Social work and the attachment story: a felicitous bond?

2019 ◽  
pp. 23-44
Author(s):  
Sue White ◽  
Matthew Gibson ◽  
David Wastell ◽  
Patricia Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Institutional Logics ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
John Bowlby ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Moral Claims ◽  
Welfare Professional

This chapter examines the symbiotic relationship between child welfare professional practice, social work in particular, and the ascent of attachment theory. The development of social work had provided fertile ground for the incubation of early ideas about attachment theory, particularly in child and family social work. It was not, however, accepted as a legitimate theory simply because John Bowlby had introduced it to the profession. Rather, while the foundations were there for attachment theory to be used in practice, it was a more complex process that eventually resulted in the theory being taught on social work courses and used routinely by practitioners. Crucial in that translation was the shift in emphasis from ‘normal’, non-clinical populations to children suffering maltreatment. As the institutional logics driving social work with children and families have shifted from the provision of help to the prediction of risk, attachment theory has been a flexible companion providing enticing vocabularies to support moral claims.

Practising attachment theory in child welfare

2019 ◽  
pp. 63-82
Author(s):  
Sue White ◽  
Matthew Gibson ◽  
David Wastell ◽  
Patricia Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Knowledge Base ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Local Authority ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Medical Practitioners ◽  
Medical Opinion

This chapter discusses how attachment theory is used, or not, in professional practice and decision making. Attachment theory is now a standard subject on social work qualifying programmes and many employers provide training for their social workers in attachment theory, ensuring that most practitioners are familiar with the theory. As the discourse of attachment theory has influenced medical opinion and doctors have the power and privilege to diagnose children, a range of ‘attachment disorders’ has been created and these disorders are used to categorise children. Afforded with greater power and status, such diagnoses by medical practitioners feed into the attachment theory knowledge base of social workers, influencing and framing how social workers think about the children and families they work with. The chapter then considers Matthew Gibson's recent study, which took place in the child and family social work service in an English local authority.

scholarly journals Building the Social Work Workforce: Saving Lives and Families

2014 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharine Briar-Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Workforce Development ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Life And Death ◽  
Development Agenda ◽  
Improved Outcomes ◽  
The Social ◽  
Workforce Needs

This article depicts a journey over the decades to address some of the needs of children and families in the child welfare system. Recounting a few key milestones and challenges in the past 40 years, it is argued that workforce development is one key to improved outcomes for abused and neglected children and their families. Major events and several turning points are chronicled. Emerging workforce needs in aging are also cited as lessons learned from child welfare have implications for building a gero savvy social work workforce. Funding streams involving IV-E and Medicaid are discussed. It is argued that workforce development can be a life and death issue for some of these most vulnerable populations. Thus, the workforce development agenda must be at the forefront of the social work profession for the 21st century. Key funding streams are needed to foster investments in building and sustaining the social work workforce.

scholarly journals Storytelling among child welfare social workers: Constructing professional role and resilience through team talk

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 968-986
Author(s):  
Laura L Cook
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Narrative Analysis ◽  
Professional Role ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Vulnerable Children ◽  
Child Welfare Social Workers ◽  
Public Scrutiny ◽  
Cautionary Tales

Child welfare social work is emotive and demanding work, requiring highly skilled and resilient practitioners. In a context of austerity, increased public scrutiny and accountability, defensive practice has been identified as a feature of professional practice. However, little is known about the processes through which social workers develop resilience or come to adopt a defensive stance in managing the demands of their work. This article focuses on professional storytelling among child welfare social workers. It examines how social workers construct their professional role through team talk and the implications of this for our understanding of professional resilience and defensiveness. Drawing on an in-depth narrative analysis of focus groups with social work teams, eight story types are identified in social workers’ talk about their work: emotional container stories, solidarity stories, professional epiphanies, professional affirmation stories, partnership stories, parables of persistence, tales of courageous practice and cautionary tales. Each story type foregrounds a particular aspect of child welfare practice, containing a moral about social work with vulnerable children and families. The article concludes with the implications of these stories for our understanding of both resilience and the pull towards defensiveness in child welfare social work.

