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Authors:Lisa Morriss, Karen Broadhurst Pages: 803 - 808 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Volume 21, Issue 5, Page 803-808, September 2022.
Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-01T07:46:10Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221120470 Issue No:Vol. 21, No. 5 (2022)
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Authors:Lisa Morriss Pages: 809 - 810 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Volume 21, Issue 5, Page 809-810, September 2022.
Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-01T07:49:32Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221120602 Issue No:Vol. 21, No. 5 (2022)
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Authors:Lee J Henley, Nicky Stanley-Clarke, Emily Thompson, Zoey Henley, Yary Chhay, Solida Kea Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Community-based harm reduction workshops are delivered to reduce a range of community-based risks. In this instance, a community-based non-government organisation (NGO) delivered workshops to 18 villages in a rural setting in Cambodia. This article presents the approach to the delivery of these workshops. The article explores a journey of learning for the community, local authorities and delivering NGO when moving from a more traditional approach to that of a participatory one and the impact on the organisation, community and local authorities as this journey took place. The methods and approaches are explained, findings are presented and discussed, and recommendations for future community-based harm prevention work are made. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-10-17T09:52:09Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221125224
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Authors:Stina Michelson Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Children who experience family-related adversity have stories to tell about well-being in the face of difficulties. These stories provide knowledge about how children handle their experiences and make sense of themselves. This study aims to investigate children’s perspectives on experiences that have contributed to their well-being in the face of difficulties, with a specific focus on turning-point narratives. Twenty-two children (aged 6–17) were interviewed, on two occasions each, about themselves and their lives. The findings show that children emphasize protection, support, and knowledge as contributing to their well-being. Furthermore, the findings show that those who narrate turning points do so in relation to three interrelated aspects: identification, directedness, and self-relationship. In their telling, these children are engaged in the project of renegotiating their self-understanding. The core contribution of the study is the notion that a renegotiated self-understanding, in and of itself, may be an important part of children’s well-being. The findings have implications for social work practice because they suggest that children in difficult life situations may benefit from support that offers them a space to examine old ideas about identity and agency in relation to new ones. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-10-12T02:57:05Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221133755
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Authors:Rebecca Stockdale Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. This article examines the value of using ethnographic methodology in research with women involved in street sex work in an inner-city suburb of Melbourne, Australia. The aim is to draw attention to the importance of three fundamental elements of this type of research with marginalised populations: 1) researchers’ immersion into the field over a sustained period of time, 2) ethical considerations about informed consent for people with cognitive impairment as a result of chronic drug use, and 3) reflexivity and positionality in qualitative research. Data collected from two and a half years of ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation and semi-structured interviews with women involved in street sex work, emphasises the importance of adopting these participatory methods to ensure authenticity, rigour and credibility of research findings with marginalised populations. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-10-04T03:42:53Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221131498
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Authors:Nicole Moulding, Michele Jarldorn, Kate Deuter Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Intersecting gender and other social inequalities are pertinent to women’s mental health across the life course. Gendered violence and other forms of gender inequality in particular play a key role in the higher burden of psychological distress carried by young women. However, the context of gendered violence is often minimised or overlooked entirely when young women seek help or advice around mental health concerns. This is especially the case for young women under the age of 30 years. This paper reports on a research study exploring how young women in Australia understand their mental health, and the scope for new approaches to support that better address their needs. A qualitative survey undertaken with 52 Australian young women was used to explore the nature of their mental health experiences, sought to learn about the strategies they used when experiencing poor mental health and the scope for mental health peer support as an alternative approach to intervention. Responses from a diverse group of young women demonstrated that they understood the role that gendered violence and gender inequality played in their mental health. Findings point to the risk of slippage between young women’s understandings of their lived experience and those of traditional service providers, demonstrating the risks associated with minimising or ignoring of the gendered nature of young women’s mental health problems. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-10-03T11:06:46Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221131598
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Authors:Katherine Reid, Mark Brough Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. There’s a particular ‘common sense’ required of the contemporary neoliberal subject to ‘self-regulate, self-fashion, and self-produce’ (Houghton, 2019: 618). Crucially, this work on the self happens within a political context of a dominant discourse which valorises the resilient, self-regulating and enterprising individual. It is somewhat unsurprising then, that children who struggle to contain intense emotions are referred to therapy. Their experience of therapy, however, ought to then be examined within this broader socio-political context. This article examines the power dynamics of a therapeutic encounter with a child ostensibly in need of greater emotional self-regulation. To investigate how children are positioned in therapy, therapy transcripts are investigated, drawing on Derrida’s concepts of hospitality and deconstruction. Utilising a critical discourse analysis of therapy transcripts, we explored the tensions in hosting children in therapy interactions from a counselling session with a 9-year-old girl, Emily, along with her female caregiver, Kate, and her social worker, in the role of therapist. Our Foucauldian inspired power analysis revealed these tensions at work in the therapeutic encounter. We show how Emily enacted her own deconstruction of the story ‘The boy who cried wolf’, opening the door to a relational understanding of emotional regulation. The findings highlight the need for social workers to engage in reflexive practice; to be able to listen to children without transforming their insights into opportunities to reinforce dominant narratives. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-29T10:03:19Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221123332
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Authors:Brendon T Holloway, Donald R Gerke, Jarrod Call, C Riley Hostetter, Jennifer C Greenfield, Brittanie Atteberry-Ash, N Eugene Walls Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Transgender and nonbinary (TNB) individuals experience a variety of systemic barriers that impact their ability to access healthcare, often leading to negative health outcomes. Previous research has suggested that improving health literacy among marginalized communities may help reduce existing health disparities. Yet few studies have examined health literacy among TNB people and how health literacy and healthcare access may differ by urbanicity. Using the capabilities theoretical approach, the current study uses data from six focus groups (N=40) from metropolitan, urban, and rural areas in Colorado to examine geographic differences in health literacy and healthcare access. Findings show that geographic differences in accessing healthcare include transportation issues, having to travel far distances to access care, finding a TNB-affirming and competent provider, and needing to educate providers and staff. These differences were more prevalent among TNB people living in non-metropolitan areas. Additionally, our findings suggest that TNB individuals have high levels of health literacy due to having to self-educate and exist within a healthcare system that was designed for cisgender people. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-19T10:44:25Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221128000
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Authors:Mari Dalen Herland Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Research on child sexual abuse has underacknowledged the multifaced, tacit and embodied dimensions, leaving the literature without a full picture of events that are often unspeakable, especially with regards to disclosure. This study thus placed emphasis on and highlighted the importance of increased awareness around lived lives and bodily narratives of child sexual abuse. The qualitative study consisted of 14 in-depth, retrospective interviews with Norwegian participants over the age of 18 who experienced child sexual abuse. The analysis shed light on the participants’ silenced and embodied experiences as children, captured by two overall narratives: a) the body speaks the truth and b) living with embodied messiness, complexity and confusion. The narratives that unfolded in participants’ recollections of their childhood embodied stories contain reflections on how the experiences are re-played within their bodies as adults. Study findings focus on participants’ embodied narratives of child sexual abuse – experiences that are often not captured by verbal language. The narratives brought forward in the interviews are linked with participants’ past experiences and current context, as well as interpersonal, emotional, cognitive and embodied processes, as part of the participants’ meaning making around their child sexual abusive histories. Study findings help explain embodied, tacit and complex dimensions concerning lived experiences of child sexual abuse. As such, this research speaks to the field of social work that encounters children and families facing this phenomenon. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-14T01:27:41Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221126933
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Authors:Lisa Warwick, Liz Beddoe, Jadwiga Leigh, Tom Disney, Harry Ferguson, Tarsem Singh Cooner Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Supervision is a core component of professional support and development in social work. In many settings, and perhaps particularly in children’s services, it is valued as crucial in safe decision-making, practice reflection, professional development and staff support. Research has demonstrated that supervision and staff support also contribute to social worker retention in child welfare services. Drawing on data gathered in a 15-month ethnographic, longitudinal study of child protection work that included observations of supervision, we were able to observe the impact of supportive supervisory relationships on social workers’ decision-making about staying in their current workplace. This article presents a single case that demonstrates the potential impact of effective relationship-based supervision on retention and calls for a more humane approach to social work supervision against dominant managerial themes that have increasingly burdened the profession. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-07T11:15:05Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221113015
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Authors:Marie Hatlelid Føleide Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. In arrangements for children’s participation in child welfare systems, professionals’ interpretations of children’s views on family and their own constructions of family will impact children’s conditions for expressing feelings and moral agency. This article analyses the accounts of children’s spokespersons in Norway, whose mandate is to speak with and forward children’s views in care proceedings. The analyses show how constructions of loyalty, family interdependence, and individualism may inform spokespersons’ interpretations of children’s views, and thereby their exploratory practices in their conversations with the children. Children’s representatives need to be reflexive toward their own understanding(s) of family and family interdependence in order to discover the complex web of experiences, ambiguity, feelings, and expectations children have around family and familial relations in their lives. The findings point to the importance of reflexive exercises toward constructions of children and family in the field of social work. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-07T06:01:31Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221126610
