Relationship and strengths based practice: rhetoric to reality

1. Relationship and strengths based practice: rhetoric to reality Dr Ruth Allen Chief Executive of the British Association of Social Workers

2. What are we talking about? • Relationship based: • Conscious use of self • Person to person • Understanding significance and power of relationships • Link into/work with wider systems of relationships • Interactive and responsive • Emotional connectivity foregrounded • Strengths based: • Positive about capabilities and potential • Person not illness or deficit focused • Solution focused • Build on what is working : exceptions • Belief in resourcefulness and coping • Emphasis on sustainability • One down position for the professional • Citizenship • Respect for self-defined knowledge and culture

3. our focus • Individual - micro • Family/social network - meso • Community – macro • Socio-political

4. Global Definition of the Social Work Profession • “Social work is a practice-based profession and an academic discipline that promotes social change and development, social cohesion, and the empowerment and liberation of people. Principles of social justice, human rights, collective responsibility and respect for diversities are central to social work.  Underpinned by theories of social work, social sciences, humanities and indigenous knowledges, social workengages people and structures to address life challenges and enhance wellbeing. • The above definition may be amplified at national and/or regional levels”. • (IFSW 2014)

5. We have had to remind ourselves of our relationship-based roots….. • Social work is essentially about relationships: first and foremost with service users; but also with social work colleagues and colleagues from other professional backgrounds – health, education, police, to name a few; with the organisational context and wider policy context of practice; and finally with ‘the self’, or oneself. These relationships do not exist in isolation from each other and are interrelated and exert influences on each other. From: Wilson K., Ruch G., Lymbery M. and Cooper, A. (2011) (eds) Social Work: An introduction to contemporary practice, Pearson, Harlow, pp. 7–8.

6. Community social work was once a mainstream part of social workers’ training and role description. It was built into the ethos and values of the profession that the purpose of social work was to support people within the context of their families and communities. For social work, community means more than just people living in a particular place. It expresses the idea that people identify with the area in which they live and the people who live there. Social work practice is rooted in the belief that people want to experience a sense of belonging and inclusion and that those feelings are central to people’s wellbeing. As the role of a social worker became more focused on care management, however, community social work started to fade and in many places disappeared entirely. • TLAP Developing a Wellbeing and Strengths-based Approach to Social Work Practice:Changing Culture 2016

7. I don’t know what social work is if it is not about enabling people to use and develop their strengths and abilities. Whether we are intervening to prevent harm and abuse, or reducing the obstacles and discriminations getting in the way of a disabled person getting on with their lives within their community, or working to restore family relationships that have broken down - to my mind we are there, first and last, to respect and help people build on their strengths, abilities and social systems of support. • Adapted from PSW article Amazing People April 2017

8. Strengths based social work can be caricatured or misused to downplay the realities of material disadvantage – as if focusing on strengths and assets is a con to distract from or cope with austerity, cuts and poverty. • But to me it means the opposite. • It means getting alongside people more closely and supporting the connections and relationships they can and want to make change, for themselves, their families, communities and beyond. • We do our bit to provide fuel for the person’s own flame of self-determination and determination for change: personally, politically • Adapted from PSW article Amazing People April 2017

9. UK Policy context – enabling legislation in disabling times of austerity • The UK divergence/convergence • Care Act 2014 – England • Children and Social Work Act 2017 - England • Munro Report 2011 – England • Social Care and Wellbeing Wales – 2014 • Social Care (Self-directed Support) (Scotland) Act 2013 • Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 • etc

10. What gets in the way? • Austerity and cut backs • Policy – obstructive or glacial pace of change • Persistence of administrative model – compliance not transformation • Persistence of gift model – allocations not rights • Citizen expectations – the wish for prescription? • Individualisation – the atomised consumer • Professional/practice norms and culture - what sorts of social workers are we? • Organisational forms – poor conditions of practice • Culture and conversational/discursive norms • What we talk about gets bigger – a note about Leeds

11. Notes on austerity and inequalities • Ethnic minority households twice as impacted as White households • Households with one or more disabled member (adult or child) significantly more adversely impacted. • Lone parents lose around 15% of their net income on average – almost £1 in every £6. By contrast, the losses for all other family groups are much smaller, from nothing to 8%, especially for those that are relatively well-off. • Women lose more than men from reforms at every income level. Overall, women lose around £940 per year on average, more than double the losses of around £460 for men. • The biggest average losses by age group, across men and women, are experienced by the 65-74 age group (average losses of around £1,450 per year) and the 35-44 age group (average losses of around £1,250 per year). • The Impact of tax and welfare reforms 2010 – 2017 EHRC report 2017

12. Relationships and strengths based practice in current austerity: • Knowing and respecting • Bearing witness • Countering stigma • Advocacy • Connectivity with wider sources of support for individuals and families, in communities • Community development approach • Holding hope and self-belief • Challenging structures and policies • Protecting human rights • Political solidarity • Collective action and connectivity with wider social movements

13. THE SOCIAL WORKER AS AGITATOR   • Every social worker is almost certain to be also an agitator. If he or she learns certain facts and believes that they are due to certain causes which are beyond the power of an individual to remove, it is impossible to rest contented with the limited amount of good that can be done by following old methods …  • The word ' agitator ' is distasteful to many, it calls up a picture of a person who is rather unbalanced, honest perhaps, but wrong headed, possibly dishonest, troubling the waters with a view to fishing in them for his own benefit. ……..Nevertheless the agitator has a most important part to play in social progress, ……The agitator of one age is recognised by the next as a prophet; our fathers may have stoned him but we whiten his sepulchre.

14. The challenge of integrating the relational-therapeutic and the political-material in austerity • Resisting anti-intellectualism and anti-professionalism • Resisting oversimplifying ‘theory of everything’ critiques • Resisting highly individualising and pathologizing approaches to ‘mental health’ • Highlighting the inherent complexity and power of the social work task needing: • positive collective identity • self-leadership, learning and organisation of the profession, by the profession, • co-production with those we serve

15. fields of transformation towards relationship and strength based practice • Practice • Roles & working conditions • Protection • Professionalism • Public Perceptions • Press and media • Politics and Structures • Campaigning • Professional Development • Leadership • BASW develops and represents social work across all these fields of transformation This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND

16. BASW development priorities: Campaigning • Boot Out Austerity • Respect for Social Work: the campaign for professional working conditions

17. BASW development priorities: Professional development • Professional development and education (ProfDE) offers • Course provider accreditation scheme • Specialist capabilities: profession led recognition scheme/award • The PCF • New strapline: the professional association for social work and social workers across the UK

19. Basw development priorities: leadership • By the profession, of the profession, for the profession • Authentic and principled • At all career stages • Practice and strategic focus • Development opportunities from the professional body

20. Final reflections ….on munro • ‘Munro …..’how much stronger it might have been, and how many more implementation opportunities may have opened, if there had been an unequivocal emphasis on the importance of social workers building our own stronger culture of professional autonomy and unity through ensuring effective peer support and fulsome encouragement of an independent professional body. • The report is an excellent example of a well-argued case for change in national policy. But it envisages implementation through government, organisational leadership and educationalists shaping and facilitating change in the grassroots - but not really from the grassroots.’ • Brave Authentic Social Work: SHARE 2017

21. Final reflections • Lets promote relationship and strengths based approach to our profession as well as to our practice • Thank you Ruth.allen@basw.co.uk