‘Stumbling through’? Relationship-based social work practice in austere times

In recent times relationship-based practice has become a familiar term in social work practice and education. Despite its widespread adoption, how relationship-based practice is understood varies widely. Drawing on contemporary conceptualisations of the child and family and individuals as psychosocial subjects experiencing social suffering, this paper explores how current social work practice can be understood in the context of neoliberalism and austerity. Setting these ideas in an historical context helps to inform our understanding as to why social work seems to be the focus of sustained political discontent and scrutiny, making it difficult to retain a balanced relationship-based professional stance. Contemporary responses to the current challenges of everyday practice are outlined and the contribution of psychodynamic and systemic ideas to promoting relationship-based practice is explored. The paper concludes by considering how the concept of social systems as defences against anxiety can inform our understanding of the resistance amongst practitioners to relationship-based practice and emphasises the importance of reflective spaces and places for developing and maintaining integrated, mature relational approaches to practice which impact on practice at both the individual casework and social structural level.     

‘Who do I turn to if something really bad happens?’ Key working and relationship-based practice in residential child care

ABSTRACT

This article explores the psychodynamics of relationship-based practice from the perspective of young people in residential care. This research involved qualitative semi-structured interviews with 10 care leavers, aged 18–24 years, who had been in residential care in Ireland. Drawing selectively from that research, this article reports their views and experiences of key-working and how relationship-based practice acted as a reparative method within their experiences of care and aftercare. Similar to previous research, this study underscores the necessity to ensure that children in care are cared for and supported by a trusted adult. In addition, based on this study, the role of a key worker appears capable of providing this ideal type of supportive relationship. It also highlights the importance of the care system working to provide consistency and support for the young people and confirms the importance of relationships with trusted adults, such as key workers.     

Milford Redefined: A Model of Initial and Advanced Generalist Social Work

Abstract

Social work has long sought a conceptual framework to describe its most basic approach to service delivery: generalist social work practice. A milestone in that process was the series of Milford conferences in the 1920s during which the elements of “generic casework” were first identified. This article presents a model that advances and clarifies the concepts of generalist social work as viewed at the beginning of the 1990s. Generalist social work at both the initial and advanced levels involves a way of viewing practice. It is a perspective that focuses on the interface between systems, on a client-centered and problem-focused philosophy, and on an openness to multiple theories and approaches for improving people's well-being. Practice at the initial level requires a set of competencies necessary to provide services consistent with the understanding derived from the perspective. Advanced generalist social work represents increased complexity in the learning process and greater breadth and depth of exploration in a generalist perspective rather than a uniquely different perspective from the generalist approach.     

Humanising Managerialism: Reclaiming Emotional Reasoning,Intuition, the Relationship,and Knowledge and Skills in Social Work

This paper develops Professor Eileen Munro's coverage of ‘emotional dimensions’ in her Review of Child Protection in England. It argues that managerialism has failed to recognise the importance of the emotional life of human beings and the importance of the relationships we build in social work and that this failure seriously hinders the quality and effectiveness of social work. The paper begins with an account of what an ‘emotional dimension’ might encompass and, drawing on conceptualisations mainly from neuroscience, looks at what is meant by the words emotions and feelings, affect, attunement and empathy. A second section looks at the skewed representation of logical thinking as innately superior to emotional and intuitive reasoning and the part played by conscious and unconscious elements within judicial decision-making. It then analyses the dangers evident in the more extreme and rigid forms of managerialism that can be found in some areas of social work and a final section argues that for managerialism to be humanised it calls for an emotionally responsive relationship-based practice to be located at the heart of social work.     

Becoming a Trustworthy Profession: Doing Better Than Doing Good

Abstract

Social work is a relationship-based profession. For this reason, social work professionals need to be perceived as trustworthy by those with whom we work. This address outlines the nature and importance of trustworthiness and the specific issues the social work profession faces in relation to the question of trustworthiness. I argue that scandals in human services and faith-based institutions as well as pressures associated with new public management create further challenges to achieving trustworthiness. The address discusses how the profession can enhance its trustworthiness through increasing our capacity to articulate professional purpose, committing to professional excellence and to being courageous in speaking out about abuses of power that impact on the lives of people who use our services.     

Using Social Work Theory and Values to Investigate the Implementation of Community Treatment Orders

Abstract

This paper establishes the value of a social work investigation of good practice with people on Community Treatment Orders in the context of social work's longstanding interest in the ethical challenges of working with involuntary clients. The emancipatory values of social work were used to guide this research, thereby ensuring the participation of consumers and their families or carers. Critical social work theory provided an important theoretical base. A mixed methods approach was undertaken, including a cluster analysis and case studies. Five principles of good social work practice emerged from the qualitative data: (a) use and develop direct practice skills; (b) take a human rights perspective; (c) focus on goals and desired outcomes; (d) aim for quality of service delivery; and, (e) enhance and enable the role of key stakeholders. These principles are briefly presented along with recommendations for practice and service development.     

