Job-strain and well-being among Finnish social workers: exploring the differences in occupational well-being between child protection social workers and social workers without duties in child protection

2017 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Baldschun ◽  
Juha Hämäläinen ◽  
Pertti Töttö ◽  
Otso Rantonen ◽  
Paula Salo
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Job Strain ◽  
Well Being

Assessment of the Well-being of Children in their Social Environment

1988 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 8-16
Author(s):  
Yvonne Darlington
Keyword(s):  
Family Therapy ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Family Law ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Family Assessment ◽  
Social Environments ◽  
Family Practitioners ◽  
The Common

The assessment of the well-being of children in their family and wider social environments is the common brief of social workers and other family practitioners across a variety of agency settings. Whether the focus is child protection, family therapy, family assessment in family law matters or a combination of the above, the practitioner finds the necessity to derive an accurate and sensitive assessment of how a particular child is faring in his or her social environment.

Does it feel right?—Emotional and embodied processes as a ‘shadowy epistemology’ in difficult child protection cases

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Line Søberg Bjerre ◽  
Maria Appel Nissen
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Narrative Construction ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Child Protection Services ◽  
Strong Focus ◽  
The Family ◽  
Potential Risks

Abstract Social workers in child protection services must make difficult decisions often based on fragmented knowledge and the inevitable risk of not knowing what is important to know about a child and the family. Cases of severe neglect have been subject to public attention of politicians and media in several European countries often followed by reforms with a strong focus on standardising risk assessment and documentation. This article argues and shows that emotional and embodied processes are an important source of knowledge in child protection. Such processes appear in social workers’ narratives about worries for the well-being and security of children underpinned by moments of silence and symbolic bodily utterances. These ways of communicating emotions help social workers navigate and make sense in child protection cases, where knowledge is limited. The question ‘Does it feel right?’ becomes crucial in terms of identifying and expressing potential risks. However, as a legitimate professional question that can lead to valuable knowledge it remains latent. Therefore, emotional and embodied processes constitute a ‘shadowy epistemology’ (Bruner, J. (1991) ‘The narrative construction of reality’, Critical Inquiry, 18(1), pp. 1–21). Instead of denouncing these processes, we need to develop a professional language of understanding and naming them, and the aim of this article is to contribute to this.

No strangers to adversity: Resilience-promoting practices among South African women child protection social workers

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (5) ◽  
pp. 712-731 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elmien Truter ◽  
Linda Theron ◽  
Ansie Fouché
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
South African ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Body ◽  
African Women ◽  
Financial Strain ◽  
Snowball Sampling ◽  
Occupational Risk Factors ◽  
South African Women

Globally the well-being of child protection social workers (CPSWs) is placed at risk by the taxing nature of their profession. In response, there have been international calls for the prioritization of CPSWs’ resilience. Despite the call to enhance the resilience of CPSWs, to date, only five research studies have explored resilience processes in CPSWs. In this article, we present findings that describe resilience-enhancing practices in the lives of 15 South African CPSWs who were considered resilient. They were recruited by means of snowball sampling and engaged in in-depth interviews. Findings reveal that the overall well-being and functioning of these 15 South African CPSWs are endangered by several occupational risk factors including work pressure, inadequate professional support, financial strain, challenges unique to CPSW such as removal of children and exposure to aggressive clients, and emotional exhaustion. Their resilience was informed by four differently weighted but interrelated resilience practices: practice- and purpose-informing creeds, support systems, constructive transactions, and accentuating the positive. These practices are potentially useful to contribute to the body of knowledge on CPSWs’ resilience as well as to the development of resilience-enhancing guidelines and subsequent intervention programmes with the purpose of protecting CPSWs globally and contributing to efficient service delivery. However, given the dynamic nature of resilience, continued explorations of CPSW resilience processes in different cultural contexts are needed.

Supervisory Experiences of Social Workers in Child Protection Services

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nkosinathi Vetfuti ◽  
Veonna Marie Goliath ◽  
Nevashnee Perumal
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Support Function ◽  
Well Being ◽  
South African Council ◽  
Child Protection Services ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health And Well Being

Social work in the child protection field presents an opportunity to positively transform the lives and future of vulnerable children, but frequently at a cost to the mental health and well-being of the social workers concerned. Social workers must constantly manage children’s trauma, resource challenges and parents’ emotions. Providing supervision to social workers is mandatory in the social work profession. Although there are three functions of supervision, it is argued that the support function is neglected in favour of the administrative and educational functions of supervision. The support function of supervision aims to equip social workers to manage their work-related stress especially in the field of child protection. In light of the literature reviewed on the benefits of the support function of supervision juxtaposed with contrasting anecdotal evidence that suggests a neglect of the support function of supervision in practice, a qualitative study was undertaken in South Africa with the aim of enhancing the understanding of the experiences of social workers in child protection services in respect of the support function of supervision. The study’s major finding pointed to an absence of the support function in supervision. Child protection social workers experienced a need for continuing professional development to increase their competence and reduce burnout. The findings also highlighted the value of peer support as a significant experience in child protection work. It was concluded that organisational compliance with the minimum standards set out in the Supervision Framework of the Department of Social Development, in partnership with the South African Council for Social Service Professions, and the inclusion of peer mentoring could contribute significantly in enhancing the mental health and well-being of child protection social workers.