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Authors:Claire Cunnington, Tom Clark Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. There is a well-established literature examining how perpetrators of child sexual abuse (CSA) neutralise the norms and beliefs that ordinarily prohibit such behaviours. However, there has been substantially less focus on how such techniques of neutralisation might also be applied by people and groups who were not directly involved in the abuse, who we might expect to be more supportive. Drawing on a thematic analysis of an open-ended survey (n=140) and semi-structured interviews (n=21) with adults who experienced childhood sexual abuse this paper examines societal responses to disclosure. Identifying three key techniques of neutralisation, it explores how families, professionals and institutions use wider discourses that deny the victim/survivor, deny or minimise harm and silence by appealing to loyalty. The results demonstrate how significant others can constrain, rather than support, the process of disclosure and recovering from CSA. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-06T04:54:04Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124300
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Authors:Michelle Newcomb, Katherine Saxton, Esha Lovrić, Sera Harris, Danielle Davidson Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Female social work early career academics (ECAs) face many challenges within a neoliberal university context. The tension between balancing the social justice mission of the profession against the consumer model of higher education is conflicting and contributes to feelings of isolation and alienation. This article documents a group of female ECAs experiences by drawing on critical, post-modern and feminist knowledge traditions. The qualitative methodology used was collective autoethnography and critical reflection where the group documented and collectively analysed individual experiences of teaching social work education as female ECAs. The purpose of collating these experiences was to explore the emancipatory capacity of female agency as well as embodying what it is to be a female ECA. Vignettes were thematically examined in a three-part process including (1) reading and reviewing data; (2) categorising and group data and (3) finding themes and connecting these to the original data (Chang et al., 2016). Analysis of the vignettes highlighted the tensions of working as female social justice educators within a neoliberal university causing feelings of oppression and discomfort. In finding one another, sharing and writing stories as well as a collective response this challenged the masculinist model which has been the norm within neoliberal universities. Female led support strategies coupled with the utilisation of feminist methodologies contributes to the emergence of a new, feminist and collectively safer academic culture. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-08-23T12:59:22Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221122361
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Authors:Karen Winter, Judy Sebba, Priya Tah, Paul Connolly, Jennifer Roberts, Sharon Millen Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. There is wide ranging research that uses innovative methods to seek the views of children in out-of-home care. In the area of education, this group of children increasingly participate in research that involves various educational interventions (including book-gifting, tutoring, paired reading), that are designed to improve their educational attainment and achievements. Despite the overall growth in research evidence, there remains an absence of widely reported research on children’s views of the educational interventions that they are involved in and secondly, an absence of more reflective contributions that outline the methodological opportunities and challenges involved. This paper makes a contribution to both areas by reporting both the findings of and critical reflections on the use of an innovative method, the Talking Album, to gather the views of young children, aged 7–9 years old, regarding a reading intervention they were involved in, known as the Reading Together programme. The methodological approach is outlined. Informed by the basic principles underpinning children’s rights as set out in the UNCRC, key learning on the selection, introduction, and support of such methods/tools is reflected upon. From the findings and reflections, recommendations for future research that concerns interventions with children are made. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-08-23T09:45:28Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221122373
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Authors:Lise Lafferty Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. This paper critically reflects on conducting research with people in prison, including gaining trust and building rapport, and the power imbalances of conducting research in the prison setting. Navigating trust and power is key to successful prison-based research, but these navigations are not confined to the researcher–participant interaction and extend to include researcher entry into the prison and earlier processes such as the ethics application submission. Existing ‘how-to’ guides for prison-based research often draw on ethnographic studies which allow substantial time for the interviewer to build rapport with key prison contacts, including officers, as well as opportunity for people in prison to become familiar with the ethnographer’s presence prior to data collection. Drawing on prison-based research experience from three qualitative health studies pertaining to people in prison living with hepatitis C and/or history of injecting drug use (the primary risk factor for hepatitis C transmission), I consider challenges of access and strategies for on-the-spot rapport building with people in prison. The approaches outlined may be applicable to research with other population groups in which power imbalances may exist. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-08-20T02:33:24Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221122301
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Authors:Rahel More Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. This study critically explores the meanings of parenting and dis/ability for mothers and fathers with intellectual disabilities in the context of social work in Austria. The aim was to gain insights into what it means to be a mother/father with intellectual disability in Austria by analyzing how parenting with intellectual disabilities is publicly discussed, how social work professionals perceive supporting parents with intellectual disabilities and how mothers and fathers with intellectual disabilities experience parenthood. The findings reveal that negative understandings of disability collide with notions of responsible parenting. Mothers and fathers with intellectual disabilities were subject to child welfare interventions, experienced discreditation and were perceived as deviant from normal families. Social work professionals aimed to support parents with intellectual disabilities and, at the same time, to normalize them by pursuing their independence from services. The findings also point to systemic challenges for social work, including time and financial constraints and difficulties in cross-service cooperation, due to the division into child welfare and disability services. Conceptualized as a figure that represents de/constructions of parenting and dis/ability on three levels, the study findings reveal opportunities for social work with mothers and fathers with intellectual disabilities to deconstruct long-term support needs as antithesis to hegemonic ideals. In this sense, deconstruction in the context of social work offers potentials for shifts in meaning. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-08-12T12:41:30Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221109765
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Authors:Fei Pei, Yixuan Wang, Rebecca J McCloskey, Qi Liu Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. The spread of COVID-19 brought a worldwide pandemic that interrupted daily life and activities. By the end of 2020, there were more than 83 million diagnosed cases and 1.8 million deaths worldwide (World Health Organization, 2020). In Wuhan, China, more than 7 million individuals were quarantined at the beginning of the pandemic. Despite the widespread impact of the pandemic, limited studies have focused on recovered COVID-19 patients’ experiences. Therefore, this qualitative study was conducted to better understand the shared experiences of recovered COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, through the lens of social work practitioners working with them. A thematic analysis of 14 individual interviews resulted in three main themes: trauma, long-term perspective change, and support systems. Recovered patients commonly reported rejection, discrimination, stigma, and self-blame as a result of having had COVID-19. Although some reported receiving social support from family members, neighbors, or employers, others reported severe rejection and maltreatment. Experiences also influenced whether patients had a more positive or negative outlook toward the future. Findings call for health care practitioners and service providers to better support COVID-19 patients using a culturally sensitive, trauma-informed approach. Neighborhood-level factors and interventions are also discussed. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-08-09T11:12:55Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221119440
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Authors:Philip Mendes, Jade Purtell, Sarah Morris, Emily Berger, Susan Baidawi, Levita D’Souza, Jenna Bollinger, Natasha Anderson, Geordie Armstrong Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Children and young people’s access to and engagement in education is a key determinant of future positive outcomes. Children and young people in out-of-home care disproportionally experience educational disruptions and disengagements affecting their ability to participate in schooling, further and higher education. There is increasing international interest in the participation of young people with lived experience of out-of-home (OOHC) in research projects. This paper presents the findings of a study in the Australian state of Victoria where a group of lived experience consultants (LECs) were employed to consult on the results of a broader survey of the attitudes of professionals, carers and care leavers regarding the educational experiences of children in OOHC. Two meetings were held with the LECs, one to gain their views on the survey findings, and secondly, to reflect on their experiences working on the project. The findings suggest that formalizing the engagement of lived experience voices in research, inherently a qualitative approach, promotes a more informed representation of the challenges faced by children and young people within OOHC. In this case, engaging young adults with lived experience helped identify key barriers to effective educational participation that the project design may otherwise have overlooked. They also identified key strategies for improving LEC engagement such as involving them in developing key research aims and questions, and enabling the provision of a ‘safe space’ for them to participate. This new approach promotes co-design at multiple levels, providing opportunities for a meaningful collaborative approach to research. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-08-05T06:07:03Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221117688
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Authors:Wendy L Haight, Johara Suleiman, Shelby K Flanagan, Sookyoung Park, Laura JS Soltani, William C Carlson, Jacob R Otis, Kenneth S Turck Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. This focused ethnography examines the experiences of social work faculty members during the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted participant observations of the pivot to distance learning, research and service, and overall responses of the social work community at a Research 1, public university. This article focuses on in-depth, zoom-recorded, individual interviews with 16 social work faculty members during the first year of the pandemic with follow-up communications 1 year later (n = 9). They characterized the pandemic as pervasive, sustained, isolating, changing, embedded within a deeply divided sociocultural context, and having a disparate impact related to faculty members’ positionality. Many described feelings of disorientation, anxiety, fear, loss, grief, fatigue, and strained relationships. Faculty members also described a strengthening of social work’s resiliency through innovative technology, embracing new opportunities to enact professional values of social and racial justice, and meaning making. They consider building on this resiliency moving forward, including in the face of future long emergencies. Their reflections on lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic suggest how we may become more resilient by tending to our collective trauma, balancing the benefits of online education with psychosocial needs, and examining how social work ethics interact with academic systems. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-07-14T01:10:03Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221114390
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Authors:Misa Kayama, Wendy Haight Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. The 19th century roots of social work in social justice movements within immigrant communities continue to thrive in contemporary social work. Yet relatively little attention has focused on the challenges faced by Asian immigrants, currently the second largest immigrant group in the U.S. Indeed, Asians in the U.S. have long been stereotyped as a “model minority,” perpetuating the myth that Asian children do not need special attention when acculturating to U.S. schools. Yet parents report obstacles to their children’s acculturation, including racism. As part of a larger ethnography, this study examines how Japanese immigrant and temporary resident parents understand their children’s acculturation to the U.S. We conducted in-depth, individual interviews with 14 Japanese immigrant and temporary resident parents of school-aged children. They discussed acculturation challenges centered on differences in the Japanese and U.S. cultural self, and how they modified their socialization practices to support their children’s acculturation. Rather than employing Japanese child rearing practices that implicitly guide children by shaping their environment, parents shifted to explicit efforts to ensure their children’s development of Japanese cultural selves in the U.S. Such practices, however, may result in children losing a sense of independence and autonomy important to both U.S. and Japanese cultural selves. These experiences of Japanese parents challenge the stereotype of Asians as a model minority. We discuss social work implications for culturally appropriate support for acculturation. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-07-13T01:45:03Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221114395
