Congrès de la Société Internationale d’Ergologie mai 2014

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Congrès dela Société Internationale d’Ergologiemai 2014

Produire des normes et

intervenir dans la vie des autres : Savoirs et démocratie

en travail

Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014

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Interpersonal Exchanges/trade

in Social Work


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To intervene is to occur or to interrupt To intervene in someone’s life is a usual

duty for social workers It consists in working directly with the

user/subject, in order to transform a situation and solve a problem


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Each and every individual; like any human being is exposed to a set of norms

These norms constantly progress according to times and customs

The individual will adjust to his surrounding environment and make it his own‘s environment, he appropriates it as the norm, it’s a constant process of re-formating


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That a person should come to face a social worker is evidence that he encounters some form of difficulties and he needs technical aid

Does it mean that he meets difficulties in his normative process ?

Is he encountering difficulties adapting to his environment, its evolutions, changes, accidents ? Does he meet problems to adapt to his environment, to evolutions, to changes and accidents of life ?

Thus, isn’t social work a form of intervention designed to restore the subject‘s normative capacities ?


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Social work is the sum of professional actions geared at interrupting a condition in order to restore an individual’s autonomy

My work is based on two assumptions : The person asking for help must be

considered as an “enterprising subject” (someone with an enterprising mind)

There are value issues connected with the two protagonist’s attitudes


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The “assisted entrepreneur” Man is a social being. To live with others he has

defined a set of rules. He has stated the rights and duties of each one towards everyone in order to make it possible for people to live together

Rights and duties are a moving network connecting people

The concept of duty comes always first before the notion of right

A democratic society is based on the idea of reciprocity, a circularity of rights and duties

I have rights and duties. I have rights because I have duties


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Social work must not be considered as a mean to an end but as an end in itself


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In the performance of social work there are two ways to approach the person being “assisted”, as a subject or as an object

As an object, he becomes a means to accomplish a professional act

As a subject, his cooperation/involvement will be sought in a self constructive logic


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Astonishment understanding a problem self awareness as an “enterprising subject”

It is through participation, through implication, that human beings develop their normative abilities

To be autonomous, an individual needs to feel free and not to feel dependent

The social worker makes his work transitory when he works in order to make the other being aware of his abilities

Multiplying points of views : exchanging knowledge


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Exchanging knowledge

To listen to the other person and to accept what he says, with the humility of one’s own knowledge

To be taught by others is to let oneself being enriched by some others ideas

Exchanging knowledge, is to institute a dialogue between “invested knowledges” and “instituted knowledges”

Building a shared vision requires that one adopts a welcoming attitude


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Accepting to have one’s certitudes being re-worked by another person’s values puts us in an “intellectual discomfort”, because to work with and face to face with some one else is to agree to be internally modified

Social work requires constant intellectual discomfort, constant self-interrogation


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Relationship and attitude in social work

Professionalism is materialized by the dissymmetric relationship : assistant (the one who helps)/ assisted (the one who is helped)

Relational dissymmetry enables solicitude ( care /concern).

Other is not the object of the intervention but an active subject able to act for and by himself


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The attitude is symmetrical : no one having the right solution

Symetrical attitude means acknowledging every one‘s particularities


15Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014

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The help relationship is efficient when everyone agrees on the notion of attitude based on reciprocity in the context of a dissymmetrical relationship

This interconnection allows mutual teachings

The two protagonist use their “corps-soi” (body-self”)


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Knowledge confrontation is evidence of the user’s implication

Personal investment is a life motion opposed to inertia


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The professional social worker has at his disposal two methodologies of actions

An individual help intervention targeted on a person and a social intervention linked to a community’s benefit

Social work carried out with groups allows users to participate more easily

Access to symetrical attitude is therefore facilitated


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The social work acts towards restoring the other person’s capabilities/autonomy

This could be what we may call democracy at work

Freedom to speak, on an equal plan to take part in the power to decide or/ and to do

That’s the way how mutual responsibility leads to solidarity


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Thank you for your attention


Documents

Congrès de la Société Internationale d’Ergologie mai 2014