there was a social worker named Sylvia in the first game. It is possible that these images were used as placeholders in the very early stages of the game's development.
Brigit The Maid's Hidden Image (5).png
Brigit The Maid's Hidden Image (4).png
Brigit The Maid's Hidden Image.png
Brigit The Maid's Hidden Image (3).png
Brigit The Maid's Hidden Image (2).png
Tutorial's Social worker is named "Social Worker Social Worker" and has a biography of "Social Worker".
==The Sims 3==
In The Sims 3, as in The Sims 2, social workers will take away all children if one is being neglected. Unlike in The Sims 2, social workers will come shortly after the adoption request was made. Also unlike previous games of the series where social workers were always female, social workers in The Sims 3 can be either male or female.
In The Sims 3, as in The Sims, children (but not babies and toddlers) can be left home alone. The Sims 3 requires players to call a babysitter or stay home when a Sim is about to leave babies and toddlers home alone; if the player makes all the teen or older Sims go past the edge of the home lot without the baby/toddler, they will be required to either go home or call a babysitter. If a baby or toddler is left home alone with a child, a babysitter must still be called. This is probably because the child is not capable of holding the baby/toddler, feeding it, changing its diaper, etc. However, there are still ways of leaving a baby or toddler at home completely alone. Leave one teen (or adult) at home and make them leave the house by either switching their household (via Edit Town) or make them leave the household via a miner hole.
While a human and vampire (and ghosts of these two life states) child can be taken away from a family by the social worker, SimBots and mummies are fully exempt from this rule. However, just as in The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories, the Grim Reaper will come in the social worker's place to take away a child of any life state, should they expire.The Grim Reaper will not take away a child if they have the unlucky trait.
Unlike when the Grim Reaper takes away a Sim, when the social worker takes away a child, items are not transferred to another Sim. This can be a problem if the child has rare items such as the Moodlet Manager. If the social worker takes away a child when the player does not have a teen, young adult, adult or elder, a message will appear and the player will be returned to the neighborhood view.
Social workers can be added to the household using testingcheatsenabled (Must have less than 8 Sims or this won't work). They will usually be young adults or adults and range from one to four traits. The player can split them from the household and save them to the library where they will behave as normal Sims.
In Windows and macOS, if the player tries to save the game when the social worker is present in the case they are taking children away, the game will display a message prior to saving.
With The Sims 3: Pets social workers can come to take away any pet that is being neglected, thus making them unable to die of starvation.
There is a glitch that is fixed. If the player has two children die of drowning at the same time, one will be taken away by the social worker (as a ghost) and the other will be taken away by the Grim Reaper.
There are always two assigned social workers when a world is loaded, but if the player changes the pool number to 4 with NRaas Register, all pre-made social workers will appear in a world when newly loaded.
===Pre-made social workers===
Alessandra Thistle.png|Alessandra Thistle (Sunset Valley)
Linda Duran.png|Linda Duran (Sunset Valley)
Jake Roland.png|Jake Roland (Sunset Valley)
Casper Santos.png|Casper Santos (Sunset Valley)
Bessie Biller.png|Bessie Biller (Riverview)
Lana Rodriguez.png|Lana Rodriguez (Riverview)
Carl Strummer.png|Carl Strummer (Riverview)
Mark Wagner.png|Mark Wagner (Riverview)
==Getting rid of the social worker==
In The Sims a message will appear informing the player of the social worker's arrival. When she arrives, before she reaches the baby, pause the game, and use the moveobjects cheat to delete her. However, if she is deleted, resuming the game will also make the baby disappear. The baby will reappear immediately. The parents will clap when the baby arrives, just as when it was first born. The player will have to rename the baby again, as the game thinks that it has just born, but the gender and skin color will remain the same as the first time. The three-day count to becoming a child will also restart.
If playing The Sims 2 or The Sims 3, and a social worker arrives on the lot to collect the children, players can use the testing cheat to delete her before she has a chance to take them. It is unknown, however, if this action has any negative effects on the game. Players can hide all non-playable-characters (NPCs) by using the testingcheatsenabled cheat and shift-clicking a Sim, spawning the NPC and Townie Maker, and clicking the "Hide All NPCs" button.
In The Sims 3, if a child is aged up to a teen before being taken by the social worker, he or she will not be taken, but the social worker will not leave.
