1.2 Experiences of writing
The findings of the WiSP project raise awareness of the importance of social work documents and some of the challenges that are faced by social workers in producing them. In the following activity you will hear from Vicki, an experienced social worker, talking about her own learning journey as she developed her professional writing skills.
Activity 1 Reflecting on writing as a social worker
Listen to Vicki, a social worker in the field of children and families social work. Here she reflects on how her writing has changed and discusses how to write in an accessible way. Don’t worry if you do not fully understand everything in this audio, you will return to it at the end of this section and revisit some of the concepts that Vicki talks about.
Make some notes on the questions that follow:
Download this audio clip.Audio player: Audio 1: Reflecting on professional language
Transcript: Audio 1: Reflecting on professional language
VICKY
My name’s Vicky.
I’ve been a qualified social worker for six years.
I’ve recently left frontline child protection practice and I’m still in a social work role, working with children and I’m going to talk a little bit about my experience of writing in social work.
So one thing that I have realised is that when I was less experienced, when I was newly qualified, I was much less confident writing in a clear and straightforward way, and I think I sometimes used big words, overly complicated language to try to over compensate for my inexperience and to try and make me feel what I perceived to be professional and to come across in a certain way.
Umm I remember when I was very first qualified writing a Court report and I used the word ‘cervix’ in the report which I found in a thesaurus, I was quite proud of that, I thought it might impress my manager, maybe the judge, but at that point I barely understood what that word meant myself and I didn’t really give any thought to whether or not the parents or the child would understand what I was trying to say. Whereas now when I write I’m keeping the child at the centre of my mind, so I’m trying to write in a way which that child could either understand now if they’re old enough or for them to be able to understand in the future and children when they are older often use their social work records to make sense of what happened to them earlier in life so I’m keeping that in mind and I’m trying to write in a way which will help a child to do that if they come back to read their records at a later date.
It’s also really important writing an accessible way because that means it’s going to be more easily understood by their parents that I’m trying to work with. And when I work with children and parents I’m trying to work with them not do things to them or for them and I think the language that I use and the way that I write is a really important way to try to achieve that.
So writing accessibly for me is about several things. It’s about the words I choose. For example, I always try to avoid judgemental language. Umm there’s certain words that I wouldn’t use, I don’t think they’re helpful in either building relationships with children and parents now or for children and parents to read in the future. For example, I wouldn’t use the words ‘manipulative’ to describe a parent or the word ‘needy’ to describe a child. I don’t think any of us would like to be described in those ways and I always try to write in way which is explaining what things mean for that child which I don’t think those words help to achieve.
I also try to avoid choosing over complicated sentence structure, and something which I’ve become aware of recently is that the passive tense is much more difficult for people with a lower literacy level to understand, so it’s something that I’m consciously trying to do to avoid writing in the passive tense.
Although there are many audiences for social work writing so I’m not just writing for the child now or in the future I also might be writing for my manager or for other professionals or maybe for a judge, all of those professionals are able to understand something written in straightforward way, whereas if I’m writing in a complicated way for someone else for another professional it doesn’t work both ways, it’s not that the family would necessarily be able to understand what I was trying to say. And in my experience writing in a really, much more clear way and straightforward way is well received in any event by professionals.
Something else I try to do when time allows and it doesn’t always allow but is to try writing using an easy read format which is about distilling a much longer report down into the key points and that’s used and can be particularly helpful for parents with a learning difficulty or disability and again that’s something I found that’s been really well received.
Obviously sometimes it’s necessary to use professional language so maybe when I’m talking about a particular professional role or service or referring to a particular social work theories. However, I would always try to put this in some context and try to make this as accessible as possible. For example, I wouldn’t use acronyms without first explaining what that referred to.
I’ve seen in the time that I’ve been a social worker writing in a more child friendly way is increasing across the field. So independent review officers I’ve seen now widely writing their meeting Minutes as letters directly addressed to the child and even in some cases I’ve come across judges writing to children to explain the decisions that they’ve made.
Audio 1: Reflecting on professional language
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- What does Vicki say about her writing when she was a newly qualified social worker?
- Why might social work records be important to children as they grow older?
- Vicki discusses writing in an accessible way. What features does she describe as part of this?
- What does she say about using professional language?
- What changes has Vicki noticed in the way some professionals write?
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Answer
- Vicki says that when she was newly qualified she was less confident about writing ‘in a clear and straightforward way’ and she tended to use longer, more complicated language to compensate for her relative inexperience. She says she now feels that she did not generally consider the reaction of the child or parent in her writing.
- Children may use their social work records to make sense of early childhood experiences. It’s therefore important to write in a way that the child can understand, either now or when they’re older.
- Vicki suggests the following:
- Avoid judgmental language e.g., manipulative, needy
- Explain what things mean for the child
- Avoid over-complicated sentence structure, for example use of the passive (e.g., the child was placed in foster care by the Local Authority (passive), the Local Authority placed the child in foster care (active).
- She always explains acronyms at first use (acronyms are words made from initial letters e.g., LAC for looked after child).
- Vicki says she has noticed an increase in child-friendly writing e.g., Independent Reviewing Officers writing meeting minutes as a letter addressed to the child and a judge writing to children to explain their decisions.