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Authors:Sarah Jen, Grace Brandt, Kortney Carr, Michael R Riquino, Sarah J Cole, Megan S Paceley Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. As an ongoing collective trauma event, the COVID-19 pandemic has produced varied experiences and narratives among diverse populations, which have implications for meaning-making and healing post-pandemic. This study examined narratives from six social work students to better understand how individuals make meaning out of the pandemic experience. Holistic content analysis was utilized to identify a core pattern, comprised of a single in-vivo quote, and key themes within each case. Two participants utilized imagery or metaphor to describe emotional impacts of the pandemic; two emphasized the social responsibilities and roles they were challenged to perform during the pandemic, particularly the role of being a parent; and two conveyed how they endured the pandemic through the use of self-care and grounding strategies. Participants’ inability to perform their professional and community service roles during this event created a sense of internal conflict between one’s felt need to help and the internalized master narrative of social work as a serving profession. Findings illustrate how individuals find meaning through storytelling, grounding, identity navigation, and research participation through a collective trauma and indicate potential strategies for individual and collective processing and healing. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-07-11T10:15:11Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221114389
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Authors:Claudia Reyes-Quilodran, Maida Muñoz-Chiguay, Daniela Calderón, Javiera Romero Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Juvenile offenders’ engagement in their social insertion process is increasingly considered essential for achieving the desired outcome of sanction programs and modifying juvenile criminal behavior. However, the professionals who work with juvenile offenders do not have defined concepts or an intervention tool. This study sought to introduce a strengths orientation to this area and investigated how the concept of engagement is defined by professionals and juvenile offenders. Twenty-four semistructured interviews were conducted with probation officials and prison professionals, and three focus groups were conducted with juvenile offenders serving sentences. The findings show that the concept of engagement differs among professionals. Nevertheless, the participants proposed common concepts of positive and negative engagement. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-07-11T08:48:51Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221114606
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Authors:Eunwoo Lee, Wonhyung Lee, Stephanie Duncan Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Previous homelessness research examined common pathways into homelessness, yet not much is known about how people navigate through services while experiencing homelessness. This study explored the service pathways of homeless individuals in the U.S. context, which show their connection with multiple organizations and their lived experiences of using services over time. We conducted 12 semi-structured in-depth interviews to grasp the history of service pathways, including the number of organizations, time gaps between services, and referral patterns. We also conducted participant observation shadowing with a subset of the study participants to understand how they interact with caseworkers. The length of service pathways varied, from less than five years to more than two decades. On average, participants went through at least three and up to eight organizations. Regarding service experiences, systemic- and individual-level themes were drawn for negative or positive experiences, such as strict organizational policies and the caseworker’s demeaning attitudes (negative), or supportive organizational culture and strong employee competencies (positive). The findings of this study provide deeper insights into homeless populations’ service trajectories and their experiences throughout the service-navigating process. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-07-11T07:47:06Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221114477
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Authors:Matthew Rankine, Andrew P Thompson Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Thinking aloud is presented as a qualitative research and practice tool that enhances critical reflection and learning when it is applied in supervisor–supervisee dyads. Aotearoa New Zealand’s statutory child protection organisation, Oranga Tamariki (OT), has been openly criticised in reports damning ineffective social work practice regarding child and family assessments, cultural competency and critical practice. But what is really going on inside OT' Working alongside OT social workers, the authors explored ways to build critical reflection, resilience and well-being amongst supervisors and supervisees. Critical reflection was used as the methodological lens in this supervision study. The authors examine data collected from six supervisor–supervisee dyads participating in a thinking aloud process. Supervision recordings were analysed for reflective capacity, skills and current supervision practices in OT. Thinking aloud promoted a co-constructed space for supervisors and supervisees to critically reflect on their relationship together and their practice discussions in supervision. Using thematic analysis, four themes were generated from the thinking aloud discussions: the supervision agenda; supervisor skills; supervisory relationship and thinking aloud in supervision. These themes highlighted the significance of thinking aloud in providing deeper analysis and feedback on the quality of supervision and the skills used in the session. Reflective supervision is fundamental towards critical reflection and ethical social work practice. Within child protection services, it is crucial that social workers maintain a practice focus in robust decision-making effecting children and qualitative research supports this practice. Thinking aloud provides the basis for supervisors and supervisees to develop their skills together and ensure critical and accountable practice. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-07-06T07:30:44Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221113020
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Authors:Louise Morley, Frances Crawford Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Summary: The quality of the helping relationship is experienced when theories and principles are enacted in practice. Here, the people social workers seek to serve are able to decide whether the practice they experience is useful. One way that social workers can enhance the quality of the relationships they develop is to ‘start where the person is at’. In order to explore what this phrase means in and for effective social work practice, this paper revisits Martin Buber’s articulation of the I/thou relationship seeking to shed light on the notion of personhood in this value-based profession. Two participants, within a larger research project exploring the experiences of social workers in the Australian child welfare field, independently used the language of personhood to refer to the way they conceptualised the process of engaging with people. Both were referring to enacting the transcendent value of each person in terms of a practice philosophy. These personal narratives inspired the authors to move away from the usual professional discourse about the skills involved in relationship building and instead reflect on their own practice in order to capture something philosophical about caring relational processes. Revisiting humanistic conceptualisations of the helping relationship such as the I/thou has the potential to discourage practitioners from seeing relationships as transactional. This has particular significance in practice contexts characterised as risk-averse, austere or involuntary, and/or where people may be feeling anxious, stressed and/or simply unheard. Contemporary implications for social work practice are discussed. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-06-17T12:28:27Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221108638
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Authors:Aubrey E Jones, Kristel Scoresby, Chinh C Duong Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Miscarriage, a common experience, is uncommonly discussed in personal and professional support networks. The normal reaction of grief from a miscarriage in addition to other external factors can lead to complicated grief, a condition that has negative mental health implications on the bereaved mother. Through the lens of Worden’s tasks of meaning, a content analysis was conducted on six public blog posts in which women openly shared their grief experiences. The authors discuss the need for more training in social work practice regarding reproductive health and the intersection of reproductive health and mental health. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-06-15T08:12:03Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221108634
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Authors:Talin Gharibian, David McCarty-Caplan Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. This exploratory study examined the intersections of Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) American cultural identity and attitudes towards mental health and mental health services. Fifteen in-depth narrative interviews with participants of MENA descent in the United States were analyzed using qualitative thematic content analysis, revealing five primary themes within these data: denial, lack of awareness, stigma/shame, collective identity, and resistance. These results indicate cultural identity plays a unique and significant role in how this population understands and responds to mental health and substance use challenges, in a way that often creates barriers to social service provision and success. Implications and suggestions for how these findings might be used to develop more culturally competent and effective social work interventions for MENA communities are discussed. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-06-15T05:06:22Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221108829
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Authors:Anson Au Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. The subject of (de)colonization in the academy has witnessed an upsurge in attention over the past two decades across the social sciences and the Global North-South divide. This article critically examines central themes that have guided the conceptualization of decolonization thus far and foregrounds the convergences that decolonization shares with the epistemology of qualitative research methodology and pedagogy. In so doing, this article articulates the objective of reconciliation and demonstrates the ways in which reconciliation has been and can be enacted in the academy, limning the themes of (a) attention to physical context; (b) inclusion of Indigenous voices; (c) and decolonization of Indigenous and non-Indigenous minds. This article argues for better aligning the epistemology and conduct of qualitative research with Indigenous values—and concludes by calling for attention to Indigenous intersectionality and calling against a growing trend of decontextualizing decolonization. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-06-13T07:32:27Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221108626
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Authors:Bronwyn Charles, Lise Johns Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. This research explores how feminist women respond to male allies’ unintended sexism. I use a feminist autoethnographic method to document and analyze vignettes that explore interpersonal conflicts about unintended sexism. Autoethnography provides the methodology that allows me to link the personal challenges of responding to sexism in caring relationships within the broader cultural context. Three case vignettes demonstrate the processes I undertook. As a social worker, I draw upon process-oriented psychology and feminism to examine the vignettes and analyze key concepts in the experience of responding to unintended sexism. I discuss the importance of communication between social workers who are feminist and male allies when unintended sexism occurs. Finally, I examine the issue of feminists doing the majority of the work challenging sexism. In sharing my personal experiences of responding to male allies’ unintended sexism, I anticipate these stories and explorations can be helpful for social workers who are feminist or male allies concerned with communicating about unintended sexism in caring relationships. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-06-06T02:07:13Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221105338
