WinifredIn this first discussion we’re going to be looking at the meaning of critical practice, how the views of service users are taken into account and the professional power of social workers.I'm Winifred Robinson, and with me today are Steve Trevillion, who's Professor of Social Work and Director of the School of Social Work at the University of Leicester. And, prior to that, he was Head of Social Work Education at the General Social Care Council. Steve, hello.SteveHello.WinifredSusanna Watson's a qualified social worker. She’s currently working in a community based adult care team in the south west of England. Susanna, hello. Susanna Hello. WinifredWhat is it then that you do? Susanna I work with a variety of service users – adults, older and younger adults, with physical impairments. WinifredProfessor Andy Pithouse is also with us. He is Professor of Social Research at Cardiff University, where he specialises in Social Care and Health Services. He's also been a member of a number of reviews for the Welsh Assembly on Children and Social Work Services in Wales. Andy, tell us a bit about your work. Andy Most of my work is evaluation studies into social care and health services. My current work is looking at advocacy services for children in the public care system - how well their voice is heard and how they participate in the various stages of the care system. And I'm also doing some work around error and mistakes in decision making by social workers, and looking at the difficulties and the problems they have in arriving at reliable decisions. WinifredAnd on the line from Edinburgh we have Maggie Mellon, who is Director of Services with Children First in Scotland. It was formally the Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. And she's also a Board Member of the Scottish Child Law Centre, and of Community Care Provider Scotland. Maggie, hello. Maggie Hello. WinifredI'd like to start by looking at the whole concept of critical practice in social work, and what we mean by that. Maggie, perhaps you could start. MaggieFor me critical practice is one of the most important concepts that social workers should have at the heart of their work. It's so necessary for learning from the job that we're doing, and learning how to help people make a difference in their lives. For me it's about turning good intuitive practice, once you have learned the social work task in its elements, but it's about turning that into both teachable practice and into knowledge that the profession can then use in future and build on. WinifredSteve Trevillion. Steve Well I think Maggie's absolutely right to emphasis what a core issue this is. Critical practice is absolutely at the heart of good social work practice. As a phrase, of course, it's quite a recent phrase. But, in a sense, the ideas behind it have a very long history within social work. And you can certainly trace them back to all the interest that there was in radical social work practice, in social work with a social conscience, and so on. WinifredBut what does it mean, ‘critical practice'? What do we mean when we say that? Steve I think, behind the idea of critical practice, lies the idea of critical thinking and analysis. And certainly all the older debates about critical issues emphasise critical thinking as the root really of critical practice. Critical thinking, of course, there is a very long history. And, in one sense, it's all tied up with the questioning approach and the refusal to take things for granted. The idea of critical practice can sound very theoretical, even philosophical, because it deals in issues around questioning assumptions and refusing to take things for granted. However, I think it's worth pointing out that, whenever I talk to service users, one of the first things they emphasise about what's important to them in terms of the social workers they meet is that those social workers are questioning people, are reflective people, are people who can put their problems and concerns in a broader context and really think about it. What they don't want are people who are automatons, people who are they feel are just following procedures. So it's something that people value, as well as being an important concept for academics and professionals. WinifredAndy Pithouse, would you then draw a distinction between a social worker who is engaged in critical practice and somebody who is simply ... I suppose, if they were a doctor, you would say practising defensively ... doing what they know is in the law, doing what is laid down in the regulations, doing what the boss says. Andy Yes that's a good point. I think most social workers don't have much choice, to an extent. They have to work within legislation and statute. They have to work in relation to certain sets of standards about activities and outcomes. Those are, in many respects, necessary things. And the issue is, not so much are there procedures and technical legal requirements, which of course there are; they have to pursue those. It's to what extent they can take those forward more, and humanise them, and deal with the always with the uncertainty and the exigencies of practice. Practice is never straightforward and clear. You can't apply some sets of certain predictions to the world of social work and the lives of the people we seek to assist. And so I think critical theory is about having a number of perspectives. You obviously have the organisational perspective, as I say, standards, ethics, requirements and so forth by law. But you also have other perspectives around the rights of people - people's own particular understanding and needs, seeing the world from their own particular perspective. So it's about being empathic, intuitive and searching for ways of promoting people's interests and abilities. And that is a critical theory ... was once described more as sort of a form of jazz, where you extemporise, where you pick up a number of themes. You have an underlying rhythm going through, but you're adding pieces to it as you build in different perspective ... a sort of 'bricolage' of ideas and themes. And of course critical theory is also about being critical about yourself. And so it's not simply the right to criticise the system as such. The system will always be there, we can't be without one. It's about having a sense of balance and proportionality to the complex world of people's lives and recognising that, by and large, there are no real certainties in much of what we do. Maggie Could I just add something there about critical practice as opposed to what works, which has had quite a lot of discussion and focus in social work ... you know, what works a ... and which it did need to have because there wasn't a lot of knowledge or gathered knowledge about what kind of interventions and help was useful to people. But I think what critical practice does is move that one on, because we know that, you know, rubbing two sticks together can create a spark that lights a fire. But, if you didn't move on from that, we wouldn't have had much more effective ways of, and quicker ways of, lighting fires. So I think critical practice actually develops what we know and takes it on to another level and helps us to improve our work.
