Kate Leonard

Leadership and management in social care

This core textbook provides an authoritative overview of the leadership and management of learning in social care education and practice. Written in response to recent policy and continuing professional development frameworks, the book provides the underpinning knowledge for candidates following post-qualifying awards for social work in leadership, management and practice education.

‘Arts and Extremely Dangerous’: Critical Commentary on the Arts in Social Work Education

Social work education has attempted to cross many boundaries as it strives to respond to incessant new demands confronting the profession. These are often in response to changing political socio-economic conditions, new organisational contexts and how to prepare professionals to respond creatively to any new challenges that evolve. Leadership of change in social work education might equally come from a range of unexpected sources if those involved in learning and teaching can be inspired to look outwards and beyond what is normally available. A body of evidence has been developing in social work which shows that crossing boundaries between the social sciences with the arts and humanities can help to communicate service users’ and carers’ experiences more powerfully. As many of the papers in this special edition illustrate, active use of the arts within the process of learning offers the potential to free up those more traditional categories and lenses through which we tend to view service users and carers and their ‘problems’ or ‘issues’. Achieving more genuine and transformative insights and understandings, which depart from more habitual schemas for describing and thinking about social problems, requires an embracing of the diversity of human behaviour, personality and relationships, emotions and feelings, life events and culture, to mention but a few. Foucault’ s (1993) reference to the ‘authoritative gaze’, that objectifies the user of public services and reinforces the power relationship, is a reminder of the ongoing themes and debates about the nature of social work practice and the positive contribution that the arts might make.

The impact of the arts in social work education: a systematic review

Evidence on the effectiveness of arts-based approaches in professional education has been gathering momentum in the last decade embracing disciplines such as medicine, the allied professions, social work and social care. Key texts have emerged promoting the use of the arts in professional education and there have been some attempts to capture empirical evidence on its value. This paper reports on a systematic review of the current body of knowledge on the impact of the arts in social work education. We introduce the rationale for undertaking a systematic review and the methodology and approach used. We then discuss the three significant themes from our synthesis of the evidence reviewed. These were positioning social work practice through linking micro and macro thinking, the cultivation of leadership beyond verbal reasoning and art as pedagogy. The findings are discussed in the context of what the arts can offer challenges in social work education.

From the Mouths of Mothers: Can Drama Facilitate Reflective Learning for Social Workers?

Abstract This article explores and evaluates a cross-disciplinary small-scale project using applied theatre in social work education. The aim was to provide an ‘Affective Encounter’ where students could practice empathic engagement, understanding of the needs of children who have been sexually abused and their protective parents/carers and engage in the complexities of working with family members who may be resistant. The workshop took place five times over a period of three years and was attended by children and families social workers on a one year post-qualifying graduate diploma course. While the use of verbatim theatre does not offer a guarantee of factual truth, it provided the students with some performed moments of personal testimony which was taken word-for-word from mothers whose children had been sexually abused. This allowed the social workers to hear the marginalised narratives of the protective mothers and to practice without a negative impact on the service user. The evaluation identified from self-report the development of emotional and practical skills and knowledge of available resources. This paper focuses on the emotional skills reported and two emerging themes are discussed: learning for humane practice, and the use of this pedagogical approach to encourage affective reflection.

Transitioning from ‘outside observer’ to ‘inside player’ in social work: practitioner and student perspectives on developing expertise in decision-making

ABSTRACT This paper reports on a six-year qualitative study of social workers’ perspectives on factors influencing decision-making in children and families social work in England. Data collected between 2010 and 2016 reflect frontline practice during a period of substantial change and reform in UK social work. This paper builds on an earlier analysis with data from all three stages of the study capturing the lived experiences of practitioners ranging from student social workers to qualified advanced practitioners in management roles. Data from 9 focus groups comprising 51 participants were analysed using grounded theory. Data analysis generated four representative categories: developing agency in the social work role; troubling emotions; transitions in the development of expertise and the impact of organisational cultures in children and families social work services. An emerging theoretical framework is presented. This identifies the significance of transitions and threshold concepts in the development of the social work professional from the role of students as ‘outside players looking in’ through to the expertise of qualified practitioners as ‘inside players’ within organisations. Recognising periods of liminality, transitional learning and uncertainties in developing decision-making expertise may be of significant benefit to social work education and the profession.

The practice educator as museum guide, art therapist or exhibition curator

Abstract: The use of arts-based approaches in professional education in health and social care has gathered momentum in the last decade and their effectiveness has been well documented. There are helpful models in the education literature that begin to explain how these creative methods work in learning and practice, and that assert the significance of an emotional or affective level of learning. However, the process remains elusive, almost a ‘given’. A more cross-disciplinary analysis of affective learning is needed to guide arts-based methods and more robust evaluation of their use in health and social care education and practice. This paper identifies different roles that can be taken by the practice educator with a review of those theoretical models of affective learning that underpin them to help understand how and why arts-based approaches are effective.