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Authors:Naomi Katie McGookin Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. This article examines a recent research project that explored the lived experiences of 5 final year social work students in Scotland who graduated during the coronavirus pandemic. The project used Photovoice as the primary data collection method, followed by a 3 hour long online focus group where the participants and the researcher worked collaboratively to identify themes for further analysis. The findings demonstrated that while the data collected by participants through the photographs and captions were highly personal to each participant, there were recurring themes that connected all of them which were identified broadly as; (dis)connection, closure and identity – all of which were discussed in great detail in a virtual focus group after the data was collected. This article focusses predominantly on the Photovoice method adopted for the study and how this was an effective method for participatory research. This article also focusses on how the pandemic affected the transitionary period between the participants’ identity shift from students to professionals. This study followed the principles of Participatory Action Research which meant that participants and the researcher worked together to cultivate and analyse the data collected and the findings that are discussed here reflect this collaborative process. As this report is being written, numerous new studies, reports and predictions as to the pandemics impact on our collective mental health emerge daily and so it is hoped that this project will serve as a small time stamp as to how the pandemic impacted this small group of students in Scotland and will honour their stories, creating a lasting space for them to be heard among the ever-increasing bombardment of news. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-06-02T01:33:46Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221105081
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Authors:Tamara Woodall, Kevin D. Browne, Kathleen Green, Pallab Majumder Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Instability in the lives of young people in care is a public health concern. Placement moves and loss of relationships can have serious implications for young people’s overall functioning, as well as their future life outcomes. Despite this, research often lacks the perspective and voice of young people in care. In this qualitative research, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was used to provide a deeper insight into young people’s perceptions and beliefs about their care experiences to explore the impact of these on their ability to achieve a sense of stability and permanency across time. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six males from UK foster, residential and semi-independent care homes. The main themes highlighted young people’s perceptions of their care environment, relationships with others, sense of self and future under the overarching issue of permanence. Policy and practice implications propose strategies to target instability at the micro-level and how that may facilitate positive outcomes. The study revealed insights that may be helpful for frontline professionals and highlight to policy makers the importance of ensuring environmental and relational stability. An awareness of attachment theory to implement effective caregiving, should be a priority for training parents, caregivers, professionals and policy makers. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-05-22T03:22:00Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221096749
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Authors:Ian F Shaw Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. I seek to depict in a relatively grounded way the form and character of social work practice under a late colonial regime. The article draws from an archival study of the development of social welfare in Singapore as a British colony, in the late colonial period from the end of Japanese occupation in 1945 through to final independence in 1965. In exploring social welfare in late colonial regimes, I take adoption as an illuminating example. I refer to the significance of private markets in adoption, the Chinese kinship system as it was at the time, and the cultural significance of mui tsai. I suggest that we should conclude that colonial governmental regimes were not monochrome, and that the tenor of late colonial welfare practices and policies should not be regarded as set on a unilinear course of modernisation. Taken as a whole, the historical material points to the need for a form of imperial social work research – and of imperial social work as such – that avoids the assumption, perhaps too evident in social work writing, ‘that all they needed to know about colonialism was its horrors’ (Cooper). Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-05-12T10:34:35Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221098602
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Authors:Violeta Gevorgianienė, Egle Šumskienė, Ciara Bradley Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. This article explores the challenges faced by women with disabilities in combining the roles of ‘mother’ and ‘worker’ in Lithuania and reflects on the strategies mothers employed to overcome these. Semi-structured interviews were undertaken with twenty women with a variety of (dis)abling conditions and diverse life experiences between 2014 and 2018. In-depth thematic analysis by qualitative research teams revealed a constant tension in women’s aspirations to have a family and work. This revealed women’s enormous personal resources which facilitated them to overcome challenges they faced in motherhood as well as seemingly insurmountable obstacles to employment. However, within the vicious circle of social and economic challenges, they fought their battles with silent compliance, which hid their experiences and potentially denied them opportunities for support. This research reveals a policy response in Lithuania that categorises disability as an individual issue to be overcome rather than a socially constructed experience. The findings indicate the need for reframing understanding at macro, as well as micro-level policy interventions. At the micro-level, sensitive forms of professional support would help mothers with disabilities to choose more pronounced strategies of coping while also maintaining their dignity and privacy. These findings provide insights into the specific situation of women in Lithuania but are also relevant to many other contexts. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-04-30T03:26:13Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221091995
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Authors:Eleni Skoura-Kirk Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. The way social workers discursively construct ‘service user’ identities in everyday interactions (interviews, conversations and text) can affect quality of relationships and practice outcomes. Even though research has focused on the construction of ‘service user’ identities by professionals and service users, little has been done to explore such discursive formulations by pre-qualifying social work students. This is especially relevant, given the strengthening of the ‘expert by experience’ identity in social work education. This paper seeks to make visible mechanisms of student identity constructions as to ‘who a service user is’, and implications for practice through the examination of student written work pre- and post- a module focussing on lived experience. A critical discursive psychology approach was followed, recognising the interplay between localised professional encounters and wider contexts of power relations. The findings show a shift in the ‘service user’ identities employed by the students mainly based on individualistic discourses and deserving/undeserving themes (substance misuse the result of vulnerability, rather than selfishness, domestic abuse narratives denoting resilience rather than victimhood). The effect to practice showed shifts between the reflective, expert, person-centred and critical/radical practitioner, mainly stressing the need for professional growth at an individual level, with less emphasis on addressing social inequality. The paper argues that predominantly individualistic discourses can perpetuate de-politicised or oppressive categorisations of ‘service users’ and calls for further critical engagement with the discursive micro-practises enacted and developed in the social work classroom, if we are to unveil and challenge narrow, or stigmatising categorisations early on. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-04-27T12:15:39Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221088208
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Authors:Clementine J Degener, Hans WE Grietens, Diana D van Bergen Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Transcultural placements occur frequently in foster care, and impact the ethnic identity of ethnic minority foster youth. Studies that investigate how foster youth’s ethnic identity develop over time, and what role ethnic minority as well as ethnic majority influences play, are extremely scarce. Therefore, we conducted a longitudinal qualitative study, in which we explored how transculturally placed foster youth develop their ethnic identity and what fluctuations occur over time. Results show that the ethnic identity of foster youth seems to be influenced by a sense of belonging towards foster parents, birth parents and peers, as well as by the foster youth’s ability to cope with receiving contradictory ethnicity messages. Furthermore, societal movements and discussions about discrimination and racism impact the way foster youth view themselves as being an ethnic minority in majority society. In future, more attention should be paid to how foster youth can be guided by foster parents and foster care workers in safely exploring an ethnic identity of their own, and how a positive bond with both foster parents and birth parents, can further contribute to this process. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-04-26T04:14:41Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221081758
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Authors:Kelly Faye Jackson, Sarah Yang Mumma Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Despite astonishing growth in the multiracial population since 2010 and increased empirical scholarship on the experiences of persons from two or more racial groups, little progress has been made to extend multiracial identity development theory. Drawing from constructivist grounded theory and multiple visual grounded theory (VGT) frameworks, our secondary qualitative study analyzed 26 participatory diagrams from two previous qualitative studies examining multiracial identity development. In alignment with our novel VGT analytic approach, we co-constructed a visual theoretical model that more accurately represents the dynamism between complex developmental and ecological processes that interactively influence multiracial identity development over time. Our findings suggest that multiracial identity development is a dynamic process influenced by critical events and experiences, including trauma and abuse, movement of place, and turning points and milestones that mutually shape a multiracial person’s social environments, interpersonal relationships, and sense of self. Reflecting on our innovative study, we advocate for more critical, emancipatory methods like VGT that have the potential to overcome epistemological barriers in research that restrict the more accurate and complete storytelling of the multiracial experience. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-04-25T04:18:25Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221087877
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Authors:Jay Marlowe, Jemma Allen Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. The availability, affordability and usability of communication technologies have created new ways to conduct interpersonal qualitative research. Access to digital communications remains uneven, but the online environment provides an alternative, and at times a potentially preferable, research space. As Covid-19 has interrupted and disrupted the dominant assumption that qualitative research must be conducted in person, this paper outlines possibilities and reservations of online interpersonal methods. Though the standard ethical considerations of qualitative research hold true, we argue that these are necessary, but often inadequate, in the contexts of conducting online synchronous interpersonal research. Through centring relational and reflexive practice, we consider the associated pragmatic, methodological and ethical domains from feminist and virtual–material positional perspectives. Unpacking the complexities and possibilities of researching digital environments, we present six guiding principles to inform ethically responsive, methodologically robust and pragmatically feasible approaches to conducting online interpersonal qualitative research. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-04-25T03:27:49Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221087917
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Authors:Angie Malorni, Autumn Diaz, Michael S Spencer, Tiffany Jones Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. A research–practice partnership (RPP) is a collaborative, long-term partnership between researchers and practitioners. Autoethnography is a form of qualitative research where researchers recount stories of their personal experience to reflect on and better understand the wider cultural, social, and political world around them. In this paper, we demonstrate a collaborative approach to autoethnography that can serve as a useful tool for studying and transforming school culture with teachers and administrators in a middle school. We identify the key components of our approach and provide a detailed summary of how each element was applied and highlight the ways the inquiry process contributed to self and school-level transformation. We also discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using autoethnography for RPPs in schools and discuss future directions for methodological development Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-04-25T02:42:29Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221088211
