Gillian Ruch

Self and social work: Towards an integrated model of learning

My experiences as a social work practitioner, DipSw tutor and research student form the basis for this article which uses a narrative, auto-ethnographic approach to illustrate the complexities and potential of reflective learning. A theoretical account of the nature of reflective learning and the reflection process is outlined before an autobiographical account which provides an example of the reflective learning process. The key themes of holistic approaches to learning, the significance of the self and multiple subjectivities, the personal in the professional and the importance of attending to the process and content of learning are explored. Examples of shortcomings in the current learning environment are included and drawn on to highlight the potential for more reflective approaches within the DipSw tutorial system. I suggest that given the anxiety-provoking nature of the situations they face, student practitioners need to embrace reflective learning if they are to avoid becoming restrictive, routinised and ritualistic in their practice.

Identifying ‘the critical’ in a relationship-based model of reflection

This paper explores the critical potential of a relationship-based reflection model. The key psycho-dynamic and systemic concepts shaping the development of relationship-based practice and underpinning the reflection model are explored along with the contribution to the model that originates from Schons work on reflective practice. The model is outlined and illustrated with a case example that highlights three key critical dimensions identified as integral to the models functioning: inclusive knowledges and multiple perspectives, anxiety and containment and individual and collective responsibility and the diffusion of expertise. In conclusion, commonalities and potential synergies between critical and relationship-based models of reflection are identified.

Anxiety, defences and the primary task in integrated children’s services: enhancing inter-professional practice

The past decade has seen substantial changes in the configuration of services for children and families in the UK. Most notably, the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié raised serious questions about the professional systems designed to safeguard children and the importance of professionals working effectively together to protect children. The research informing this paper was undertaken with a group of childcare social work practitioners and explored their everyday work experiences of the post-Climbié introduction of the Every Child Matters agenda and Integrated Childrens Services. Through the application of psychodynamic and systemic concepts to the research findings, the paper identifies new perspectives on barriers to effective integrated working and makes suggestions for working practices that may overcome them.

Making meaningful connections: Using insights from social pedagogy in statutory child and family social work practice

Reports into incidents of child death and serious injury have highlighted consistently that a cause for concern has been the capacity of social workers to communicate skilfully with children. In response, there has been a growing emphasis on training social workers in their communication skills. While a welcome development, training can often be perceived and experienced in terms of obtaining practical tips to aid the verbal and non-verbal communication process. We argue that more fundamental to ‘connected’ communicative encounters are intrinsic qualities that are difficult to identify, define and ‘package’. Using a social pedagogical approach and drawing on data collected as part of an Economic and Social Research Council funded UK-wide, four nations, qualitative study exploring social workers’ communicative practices with children, this paper will consider how social workers manage to connect, or not, with children. The social pedagogical concepts of ‘haltung’ (attitude), ‘head, heart and hands’ and ‘the common third’ are outlined as potentially helpful approaches for understanding the intimacies of inter-personal connections and enhancing social workers’ capacity to establish and sustain meaningful communication and connections with children in the face of austere organisational contexts.

‘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.

Making meaningful connections: Insights from social pedagogy for statutory social work practice

Reports into incidents of child death and serious injury have highlighted consistently that a cause for concern has been the capacity of social workers to communicate skilfully with children. In response, there has been a growing emphasis on training social workers in their communication skills. While a welcome development, training can often be perceived and experienced in terms of obtaining practical tips to aid the verbal and non-verbal communication process. We argue that more fundamental to ‘connected’ communicative encounters are intrinsic qualities that are difficult to identify, define and ‘package’. Using a social pedagogical approach and drawing on data collected as part of an Economic and Social Research Council funded UK-wide, four nations, qualitative study exploring social workers’ communicative practices with children, this paper will consider how social workers manage to connect, or not, with children. The social pedagogical concepts of ‘haltung’ (attitude), ‘head, heart and hands’ and ‘the common third’ are outlined as potentially helpful approaches for understanding the intimacies of inter-personal connections and enhancing social workers’ capacity to establish and sustain meaningful communication and connections with children in the face of austere organisational contexts.