Panel discussion 1b
Winifred Susanna Watson, I want to bring you into the discussion because I know that you are fairly recently qualified. How useful is this idea of critical practice when you start work, or is it simply something that belongs in the textbook and then, when the textbook is closed, is never pulled out again? Susanna No, I think it is useful. I think it provides an invaluable framework for what you're doing and, in a way, helps you to analyse what you are doing and to make decisions from that analysis. I mean, an example ... I worked a couple of years ago with an older woman, who had some early stages of dementia and was also a heavy drinker. And she lived with her adult daughter, who was her carer. Her adult daughter had a learning difficulty, and she was finding it increasingly difficult to care for her mother. There were some concerns, I think, when the daughter became very stressed. She often shouted at her mother and there were worries that maybe some times she sort of pushed and shoved her, just because of the levels of stress she was under. And the daughter made it very clear that she was wanting to move out of the house. She was wanting to live independently. She didn't want to look after her mother anymore. Her mother was equally clear that she wanted to stay at home but there were real concerns that, without her daughter there, she really wouldn't manage. She was becoming increasingly forgetful. On one occasion she was eating the cat food. She was very confused sometimes about where she was. So you had the conflicting rights of the daughter, who was wanting to move out ... the mother who was wanting stay at home. The GP was saying that he felt that the mother's main problem, if you like, was her alcoholism and she had a right to drink. The psychiatrist was saying her dementia means that she doesn't really know how much she’s drinking. She's vulnerable from that point of view. So you have a whole plethora of different perspectives, different ideas about what's going on. And none of those ideas are wrong, and none of them are wholly right. And within all that you have to try and come to some decisions about actions that need to be taken, and how to work with that situation. Winifred So what did you do? Susanna I worked with her over quite a long period, probably between six months and a year, whilst her daughter was looking for accommodation to move to. Winifred Did you ever consider trying to persuade the daughter to stay, because obviously for social services that would be the cheapest option? Susanna No. I didn't, because I mean that wasn't an option because the daughter was clearly expressing her wish to move, and she was being supported by her own social worker in that move. What I could do was to talk to her mother about the fact that her daughter was moving out ... to repeat that again and again and again so that she did eventually understand that was inevitable. And she began to understand that she would have to think about how she was going to manage in that situation. And we tried ... we tried different things. At one stage her daughter, again at a particularly stressful moment, was needing an immediate break. Her mother, with some persuasion, agreed to go and stay in a care home for about a week. And then, after that, I was able to talk to her about what she had and hadn't liked about that particular place, and sort of talked to her some more about what might happen next. And eventually we found a small group home that was happy to accept her, very much as she was - that would still allow her to drink in moderation anyway, and would allow her to smoke, and was a kind of comfortable atmosphere. It wouldn't insist on having a bath, which was something she had loathed in the previous place she'd been in. And just gradually, bit by bit, she agreed to move and, because she was able to move at the same time as her daughter, I think it felt like a kind of logical life progression. And she actually settled very well in her new home, eventually. Winifrid Having heard that story, is there anything that anyone around the table would like to draw out from that? Steve What I would say is it's a very good illustration actually of the benefits of working closely with people first of all - listening to their views and trying to think ahead in a situation as well, and not just perhaps attend to an immediate crisis ... and try to think about where things are going, having a kind of long-term strategy which is developed in partnership with the people you are working with. I think it raises all sorts of really interesting questions about the complexity of social work practice and the way in which listening to people can be extremely complex, because you’re often dealing with more than one person, more than one set of views and more than one set of interests. In a sense, I think critical practice is designed just that ... for exactly that situation, to help you negotiate a way through some of these complex situations. Winifred Andy Pithouse, I wonder if sometimes some of the language used in the texts isn't sometimes unnecessarily complex? Andy Yes, I think that is the case. I mean, when you look at some of the texts, these are fairly impenetrable, theoretical, philosophical positions. But they should be tackled nonetheless, I think, by students and ideally with some critical facility themselves about whether these are actually going to have any benefit, in terms of everyday practice of course. But the underlying ideas of critical theory are about being creative, being intuitive, assertive, thinking about change, thinking about rights and tackling injustice. Essentially critical theory is about being in a position to recognise, as Steve has just said, that there are many and competing voices in relation to our modern lives. And so the critical theory social worker, for want of a better phrase, has to negotiate the views of education, adult services, the local community, the client and family, and so forth, and recognise that there are some very different interests and different ways of understanding those. And you can't simply operate with the one formal theory. Let me give you an example. I mean, if you visited somebody, a service user in a home for people with learning disabilities, that particular person was engaging in repetitive self harming behaviour - banging their head in some way ... and I can think of a recent case I was involved with. Well clearly you could go and get a