Discriminatory Abuse: Using Stories and Narratives to Explore Professional Responses

Abstract

Discriminatory abuse refers to forms of harassment that target a person’s protected characteristics, such as age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation.  It is an under-reported category of abuse and little is known about how practitioners approach this work. 

This presentation will outline current research on discriminatory abuse, illustrating themes with reference to safeguarding adult reviews.  A novel research project will be outlined, drawing on story completion methods to explore practitioner responses to discriminatory abuse. 

Fifty-six social worker and social care worker participants responded to a ‘story stem’, which refers to the opening lines of a story, continuing a story they choose to tell in response. In this instance, the story stem introduces a fictional scenario involving a social worker who is visiting an adult who has experienced discriminatory abuse.

Narrative analysis was used to make sense of the resulting stories and three narratives were identified: anxious allies, affirmative advocates and administrative assessors. There were a small number of outliers who did not complete stories based on the guidelines provided. The results suggest workforce development needs in relation to discriminatory abuse and the presentation will signpost further resources and ongoing work to develop practice in this area further.

Biography: 

Dr Karl Mason is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at Royal Holloway, University of London.  He is also a registered social worker.  His research and teaching focuses on safeguarding adults and adult social care, and he has an interest in how these systems are accessed by marginalised groups.  He is currently working on projects relating to discriminatory abuse and people who are LGBTQ+, homelessness and adult social care, and care homes and human rights.  He regularly undertakes safeguarding adults reviews, particularly with regard to adults experiencing homelessness.