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‘Call the Police’ and other responses :Analysis of social worker simulated interviews in a Child Protection team and, implications for
work with parents of adolescent boys
Roma Thomas Research Fellow
University of [email protected]
Overview
Introduction - Study background
Literature
Methods
Overview of Responses
Key Themes and Analysis
Conclusion
Introduction
10 audio-recordings of Simulated Practice - 30 minute Assessment Interviews
Social Workers from a Local Authority Child Protection Team and an Actor client
Secondary analysis - recordings drawn from large-scale RCT study led by Professor Donald Forrester
Scenario
Assessment meeting: Distressed parent of 15 year old boy meeting Social Worker. Parent is demanding young person is taken into care following an episode of aggressive behaviour where the young person had stabbed a knife into a bread board in the kitchen, this followed being challenged by his parent for returning home late at night smelling of alcohol.
In 9 out of 10 recordings, the actor parent was a single mother, in 1 case the actor parent was a single father
Literature
• Social work practice ‘focus on changing surface actions and behavioural performance’ less attention to WHY (Biehal 2008)
• Masculinities and intersectionality literature ‘Processes of racialization, gendering and social class differentiation produce specific childhoods for children positioned differently within the social formation’ (Phoenix 2000)
• Gender questions in social work with young people and parents - largely missing
Methods
• Verbatim Transcription
• Inductive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006)
Research Questions
What ideas about social work practice with young people and their families are conveyed in the recordings?
What can we learn from the social workers’ views of the young boy?
How are masculinities represented in the social workers’ conversation?
Overview of Responses
9 out of 10 associated problems with adolescence
‘sometimes that’s just teenagers’ (Social Worker 1)
3 out of 10 said ‘Call the Police’
‘I realise it’s not easy to call the police on your own child but if you’re not capable of disciplining him following that then it does need to go to someone who will’. (Social Worker 10)
Overview of Responses
7 out of 10 praised the parent
‘You’ve done so well. I’ve read the documents, like yes you’ve had difficulties throughout the years, you’ve been raising him on your own with no support … so the fact that you’ve done so well, you have to have confidence in yourself that you can continue to do well with support’ … (Social Worker 7)
Overview of Responses
5 out of 10 suggested specialist intervention
‘we have support agencies where we can put support in place, for example we have this project called Family Intervention Project. They have a family support worker who can come in the home, meet with you, do some work with you and Jordan around your relationship’ (Social Worker 7)
Only 1 out of 10 referred to gender and masculinity (indirectly)
‘It sounds to me as though he may benefit from having a male mentor in his life as well’ (Social Worker 1)
Key Themes
‘Fixing’ the Parent & Young Person
Affirming the Parent
A need for specialist intervention
The Adolescent Paradigm
#Theme 1 - ‘Fixing’ the Parent’
‘I know you’ve been trying, but it’s how, it’s the techniques, it’s how you’ve been trying’ (Social Worker 1)
‘we can do some work with you about ways to set up the boundaries, set up the routine….also, he needs to know what will happen if he doesn’t do that, like the consequences for example’ (Social Worker 7)
#Theme 1 -‘Fixing’ the Young Person
‘Jordan needs to be willing to work at it. Ultimately he’s responsible .. for his own life … but at 15 I think he’s still a child .. nearly an adult, well young person but he’s still a child’ (Social Worker 1)
‘(That) does give me hope in that there was a consequence for his actions, he was skipping school, he was suspended and he’s taken that on board’ (Social Worker 10)
#Theme 2 - Affirming the Parent
‘I’m really impressed to hear that’s the route you’re going down, rather than just thinking, oh I give up, it’s all too hard’ (Social Worker 3)
‘You need to believe in yourself. You’ve done so well. You need to be strong for yourself, be strong for your child and take care of yourself as well’
(Social Worker 7)
#Theme 3 - Specialist Intervention
‘there’s possibly a service, but obviously I want to speak to yourself first, targeted services that might be able to assist Jordan’ (Social Worker 2)
‘We have a service called AMAS, it’s a Multiagency Adolescence Support Group and what that would be a social worker and a psychologist and a teacher, so there’s someone from education coming in and they work quite intensively with families and they aim to keep families together’ (Social Worker 6)
#Theme 4 - The Adolescent Paradigm
‘Well, between the ages of starting puberty and probably about maybe 19/20 or so teenagers are going through huge stages of development and part of it is physical, so they’ve got lots of different hormones going round and part of it is emotional, they’re trying to form their own identity’ (Social Worker 6)
‘We do have some services specifically for teenage children … because actually this is something, you know, it does happen quite often with teenagers’. (Social Worker 3)
‘I don’t mean this to sound patronising, but many teenagers do behave in ways that you’re explaining’ (Social Worker 5)
Conclusion
• Anxiety and risk in practice leading to ‘Police as parent’ in extreme cases
• Same scenario also elicited more empathic responses
• Direct work with young people - seen as specialist in half of the cases analysed
• Predominance of psychological models of adolescence, Hall’s ‘storm and stress’ notions still very apparent
• Masculinities, young person’s identities (apart from age) frequently missing from the picture
References
Biehal, N. (2008) Preventive Services for Adolescents: Exploring the Process of Change British Journal of Social Work 38, 444- 461
Braun,V., Clarke,V. (2006) Using thematic analysis in psychology Qualitative Research in Psychology Volume 3,Issue 2, 77- 101
Phoenix, A., (2000) Constructing Gendered and Racialized Identities: Young Men, Masculinities and Educational Policy in G,Lewis., S. Gewirtz and J, Clark eds Adolescents Problem Behaviors: Issues Research Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 165 - 186