psychologist, and do behaviourist intervention and use sanctions and rewards to possibly change that behaviour. But I think you’ve also got to think about whether that person is behaving like that because the environment is unstimulating, because no one quite understands their emotional needs; because they may be missing some intimate person in their lives. One's got to think around the corner and in very imaginative ways to consider the causes and the solutions to people's behaviours. But it shouldn't be a recipe for paralysis and endless introspection. It must be about action. Critical theory and critical practice must be about action and change.Compare your notes from Activity 1 with the views of the panel. Answer the following questions:What areas of overlap were there between your views and those of the panel members?Did you detect any differences between the views of the academics, the manager, and the practitioner? Were they significant? If so, how?Has your perspective changed as a result of listening to this discussion? If so, in what ways?Listening to people talk about social work, from their particular point of view, can often add new dimensions to your understanding of what different issues mean to you. The two practitioners were clear that ‘being critical’ was essential to their approaches to practice. This was reinforced by both the academic speakers. The academics added that, while critical practice can sound very theoretical, or philosophical, because it requires practitioners to question their assumptions and not just take things for granted, this critical questioning approach isn't simply introspective and reflective; it must also lead to action and change. The social worker's main tool for action and change is ‘talk’.The next session will illustrate this point by introducing you to some arguments about how talk enables and constructs the nature of your practice.2 Constructive social work2.1 IntroductionThis session has two activities. Both introduce you to some theoretical perspectives on an approach to practice known as ‘constructive’ social work. You will read and think about some provocative theoretical and philosophical ideas that have an important application to the key practice activities of ‘talk’ and, through talk, the development of working relationships.2.2 What is constructive social work?Activity 3120Read the following article: ‘What do we mean by “Constructive social work”?’While you're reading, make notes on the theoretical and philosophical ideas you come across.There is a lot to consider in this opening chapter of a book arguing for a ‘constructive’ social work approach. We felt that three key themes should be highlighted. The first, and perhaps the most relevant for this course, is that a constructive approach demands a critical stance towards our assumptions about understanding ourselves and others. In social work practice a critical stance implies that we remain open to, and curious about, the things that we ordinarily ‘take for granted’ and that we question ‘received wisdom’, or assumptions, about the way things are and the way things work. Perhaps this is what Glaister meant by an ‘open and not-knowing’ approach?One of the explanations for this critical stance is that our assumptions, or our categories and concepts, about the world are ‘situated’ historically and culturally and therefore vary over time and place. So, a critical or constructive practitioner shouldn't assume that their ways of understanding the world are the same as colleagues' or service users' with whom they work. You may have views in common but you cannot assume what these may be without checking it out through interpersonal dialogue and talk.The second key theme follows from this emphasis on checking assumptions and areas of agreement and difference. The quality of dialogue, between you as a practitioner and the people with whom you work, is strongly influenced by the quality of the relationship that you have and the communication that you can establish and maintain. Later in this course you will read the case study of a social worker, John, who makes this point very clearly when describing how forming a relationship offers a chance to make a difference. If you have no relationship, he says, you have ‘no chance’ of influencing things.This leads on to the third theme of constructive social work. Our knowledge of ourselves and of others is developed through interaction and social processes. This use of ‘talk’ to build and sustain relationships can be argued to be at the core of social work practice. We will be exploring this through a real case scenario later in this course.One of the more philosophical arguments to help explain a constructive approach is the view that people have different assumptions about how they see their worlds or their social realities. The next activity aims to explore this through a story about three baseball umpires. Don't worry if you don't know anything about baseball, or any other sport, you will still get the point!2.3 Objective conditions and subjective definitionsActivity 420Reread the story about the three baseball umpires, which you'll find on page 11 of ‘What do we mean by “Constructive social work”?’After you have read the story again, read the three paragraphs following it which include a quote from Fuller and Myers (1941), about objective conditions and subjective definitions. Think about what you have read and draft answers to the following questions:How would you describe the differences between the three umpires in terms of their ‘world view’ (or how they see things) in calling balls and strikes?If they were three social workers discussing how they ‘see problems’, what difference might this make to their practice?If social work was practised according to the first or second type of approach used by the umpires what might be the likely result?What are the implications of the third approach for social work practitioners' power?In what ways were you persuaded (or not!) by the distinction between objective conditions and subjective definitions?Did this distinction help to further explain the difference between the three umpires?Do you think that the existence of ‘problems’ is self-evident – or does it depend, as the authors argue, on someone claiming or asserting that a problem exists?What are the implications for social workers' practice in general and your practice in particular?When you have drafted your answers to these questions, you may wish to share them