Navigating the ‘shadow of loss’ in mental health social work

ABSTRACT

The human experience of loss has been at the centre of psychoanalytic understandings of the human condition since Freud’s first writings on ‘melancholia’. This essay draws on psychodynamic theory to show how workers who are attuned to the experience of loss in service users can shape their interventions accordingly. By reflecting on how a diagnosis of ‘depression’ might better be understood as the rippling wave of past grief, professionals can utilise the dynamics of projection, transference and containment to help understand the emotional pain of individuals they support. But this essay also suggests that the use of psychodynamic practice works best when it is bolstered by other frameworks – in this case an understanding of systems theory. When the two traditions are utilised together, they provide an understanding of psychic phenomena which can enable social workers to build a basis for effective interventions with service users experiencing mental distress.     

Social work and resettlement

Summary

This paper describes counselling in a social work agency that provides hostel accommodation for single homeless women, and works to resettle them into permanent accommodation. Given that the Barclay Report described the practice of social work as made up of the two elements of counselling and social care planning, the paper explores the way counselling is influenced when carried on in an agency with a specific ‘social care’ function. This is contrasted with counselling in agencies that offer a counselling service alone. Examples will be given of people using an attachment to a hostel, and to a worker, as they cope with change and make psychological growth. The power of such workers can only be exercised if they are true to the agency function, and gear their interventions to the task of resettlement. If workers do this they may find that as well as resettling people into accommodation, they are resettling them into life.     

Bringing Technology to School: An Online Resource Guide for the School Social Worker

SUMMARY

The Internet can assist social workers and other human service professionals to obtain information that may potentially benefit both themselves and their clients. There is little doubt among those who are familiar with the Internet that this electronic medium has revolutionized the way we communicate and access knowledge. This article provides school social workers and other human service professionals with links to resources that can be incorporated into practice by offering specific Web pages related to school social work practice.     

The knowledge,skills and qualities needed for social work in a major paediatric teaching hospital

Abstract

The place of aged care in social work has long been ambiguous, if not marginal. Social work (as do other comparable professions) often displays a reluctance to place practice in this field within the core of the profession that embodies aspects of ageism in contemporary society. Working with older people is frequently characterised as ‘mundane’, ‘routine’ and even ‘not “real” social work’. This paper examines the practice implications of the current policy context. Forms of ‘indirect’ practice are identified as central to social work in aged care, and the implications of this for the standing of aged care social work in the wider profession are discussed. It is argued that ‘indirect’ practices are core to the development of the profession and so should be seen as ‘real’ social work. In conclusion, it is suggested that unless social work affirms practice with older people and their families we will fail to be congruent with our own values.     

Transitional compass: anti-capitalist pathways in the interstitial spaces of capitalism*

ABSTRACT

The focus of the special issue explores the forms of power used, engendered, and (re)produced to challenge structures of economic, social and political power that produce inequality as well as concrete empirical examples of movements, workers’ struggles, and initiatives in challenging inequality. The idea of ‘transitional compass’ looks beyond protest politics to what we call ‘generative’ politics that builds the alternatives in the interstitial spaces of capitalism. Resistance to power emerges through engendering counter-hegemonic projects that are intertwined with alternative everyday practices. To concretize the conceptual framing, we focus on the emancipatory possibilities of a universal basic income, the use of law in tackling inequality in health and education, creative initiatives to establish a people-centred food system, new forms of organizing by precarious workers, democratic possibilities in local state delivery, and reconceptualizing the good life by looking at issues of happiness and ecosocialism.     

Talking about culture in social work encounters: immigrant families and child welfare in Finland

This article aims at analysing the ways in which people talk about ‘culture’ in social work encounters involving child welfare in immigrant families. The empirical material includes conversations between immigrant clients, their social workers and co-operating professionals at six Finnish social service offices, as well as interviews with the persons participating in these meetings. The theoretical and methodological frames of reference are social constructionism and discourse analysis. The study suggests three ways in which the concept of ‘culture’ is used by social workers and their clients: firstly, as a means of explaining ‘the ordinary and normal ways’ of raising children; secondly, as ‘a difficulty’ in the interaction between social workers and clients; and thirdly, as ‘a methodical tool’ in creating dialogue with clients. As far as the practical implications for social work are concerned, it is emphasized that in order to avoid ethnocentric practice or ‘culturalization’ of problems, it is important for social workers to be conscious of the various meanings of ‘culture’ both in their own practice and in the ways their clients employ cultural symbolism.     