Shaping practice: prescribing assessment

2019 ◽  
pp. 45-62
Author(s):  
Sue White ◽  
Matthew Gibson ◽  
David Wastell ◽  
Patricia Walsh
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Social Acceptance ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Inconsistent Parenting ◽  
The Uk

This chapter reviews the use of attachment theory in practice guidance and child welfare policy, focusing on social work in England. In refashioning the role of social workers, the increasing social acceptance of attachment theory, and its concomitant discourse, influenced and guided the UK government's attempt to define and restructure what social work practice was. The attachment story in use offered explanations for how children become harmed by insensitive, unresponsive, and inconsistent parenting. Such ideas fed into the government's agenda for social work practice: namely to assess (needs) and refer (to services) or remove (to prevent harm). Social workers were, therefore, directed to assess parents' capacity to meet the needs of their children from the perspective of attachment theory. Ultimately, attachment theory has become institutionalised into the profession.

scholarly journals RESILIENCE IN CHILD WELFARE: A SOCIAL WORK PERSPECTIVE

2013 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dermot J. Hurley ◽  
Lisa Martin ◽  
Rhonda Hallberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Front Line ◽  
Cultural Contexts ◽  
Child Protection Workers

This study explores the concept of resilience as it is applied in child welfare practice from the perspective of front line child protection workers (CPWs). Specifically it examines how CPWs understand the concept of resilience and how they see themselves nurturing resilience in children and families. The paper also explores how working with resilient clients helps foster resilience in CPWs through a process of vicarious or shared resilience. This study is part of a larger three-site study conducted in Canada, Ireland, and Argentina examining the concept of resilience within specific socio-cultural contexts of child protection practice.

scholarly journals Adverse Childhood Experiences: Beyond Signs of Safety; Reimagining the Organisation and Practice of Social Work with Children and Families

2019 ◽  
Vol 49 (8) ◽  
pp. 2042-2058 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trevor Spratt ◽  
John Devaney ◽  
John Frederick
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Childhood Experiences ◽  
Professional Groups ◽  
Systemic Analysis ◽  
Safety Programme ◽  
Signs Of Safety ◽  
Adverse Childhood

Abstract While an adverse childhood experience (ACE)-informed approach to child protection and welfare has become influential in USA, it has had markedly less influence in UK, this despite growth in adoption of ACE research as a basis for understanding population needs and aligning service delivery amongst policymakers and other professional groups. In this article, we note the development of ACE research and draw out implications for social work with children and families. We argue that current organisational and practice preoccupations, drawing on the example of the Signs of Safety programme, together with antipathy to ACEs in some quarters of the social work academy, have the effect of reifying a short-term and occluded view of the developing child’s needs so as to obstruct the systemic analysis and changes necessary to ensure that the child welfare system is redesigned to meet such needs. This suggests that post-Kempe era child welfare services are no longer conceptually or systemically adequate to protect children beyond immediate safety outcomes and consequently we need to reimagine their future.

scholarly journals Attachment and Alternatives: Theory in Child Welfare Research

10.18060/174 ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-16
Author(s):  
Karla T. Washington
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
Social Construction ◽  
Children And Adolescents ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Attachment Theory ◽  
Crisis Intervention ◽  
Critical Social Work ◽  
Alternative Research ◽  
Research Frameworks

In an effort to improve the effectiveness of their services with children and adolescents, many social workers consult research guided by attachment theory. This article provides a brief overview of attachment theory with specific attention given to its application to contemporary child welfare research. Criticisms of attachment theory are discussed in detail, along with possibilities for alternative research frameworks including crisis intervention, anti-discrimination, social construction, and critical social work theories.

scholarly journals The Occasional Evil of Angels: Learning from the Experiences of Aboriginal Peoples and Social Work

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cindy Blackstock
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Welfare ◽  
White Noise ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Service ◽  
Aboriginal Peoples ◽  
Negative Outcomes ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Noise Barrier ◽  
Aboriginal Children

This paper explores how the propensity of social workers to make a direct and unmitigated connection between good intentions, rationale thought and good outcomes forms a white noise barrier that substantially interferes with our ability to see negative outcomes resulting directly or indirectly from our works. The paper begins with outlining the harm experienced by Aboriginal children before moving to explore how two fundamental philosophies that pervade social service practice impact Aboriginal children: 1) an assumption of pious motivation and effect and 2) a desire to improve others. Finally, the paper explores why binding reconciliation and child welfare is a necessary first step toward developing social work services that better support Aboriginal children and families.

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