using the Comments section below. You will also be able to see the comments from others studying this course and can, if you wish, post further comments agreeing or disagreeing with them. Your developing thoughts will contribute towards an online group debate about the different views and responses to what you have read.The story demonstrates three different ways of approaching practice; the first assumes that what we see and hear is not interpreted by us, or filtered by our assumptions – that what we see is the way things ‘really are’. The second accepts that reality appears only as we, or rather ‘I’, see it, that is, only through my own perceptions and prejudices or ‘constructs’. The third approach recognises the importance of our own constructs of reality but, in addition, accepts that there is power in our social positions. In other words, we can use our position within social situations to ‘call’ and thereby create and define an interpretation of what has happened.What it is crucial to understand is the power of the role that certain people play within certain situations. In baseball, cricket or football, the umpire or referee enforces the rules of the game. Although many people may have contributed to creating the rules, the person who interprets them has power as a result of their position. The rules of the game may have been socially created and constructed from many different sources but they are open to interpretation and professional judgement.Social work practice shares some similarities with this scenario – but it also has some important differences. The ‘rules’ concerning services and interactions between social workers and service users have been constructed socially via agency and government policy. Nevertheless, these rules have to be put into practice by the social worker interacting with service user(s) and colleagues, often over long periods of time. However, absolute split-second decisions do not have to be made by social workers acting alone! So, in implementing ‘the rules of the game’ social workers can see these rules as:more or less fixed, permanent and outside their controlas a matter for their discretion and judgement onlyas a social process that they and the service user are part of, and over which they have significant influence, but not full control – however, neither does anyone else!In our view, if social work is practised according to the first or second approaches it is likely that partnership with service users will fail because the service will be bureaucratic and impersonal, or idiosyncratic and judgemental.In effect, practising the first two approaches would undermine Glaister's pillars of practice, as discussed in Activity 1.The quote from Fuller and Myers which follows the story makes a key philosophical distinction with profound professional practice implications. There are ‘objective conditions’ in all social work situations, about which disagreement is unlikely. For example, there is no bed for a child; no heating in an elderly person's house; a family has no money. In addition, and overlaying these conditions, there are also ‘subjective definitions’ of situations through which everyone, including social workers, assigns meanings, values, judgements and assessments.The objective absence of bed, heating or money may clearly be a priority problem in given situations. However, there is an equal possibility that it may not be assessed as a problem, or not one necessarily requiring social work intervention, when a range of other information about specific circumstances and possible future actions are negotiated or taken into account.To pursue these examples: the parents may be happy for the child to sleep with them until a bed can be found; the elderly person may prefer to wear more clothing rather than spend money on heating; the family may have friends or relatives who are willing and able to help. This key distinction between objective conditions and subjective definitions is crucial to understanding the ‘constructive’ approach to social work practice.3 Critical use of language: service user views and professional power3.1 IntroductionThis section builds upon the previous two by encouraging you to critically examine the importance of language in constructing social work relationships. The activities highlight key messages about the power of talk in helping people to make sense of their experiences, take control and make changes to their lives. The ‘power of talk’ applies as much to social workers as to the service users with whom they work. However, the reality of social work practice suggests that ‘making sense, taking control and making changes’ is more easily said than done. The opening activity in this section illustrates how even a very small snippet of practice can be analysed and how theory can be used to provide different explanations of what might be taking place.3.2 Analysing practiceActivity 5130Read ‘Constructive first engagement: best practice in social work interviewing – keeping the child in mind’ (Cooper, 2008).As you read this chapter consider ways in which you could capture and examine your interactions with service users, through similarly detailed analysis.This reading demonstrates how even a very small extract of the dialogue and language used in practice exchanges can be analysed to draw out further meaning and insight. It also offers explanations of some of the theoretical underpinnings of a constructive social work approach.The chapter is part of a collection of essays that illustrate a ‘critical best practice’ approach to social work. Part of this approach to social work argues that social work skills, strengths and good practices can be identified even where the overall outcome of cases may eventually appear to be poor. In other words, in your practice learning opportunity, the analysis of your action doesn't have to be tied to apparently ‘successful’ pieces of work. Using this approach, you can still argue for the good practice skills, knowledge and values that you used to make the case for your professional intervention.3.3 What to do about Sarah?Activity 6145Read the Case Study ‘Sarah's story: What to do about Sarah’Keep in mind the analyses used in the previous reading, pay careful attention to the language being used and note down some responses to the following questions:What is your analysis of what is being said by John and Sarah to each other?What is your analysis of the interactions between Sarah and her mother?How would you sum