In addition to the usual reasons for taking a child, a social worker will also remove a child whose parents have died, which will end their family line and put their house up for sale for another family.
==Trivia==
*It is possible for a social worker to die in the game without using cheats. It will most likely happen if a child is burning to death and they come right as they are about to die. If a social worker walks through flames caused by the fire, there is a chance she will catch on fire and die if not put out.
*In The Sims 2, while social workers do have character data, they notably lack Turn-Ons and Turn-Offs as they were not intended to ever be made playable, or interacted with outside of their designated purpose. Their character files also contain hard-coded NPC behavior which cannot be gotten rid of easily.
*The social worker is one of only two NPCs (the other being the Grim Reaper) that can remove a playable Sim; but only babies (All The Sims games), toddlers and children (The Sims 2 and later).
*As The Sims 3 lacks memories (until the The Sims 3: Generations expansion pack), it is possible to adopt again if a child is taken away. This is different from The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories, in which Sims with the memory can never adopt again. However, with Generations installed, a Sim who had had a child taken away will be unable to adopt.
*Regardless of whether there are any objects/walls/Sims that are blocking her, she will teleport and take the child, toddler, or baby, despite being able to walk through objects such as walls.
**This might be because The Sims 2 and The Sims Stories allows Build and Buy Modes to be entered, which makes it is possible to trap the social worker or the child, toddler or baby. This is also true for The Sims 3 for PC and for console.
*In The Sims 3, it is possible for ghost babies, toddlers, and children to be taken away by the social worker if they are playable in the household.
*If a teen and a child are the only ones living on a lot, and a child needs to be taken away, the Social Worker will not lecture the teen(s). Also, the teens won't receive a memory of their siblings being taken away
*The social worker does not appear in The Sims 4. Instead, if a newborn, infant, toddler, or child is not fed for a long time, they will disappear in a puff of smoke with a message that reads "Due to neglect, [Sim name] is being whisked away to safety. Maybe you should consider a goldfish before jumping into parenthood again". When the last teenage Sim or older living in the household passes away, a Game Over message akin to social services taking over custody of the younger Sims will be displayed, and the game will end promptly.
**As of Patch 170, infants, toddlers, or children that are taken by social workers will be retained via household management in Manage Worlds, rather than being deleted from the current save.
==Other languages==
Language 	The Sims 2 	The Sims 2, Tutorial
English 	Social worker 	Social Worker Social Worker
Brazilian Portuguese 	Assistente Social 	Social Worker Social Worker
Chinese (Simplified) 	社会工作者 	社会工作者 Social Worker
Chinese (Traditional)	社工人員 	Social Worker Social Worker
Czech 	Sociální pracovník 	Social Worker Social Worker
Danish 	Socialarbejder 	Social Worker Social Worker
Dutch 	Maatschappelijk werker	Social Worker Social Worker
European Portuguese 	Assistente Social 	Social Worker Social Worker
Finnish 	Sosiaalityöntekijä 	Sosiaalityöntekijä Sosiaalityöntekijä
French 	Travailleur social 	Social Worker Social Worker
German 	Sozialarbeiter 	Social Worker Social Worker
Greek 	Κοινωνικός λειτουργός 	
Hebrew 	עובדת סוציאלית 	
Hungarian 	Szociális munkás 	Szociális munkás Szociális munkás
Italian 	Assistente sociale 	Social Worker Social Worker
Japanese 	社会福祉指導員 	社会福祉指導員 社会福祉指導員
Korean 	복지국 직원 	복지국 직원 복지국 직원
Norwegian 	Sosialarbeider 	Social Worker Social Worker
Polish 	Opieka społeczna 	Social Worker Social Worker
Romanian 	Asistent social 	
Russian 	Социальный работник 	Социальный работник Социальный работник
Spanish 	Asistente social 	Social Worker Social Worker
Swedish 	Socialarbetare 	Socialarbetare Socialarbetare
Thai 	นักสังคมสงเคราะห์ 	นัก​สังคม​สงเคราะห์ Social Worker
Vietnamese 	Nhân viên xã hội 	
==Notes==
es:Asistente social
pt-br:Assistente Social
nl:Maatschappelijk Werker
ru:Социальный работник
Category:Services
Category:Social workers
Category:Types of NPCs