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Authors:Christiana Best, Catherine Holt, Lear Matthews Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. While the issue of microaggressions has been studied for marginalized groups, research on microaggressions directed at Caribbean and Central American immigrants, a population whose identities are merged in the more visible Latinx, African American or Asian-American identities, is rare. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 participants – fourteen immigrants and six American-born adult children of immigrants. This research explores how ethnic and racial identification of black and brown immigrants and their American born children connect to experiences of daily microaggressions in the workplace. The results revealed that due to their intersecting identities they pay a heavy emotional price to assimilate into the workplace. This research has implications for organizations, human resources and organizational development. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-04-24T10:50:18Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221094781
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Authors:Hanna Kara, Maija Jäppinen, Camilla Nordberg, Anna-Leena Riitaoja Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. In this article, we contribute to an emerging body of literature concerning the often-overlooked topics of access and consent in research. We posit our understanding of access and consent as continuous ethical reflection and negotiation, conceptualised here as ethical performance, which is particularly valuable in research in institutional contexts defined by numerous power asymmetries. We draw empirically from research on street-level institutional encounters between social work practitioners and migrant-background service users in the Helsinki capital region. Access in this research was a multi-stage process including various stage-related negotiations, and the previous stages always influenced the stages that followed. Nevertheless, access and consent were always erratic and subject to revision. We describe how the need for ethical reflexivity arises in various concrete, often unpredictable, situations, and argue for the importance of paying explicit analytical attention to negotiations regarding access and consent. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-04-21T06:09:12Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221088421
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Authors:Vera Fiorentino, Marjo Romakkaniemi, Timo Harrikari, Sanna Saraniemi, Laura Tiitinen Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic spread around the globe. The viral outbreak was followed by rapid changes in people’s everyday and working lives. Because of the wide-scale societal restrictions that took place to prevent the pandemic, social work was forced to take a digital leap. In this article, we examine Finnish social workers’ experiences of extending the use of digitally mediated social work (DMSW) in working with clients during the first wave of the pandemic, the spring of 2020. The data consist of 33 social workers’ personal diaries, which are analysed using a qualitative theory-based content analysis. Henri Lefebvre’s theory of spatial triad will be utilised in theorising how social workers represent DMSW through three dimensions of space, that is, how they perceive, conceive and live digital spaces when encountering their clients and how physical, mental and social spaces are embodied in the representations. The results suggest that the three dimensions of space 1) basis of, 2) conceived and 3) lived DMSW intertwine closely together. The results reveal how the physical space, including IT infrastructure, its functionality and applicability, along with the organisational contexts, form a bedrock for the social workers’ DMSW practice and had a decisive impact on their experiences. Second, the conceived space consists of workers’ cognitive and emotional elements, such as competencies, preconceptions and attitudes towards ICT. Finally, the third dimension of spatiality concludes with the social and relational aspects of the user experiences and encounters between clients and social workers. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-04-11T06:09:06Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221075603
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Authors:Pernille S Skotte Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. The burdens of working in the frontline of the child welfare and protection services are well documented. Studies have identified individual and organisational indicators that lead to burnout, turnover and retention. In this article, I direct attention to enacted local cultures in child welfare teams and explore how embedded social practices contribute to social workers’ coping. I apply the concept of worker collectivity to explore how informal social practices in regular team meetings mobilise action and commitment among the team members. The article draws on an ethnographic study of two Norwegian frontline child welfare offices, involving intermittent observation of everyday work practices for two years. My analysis suggests that the collectivity is a crucial condition in bearing the demands of child welfare work. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-04-09T02:41:54Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221075600
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Authors:Rojan Afrouz, Beth R Crisp, Ann Taket Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Gender roles and gender stereotypes are culturally and socially constructed. Previous studies suggested that the Afghan community is a male-dominated and conservative society, where men are more visible in social activities, and women remain responsible mainly for household tasks. This research aimed to show Afghan women’ perceptions of gender roles and the possibilities for and barriers in Australian society to change those roles after their settlement in Australia. The study involved semi-structured interviews with 21 Afghan women who had been living in Australia between 6 months and 10 years. The interviews were conducted face to face or by telephone, in either Farsi (Persian) or English. An inductive thematic analysis was used to explore the data and build themes. Afghan women were aware of gender roles, patriarchy, and gender inequality, and they hoped to address those issues now as they live in a society that offers more freedom to women. Moving to Australia had enhanced women’s possibilities, self-confidence and skills and inspired many to go beyond traditional stereotypes and seek out options previously denied to them on the basis of their gender. However, their attempts at realising gender equality often met with the disapproval of their family or the wider Afghan community. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-03-12T01:52:27Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221076730
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Authors:Kate Phillippo, Robert Lucio, Emily Shayman, Michael Kelly Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. The American education system has been significantly disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led schools to shut down and convert to remote learning environments in spring 2020. However, long before these school closures, school social workers (SSWs) have faced significant practice dilemmas, as they have encountered obstacles to their engagement in best practices. While initial pandemic school closures presented SSWs with a range of uncertain situations, they also provided the possibility to respond to practice demands in different and dynamic ways. This article explores the pandemic's impact upon SSWs’ practice, and how SSWs responded in turn as they quickly adapted their practice during this widespread, ongoing crisis. Informed by crisis theory, previous analyses of SSW practice trends and dilemmas, and a review of traditional social work values and ethics, we conducted three focus groups in July 2020 with SSWs during the pandemic’s early months. From these interviews, we learned that participants’ work was disrupted by dramatic shifts in school and community settings, as well as changes in support needs within their respective school communities. Those disruptions gave way to substantial shifts in practice, which reflect a more prominent role for systemic practice and for traditional social work values in SSW decision-making. These findings offer implications for post-pandemic practice, and practice in other host settings. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-03-11T02:09:56Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221076061
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Authors:Jeanette Schmid Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Employing critical autoethnography, this article conveys how over my four decades of social work, I have come to adopt a contextualized social work stance and identifies what emerge as four key areas of contextualized social work. These include attention to race, ethnicity and culture as experienced in the local environment, the local articulation of social conditions and appropriate social work responses, the activation of local knowledge generation and curation, and finally, addressing and resisting expert power. Such theorization of contextualized social work augments previous work that positions contextualized social work as countering dominant conceptualizations of social work and instead centering on a critical interrogation of the local, foregrounding local understandings of social conditions, and privileging local/(i)Indigenous knowledge production and ways of doing and being. This critical understanding of context unsettles dominant notions of context by focusing on power relationships. I hope that my story will add to the growing discussion regarding alternative modes of practice and education that counter dominant Westernized individualized social work perspectives and promote decolonized approaches. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-03-02T01:24:51Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221075757
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Authors:Carlos Andrade-Guzmán, Margaret Lombe Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. The study critically explores the meanings and expressions of co-responsibility based on the experience of Chilean social workers involved in public-private child welfare. It draws upon critical institutionalism to frame thematic analysis of interviews with practitioners participating in these arrangements. Results show that meanings and expressions of co-responsibility are diverse and co-exist in intervention. Some meanings are that co-responsibility is the responsibility assumed by the State as the first guarantor of rights with a private that takes responsibility for clients. It also means collaboration in a neoliberal system. Regarding expressions, it takes the form of a programmatic execution that operationalizes the rights approach. Another one is that co-responsibility expresses in individualistic performance that neglects the other colleague. Implications for critical social work practice, policy, and scholarship are discussed, based on the diversity of meanings and expressions of co-responsibility identified. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-02-28T03:33:49Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250211071050
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Authors:Jenn M Lilly Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Although digital narrative methods lend themselves well to participatory, action-oriented inquiry, these relatively new methods also raise questions about potential risks involved in using digital technologies to engage marginalized groups in social work research. This article examines the feasibility, challenges, and opportunities of using digital narrative methods in anti-oppressive social work research (AOSWR) by providing empirical insights from the AltaVoces project—an AOSWR project that used digital narrative methods to engage Latino youth. This case study demonstrates the compatibility and feasibility of digital narrative methods in AOSWR by examining to what extent the AltaVoces project: (1) used methods that center the contexts, voices, and experiences of oppressed peoples, recognizing the social construction of knowledge and the politics inherent in knowledge creation, (2) critically interrogated power arrangements within research relationships and made efforts to form authentic, collaborative relationships and share power with co-researchers, and (3) acknowledged oppressive systems and institutions and reflected a commitment to transforming, dismantling, or abolishing them through the research purpose, process, and products. We found that digital tools offered new possibilities for centering the voices of Latino youth, rebalancing power in research relationships, and connecting knowledge to action through digital products, in alignment with AOSWR, but also introduced new power hierarchies and risks related to producing digital material. The AltaVoces project provides one example of how digital narrative research may be implemented and evaluated using the integrative AOSWR framework, exposing several aspects of digital narrative research that warrant specific attention and presenting practical strategies for doing so. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-02-23T05:18:08Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250211070590
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Authors:Raj Yadav, Amit Yadav Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. This paper offers the 6 A’s model of social worker associations and COVID-19, which includes (i) ‘Apprehend’, (ii) ‘act’, (iii) ‘advocate’, (iv) ‘alliance’, (v) ‘an emphasis on solidarity and resilience’ and (vi) ‘a future prospect’. The model is based on the findings of qualitative analysis of social worker associations’ reports on COVID-19. It also offers insights that can be utilised in similar crises in the future. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-02-17T01:25:30Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250211068066