up John's obligations towards Sarah – legal and otherwise?To what extent can John take account of Sarah's stated wish for him not to intervene but just to ‘be there’?What do you judge to be the potential for Sarah and Karen, as service users, to have influence in this situation? In what ways would you try to maximise this?Once you have answered these questions, you may wish to share your answers with others studying this course by posting them in the Comments section below.As with the previous reading, there can be a difference between the information that is being presented and a more in-depth analysis. Here are some questions that occurred to us:What point is John making in the car about risks? Concerns about Sarah are the reason for his involvement – but he is equally aware of the risks to both him and his employing agency. ‘Pointing the finger’ expresses a lot about a perceived culture of blame where social services are concerned. ‘Damned if you do and damned if you don't’ is a phrase that expresses the dilemmas of whether, and how to, intervene in social work situations.We had different responses to how Sarah appears as a 14-year-old girl who has been involved with social services from the age of twelve. Some thought that she seemed much older than her age; others thought that she seemed much younger. In some respects then, Sarah's actual age may be less relevant than an assessment of her overall development as a young person.What were your responses to the parent–child interactions between Sarah and her mother? An analysis of parental authority might suggest that, on the evidence of this interaction, the normal power relationship had been inverted. We felt that there could be many implications for the ability to effectively work ‘in partnership’ in a voluntary arrangement in this situation.Finally, what did you think about John's communication with Sarah? We thought it had many elements of ‘best practice’ as set out by Cooper (2008) in the previous reading. John expressed his concerns very openly whilst giving the clear message that he couldn't just go away and that ‘other steps’ could still be taken in the future. In doing this, he was gently confrontational and yet sensitively responsive to Sarah within the dialogue whilst leaving open the door for further work.3.4 Sarah and John talking under a streetlightActivity 7130Read the Case Study ‘Sarah's story: Under the streetlight’Using the approach taken by Cooper (2008) in the reading, and the case studies from this activity and Activity 6, sketch out some responses to the following questions:How would you now analyse what is being said by John and Sarah to each other?To what extent are Sarah and John able to ‘listen and respond’ to each other? What may be the different constraints?Is John taking the best approach? Do you agree with what John is saying and trying to do in the different sequences?What did you think of John's final question? Given the reaction, would you have pursued it further?Would you have taken a different approach in this situation? If so, what and why?In what ways has your understanding of the interaction between John and Sarah been influenced by the three readings in this course?These are all complex questions that, in different ways, go to the heart of why social work is often a very difficult business! Consequently, there are few, if any, absolutely ‘right’ answers to these questions. Your responses are a matter of critical judgement for you in the light of the information available. You may feel that you haven't got enough information for ‘the full picture’ – but this is not unusual. In social work it is doubtful whether a ‘full picture’ is ever possible. You are often likely to be working in situations where the background is sketchy and incomplete or where the situation is unstable and changeable. In such dynamic scenarios there is a need to develop working hypotheses and understandings and maintain an approach that revises these in the light of your enquiries, interventions and other developments as they unfold.3.5 Reactions and reflectionsActivity 8015Read the Case Study ‘Sarah's story: Sarah and John’Make notes on the reactions presented in the Case Study.You will have had your own reactions to the powerful scene between John and Sarah under the streetlight. Listening to the views of others, particularly those who actually participated in the scene, provides another set of perspectives that can enrich your understanding of what was going on. This can be described as a ‘multiple perspectives’ approach to knowledge and learning and is a key aspect of constructive social work, as well as being of great importance to social work practice. The key point is that our first reactions and judgements are just a starting point, based, as they have to be, on our assumptions about what is going on. It is only through checking others' perspectives that we can go below the surface and achieve a deeper understanding of situations.3.6 Professional conference with Karen presentActivity 910Read the Case Study ‘Sarah's story: Child protection conference’As you read, consider the following questions:What is the conference chair saying in plain language?What kind of language is she actually using?What are the difficulties of using ‘professional short-hand’ or jargon phrases in a meeting where not everybody is a professional and may not share an understanding of the language?What is Karen saying? Is she being ‘heard’ in this clip? What is her ‘service user's view’ about her position in this meeting or in decision-making processes?Does Karen have a point?This is a very short extract from a real-life child protection conference involving Sarah's mother, Karen, and various professionals, including the social worker, John. It is important to realise that this extract has been edited and greatly shortened and so appears out of any context. The focus on the participants' language use does not, therefore, reflect their overall contribution to the conference. The point of focusing upon a small selection is to illustrate the argument that even very small snippets of the language used in practice can reveal profound messages about power and powerlessness.3.7 Perspectives on practice: building relationshipsActivity 10030Listen to the following audio file ‘Reflections: Anne Farmer’.This is an excerpt from an interview with Anne Farmer, who acted as chair of the conference that was the subject of the Case Study for the previous activity (Activity 9).