Evidence-Based Practice: Current Issues and Future Directions

Abstract

Evidence-based practice approaches continue to increase in popularity in health and human service contexts in Australia and internationally. As social workers face pressures to evidence practice and justify outcomes, the limitations in applying an evidence-based practice approach to social work are confronted. The present paper identifies the features of evidence-based practice and notes the potential benefits and limitations of this approach in social work. Debates surrounding the nature of social work interventions, effectiveness and evidence are reviewed. The current context and climate influencing the use of research and other evidence in social work are discussed. The paper also considers the position of qualitative, interpretive and critical reflective approaches in relation to evidence-based practice. Issues for the future of evidence-based practice in social work are identified, including the need for the profession to examine more closely the relationship between critical reflective and evidence-based approaches to practice.     

Narcissism and the Social Work Response

Abstract

This paper reflects on and discusses the relationship between social work knowledge and practice in the context of work with narcissistically-oriented clients. Two subtypes of narcissism postulated in the literature are discussed in relation to the pattern of narcissistic internal claims about self and associated relational expectations. Key messages for social workers are that greater knowledge of the dynamics of narcissism may lead to: accepting and adapting practice based on the idea that narcissistic dynamics have a certain intentionality; applying empowerment models more carefully with this group; better understanding of how to effectively engage clients without reinforcing strong narcissistic tendencies or “results”; and protection of social workers' wellbeing by being able to identify and understand how narcissistic dynamics impact in practice situations. Social workers are urged to critically reflect on and to develop deeper, social work-specific, understandings of personality psychology in the interests of greater practice effectiveness.     

Frameworks for resolving value conflicts in social work practice: A case study

Abstract

This article will discuss how two theoretical frameworks can be useful in the analysis of conflict situations in social work practice. By viewing situations from the perspective of competing and differing values, social workers are able to come to respect the positions of those with whom they are in conflict. The respect that emanates from being empathic and validating towards another's values is crucial for negotiating resolution to difficult conflict situations.     

Being Volunteered? The Impact of Social Participation and Pro-Social Attitudes on Volunteering

While disagreeing over the reasons why the performance of civic obligations seems to be declining, conservatives and liberals agree that people need to be reminded of their duties as citizens for this decline to be halted. But do these exhortations work? This paper tests two theories about how people become volunteers. The “normativist” perspective assumes that volunteer behavior flows from socialization into pro-social attitudes; the “social practice” perspective stresses the formative role of practical experiences and social participation. Using a panel study of high school seniors who were reinterviewed in their mid-20s and again in their early 30s, we show that volunteer work undertaken in high school has long-term benefits as does social participation more generally but that socialization into pro-social attitudes has an even stronger influence on volunteering in middle age. The implications of our study are that mandatory community service programs can boost later volunteer efforts but that socialization into appropriate citizenship attitudes is of equal, if not greater, importance.

     

Disabled People, Service Users, User Involvement and Representation

The issue of representation and representativeness has become central in debates about user involvement, disabled people and users of social care services. This article examines the emphasis of service agencies on the 'unrepresentativeness' of disabled people and service users; looks at how this is experienced by the latter and considers why the issue has gained such importance. It examines the different meanings attached to representation by recipients and providers of services. As well as looking at how the issue of representativeness is used to devalue, exclude and disempower disabled people and service users, the article explores its relation with the competing participatory and representative models and practices of democracy employed by disabled people and service providers.     

Working with neglected children and their families

Child neglect has proved a particularly difficult area for social work to address. In the first part of the paper a number of reasons for this are discussed. We go on to suggest that chronic child neglect characteristically involves the breakdown or absence of a relationship of care. Therefore, the social work response needs to include a focus on the relationship difficulties between parent and child which manifest as either an unwillingness or inability on the part of the primary carer to offer reliable, adequate care, and on broader relationship difficulties within the family. In arguing for an approach that pays attention to the intra-personal and relational dynamics of neglect, we draw specifically on attachment theory and consider how Ainsworth's (1978) typology of attachment patterns can shed light on parenting styles and patterns of family functioning associated with chronic neglect. We use the concept of the 'internal working model' to develop an understanding of the ways in which family members understand and live out their relationships—with each other and with the worker. We conclude by suggesting that this relational approach requires an ability on the part of the social worker to work both with and within relationships, and look at the contribution that a critically informed relationship-based approach can make to work with families where child neglect occurs.     

Involving Service Users in Social Work Management Education: What Makes it Meaningful According to the ‘Experts’?

Course leaders have adopted a relatively cautious approach to involving service users and carers in Post-Qualifying (PQ) social work management education programmes in the UK, looking for opportunities in which it ‘makes sense’ for them to be included. Whilst there is, to a certain extent, the belief that involving service users and carers in PQ social work education is ‘a good thing’, it has proved challenging to implement. This research study sought to explore, through interviews with ‘experts’ in the field, why this process had proved so challenging. A term which emerged during the research was the importance of ‘meaningful involvement’. The research explored what ‘meaningful involvement’ might mean for managers, for academics and also for service users and carers; what it looks like and how might it take forward the understanding of and the preparation for PQ social work management education.     