Work-related stressors accompanying school social workers while assessing children’s well-being: A comparative study between Germany and Finland

2021 ◽  
pp. 002087282199674
Author(s):  
Kathrin Franziska Beck ◽  
Riitta Vornanen ◽  
Juha Hämäläinen ◽  
Stefan Borrmann
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Study ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Well Being ◽  
School Social Workers ◽  
Case Vignette ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Country Specific ◽  
Work Related Stressors

This article presents the results of a comparative study investigating work-related stressors (WRSs) that accompany German and Finnish school social workers (SSWs) while assessing children’s well-being. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in combination with the case vignette technique. The interview data were subjected to a coding process and visualized with the MAXQDA software program. The findings are embedded in the respective country-specific socio-political and legislative context and suggest that the SSWs are confronted with several, but different WRSs, depending on whether they have a child protection mandate (Germany) or not (Finland). Recommendations are generated based on the findings.

scholarly journals Child Protection Social Work in COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-30
Author(s):  
Sarah Pink ◽  
Harry Ferguson ◽  
Laura Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Applied Anthropology ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Distance Work

This article brings together digital anthropology and social work scholarship to create an applied anthropology of everyday digital intimacy. Child protection social work involves home visits in the intimate spaces of others, where modes of sensorial and affective engagement combine with professional awareness and standards to constitute sensitive understandings of children’s well-being and family relationships. In the COVID-19 pandemic, social work practice has shifted, partly, to distance work where social workers engage digitally with service users in their homes while seeking to constitute similarly effective modes of intimacy and understanding. We bring practice examples from our study of social work and child protection during COVID-19 together with anthropologies of digital intimacy to examine implications for new modes of digital social work practice.

‘She Made You Feel like There’s Hope’: Gaining a Better Understanding of How Children Negotiate Their Relationships with Social Workers from Their Own Accounts

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Gorin ◽  
Mary Baginsky ◽  
Jo Moriarty ◽  
Jill Manthorpe
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Care ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Signs Of Safety ◽  
Relational Resilience ◽  
Children’S Accounts ◽  
Care Innovation

Abstract Recent years have seen a re-emergence of international interest in relationship-based social work. This article uses children’s accounts of their relationships with social workers to build on previous research to promote children’s safety and well-being. Interviews were undertaken with 111 children aged six- to eighteen-years old across ten different local authorities in England, as part of the evaluation of Munro, Turnell and Murphy’s Signs of Safety pilots within the Department for Education’s Children’s Social Care Innovation Programme. The interviews reveal four key findings: that children look for care and reciprocity in their relationships with social workers and this can be achieved through listening and small acts of kindness; that they are adept at recognising aspects of social workers’ verbal and non-verbal communications which indicate to the child whether they are listening and interested in them; that there are times in which children are particularly vulnerable especially if parents are resistant to engagement or children’s trust is broken; and that children actively use their agency to control their communication and engagement. The article concludes by highlighting children’s relational resilience and the importance of ensuring opportunities for children to develop new relationships with social workers when previous relationships have broken down.

Today in Light of Yesterday: An Exploration of Workers’ Childhood Memories in the Context of Child Protection Practice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sean A R St. Jean ◽  
Brian Rasmussen ◽  
Judy Gillespie ◽  
Daniel Salhani
Keyword(s):  
Child Protection ◽  
Research Question ◽  
Childhood Adversity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Childhood Memories ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Child Protection Workers ◽  
Professional Experiences ◽  
Explorative Study ◽  
Parents And Children

Abstract Child protection workers are routinely faced with emotionally intense work, both personally and vicariously through the traumatic narratives and experiences of parents and children. What remains largely unknown is how child protection workers’ own childhood memories might influence the manner in which they experience and are affected by those narratives. The aim of this explorative study was to use Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis as a research methodology to answer the research question, ‘In what ways do social workers experience, and make sense of, their own childhood memories in the context of their child protection practice?’ Semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight child protection workers, aiming to understand their personal and professional experiences with regard to this question. The study found a relationship between various forms of childhood adversity and the presence of negative present-day triggers when participants were faced with practice scenarios that bore similarity to those experiences. Implications with regard to child protection worker well-being, countertransference and risk decision-making are discussed.

scholarly journals Exploring the experiences of social workers in working with children suspected to have fetal alcohol spectrum disorders

2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-172
Author(s):  
David J Gilbert ◽  
Raja AS Mukherjee ◽  
Nisha Kassam ◽  
Penny A Cook
Keyword(s):  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Prenatal Alcohol Exposure ◽  
Alcohol Exposure ◽  
Fetal Alcohol ◽  
The Social ◽  
Prenatal Alcohol ◽  
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum ◽  
Lack Of Knowledge

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is one outcome from prenatal alcohol exposure. Social workers are likely to encounter children with the condition, due to the greater likelihood of prenatal alcohol exposure among children in social services settings. This study explores the experiences of social workers in working with children suspected of having FASD and the support offered to social workers, the children and their families. Semi-structured interviews followed by qualitative framework analysis were conducted with seven child and family social workers along with one child protection solicitor who had experience of handling FASD cases. The two main themes that emerged from the data were a lack of knowledge about FASD and the paucity of diagnosis. Lack of knowledge among the social workers was linked to difficulty in managing children suspected to have the condition, feelings of frustration and normalisation of challenging behaviours. The paucity of diagnosis led to an under-emphasis of FASD in assessments, a dearth of specialist services and confusion about its specific effects in contexts of multiple substance misuse and harmful socio-environmental factors. The need for increased FASD awareness within social services and the development of FASD-targeted support for children and families is highlighted. Social workers would benefit from the inclusion of FASD-focused training in their curricula and professional development plans. Improving the diagnostic capacities of health institutions would address the paucity of diagnosis and raise the profile of FASD, especially in the social services setting.

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