‘Reflections: Anne Farmer’
Commentary In this short extract, we’ll hear from Anne Farmer, talking about her role as chair of the conference. Her job involves communicating with the different agencies and service users involved. Here she explains some of the preparation that goes into doing this. Anne Farmer I think the way that good case conferences are managed is through, I think, preparation. So I will always make a good attempt to try and see a family before a conference, to go through the report with them so that, if there's areas they're not sure, or they're not clear about, or they don't agree with, and language is written in a way which is jargon, or professional language they don't understand, I try and make sure that they're clear about what's being said and what are the key issues in the report. Commentary During the conference itself, part of the chair's job is to handle two languages - the language used by social workers in the report, which is understood by the professionals involved and includes professional jargon which often uses more technical or professional shorthand words and phrases, and the ordinary language which we all use. Where both professionals and service users are involved in a meeting, the participants have to try and strike a balance between the needs of the professionals to share information, and the obligation to involve service users in the process. This is not always easy, and achieving this balance is the conference chair’s particular responsibility. Anne Farmer I think it's quite difficult to make sure that parents understand absolutely everything, because conferences ... you know, you are working to timescales and you, you know … child protection conferences should be reasonably tightly chaired so that you get through all the elements of the conference. But I try and make sure that I see the parents ... that we lay some ground rules with them about making sure they know they've got a voice. They know that they can, you know, pick up if they're not sure, or they want something clarified … that they will have an opportunity to speak, that, if they want a break and they want to go and consult with an advocate, or they want to speak to the social worker, they can also do those things. So that there is a sense in which … you can't negate all professional language, but that you make sure that parents and young people see themselves as part of the process really. I think it is about ensuring that you give parents a voice in the conference; that you give them permission to say if they're not sure, or if they don't understand … that you ... you sum up frequently, which is often the style I used as a chair of a child protection conference. So, for example, if the social worker presented the report, then I would sum up in two or three sentences, “So this is what you're saying, this is the essence of it”. So that, if there is some sense in which someone's not clear, hopefully my summing up will give them, you know, an opportunity to realise what's being said. Commentary As well as demystifying language, the chair is there to ensure that everyone has an equal voice, that service users are not excluded, and that what they say is heard. Anne Farmer The model I try and keep in my head is that child protection conferences can be a bit like a football match. We’re on one … with one team you have a set of professional players who've played together very regularly, know each other well and have a good understanding of the game. And, on the other side, you have a group of individuals who know each other, but have never played football in their lives, so they're not terribly sure of what they're doing. And they've all come together to play this match. If you keep that in your head, then you can really understand how it might feel to be a parent at a case conference, when you've never been before. If parents disagree with the social worker's report, or any of the reports from other professionals, then we would try and minute their disagreement so that that was actually contained within the notes. I try and listen to what people have got to say and whether they disagree, and there's some factual errors that we've made, or whether it's a disagreement around the perception of an event or an assessment of risk. But, at the end of the day, the reason that everybody's gathered in that room is to try and ensure that a child is safeguarded in some way or another, whether it's through a multi agency action plan to enable that child to remain at home, or whether it's through some other form of recommendation. And you want to work with parents …you want to engage with them to enable them to make the appropriate changes. But, nonetheless, professionals don't convene child protection conferences lightly. You have to have evidence, and that's presented in the social worker's report. You have to be able to ensure that, through the risk indicators, there's a clear understanding of what … you know ... risks may be attached to that child. Commentary Anne Farmer clearly explains that her role in the conference is to facilitate the communication of professional concerns about risks. It's likely that there may be disagreements, and these have to be recognised, acknowledged and discussed. Acknowledgement of disagreements is a feature of social work relationships. However, good social work practice requires the maintenance of working relationships through difficulties, and this creates scope for understanding and positive changes.Karen, Sarah's mother, found it difficult to hear what had been written in the report, and was not used to the form of language used to describe some of the professional perceptions of the difficulties with Sarah.In another part of the interview, Anne Farmer pointed out that parents do disagree, particularly around the identification of the risks. This is because these can at times be the cause of concern for professionals involved.Parents hearing this can feel as though they are a failure as a parent. It can make them feel undermined. Therefore, it is a very difficult balance. Professionals need to be honest with parents about what needs to be different and what needs to be changed, in order for the situation to move forward.It was difficult for Karen to hear that she hadn't been a very consistent parent, and that her daughter was involved in sexual exploitation. But actually, for Karen, who was placing herself at quite significant risk, that was all very real.The impact of Sarah's experience with her mother had been very difficult. They had had a conflicting and difficult relationship.Now read the Case Study ‘Sarah, Karen and John’.These extracts illustrate different perspectives on social work relationships. They differ on a personal level because the individuals are clearly very different people and each illustrates a different ‘take’ on the nature of the relationship that is being discussed. But they also differ because of the social position that each individual occupies.Anne Farmer gives a clear explanation of her perspective as chair of a multi-professional child protection conference. Her relationship with service users is distanced and framed by agency requirements to ensure that the conference proceeds effectively. John, Sarah and Karen are much more involved with each other and have an ongoing need to negotiate a working relationship that is maintained through the ups and downs of a child protection intervention. They all need to negotiate with each other using the different levels of power that their position affords them. The final activity in this course returns to the panel discussion to explore these issues.3.8 Perspectives on practice: building relationshipsActivity 1110Listen to the following audio clips, ‘Panel discussion on critical practice’, Part 2: Professional powerIn these clips, the panel critically discusses the importance of service user views and the nature of professional social workers' power.