Social work and technology: Challenges for social workers in practice: A case study

Abstract

Social Work is just beginning to consider the full impact of technology on practice. In this paper the experience of social workers working in Centrelink, the Australian Government's service delivery organisation, is explored in the context of Centrelink's increased reliance on technology to deliver its services to six million Australians. The results of a survey that indicated nearly one half of Centrelink's social workers have received no formal training in how to use the technologies they rely so heavily on in their work are considered, as is the role of the social workers who are working as a part of Centrelink's call centre network. It is argued that social workers need to be careful not to confuse means and ends when it comes to utilising technology as a part of their practice.     

Being a service user and a social work academic: balancing expert identities

Abstract

I am a service user and academic working in a university social work department. My hybrid identity allows me to draw on different types of knowledge in all aspects of my work, including: academic, practice and experiential wisdom. Service user involvement is mandated across social work education but the scope and breadth of different kinds of participation is developed in diverse ways across university contexts. This article affirms the value of service user involvement in health and social care education, exploring its positive impact on students. When lecturers share personal experience of using services alongside practice and academic wisdom in the course of teaching, sometimes the value of experiential knowledge is doubted and its influence dismissed. I examine the importance of experiential wisdom in social work education, specifically when it is embedded in an academic role in a university social work department, and consider how it can be respected and valued. The parallel experiences of involving peer support workers in mental health services, who use their knowledge of recovery to mentor other service users, are then briefly examined, together with reflection of the concerns across mental health with professionals sharing their experiential wisdom with the people that they support.     

New directions: introducing the ‘Best Article’ Award

This research, conducted in 1998, examines the career expectations of student social workers as they approach the end of their DipSW training. The study looked at students' attitudes towards seeking a job following the end of their course, including their aspirations and their self-assessed readiness to practise. It also looked at the perspective of local social work agencies, seeking their views on how well prepared newly qualified social workers are for the realities of practice. The majority of students were planning to seek full-time employment in the statutory sector with local social work agencies in the field of community care. Most students did not expect to be promoted within the first five years after qualifying; job satisfaction was regarded as more important than career development. In the longer term, however, the majority envisaged that they would progress beyond the level of basic grade social worker. Issues were identified in relation to students' perceived readiness to practise, the availability of suitable employment in the area of students' preference, and the numbers of social work students able to work through the medium of Welsh.     

Theoretical and Practical Imperatives for Reflective Social Work Organizations in Health and Mental Health

Summary

This article describes the common challenges to health and mental health organizations that require these agencies to become more “reflective” in their culture and structures. This necessitates integrating practice and research at all organizational levels. Schon's concept of reflective practice to health and mental health organizations is extended to develop the construct of a reflective organization, in which direct practitioners are integral to organizational learning through ongoing service evaluation and redesign. The theoretical and practical reasons why social work administrators and clinicians alike are obliged to integrate practice and research are discussed. University-based models of practice-research integration impede this process; Epstein's Practice-Based Research approach facilitates it.     

A situated understanding of digital technologies in social movements. Media ecology and media practice approaches

Abstract

The article tackles two main aspects related to the interaction between social movements and digital technologies. First, it reflects on the need to include and combine different theoretical approaches in social movement studies so as to construct more meaningful understanding of how social movement actors deals with digital technologies and with what outcomes in societies. In particular, the article argues that media ecology and media practice approaches serve well to reach this objective as: they recognize the complex multi-faceted array of media technologies, professions and contents with which social movement actors interact; they historicize the use of media technologies in social movements; and they highlight the agency of social movement actors in relation to media technologies while avoiding a media-centric approach to the subject matter. Second, this article employs a media practice perspective to explore two interrelated trends in contemporary societies that the articles in this special issue deal with: the personalization and individualization of politics, and the role of the grassroots in political mobilizations.     

The systems' approach and social work methods

Many social work courses are now using ‘system theory’, or as I prefer to call it, ‘a systems' approach’, in teaching social work method on a unitary basis. Most social work techers recognise that the systems' approach is not enough on its own and that traditional methods have a place in practice. What is not clear is how these methods relate to the systems' approach.

In this article the relationship between the systems' approach and various methods and theories of intervention is explored in a number of different ways. Firstly, there is an examination of the relationship of various client, target and action systems. Secondly. Lippitt's analysis of the ‘diagnostic orientations’ of change agents is discussed and related to strategies aimed at changing the goals and the power structures of target systems. Then certain counselling and casework methods are considered in relation to Lippitt's analysis, leading on to a brief comment on methods of intervention based on systems' theory. Finally, an educational strategy for presenting this approach is discussed.     

Strengths and Pathological Perspectives in Community Social Work

ABSTRACT

Current social work theory distinguishes between the traditional pathology-oriented perspective and the strengths perspective. This paper posits that the working model of community social workers is grounded in a strengths perspective, which, in relation to community work, is compatible with and supplementary to empowerment models, providing a methodological base for the values and practice of the macro method of social work. The current study aimed to assess the prevalence of each of these two perspectives towards community activity, and to examine the differences between them regarding the sense of empowerment and professional skills acknowledged by community social workers in Israel. The findings revealed that while the majority of community social workers adopt a strengths perspective in their work, they experience a greater sense of empowerment and of professional skills when adopting a pathology-oriented perspective.