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Authors:Yuen-Han Mo Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. There is limited research into positive organizational scholarship in social work in China. This study aimed to address this research gap by investigating what social workers perceive as positive management practices that facilitate work performance, strengthen work motivation or increase job satisfaction, and discover the relationship between self-care and organizational support. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 participants in various agencies in southern China that resulted in the development of a two-dimensional model with seven conditions of positive organizational measures in social work. Suggestions are made for social work managers to create an effective organizational management system. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-02-14T01:54:49Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250211057107
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Authors:Shelby L Clark, Sarah Jen Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Arts-based research methods have an important place in social work scholarship. Arts-based research methods, such as poetic inquiry, highlight lived experiences through creativity, emotion, and embodiment. This paper shares findings from a qualitative study that investigated social workers’ experiences with compassion in their professional practice through poetic inquiry. Findings are disseminated in a found poem that was collaboratively co-created by the researcher and study participants. The found poem highlights how compassion is a central and guiding force within social work practice. Compassion and connection remain core dimensions of the social work discipline and social work education, scholarship, and practice may benefit from continued exploration of compassion and related constructs. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-02-10T05:51:00Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250211070795
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Authors:Stina Michelson Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Children’s perspectives on family-related adversities are important to social work practice and theory. Qualitative inquiry into children’s personal narratives can contribute to a deeper understanding of their project of handling difficult relationships and experiences in the family context. The present study explores children’s agency with a specific focus on how they negotiate difficult family-related relationships and experiences in, and through, their personal narratives. The analysis builds on teller-focused interviews with 22 children aged between 6 and 17 who receive support linked to their experiences of family-related adversities. The findings suggest that children negotiate difficult relationships and experiences in terms of closeness and distance. This is shown in their narrative practice of positioning and repositioning themselves and others in, and through, their telling. The findings are theorized in relation to the concepts of power and misrecognition. Finally, the implications for social work practice and research are discussed with an emphasis on how to promote a non-instrumental attitude to children’s perspectives and experiences within the child welfare system. The present study suggests that this pursuit would benefit from a child-centered and narrative understanding of children and their knowledge. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-02-07T09:31:02Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250211066823
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Authors:Kate Vincent Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Within Australia, Whiteness is embedded within social work, requiring us to turn the lens in on ourselves as a profession. This article presents research data exploring how Whiteness is enacted within the practices of White Australian social workers who work with refugee arrived communities. Eight social workers with experience working with people of refugee background participated in this multimethod qualitative study. Data was analysed using a critical approach to narrative analysis. Participants told narratives of how their Whiteness was enacted through their powerful positions within relationships with clients. The reported experiences of social workers in this project also relate to the pressures, desires and often failures to be professional, as it is defined within White Western social work. The findings suggest that to disrupt Whiteness, we need to challenge the need for professionalism when working with people of refugee background. It is argued that this could be achieved through a focus on relationality, dialogue and two-way care. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-02-04T03:27:45Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250211067719
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Authors:Yixuan Wang, Qin Gao, Fei Pei, Yi Wang, Zhen Cheng, Ji Zhang, Yang Wu Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has motivated social workers to reckon with and transform traditions in service delivery. The development, application, and evaluation of technology-enhanced practices have become more vital than ever. Garden on the Balcony (GOB) was an innovative internet-based social work service designed to respond rapidly to the COVID-19 outbreak in Beijing. This paper introduces the underlying perspectives and design of GOB and reports participants’ reflections on the program to understand its mechanisms and implications. Interview data from GOB participants were collected 4 months after the program ended. Thematic analysis generated three major themes, suggesting that GOB had (a) promoted individual resilience and family cohesion; (b) built online and offline community bonds; and (c) cultivated a green lifestyle and spiritual reflection on life. This study demonstrates a practical example of the effective use of technology-enhanced practice. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-02-03T05:10:48Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250211059431
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Authors:Sharon Zanti, Meagan Cusack, Hyeri Choi, Mark J Stern Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. This work examines power dynamics at play in the early child-saving movement as illuminated in the case records and annual reports of the Pennsylvania Society to Protect Children from Cruelty (SPCC) from 1878 to 1881 and triangulated with other historical records. We draw on ecological systems theory and urban ecology to examine social and spatial relationships between child-saving institutions, communities, and individuals and families. The paper adapts template analysis for archival research as a replicable approach for studying historical power dynamics embedded in social welfare institutions. This approach highlights the changing role of community members in identifying and responding to neglect and abuse and uncovers common themes that continue to impact the modern child welfare system. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-02-03T05:02:05Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250211059436
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Authors:Emily Keddell, Kerri Cleaver, Luke Fitzmaurice Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. The removal of a baby at birth is a significant intervention in family life. Avoiding removal requires attention to all levels of the family social ecology. Utilising a collective case study approach, and a critical realist epistemology, this project explores the experiences of three women who have avoided removal, and their community-based workers. Key themes are the necessity of intensive, ecological and relational service provision; and the mediation role of the community-based worker between women and the statutory child protection service. Services that were ‘by Māori for Māori’ were reported as most likely to maintain these fragile relationships. Effective services were holistic and intensive, drew on parent’s own motivation of care for children, and focussed on stress reduction and creating ‘friend-like’ relationships. The mediation role of community workers reflected their instrumental position, and included mediating risk perceptions between the statutory agency and women. o In the instance of disability, mediation included direct, collective advocacy to challenge risk perceptions utilising children’s rights concepts and a social model of disability. The implications for policy and practice are: to improve equitable access to intensive services based on an ecological theory of change and with an emphasis on relational practice; improve provision of by Māori, for Māori services; and require services to take a rights-based approach to both mothers with disabilities and their children. It also highlights the important role of community-based workers to advocate, support change and improve coordination between families and the statutory child protection system. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-02-02T11:40:21Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250211058178
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Authors:King Lun Hung, Hok Bun Ku, Sameul S M Leung Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. This study explores the grief of social workers who experience the death of clients in community mental health settings. “The ten participants represented three occupational categories: social work administrators, senior social workers team leaders and clinical leaders), and novice and frontline social workers.” A phenomenological research approach was adopted, and semi-structured interviews were conducted to explore the types of grief experienced by the participants. Researchers found that the grief of these “wounded helpers” took various forms: guilt, shock, panic, anger, shame, loss, sadness, helplessness, regret, fear, and anxiousness. In addition, some suffered from debilitating flashbacks. Their experiences produced psychological pain that took a long time to fade. Studies have shown that the grief and suffering of those in the helping professions are strongly connected to their perceived professional identity and their understanding of what constitutes professionalism. Based on our findings, we finally discuss the lessons that can be learned from this group of social workers who experienced recovery from traumatic situations in their career. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-02-02T04:13:07Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250211064811
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Authors:Wilberforce Kurevakwesu, Belamino K Chikwaiwa, Mulwayini Mandau Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. This study explores one of the key factors influencing the struggle for social work professional identity, enunciating the impact of the effectiveness of the Council of Social Workers of Zimbabwe (CSW) in regulation of social work. This article, as such, focuses on abuse of the social work title in Zimbabwe’s government departments. It examines how non-social workers abuse the title, together with related effects and possible interventions. The researchers used a qualitative approach and employed a phenomenological design. Participants were recruited through snowballing and the researchers reached data saturation after 17 semi-structured telephone interviews. The collected data were analysed through thematic analysis. Findings of the study reflect that government departments employ non-social workers as medical social workers and probation officers, and this generally affects proper service delivery and the social work profession in particular. The study further established that the CSW has to ensure the recruitment of qualified social workers and rigorous monitoring of – and improved collaboration with – government departments. The researchers then suggested that if the CSW is to make future changes in protecting the social work profession in Zimbabwe, it should, inter alia, review its current legislative framework and draw lessons of best practices from other countries. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-02-02T02:25:18Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250211061827
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Authors:Raewyn Tudor, Shanee Barraclough Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Post-humanist theories and feminist new materialism are a growing feature of social work scholarship. It is timely to explore how these theories inform qualitative social work research approaches. Drawing on post-qualitative methodology and Barad’s concept and method of diffraction, in this article we engage in a performative re-analysis of an account of school social work practice with a group of boys with behavioural concerns. We illuminate the interplay of neurological and behaviourist ways of knowing boys and social workers’ expertise and their linkages with the materiality of the place and space of the school-based group programme. Moving beyond merely representing these material-discursive happenings, this paper affirms new social worker identities and behavioural boys’ subjectivities which emerge within the entangled relations with non-human, material objects and things in schools. Doing post-qualitative inquiry, co-configures us as researchers actively involved in knowledge generation as we seek to make differences that matter in social work practice. Diffraction not only offers methods to engage with the material-discursive interface of social work knowledge practices, but also an ethical methodology for researchers to do justice in our engagement with research data. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-01-25T05:04:15Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250211056600
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Authors:Eve Mullins, Steve Kirkwood, Elizabeth Stokoe First page: 997 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print.
Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-10-07T05:45:11Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221132239
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Authors:Marie Flinkfeldt, Clara Iversen, Sabine Ellung Jørgensen, David Monteiro, David Wilkins First page: 1011 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Given the emphasis on communication in social work, the empirical study of social work interactions is an important area for research. By examining recordings of naturally occurring social interaction and analysing participants’ practices in close detail, conversation analysis (CA) provides rigorous resources for understanding the practical challenges and opportunities of professional intervention. Since the origins of CA in the 1970s, this approach has been used for investigating interactions in a wide range of institutional domains. Based on articles published in peer-reviewed journals in English, this scoping review maps the development of CA in social work research. The review gives an overview of the institutional contexts, professional groups and client groups that have been investigated using CA methods, as well as how their interactional practices have been examined. We show contributions of CA to understanding social work in terms of specific interactional practices, how practitioners accomplish challenging institutional activities in interactions and how theories and ideals about interactions relate to social work practice. The review highlights research gaps concerning clients’ resources for pursuing agendas, embodied conduct in social work, contributions to the cumulative body of CA research and implications for practice. We discuss these findings in relation to CA as a relatively new approach in social work research and the challenges which CA may need to address to become a more integrated part of social work research and practice. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-08T08:02:45Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124215
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Authors:Clara Iversen, Marie Flinkfeldt, Sylvaine Tuncer, Eric Laurier First page: 1043 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Welfare organisations across the world are becoming more streamlined with less time for building relationships with clients, rendering non-governmental organisations increasingly important for welfare provision. In this paper, we investigate an understudied area in social work: the small talk through which volunteer organisations conduct social work tasks in interaction with clients. The data consist of 108 phone calls to a helpline that offers social contact to older people, recorded in 2020 in Sweden. We use conversation analysis to investigate how callers and call-takers rely on and produce informal sociability in providing support for clients. Specifically, we show that talk about the weather, a prosaic small talk topic, is interwoven with institutional work. By allowing or preventing outdoor activities, weather is a conduit for call-takers and callers to introduce and navigate norms of remaining active as an older adult. Cultural understandings and concerns about good or bad weather allow participants to move between reproducing client/service-provider asymmetries and reaching affiliative affective stances. Thus, the supposedly banal topic of the weather, known as a resource for sociability amongst the unacquainted, is, in this setting, used in ways particular to social work practice. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-04T10:47:40Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124218
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Authors:Eve Mullins, Steve Kirkwood First page: 1063 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Warmth and respect are considered essential skills for relationship building in social work. However, these skills are often treated as common sense, and how to be respectful and warm, particularly in challenging situations, remains unclear. Practice guidance is commonly given as a list of generic behaviours or vague directions. Furthermore, it is not clear how being respectful or warm leads to effective relationships. In this article, we applied conversation analysis to examine transcripts of video recordings of 12 sessions of ‘Moving Forward: Making Changes’, the national groupwork programme addressing sexual offending in Scotland, to outline and specify the interactional practices that constitute instances of respect and warmth in social work practice. We found practitioners demonstrated warmth and respect by recognising and acknowledging clients’ accounts and identities in the interaction through subtle discursive practices. These practices include using hedging words and phrases (e.g. sort of, maybe), framing challenges as questions or suggestions rather than declarations, and using therapeutic phrasing (i.e. ‘I’m curious about’, I’m wondering’). As such, we propose the actions of demonstrating respect and warmth are achieved in interaction through the ways practitioners delicately manage issues of epistemic authority, that is, a person’s primary rights to knowledge about themselves, and face, that is, self-presentation. Drawing on the concepts of epistemic authority and face furthers our theoretical and practical understanding of the practice skills of respect and warmth, and their role in building effective working relationships. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-08T08:07:43Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124214
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Authors:Justin Canty First page: 1084 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. A common task in encounters with professionals is to identify a matter warranting professional assistance. Co-producing a ‘social workable’ matter in social work encounters as an interactional achievement is yet to be explored. Specifying this as an institutional and interactional project creates the opportunity to analyse how topics are collaboratively used in social work encounters to achieve a joint understanding of the work for the session. Such projects offer insights into the social actions involved in identifying matters that are relevant to the service, setting and professional encounter. Conversation analysis (CA) of real-world social work sessions offers a way to understand how social workers and clients produce, elaborate and pursue topics as a collaborative achievement. This detailed analytic approach illuminates how social workable matters are co-produced in interaction and creates an opportunity to examine and improve collaboration in interpersonal practice contexts. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-06T05:12:34Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124207
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Authors:Val Williams, Jon Symonds First page: 1104 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Social care assessments in England are envisaged as conversations, implying an informal and congenial encounter, in which both parties have equal roles. However, a fundamental task during an assessment is to gauge eligibility for resources. This article uses conversation analysis to consider audio recorded data of seven social care assessments in England. The article focuses on topic shifts, where the assessor introduces an ‘assessment relevant’ topic, and we examine how these shifts are managed. Sometimes assessors used what was said by the client or by the carer as a ‘pivot’, which could produce a feeling of friendly conversation, but simultaneously lead to an intrusion into the client’s personal knowledge domain. Assessors also had other strategies for framing a ‘next question’, such as noticing something in the environment, referring to previous notes or to previous conversations. The conversation might feel ‘friendly’, but these tactics could lead to the personal life domain of the client being inadvertently revealed and used as relevant for their assessment. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-10-10T06:20:17Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124212
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Authors:Elin Nilsson, Anna Olaison First page: 1123 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. The Swedish Social Services Act stipulates an individual perspective that promotes self-determination. In practice, this means that relatives lack formal rights to intrude on a person with dementia’s right to self-determination in decisions about elder care services. However, the Social Services Act also states that family members who are caring for a close relative should be offered support. This legislation may lead to contradictions within social work practice with couples. The aim of the present article is to explore how social workers manage needs assessment meetings in which couples living with dementia express diverging stances and the partner with dementia resists an offer for elder care services. We benefit from conversation analytic theory and methodology. The findings suggest that social workers accomplish persuasion through these four conversational practices: ‘providing information about the offer’, ‘mitigating the offer’, ‘positive framing of the offer’ and ‘laying down conditions for the offer’. Also, local alliances with the partner of the person with dementia were demonstrated throughout. The analysis shows that PwDs provide resistance to the offered services, but there are no examples of a PwD influencing the outcome in terms of offered services. The results raise questions about the effectiveness of persuasion in needs assessment meetings. The findings also add to the critical debate on how social workers may be constrained by institutional logics and where relational competence is needed to balance and coordinate decision-making when assessing the needs of older couples living with dementia. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-03T01:26:41Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124213
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Authors:Lisa Bostock, Juliet Koprowska First page: 1147 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Social workers carry much of the frontline authority to define risk to children and discuss it with families. Assessment reports and other institutional documents record professional views about family information, and also have the potential to convey the ‘voice’ of the family to institutions. Social workers have responsibility for sharing these documents with families, yet little is known about how they do this. This paper focuses on episodes when social workers introduce institutional documents in home visits, and on the family responses elicited. These are high-stakes encounters which, when they go seriously wrong, emerge in the press as tragedies and scandals. For families, these documents carry an emotional depth-charge as intimate, potentially shaming and sometimes inaccurate details of their lives are inscribed in them by and for others. Latour’s (1996) concept of interobjectivity sheds light on the use of documents, while concepts of epistemic authority (Heritage and Raymond, 2005) and epistemic injustice (Fricker, 2007) are employed to examine how social workers respond to parental testimony about themselves and their children. Learning how to present institutional documentation in ways that reduce the risk of emotional reactivity and treating family perspectives with epistemic justice may enhance social work practice. At a policy level, the design of documents warrants review, so that they facilitate rather than obstruct social workers’ efforts to build what are already fragile relationships with families. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-10-01T01:44:32Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124217