Panel discussion 2a
Winifred Well we focused mainly on the professional's point of view, and I'd like to move this on now, if we could, to the people who use social services. Maggie Mellon, what about this idea of negotiation? Because I imagine that sometimes, in your work, you have to take decisions which some of the people who come to you may not like. Maggie Well yes. Here I’d like to use the example of family group conferencing, which Children First pioneered, or championed, in Scotland and is now providing in partnership with a range of local Authorities here. And that, sort of, turns the question around. Rather than saying, you know, we make decisions about people, it's a family led decision making process. And we found that it can be used very helpfully in taking decisions, not away from social workers ... because sometimes you do have to make life-changing decisions about children and sometimes you need to use statutory powers and the authority of the social worker ... but mainly, if you bring together the family around the interests or the issues which are concerning you about the child, you get a different quality of decision, and one that isn't made about people but that is made with people, and taking into account their whole perspective and the range of perspectives that any family would bring to a situation. Winifred But sometimes you must make decisions about people? Maggie Well I think the question was, you know, why are service users' views important in decision making? And of course sometimes you do have to make decisions about how you’ll approach something. Having a family conference or making ... or some other way of working with people is making a decision. Involving people in decisions about their lives is not a gift that you give them, it's actually a right that they have. And it's also common sense. Every decision that's important and life changing, if you haven't essentially put that person and made them feel in charge of it, you are making them an object of your decision making, and generally it won't work. Actually that's where a number of tragedies and poor outcomes come from. Winifred But I'm sorry to press you but what happens when people really won't co-operate with you? You're saying that you have to make people feel, or you have to empower them, or you have to let them lead the decision making. But what if you are making decisions in the interests of children, and the adults in those processes oppose you and are unhappy with your decision making, as must often happen? Maggie Well of course the welfare of the child in that case is paramount. But I think it's interesting you say what if people won't co-operate with you. I think that's where critical thinking comes in, and you do actually have to think why is co-operation not happening? Now it can be that somebody is generally malevolent and wishes to do harm to children. But that's not most of the situations that social workers find themselves in. So, if you get a situation of lack of co-operation, I think that is very much a point of critical reflection about what that's about and how you can move from non co-operation to co-operation in the best interests of the children that we work with. Winifred Andy Pithouse, where conflicts can arise between service users and professionals, we've heard there about the family case conference as one way of trying to balance those different interests ... if you look across the different service user groups, the elderly, mental health, learning difficulties, asylum seekers, perhaps offenders, can you give me some other examples of how those conflicts can be resolved, balanced, acknowledged? Andy Yes I think that, within the literature, it suggests that we should be in partnership with the people we seek to help, and that the people we seek to help are also in a sense experts of their own particular situation. I’m something of a heretic here in some ways. I'm never entirely sure people are experts of their own circumstances. I don't think I am an expert in my circumstances. People who know me may well agree with that. But ... Winifred But aren't you more expert than anyone else? Andy No, well what I was saying is none of us work in conditions of perfect knowledge. No one knows all the answers. And much of both critical practice and aspects of a user led service are that we have to be just a little bit modest about all the facts that we do know. And we do have to work with people to, if you like, co-produce a solution to a shared problem. And in that sense I don't think any of us should be ... we should all be rather wary about claiming expert status. And so, you know, I think it is that question of thinking creatively with others to find solutions and us as being as fellow travellers with the people we are working with. But again, we come back to the other point that colleagues have made that what is particular to social work is that critical judgement to know whether we can be fellow travellers and work in a constructive partnership approach, or whether we do in fact have to say, “I’m sorry but we have to make a definitive judgement here, which you may not like, but which we think is essential". And there’s plenty of evidence of social workers who have gone dangerously down the road of openness and partnership, and have taken the word and the faith of the people they’ve been working with and have come a cropper in a serious way. And I think critical practice is also about being critical about the literature we read and views within that literature. Partnership is a good idea, but it doesn't work with someone who is trying to deceive you. And there's lots of examples of social workers who have been gullible and have accepted the partnership idea, much to the damage of themselves and the profession, I think. But that's ... that may be a minority view, but it's one that I tend to share. And I think there are recent court ... may I just read you something? Winifred Yes. I was going to say give us an example. Andy Well here is an example. These largely occur, I think you will find, in child protection matters sadly. But here is a social worker, and this is the judgement of the court. 'We do not accuse social worker X of wilful neglect. We do not accuse him of culpable disorganisation: meaning to do something but never getting round to it, for example. But he seems to have drifted along, secure in his own first impression that all would be well. He was happy to rely on the mother to be his main source of information about the child. It was even more concerning that he accepted, without challenge, what she said about herself, because he was not critical. He did not respond to the increasing level of risk in the child's environment. He simply didn't listen. Winifred Susanna Watson, can you provide us with an example of this that isn't about children because obviously it arises in other areas? Susanna Yes. I think it's a slightly different situation, working with adults. Because, broadly speaking, outside the Mental Health Act there isn't a lot of sort of firm legislation that can allow you to take decisions against somebody's will. I mean, largely speaking, adults are considered, you know, able to make decisions about their lives; able to make mistakes about their lives. And there isn't legally a lot that we can do about that a lot of the time. So I think it's a different situation from child protection work. I think what we find ourselves involved in, a lot more of the time, is perhaps trying to persuade people ... trying to help people see another point of view that their situation could be different, as it were. Winifred Maggie, you wanted to come in. Maggie Yes I think that perhaps, if we listen to people more and went with their suggestions and solutions, we might build different services that were what people wanted. And a lot of the time it's been not listening to what people want. I mean, we’ve built a ‘Looked After’ system, which ... where the outcome ... for children when they are removed from their parent's care, where the outcomes are not very good, where most of those who come out of it don’t do very well in life and where, if we'd actually listened to the children and their families in the first place, we might build different services. We might have far more community resources. We might actually still have home helps going in and cleaning out, and helping people to live in their own houses, rather than a whole infrastructure of assessment and then people being packaged off into care homes. So I mean, if you listen to people and you work with them and they come up with solutions, and you think, “What would it need to resource that?”, then we might build different social services in the country.