Beneficence in psycho-social research and the role of containment

Within the context of research ethics beneficence consistently receives less attention than non-maleficence and research ‘benefits’ are predominantly understood in tangible, intentional terms. Scanter attention has been given to the more subtle aspects of the research process that elicit less tangible, and often unexpected, benefits for research participants. Drawing on a study conducted with social workers in two childcare social work settings, this article outlines how psycho-social approaches to research – and specifically the concept of containment – can provide fruitful theoretical and conceptual frameworks for the development of more complex understandings of beneficence in the research process. The article concludes by proposing that there is scope to enhance the experience and quality of research if, from the outset, attention to containment is embedded within the research process. Realizing ‘containing’ research involves firstly, recognizing the capacity of researchers to retain an observational stance of ‘negative capability’ that attends to research processes and secondly, understanding the importance of social researchers being contained through appropriate support systems that help to manage the anxiety inherent in social work research contexts specifically, and human relations research, more broadly.

What makes it so hard to look and to listen? Exploring the use of the Cognitive and Affective Supervisory Approach with children’s social work managers

ABSTRACT This paper reports on the findings of an ESRC-funded Knowledge Exchange project designed to explore the contribution of an innovative approach to supervision to social work practitioners’ assessment and decision-making practices. The Cognitive and Affective Supervisory Approach (CASA) is informed by cognitive interviewing techniques originally designed to elicit best evidence from witnesses and victims of crime. Adapted here for use in childcare social work supervision contexts, this model is designed to enhance the quantity and quality of information available for decision-making. Facilitating the reporting of both ‘event information’ and ‘emotion information’, it allows a more detailed picture to emerge of events, as recalled by the individual involved, and the meaning they give to them. Practice supervisors from Children’s Services in two local authorities undertook to introduce the CASA into supervision sessions and were supported in this through the provision of regular reflective group discussions. The project findings highlight the challenges for practitioners of ‘detailed looking’ and for supervisors of ‘active listening’. The paper concludes by acknowledging that the CASA’s successful contribution to decision-making is contingent on both the motivation and confidence of supervisors to develop their skills and an organisational commitment to, and resourcing of, reflective supervisory practices and spaces.

Getting Beneath the Surface: Scapegoating and the Systems Approach in a Post-Munro World

The publication of the Munro Review of Child Protection: Final Report (2011b, Department for Education, London) was the culmination of an extensive and expansive consultation process into the current state of child protection practice across the UK. Despite the concern about ‘blame’ within the report, there is, surprisingly, at no point an explicit reference to the dynamics and practices of ‘scapegoating’ that are so closely associated with organisational blame cultures. This paper examines this gap in understanding of the recurrence of shortcomings in child care social work practice and suggests that unless the dynamics of scapegoating are more fully understood, new developments, such as the systems approach advocated by Munro, will fall short of their potential impact. A critical review of existing understanding of scapegoating is presented and the paper concludes by outlining initiatives to counter the detrimental effect of scapegoating of everyday practice.

For the sake of ‘auld lang syne’

As this editorial goes to press, it coincides with the last few breaths of 2013 and many of us mark its passing with some sort of reflection about what events have impacted upon us and what we have done with our lives. Somewhat unsurprisingly, this is a common feature in many countries often linked with a festive spirit and over consumption of food and alcohol. In the UK, the further north of London the more celebratory and significant the arrival of the New Year and the passing of the old seems to become. Hit Scotland and it is a major event lasting often two days and called ‘Hogmanay’, a name thought to be derived from the old French word ‘aguillanneuf’ meaning new years eve or a cry from children for a gift. People will have their own reflections, often very personal, but we thought we would pick out just a few morsels to whet the appetite. In the UK, the NHS turned 65 in 2013, but far from considering retiring it is engaged in major change and in some areas perhaps fighting for survival. The Francis (2013) Report, a review of failures at the Mid Staffordshire Trust to provide even basic care to some vulnerable patients, some of whom were left to go thirsty on hospital wards, some in the absence of water jugs and glasses, having to drink out of plant pots, hangs like a shadow over a service in which many of us have a huge personal and professional investment. The importance of values about the dignity of people is a given for social work and social care, and these instances remind us of how vigilant we all need to be to challenge poor practice whenever we see it. Interestingly, the two professionals who ‘blew the whistle’ have both been recognised in the New year Honours List and perhaps this signifies government commitment to listening to ‘grass roots’ staff views about the service where they work. It remains to be seen if the appointment of an ex-government advisor who has spent the last decade as a senior executive for one of the US’s biggest private health-care giants, UnitedHealth, will kill or cure the patient that the NHS has become. Over the other side of the ‘pond’, the Affordable Health Care Act (Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) is the commonly used term for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (March 2010) and enacted in 2013) has at last become a reality. Despite considerable opposition from the Grand Old Party (basically the Republican party), the ‘free’ healthcare for all, we in Europe take for granted, is the prize that