Social Work and Sustainable Development: Local Voices from Mauritius

Abstract

Sustainable development is much more than an ecological and economic concern; it requires social workers to analyse and understand its impact on the broader social and cultural aspects of human life. Mauritius has been branded as ‘Maurice Ile Durable’ (Sustainable Mauritius) by its current government. Within this context, Mauritian social workers are often called upon to engage in sustainable development programs through community empowerment and development activities. This article uses the eco-critical social work theoretical approach to analyse a subset of qualitative data generated by a larger study conducted in 2008 and 2011, which included focus groups and semistructured interviews. Based on the findings of this research, the article focuses on discourses related to concepts such as control, power, and exploitation. It considers three areas as influential to eco-critical social work in Mauritius: antioppressive practice, promotion of social justice, and critical thinking by exploring related concepts such as control, power, and exploitation. The author concludes that within the context of sustainable development more attention should be paid to promoting social justice through tackling the marginalisation and oppression of certain sections of its population.     

Participation and Emotions: Troubling Encounters Between Children and Social Welfare Professionals

This paper explores the emotional aspects of participation within social welfare contexts. The focus is on individual professionals, such as social workers and children’s rights workers and their articulation, management and negotiation of the emotional when working with children and young people. The institutions of welfare are also shown to be ambiguous in their approaches to participation. Lastly, the dimensions of power that are enacted in relations between professionals and children reveal some of the complex dynamics in this fraught area of social welfare policy and practice.     

Between universal and national ‘social therapy’? Professional interventions by Jewish social workers in British Mandatory Palestine

ABSTRACT

This article explores the interrelated affinity between social work, nationality and universal humanitarianism through the case study of professional interventions by Jewish social workers in Mandatory Palestine. Given the limited literature on these professionals and the significant contribution of women in particular, it focuses on Siddy Wronsky and other German Jewish immigrants whose pre-immigration international heritage has been relegated to the margins. The article examines the therapeutic theory and practice of this unique group of social workers based on a qualitative analysis of archival texts. Several leitmotifs guiding these women emerge from the documentation of their work: the German-Jewish tradition that represented the past, the Zionist ideology that represented the future, and the encounter with a diverse immigrant population in a new geopolitical reality that represented the present. The findings indicate how, together with the transnational transfer of knowledge from the Jewish community in Germany to that in Palestine, social workers created a new profession inspired by a value system that sought to be simultaneously Zionist and universal. The article contributes to historical knowledge on social work and its ambivalent approach to a nation-building ideology as opposed to a universal commitment, as well as to an understanding of social work’s attitudes and techniques in working with immigrants and refugees.     

Subjectivation,agency and the schooling of raced and dis/abled asylum-seeking children in the Italian context

Abstract

This paper intends to address the challenges that the Italian education system is facing in terms of policies and practices relating to dis/abled asylum-seeking and refugee children, in order to make sense of the politics of daily life inside schools and the network of social services for forced migrants, and to pay renewed attention to the notion of ‘social and educational integration’. The starting point of this paper is the idea that the current model of schooling for asylum-seeking and refugee children is implicated in the making of particular sorts of ‘subjects’, as well as the creation of educational and social exclusions and inequalities. Schools, refugee organisations as well as the work of educators and social workers can be important sites of ‘counter-politics’. Borrowing from the theoretical tools offered by Dis/Ability Critical Race Studies (Dis/Crit) framework and engaging with Judith Butler’s understanding of processes of subjectivation, the paper explores how asylum-seeking and refugee students can be rendered subjects outside the educational endeavour, or indeed outside studenthood. Data from an ongoing constructivist grounded theory doctoral research project, interviews with asylum-seeking children and with professionals working in different refugee services in Rome, are offered to substantiate the argument presented in this paper.     

Service-user participation in developing social services: applying the experiment-driven approach

ABSTRACT

Participatory approaches are needed in Finland for service users to participate in designing and developing social services. New collaborative methods are the focus of this research, as this pilot case-study analyses the experiment-driven design approach and its consequences on service users’ agency and participation. This practitioner research belongs to the pragmatist research tradition. The data comprises transcribed focus group and individual interviews of service users and social workers in group operations in a Finnish municipal adult social service organisation. The data are evaluated by content analysis. The experiments with service prototypes allowed the service users to observe the consequences of their actions in practice. Instead of only being heard and consulted, the service users found they could influence the practice in concrete ways. The professionals and organisation shaped the service users’ participation and agency by operating as gatekeepers in sharing power. The service users reported that collaboration with professionals and participation in the group gave them a sense of renewed citizenship, improved social skills and helped to manage with personal illnesses or daily struggles. The research concludes that experimentation can provide a way to utilise experiential knowledge in developing social work collaboratively.     

