Exploring the emotional & Exploring the emotional & Exploring the emotional & Exploring the emotional & subjective experiences of newly subjective experiences of newly subjective experiences of newly subjective experiences of newly

qualified social workers’ qualified social workers’ qualified social workers’ qualified social workers’ transitioning to the workplace.transitioning to the workplace.transitioning to the workplace.transitioning to the workplace.transitioning to the workplace.transitioning to the workplace.transitioning to the workplace.transitioning to the workplace.

Makhan Shergill

Coventry University,UK

Outline• Research context

• Preliminary findingsOutline • Preliminary findings

• Towards theorisation

NQSWs’

Neoliberal ‘spaces’

Research

Context

Political lens

NQSWs’ transition

Competing

paradigms

of social

work

Emotional

engagement

& intensity

of practice

Professional lensPersonal lens

The neoliberalisation of social workThe neoliberalisation of social workThe neoliberalisation of social workThe neoliberalisation of social work

Neoliberalism’s impact on social work (Dominelli, 2008)

1. Application of market principles to public sector

2. Changing context in which social work occurs and impact of inequality and disadvantage.

• Dislocation and exclusion of certain groups• Dislocation and exclusion of certain groups

• Move towards neoliberal individualism

3. Internationalization of social problems• Trafficking, child sexual exploitation, asylum & migration, forced labour

• Shifts towards safeguarding

• ‘Poverty not key concern of many professionals’: Morris 2017

Competing paradigms of social worksocial work

Re-surfacing of the dichotomous nature of social work

A statutory, narrow and service

delivery notion of social work.

A social justice agenda congruent with

the global definition of social work.

M

O

R

A

L

Global

definition

University Workplace

Competing

conceptualisation

L

D

I

S

T

R

E

S

S

UK Social

Work

GRADUATE TRANSITION

Emotional intensity of Emotional intensity of Emotional intensity of Emotional intensity of practicepracticepracticepractice

Emotional engagement

of social work

Emotion

Service users

ObserveWorking together

Emotion &

Social Work

Emotion

AssessMaking

decisions

Morrison, 2006

The absence of emotions in social work(Ingram, 2013)

Centrality o f emotion in human emotion in human life and social work

practiceAbsence in students

accounts of practice and lack of focus in literature

Research into the role of emotion arising from the intensity of some forms of social work practice

• Expression of emotion, particularly anxiety and fear, in the workplace is commonly stigmatized as weakness, and thus is more often than not repressed or ignored (Morrison, 1990; Dwyer, 2007). (Morrison, 1990; Dwyer, 2007).

• This negation and the consequent impact on poor performance and decision making can result in service users being exposed to undue risks of harm (Carpenter et al., 2012; Kinman & Grant, 2013).

Research FocusResearch FocusResearch FocusResearch Focus

Emotional experience

of graduates’ transition

to the workplace

Data analysis: Voice Centred Relational Method

1: The plot

Listening for the plot

2: I-Poem

Reading for the

3: Relationships

Reading for

4: Contexts

Reading for the socio-for the plot

and researcher response

for the ‘Voice of the I’

for relation-ships

the socio-cultural context

Stage 2: Nicole’s ‘I-Poem’

• I was 16

• I left home.

• I was kicked out of home

• I had got into a relationship with somebody

• My family didn't approve of that.• My family didn't approve of that.

• I then had a social worker who supported me

• I fell pregnant at the age of 17

• I was in a relationship where there was domestic violence.

• Physical abuse was part of my childhood anyway,

• It was acceptable to me.

Vanessa’s ‘I-Poem’

• I'm mixed,

• My mom's white, and my dad is south Asian,

• I was really going through a lot of trying to figure out

• How I was identifying,• How I was identifying,

• Figuring out, what do I need to own in terms of white privilege,

• How I can just be myself, in an embodied way, and with all that that brings.

• I really witnessed a lot of bare messiness, emotionally.

Charlotte’s ‘I-Poem’• They're telling you to F off out the house

• Screaming at you,

• I've had people shouting at me in my life,

• I've had to deal with that.

• It's scary and it frightens me.

• Some days I think "Oh, God! • Some days I think "Oh, God!

• I don't want to go to work!"

• "Oh no, I can't go."

• I don't want to have to give up in 5 years because it's too much.

• I think that they could prepare you better for that.

• Yesterday, I didn't have a very nice day

• I just wanted to go home and go to bed and hide.

Interpretation: psychosocial methods

• She speaks of not feeling fully prepared for the workplace and that

was associated with her feelings of being out-of-depth, underlying

fear and anxiety.

• She speaks of the psychological impacts of working with hostility, of • She speaks of the psychological impacts of working with hostility, of

being faced with aggression and how this evoked feelings of fear and

an inability to cope.

• She speaks of questioning her resilience, feelings of ambivalence and resolve to continue in this work, wanting ‘to hide’ and be protected,

perhaps as she was cared for as a child in a safe and stable

environment.

cognitive

Gender

Relational

HabitusVoice the

‘un-said’

affective

Power

Fear, anxiety, optimism,

determination, loss…

Early dispositions

Self, mothers, daughters,

colleagues, professionals

Power differences & status differences

Majors sites for generation of emotion

Emotional

capital

Habitus‘un-said’

Identity as

contextual,

relational and

emotional

How can social workers be supported to

develop an emotional identity to think and

feel intelligently on their feet?

Bion: coping with

uncertainty, containment

Klein: projective

identification

Transference, defence

Reay: psychosocial & habitus

Winnicott: the ‘space between’

early transitions from

subjectivity to objectivity

Thematic AnalysisThematic AnalysisThematic AnalysisThematic Analysis

Coding 1: Personal histories, individual traits and relational or Coding 1: Personal histories, individual traits and relational or Coding 1: Personal histories, individual traits and relational or Coding 1: Personal histories, individual traits and relational or organisational factorsorganisational factorsorganisational factorsorganisational factors

• Significance of students early experiences of adversity

• More recent experiences of transition, of struggle

• Relational, expectations on achieving

• Needing re-assurances: proud, be liked

• Feelings of loneliness, struggle

Coding 2: Support in relation to coping Coding 2: Support in relation to coping Coding 2: Support in relation to coping Coding 2: Support in relation to coping

• Support of Practice educator

• Feeling of being nurtured and protected• Feeling of being nurtured and protected

• Team members to confide in

• Safe team cultures

• Team as a ‘secure base’

Coding 3: Hindrance in relation to copingCoding 3: Hindrance in relation to copingCoding 3: Hindrance in relation to copingCoding 3: Hindrance in relation to coping

•Feeling out of depth

•Feelings of fear and angst•Feelings of fear and angst

•Anxiety of case load

• Initiated complaints by families

Coding 4: Extent feel course prepared for Coding 4: Extent feel course prepared for Coding 4: Extent feel course prepared for Coding 4: Extent feel course prepared for workplace?workplace?workplace?workplace?

• Lacked reality of practice

• Lack of balance• Lack of balance

• Hard, struggle, exciting, rewarding

• Learning new things/ development as a person

What is this data telling us?

•Key take away point is the need to understand the life journey that people have been on before they get to social work education, to understand they get to social work education, to understand what and how they need to learn and what are the challenges and struggles going to be for them and how we as educators need to be with them.