Panel discussion 2b
WinifredBehind a great deal of what we have been discussing has been the whole idea of power, and the nature of the power that the social worker holds. Steve Trevillion, I'd like to turn to that now more directly. What is the nature of the power then that the social worker holds? It must be, I suppose, multifaceted. It's to do with knowledge. It's to do with being a gatekeeper to resources. Tell me about it.SteveWell, like everything else we’ve been talking about, I think it's pretty complicated really. I think there’s a power which is related to the specific job that the social worker is doing. In other words, they’re not just an individual, they're representing an organisation. We’ve already had the example of gate keeping and rationing of scarce resources. And inevitably anyone who has a role in making decisions about who will, or will not, get resources has power. So there’s an imbalance built into that kind of role. Now, of course, not all social workers work in those kinds of roles. But, even if they don't, there are other types of power to be considered, I think. I mean one is the issue of expertise and professionalism, and the role of professionals in our society. There is a sense in which social workers are often uncomfortable with their professionalism. It's got a long history in social work of being actively contested as an idea. But, nevertheless, coming into a situation as somebody who is perceived as an authoritative person, somebody whose views count, who has respect, status, etc, etc, all can have a bearing on a situation.Now of course, in some senses, we all of us want to be taken seriously and want to be treated with respect, and so on. But I think it can also be dangerous because undue respect can get into the situation, and people can feel that their views don't matter so much, or that the person in front of them obviously is very knowledgeable, very powerful, very important and so on. Status issues can come into play, which are to do, not with actually being a social worker, but with your general status in society. Issues of race are very important. Issues of class always in this country are terribly important. And accent, and gender, age, disability. I think you can't get away from the fact that there are power imbalances built into almost every aspect of social work practice and, of course, it's one of the key lessons of critical practice to try always to be mindful of power relations, and always to be thinking about the impact of those power relations on what is going on between you and the other person.WinifredCan you give us a practical example?SteveWell I think, if you for example go into a situation ... let's take an adult situation of something under the terms of the NHS and Community Care Act, where there is an assessment going on. And you're going to meet somebody who is in a vulnerable situation. They may well have ideas about how their situation could be improved. But, when you come into that situation, you may be uncomfortably aware of how scarce various resources are, or how limited resources are that you have to offer.I think it's very important to be open minded; not to start off with a checklist in your own mind of things that you've got to offer, and just be interested in ticking those off and completing the assessment in that way. It's very important to put all of that away, to some extent, and really listen to the person. This issue of listening we keep coming back to don't we?Listen to the person. What are they saying? What are their needs? And I think one of the most interesting developments in recent years has been the focus on desired outcomes. Not just needs, in the sense of what you as a professional might think somebody needs, but what changes does this person want in their life? What is it that you could potentially contribute, as a professional, to change and an improvement in the quality of their life? And, if you can find something that can meet one of those desired outcomes, then of course the whole process can be justified. And it's very important therefore to get away from the idea that you are simply representing a powerful organisation, and trying to fit somebody into it. It's important to listen and to see your role as trying to find a way of enabling that person to feel a bit more powerful in their own lives, feel a bit more effective and feel a bit more as if life has something to offer them than perhaps it did before. Winifred Maggie Mellon? Maggie Yes. I mean it is a very interesting question, and I thought about the relationship between the statutory agencies which have legislative power and voluntary organisations, such as the one I’m working with now, where we actually need to negotiate everything. Formally the 'Children First' was the ‘Royal Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children’, and did have inspectors, and did have powers to remove children from their homes and take them away. And that all changed with the Social Work in Scotland Act and the development of the social work departments in Scotland. So it's quite interesting how much you’re assumed to have lost all knowledge when you join the voluntary sector. And I practised as a social worker for, and a manager in social work, for twenty years before I went to the voluntary sector. But, from one day to the next, one day I was an expert on child protection who could make decisions and remove children and decide they should be adopted, and all sorts of things, and the next day I was a fool who would be phoning up a newly qualified social worker, and she would or he would say, “Oh no, we don't consider that child protection”. So I think it's an interesting thing about power and how you can lose it when you don't work in a statutory agency. And I think that tells us something about the relationship between us and the people we work with, because it was actually very freeing not to have that power and to reflect on what the personal skills were that you needed to work with people and engage with them, and to see at a distance what has become of the relationship between the statutory departments. Quite often I think all the mistakes and the tragedies that have been in child protection have been about power and the misuse of power, whether it's been by not using it when you should, or by trying to transfer it around all the different people passing the buck. But there is something about this having the power and either using it inappropriately and wrongly. I think we need to ... social workers need to stop holding power to themselves, because the more that you actually empower and share out the power to change lives with the people we're working with, the more power you actually get. And I'm not an advocate ... I’m a very strong advocate of protecting children in the best way possible, but I don't think necessarily that there's a very straight relationship between the use of statutory powers to just decide and move things around the board is the right way to do that.