Reflections on Identity: the Prerequisites for Professional Strength and Creativity

JSWEC Conference 2010

Dr Brenda ClareThe University of Western Australiabrenda.clare@uwa.edu.au

Themes for Today

1.Requirements for practitioners to ‘hold the faith’ as brokers of hope for the poor and marginalised in this fluid, contested and arguably risk saturated practice environment

2. A look at new (and perhaps old but neglected) capacities and/or philosophies that can assist and nourish us as practitioners

3. A consideration of educational strategies, pre- and post-qualifying, necessary to equip and sustain ‘best practice’

Some Question to Start us Off

1. How do you describe what it is you do for a living?

2. If a stranger asks you what social work is all about, how do you answer?

3. If person told you they were thinking of doing a social work degree, what would you advise them?

4. When you look in the mirror, what do you see?

Reflections on Identity

A located sense of self in the world

Who we are, how we define ourselves

Where we belong, and how we are impacted by the ‘rules of belongingness

Dimensions of identity

Personal Self

Professional Self

Organisational Self

Stormy Weather

Discourses, ideologies and ‘rules of practice’, formal and informal, explicit and assumed, informing [practice] interventions, locally and globally, competing with each other.

“Like voices within the social worker’s head, all seeking to persuade, to cajole, to direct, a particular response.”

(Gillingham, P and Bromfield, L ,2008)

Bclare, UWA November 2009

The Organisational Sphere

‘Anxious environments’ (Morrison, 2005)‘Formalised’ practice (Parton, 2006)Evidence-based impetusLitigious environmentDemand for meaningful service-user

involvementResource impoverishment

The Professional Sphere

Fragmented vision Reification and idealisation – losing embodied

practice and practitioners’ voicesPaucity of professional leadershipOccupational rather than professional identitySufficing/competence rather than

excellence/artistry Modularisation of education – emphasising content

over process, training over learning

The Personal Sphere

What practitioners fall back on Sink or swim adaptation (Reynolds 1942)

Shooting from the personal (Clare 2003)‘Taking troubles home’

Pause for Reflection

How does any of this resonate for you as social workers

On a scale of 1-10, how robust is your professional identity?

What resources are available to youOrganisationally?Professionally?Personally?

A Definition of Social Work

‘Enabling’ dialogues – aimed at maximising the capacity of client populations to engage actively, purposefully and positively with the world

To have a clear, positive sense of self and placeTo have a place of belongingness, without

shame or stigmaAn aspirational goal, not an impossible task

Capabilities Required of ‘Enabling’ Social Workers

Three key capability ‘sets’Leadership capabilities - delivering results,

working strategically within the broader environment

Mastering oneself -self management and awareness; mental agility

Engaging others - professional maturity, working together, listening deeply

(Gibbs, 2009)

Additional Requirements

To be able to work with the intra (psychodynamically), and the inter- (systemically)

To work with complexity and multidemensionality (eg Thompson’s PCS model)

And, cruciallyTo define positive change to include the small

interventions of our daily work

All this Requires in Turn

A strong and questioning intellect

Emotional intelligence

Balance - a life outside of work that strengthens and nourishes us

Spiritual sustenance - something to believe in

Outcomes of Professional Education

A demonstrated capacity, to a high standard, forIntellectual rigourEmotional sensitivity

(intelligence/wisdom)Contextually aware moral thinkingCreative and potent decision making and action

Requirements of Teaching-Learning

RelationshipsTo address the anxiety of working in the ‘necessarily

peopled environment’ (Blom, 2009: 160) of human service organisations

To offer students opportunities to ‘rest in uncertainty’ (Wilmot 2008) and achieve a sense of ‘secure unknowingness’ (Clare, 2003, 2006) rather than retreat to 'safe certainty as is the tendency in periods of great stress’(Mason,1993,cited by Shohet 2009:96)

To assist in the achievement of emotional calm and mindfulness [that] facilitates brain integration (Gibbs, 2008: 60)

To ‘standing alongside’ (Clare, 2010) students; to pay ‘compassionate, ruthless attention to their practice(Wilmott,2008) – in the classroom and in the field, with a view to increasing the their capacity for self-supervision and their sense of self-efficacy

To assist them to avoid routinization and technical compliance (Thompson, 2009)

To manage self (thoughts, feelings and actions) and manage organisational relationships to achieve professional ends; to work strategically and creatively within the parameters of role and mandate to effect change (Payne, 2006)

In summary

To model and demonstrate ‘best practice’ interventions

Demonstrating through dyadic and group interventions the knowledge, skills and attitudes required of professional practitioners

Containing, facilitating and regulating behaviour to meet clearly articulated, explicitly contracted goals

Addressing all Domains of Identity

Personal

Professional

Organisational

Spiritual

Intellectual

Emotional

Social

Material

Resources

(Clare, 2010)

Providing Strong Foundations for Robustness

Personally and professionally – knowledge, values and skills that provide a sense of self-efficacy and a basis for provisional certainty (Clare 2003)

Through dialogue, the achievement of practice fluency – the ability to talk the talk as well as walk the walk, enabling us to better influence and advocate

Through the learning community facilitating a sense of individuated belongingness (personally, professionally and organisationally) – to be able and allowed to manage difference and conflict

Teaching for CREATIVE PracticeCapacity – educating for excellence and growthRobustness – self trust; secure unknowingnessEmpowerment – owning professional authority; able to

remain assertive; able to share powerArtistry – able to ‘work the moment’, engage the audienceTeamwork – able to share and learn; to use conflict creatively;

avoid a besieged mentalityInclusivity – self awareness; able to relate across difference;

expert at both oral and written communicationVision – personal philosophy of practice; hopeful about

collective professional purpose and place Engagement – potent in shaping the environment

Final Thoughts

How has this session resonated with your own thinking?

Has anything been confirming?Has anything challenged you to ‘look again’ at

what you think?Have you collected anything new and extended

your sense-making?

Blom, B. (2009) Knowing or Unknowing? That is the Question in the Era of Evidence-Based Social Work Practice JSW 9(2), 158-177

Clare, B. (2003) Social Work and Social Working: Stories of Learning and Identity Development. PhD Thesis University of Western Australia

Clare, B. (2006) ‘Developing a Robust Professional Identity: Stories from Practice’. Social Work Review 18(4), 37-46

Gillingham, P. and Bromfield, L. (2008) ‘Child protection, risk assessment and blame ideology’ Children Australia 33 (1) 18-24)

Judith Gibbs, Jenny Dwyer and Kitty Vivekananda (2008) Leading practice: A resource guide for Child Protection frontline and middle managers. Melbourne, Victorian Government Department of Human Services

Shohet, R (2008) Fear and Love in and Beyond Supervision. In R. Shohet (ed) Passionate Supervision. London, Jessica Kingsley. 188-207

Thompson, N (2009) Understanding Social Work (4th Edition). London, Palgrave

Wilmot, J. (2008) The Supervisory Relationship: a Lifelong Calling. In R. Shohet (ed) Passionate Supervision. London, Jessica Kingsley. 88-109,