Relating and partnering: social workers, clients/service users and other professionals
This chapter explores what some of the social workers being interviewed say about relationships and partnerships, and how they explain the significance of these concepts to social work. It also illustrates ‘relating’ and ‘partnering’ in practice. There is already a great deal of discussion about relationships, partnership, and collaboration between social workers, other professionals, and their clients/service users. Relationship-based practice is an important development, especially in UK-based social work, which has become particularly important as a counter to managerialist tendencies in policy and practice. This chapter discusses what social workers say about relationship work with clients/service users and with other professionals, and draws upon aspects such as attitudes towards stereotyping in relation to professionals and links between partnership/collaboration and organisations, using some original research examples.