‘More like a daughter than an employee’: the kinning process between migrant care workers,elderly care receivers and their extended families

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the intersections of formal and informal care in the relationships that develop between elderly care receivers and their families and migrant domestic care workers and their families. The domestic migrant care literature has tended to focus on two main ‘hidden costs’ of this ‘care-chain’: the ‘care exploitation’ of paid carers by their employers and the ‘care drain’ impact on the family members left behind by the migrant. In this paper, we employ a care circulation framework to examine the process of becoming kin-like – or ‘kinning’, which remains relatively under-explored and warrants further research. An analysis of this process of kinning helps to highlight how the domestic space of care receiver homes are transformed – through the negotiation of relationships with migrant care workers – into transnational social fields that bring the diaspora worlds of the migrants into the everyday worlds of the locals.     

Comparing child protection decision-making in England and Finland: supervised or supported judgement?

ABSTRACT

Systems for the protection of children have evolved differently across nation states. Studies have identified contrasting system ‘orientations’, related to how child protection problems are framed and how organisations respond in different contexts. In this study, the influence of national and organisational factors on practice-level decision reasoning by social workers has been compared. Interviews were conducted with 30 child protection social workers in sites across England and Finland, structured around two hypothetical case vignettes. While similarities were observed in how the social workers responded to the vignettes, there were differences in the nature and extent of managerial involvement described, with the English social workers appearing to rely on managerial input for decision-making to a greater extent than the Finnish social workers. These findings suggest evidence for two distinct organisational approaches to decision-making: ‘supervised’ and ‘supported’ judgement. Here, supervised judgement describes a hierarchical, ‘top-down’ form of decision-making, while supported judgement describes a more horizontal and shared decision-making approach. The lens of comparative methodology has revealed how these organisational factors come into play in different child protection systems. The practice implications of supervised, manager-led approaches to decision-making, as contrasted with supported, team-led approaches, are discussed.     

Building research capacity for social work practitioners: a regional perspective

This article explores the research experiences, interests and capacity of social work professionals working as frontline workers and managers in human service organizations in regional South Australia. It also draws attention to social work practice issues requiring further investigation as identified by these professionals. The research data for this paper were collected using quantitative and qualitative methods. Quantitative data provided evidence to show the extent of research interests among social work practitioners in the region. Qualitative data added depth to the findings by identifying social work practice issues as described by research participants. The study revealed that few participants had any research experience; however, the majority felt the need to undertake research, expressed interest in research training and a desire to be involved in research projects. These findings have implications for higher education providers in the social work discipline. They draw attention to the importance of better preparing students for research in practice, and also for schools of social work to actively engage in building research capacity and output in regional Australia.

Abbreviations: Frontline social work professionals (FLSWP); The Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW)     

Minimising Coerciveness in Coercion: A Case Study of Social Work Powers under the Victorian Mental Health Act

The balance between care and control in mental health social work is one of constant tension. In the State of Victoria, Australia, the Mental Health Act 2014 gives coercive powers to social workers employed by public mental health services. These include the power to decide if a person needs to be assessed by a psychiatrist, to “take” a person using bodily restraint, to enter premises, and to search and seize a person’s belongings. This paper applies a doctrinal analysis to examine the law, then argues that the use of these powers by social workers, where safe, may be less restrictive than when they are used by police or paramedics. The exercise of these powers may be less traumatic and stigmatising to the people who are subject to them, and social workers may be both legally and ethically obligated to use coercion when appropriate.

IMPLICATIONS

• More social work literature on the coercive powers under mental health legislation is needed as well as more guidance on using these powers for social workers in practice.

• In some circumstances, these coercive powers may be better exercised by social workers than by other professionals.

• Social workers should carefully consider their legal and ethical obligations to use these powers in some circumstances.

     

Being neither Pollyanna nor Henny Penny: Responding to McDonald and Jones

Abstract

This paper provides an account of the earliest contributions to family theory and practice by social workers, beginning in the late nineteenth century. The paper argues that the first widespread practice of ‘family work’ by the helping professions was carried out by social workers, primarily women, despite this being rarely acknowledged in the family therapy literature. An analysis of gender and its place in the development of professional status and the ownership of ideas is provided.

Summary

This paper has traced the place of the family in social work theory and practice since the beginnings of the profession, with a particular focus on theoretical developments in social work in the United States. A number of points have been argued. Firstly, there is significant historical evidence that social workers, most of them women, pioneered family work many decades before the term ‘family therapy’ was invented. This directly challenges the claim made by a number of family therapy historians that work with families was pioneered by psychiatrists in the 1950s and 1960s. It is argued here that this discrepancy is largely a result of differences in professional power and gender status.