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Authors:Nataliya Thell First page: 1167 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. In anonymous online text-based counselling provided by social services, counsellors face specific communicative and professional challenges. Among other things, they need to ensure that they have understood the chat users correctly in order to provide relevant information and advice. The paper studies how counsellors check their understanding of users’ situations by using formulations, namely, summarising and rephrasing users’ initial problem descriptions. The data consists of chat logs from 56 web-based counselling sessions provided by social services in Sweden. Conversational analysis is used to examine the functions of chat counsellors’ formulations. Analyses show that counsellors reformulate users’ initial requests to establish a joint understanding of the users’ situations and help requested. Three distinct functions of the initial formulations are identified: recasting requests in the institutional terms of social services, clarifying ambiguity in the user’s initial posts and affiliating with the user. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-09T05:08:08Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124208
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Authors:Ali Reza Majlesi, Anna Ekström, Lars-Christer Hydén First page: 1185 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Assisting people into bed is in many ways centered around the person’s body—it is the body that needs to be moved and laid down. As a result, the body’s material and tangible properties—the body as an object—are foregrounded. This study demonstrates, however, how care workers, when assisting a person with late-stage dementia into bed, maintain a balance between handling the body of the care-recipient as an object of care and including the person as a co-participant in the activity, highlighting the participatory role of the person, and thus positioning the care-recipient as a partner in the activity of the transfer. Drawing on multimodal conversation analysis, and presenting two cases of transfer, the study shows that the activity of moving into bed is usually organized into three consecutive sequences of (a) preparing the move, (b) transfer proper, and (c) adjusting the resident in bed. In every phase of the activity, caregivers, through careful and coordinated embodied and verbal interactions, manage the care-recipient not only as an object of care and her body as an objective body but also as a lived body, highlighting the agentive and subjective aspects of the resident’s personhood. The results of the study point to care workers’ skillful handling of interactional resources to deal with the social sensitivity of moving assistance-dependent residents to their bed through partner-positioning the resident, and thus (re)subjectifying the person with late-stage dementia despite the objectifying aspects of the transfer. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-08T02:05:35Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124216
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Authors:David Monteiro First page: 1211 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Interactional closings constitute a crucial aspect of social interaction and, in social work practice, are organized around participants’ orientation to an asymmetrical distribution of tasks between professional and client, informed by a “dialectics of care and control.” Proceeding from a conversation analytic framework, and grounded on video recordings of encounters between social workers and clients in diverse institutional settings in Portugal, the present paper investigates how the routine of closing social work encounters is carried out through professionals’ and clients’ joint and progressive orientation toward bringing the encounter to an end, and examines some of the interactional and embodied practices mobilized by them for accomplishing this task. By providing a detailed analysis of participants’ audible and visible conduct and their interactional practices, this study shows how social workers orchestrate clients’ leave-taking through the concerted mobilization of linguistic, bodily and material resources, shedding light into how the dialectics of care and control are managed in the everyday exercise of social intervention. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-10-03T01:22:03Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124219
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Authors:Karin Osvaldsson Cromdal, Jakob Cromdal First page: 1229 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. This article is a single case analysis of trouble talk taking place between teachers and care workers at a Swedish special residential home for boys and young men (aged 12–20). The topic of the talk is a potentially unwarranted solitary detention of a student. Using sequential- and Membership Categorisation analyses, we examine the participants’ methods for talking about the event as institutionally problematic while avoiding to blame the teacher responsible for the disciplinary action. Specifically, we demonstrate how the grounds for the confinement were initially disputed by the care workers and how an extended negotiation with the teachers eventually lead to a jointly acceptable account of the event. This involved recasting the event as a real-life experience that should afford the student important opportunities for socialisation into the social and institutional orders which inform daily life at the residential home. More generally, the analysis demonstrates how presumed knowledge of social and institutional structures and practices is mobilised and negotiated – through ‘categorial ordering work’ (Hester & Eglin, 1997) – in the service of coming to terms with the complex accountability arrangements of the special residential home. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-06T03:31:29Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124211
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Authors:Joseph Webb, David Wilkins, Richard Martin First page: 1252 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Supervision is widely recognised as a core activity for social work. In this paper, we explore the nature of decision-making in supervision, using a collection of twelve audio-recordings from one child protection team in England. We apply Conversation Analysis to see how potential actions are put ‘on the table’, by whom, and the interactional work that occurs before any final decision is made. Within these data we find that supervision may not be an especially key site for decision-making. When actions are proposed, we identify three primary patterns: unilateral decision making, bilateral decision making and polar questions which instigate decision making sequences. In each, it is almost always the supervisor who proposes a possible future action, and the social worker who responds. If the social worker is agreeable, there is often little further discussion. When the social worker resists the proposal or there is further talk around the future action, the subsequent conversation was likely to focus on how it reflects on the worker’s professional competence, rather than the merits of the action and implications for the family. These findings raise the question of how (and where) casework decisions are made in this social work team, if not in supervision. They also suggest we need to pay more attention to issues of professional standing and creating opportunities for shared decision making when thinking about supervision. Our analysis furthers current knowledge of what happens in social work supervision by demonstrating how epistemic and deontic domains, as well professional competency, are interactionally relevant forces shaping the decision-making process. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-09-30T06:20:47Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124209
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Authors:Jon Symonds, Sabine Jorgensen, Joseph Webb, Eve Mullins, David Wilkins First page: 1274 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. Reflective supervision is widely recommended as an effective way to support social workers to think about their practice and to make better decisions. Although previous research has proposed methods of pursuing reflective supervision, little is known about how supervisors attempt this in actual supervision meetings. One proposed method for supervisors is to elicit third person perspectives so that social workers can consider a situation from different points of view. In this article, we examine this method by analysing audio recordings of 12 supervision meetings from one local authority Children and Families Social Work team. Using Conversation Analysis (CA), we explore supervisors’ attempts to elicit other people’s perspectives, focusing on how such requests were formed and how the social worker responded. We found 35 instances of supervisors attempting to elicit third person perspectives and identified four different ways that supervisors designed these enquiries. Supervisors oriented to two concerns, based on whether they enquired about a perspective that was currently established or projected into the future, and whether the information was verifiable through speech or actions, or imagined based on the other person’s thoughts or understanding. We draw on CA work on epistemics and stance to show how these different approaches have implications for what the social worker is expected to know and how both speakers orient to the accountability of the social worker. We conclude by considering the epistemic friction between the design of these enquiries, the relevance of professional accountability and the possibilities for pursuing reflective supervision in practice. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-08-31T11:29:31Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124206
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Authors:Dorte Caswell, Tanja Dall First page: 1290 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print. The need for professional reflection has been argued extensively in social work literature. A separate literature has demonstrated the potential of using conversation analytic research (CA) in interventions seeking to inform professional practice in social and health care. Nevertheless, we know little about how social workers actually do ‘reflection’ and how CA can be used to facilitate reflection, specifically.The objective of this paper is to examine how CA can be used in interventions that develop reflective professional practice. Our dataset consists of audio recordings of 21 mutual learning and innovation platforms, taking place as part of a collaboration between researchers and five Danish social work agencies. We use CA to examine how researchers and professionals reflect on social work interactions.We find that the use of CA (a) makes professionals aware of aspects of practice that are often performed in routinised ways and (b) provides concrete starting points for the non-evaluative reflection on such practice. The paper has implications for researchers and professionals looking to utilise CA in developing reflective practice as it outlines one model for intervention, demonstrates the detailed ways in which reflection may be accomplished in interaction and discusses the organisational requirements of such interventions. Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-10-03T01:50:20Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221124210
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First page: 1308 Abstract: Qualitative Social Work, Ahead of Print.
Citation: Qualitative Social Work PubDate: 2022-10-10T05:00:05Z DOI: 10.1177/14733250221132240
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