By: Marte Tonning Otterlei and Ingunn Studsrød 

Child and Family Social Work 

Review written by Dr David Wilkins

What question does this study focus on? 

This study explored how child welfare workers talk to parents about the decision to issue care proceedings, and how workers cope with these difficult conversations.  

How did they study it?

Interviews were completed with twelve experienced child welfare workers from Norway. Workers were asked to reflect on their meetings with parents in which they had told them about the decision to seek a care order for the child.  

What did they find?

Telling parents about the decision to seek a care order was perceived as a ‘brutal and devaluing act’. Workers knew it would cause parents considerable emotional pain. As a result, they avoided talking about the parent’s failures, downplayed the reasons why the care order was needed and kept meetings short. Workers struggled to be direct and thorough, without being inhumane. One strategy was to provide information, without inviting a dialogue. Many workers, but not all, felt responsible for taking care of parents and children during and after the meetings. However, workers often found that parents were too angry to accept their offers of help, or suggestions about who else might support them. The workers also noted that the child’s safety was their ultimate priority, not the parent’s well-being.  

Many workers talked about finding these meetings exhausting, and emotionally draining. Some talked about being scared of parents, particularly if they had a history of violence. Workers felt desperate, angry, frustrated, anxious and confused. Some workers described themselves as being like a traitor to the family.  

What are the implications? 

From the study itself, the implications are that workers need to prepare well for these meetings, in order to ensure they know what they need to say, and how. Some of the coping strategies employed, such as downplaying the need for the care order, may ‘work’ in the short-term to protect the parent (and worker) from emotional pain, but in the longer-term are unlikely to help the parent understand what is happening. Seeking support and advice from colleagues and supervisors before and after the meeting is one important way of coping with and preparing for this task.   

More broadly, the study highlights just how difficult the role of child welfare or child protection worker can be – and how under-prepared many workers feel for some of the most important tasks involved. Because of the nature of these meetings, we are often reliant, as in this study, on retrospective self-reports of what happened. It is difficult to know how we might more directly observe and learn from these meetings, and about what makes them more or less effective. Hearing more about the parent’s perspective would be one way of creating a more holistic understanding.  

Review written by

Dr David Wilkins

By Caroline McGregor 

British Journal of Social Work, 49(8), pp. 2112-2129. 

Review written by: Dr David Wilkins

What question does this study focus on? 

This discussion paper considers whether theoretical frameworks for social work in the 20^th century are still useful for social work in the 21^st century.  

How did they study it?

The author reviewed the work of several notable social work academics, including David Howe and Robert Mullaly. 

What did they find?

For the 21^st century, social work theory needs to recognise and emphasise the importance of local context in global conditions, move away from the dominance of ‘Western’ ideas, identity the commonalities between social work as practiced globally in different circumstances, and recognise the importance of critical reflexivity. Specifically, the article outlines a paradigmatic framework for understanding different types of theories, suggesting they can be understood on a set of continuums from transformational to reformist and from individualist to collectivist (see figure). 

What are the implications? 

Social work as a profession, and social workers, need theoretical frameworks to provide a scaffold around which questions can be asked, challenges identified and to facilitate dialogues between services users, practitioners, educators, and policymakers. A-theoretical social work is a contradiction in terms. 

Review written by

Dr David Wilkins

By Fiona Sherwood-Johnson and Kathryn Mackay

Journal of Social Work 

Review written by Dr David Wilkins

What question does this study focus on?

This study considers how the knowledge base for adult safeguarding policy and practice can be developed through collaborative dialogues between policymakers, professionals, service users, carers, researchers, educators, and students. The article starts from the perspective that despite its obvious importance, the knowledge base for adult safeguarding is limited, and the views of service users and carers have been under-represented in research. 

How did they study it?

The study was based in Scotland where, much as in Wales, there has been a concerted effort in recent years to ensure that social services are more responsive to the wishes and views of citizens, with important policy changes made in order to promote choice and human rights perspective on practice. 

What did they find?

The authors draw on their experiences of undertaking a range of research projects in the field of adult safeguarding, and their efforts to promote the participation of service users and carers. Reflecting on these projects, they identify two themes based on evaluative approaches (in simple terms, questions about what works) and exploratory approaches (questions with a broader focus).

For evaluative approaches, the paper highlights the importance of causing no (further) harm. When researching adult safeguarding, many of the service users (and carers) involved will have experienced different forms of abuse or neglect. Understanding how services can respond to this effectively is important, but not at the cost of causing further harm, for example from trauma resulting from revisiting difficult experiences. There is also the question of informed consent. Some adults involved with safeguarding services will have dementia or learning difficulties. Learning from their experiences is vital, but gaining informed consent is not necessarily straightforward. Some gatekeeping processes, whereby professionals help to contact service users and carers on behalf of the researchers, may inadvertently end up excluding some people and certain groups. One key message is that service users and carers tend not to understand adult safeguarding processes as being wholly distinct from other professional activities. For exploratory approaches, the authors found that working with service users and carers at an early stage helped to inform their research questions and make them more relevant, as well as leading to the use of more creative methods. 

What are the implications?

The paper highlights the complexities and limitations of much of the research in fields such as adult safeguarding, which by its nature is often tentative and exploratory. Yet policymakers and sometimes practitioners are often looking for research that provides clear answers, perhaps even simple answers, to what are very complicated and complex problems. Research rarely provides ‘how to’ messages for practice, and there is a risk that indefinite and somewhat speculative findings are metamorphized into something more certain and concrete once they are disseminated into policy and practice. 

Review written by

Dr David Wilkins