Secondly, it is argued that the impact of psychoanalytic theory on social work was profound, not only in terms of how it might have distracted the profession from further developing its early family systems focus, but also in how its multidisciplinary practice tended to place social workers, again mostly women, in somewhat limited and prescribed positions.

In addition, it is argued that social work's emphasis on the family and family intervention has waxed and waned due to these concepts not appearing to fit neatly into divisions between fields of practice, such as casework, group work and Community development. While social work struggled with finding a place for the further development of family social work theory, the rapidly growing domain of family therapy quickly colonised this field of practice, giving little credit to the ground already laid by social workers.     

Human rights at the heart of the social work curriculum

ABSTRACT

Social work policy and practice all over the world continue to face the impact of the neoliberal agenda. Similarly, social work education has been subject to the economic and political changes, with an increasing emphasis on a discourse of ‘evidence-based practice’. However, it is the core of social work programs in higher education to initiate students in the fundamental values of social work, as they are recognized in the global definition of social work. In order to prepare future social workers for their assignment, human rights should be given an explicit place in the social work curricula at Universities and Universities of Applied Sciences.

For human rights to gain more attention in social work programs in higher education, a Manifesto was written by lecturers’ social work in the Netherlands and Flanders, with a 5-point program to include human rights in the social work curricula. In this article, we elaborate on the five objectives that are presented in the Manifesto. Throughout the paper, we introduce small ‘case examples’ of how human rights can be integrated in education. These experiences show the importance of developing a particular social work perspective on human rights that is found in the idea of ‘human rights from below.’     

Child protection decision-making: social workers’ perceptions

ABSTRACT

Decision-making is located at the heart of social work as a core professional activity, because much of what social workers do concerns decisions about future courses of action. Drawing on elements of the learning together systems model and Falkov’s Systemic Family Model, this study investigated social workers’ perceptions regarding how child protection decisions are made. Evidence was drawn from a constructivist–-interpretivist qualitative research design, involving 16 semi-structured interviews with qualified and experienced social workers and 20 direct, non-participant observations of child protection meetings. Evidence from the study suggests that professionals and family members do not rely entirely on the guidance on the threshold criterion of the likelihood and significance of risk of harm when making decisions. Instead, they use discretionary intuition and analytical judgement, involving multidimensional criteria which includes consensus between professionals and with family members; individual professional’s state of mind; other agencies and professionals’ priorities as well as external factors such as the availability of resources. Conclusion can be drawn that existing guidance on decision-making is inadequate, hence the discretionary use of a combination of intuitive heuristics and analytical thinking in a complementary manner. This study, therefore, contributes to considerable conceptual clarity regarding the complex child protection decision-making process.     

‘Globalisation’, Governance and social work: Some implications for theory and practice

Abstract

This article focuses cautiously on the implications of ‘globalisation’ for social work theory and practice. In drawing on recent debates it is argued that, despite its contested meaning, ‘globalisation’ points to a range of rapid and fundamental socioeconomic and political transformations that have impacted upon entire regions of the work. Some of these transformations are identified and analysed in terms of their consequences for transnational, national and local populations. It is proposed that the prevailing consequences of globalisation in terms of social inequality and allied modalities of governance are negative, and that this has important implications for the profession of social work. Effective strategies for confronting the challenges posed by ‘turbo capitalism’ may be found in alliances across global social movements and professional groups, including social workers. The challenges are profound.     

Fit for purpose: issues from practice placements,practice teaching and the assessment of students' practice

This paper explores a number of significant issues regarding the delivery of practice based learning for qualifying social workers, in the context of plans for the new social work degree. We also discuss four particular issues: 1. the definition and measurement of ‘good enough’ practice;

2. the determination of students' suitability for social work;

3. the role of practice teachers in responding to sensitive information and students facing personal crises; and

4. specialist and ‘long‐arm’ practice teaching.

In doing so, we draw on both our own direct experience and on discussions between over 70 practice teachers, tutors and placement co‐ordinators attending a Mid‐Yorkshire Social Work Education and Training Planning Group (MYSWETPG) conference hosted by Bradford College in March 2001.

We conclude that, given the current difficulties in the field of qualifying training and education for social workers, any significant improvements following from the new degree will remain dependent on the provision of adequate funding for practice learning, in general, and for the training, structured support and affirmation of practice teachers, in particular.