Making sense of the home visit in child and families social work

School of Social Work, University of East Anglia

l.cook@uea.ac.uk

Photo credit: @udrall dreamstime.com

Laura L. Cook

The research project

Context• Renewed interest in the notion of

‘professional judgement’ (Munro, 2011) and reasoning/decision-making in social work (e.g. DfE, 2014)

• Literature on cognition and bias/heuristics; intuitive vs. analytic thinking; psychodynamic approaches; the concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI)

• The need for more research into the ‘lived experience’ of frontline practice

Method• 18 Interviews with qualified social

workers • 2 Focus groups with two social work

teams• Use of a ‘Narrative inducing’ interview

question• ‘Psychosocial’ data analysis, focusing on

both ‘process’ and ‘patterns’

This research project is concerned with the way in which child and family social workers employ reasoning, reflection and knowledge in their assessment of families,

specifically in relation to the home visit

How do social workers make sense of what they experience and observe during the home visit?

Today’s focus

• The home visit is a multi-sensory experience characterised by multiples social cues and competing demands for the SW’s attention

• It involves micro-observation of relationships, the ‘home conditions’, the child, the parent/carers and others who may be present

• The social worker uses their emotional responses, senses and different modes of reasoning to process the information during and after the visit

Today I will be focusing on how social workers make sense of one of these aspects: the parental narrative during the home visit

Making sense of the

parental narrative

Coherence

Emotional congruence

Personal responsibility

Awareness of child’s

experience

Openness

CoherenceSocial workers look for coherence within the parental narrative.Are the elements of the narrative logically connected, are there gaps, is there vacillation, is there consistency? ‘Gaps’ and ‘vacillation’ pique the social worker’s attention or emotions

Gaps – Missing information

‘I asked if he had a social worker then and he was oh, I can’t remember (R: Mm) so that was kind of – pinged up a bit of, er, (pause) concern and, for me – ‘cos if he’d had social worker involvement I would expect them usually to remember who the worker was, particularly as it was only nine months ago’

SW then describes asking further questions in order to:

‘look at whether it was a general theme for him or if it was just that he couldn’t remember (L: Mm) or he was trying to – he didn’t want me to know. When I … came back and then looked up that his daughter was on the child protection plan it makes it even more worrying that he doesn’t remember the social worker…’

Process

SW’s interest is ‘piqued’ – gives pause

Compares with own expectations about recall

Considers various hypotheses:Is/claims to be forgetful generally?Can’t remember this specific incident?Deliberate manipulation?Witholding information?

Seeks further explanatory information via case files – increases perception of risk

Coherence

Vacillation

‘She said, she said, yeh I see where you’re coming from and I – alright I won’t do it then and she just spun on a sixpence! (incredulous tone) and said you know I won’t do it then, no forget it.”

Meanings of vacillation:- Meaningless compliance- Parent is ‘poor decision maker’- Indicator of lying/strategy to mislead social

worker- ‘Inconsistency’ in relation to future plans

linked to parental inability to ‘prioritise’ children

Coherence

‘…there wasn’t any I don’t knows, or shoulder-shrugs… she would sit and think about it and think about, you know, what led her to things, and what, you know, how things have come about, which was, erm, you know, quite good really.’

Meanings of coherence:- Ability to put together a coherent narrative

of the past is viewed by social workers in the study as reassuring

- Coherent story leads to reduced perception of risk

- Potential for blindspots? e.g. potential for restorying the past

Social workers link the way in which the parent tells their story to parenting capacity and risk. Chaotic narrative = chaotic parenting?

Emotional congruenceSocial workers look for emotional congruence in the parental narrative. Is there consistency? Are the emotions proportionate/appropriate? What is the overall ‘mood’ of the encounter?

Consistency: ‘I think what she was saying fitted with her facial expression’• Displayed emotions which ‘match’ with verbal narrative are taken as a sign of truth• SWs describe careful observation of micro-behaviours e.g. watching for parent to ‘tense up..

sort of within her shoulders’

Proportionate/appropriate: ‘Mum was kind of appropriately angry that B (child) has been spoken to…’ • Appropriate affect is taken as indicative of parenting capacity and sign of reduced risk• Lack of affect is associated by social workers with risk, lack of potential for change and a

predictor of engagement difficulties

Overall mood of the encounter:SWs greatly reassured by ‘very hospitable’, ‘amicable’, ‘relaxed’ encounters. Their perception of risk tends to reduce

Personal responsibility‘SW: He said if I had been more willing to consider what was being said to me she might be in my care and not somebody else’s, he said, you know, if I didn’t spend so much time worrying about myself and more time worrying about her.

L: And what did you make of that?

SW: Oh it shows that he’s obviously had time to process (L: Yeah) the information, he’s obviously given it some thought and actually shows some responsibility for his actions back then and actually some understanding of the consequences that’s had for his daughter, and for himself’

• Acknowledgement, regret and the ability for self-blame are viewed by SWs as indicators of ability to take ‘responsibility’ in the present

• Acknowledgement ‘gives you something to work with’ from the social worker’s perspective. Anger can be a positive predictor of engagement

• Apportioning blame to others e.g. professionals, is viewed by social workers as a ‘distraction’ or deflection

Awareness of child’s experience

The way that the parent talks about the child and the child’s experience is taken by the SW as indicative of the quality of parenting and level of risk to the child

‘Child-focused’/attuned: Parent talks about the child ‘warmly’ and is able to suggest ways in which child has been impacted by the situation. ‘She’s verbalised you know, and it has expressed a good understanding of the impact that dad’s situation is having on her son…’

Concrete: Parent focused on behaviour or physical aspects of child’s experience rather than the mental e.g. young person wants to move house to ‘get her own room’ or ‘he’s the naughty one!’

Absent: Parent doesn’t know, or hasn’t considered, how their child might think or feel about the current situation/specific issue

OpenConversation ‘flows’ easily

‘I was originally quite concerned, I think I left feeling less concerned given that they were quite open with me and told me quite a lot of information, erm, I’d managed to get quite a lot out … it felt quite accomplished.’

• Openness and having ‘flow’ reduces social workers’ perception of risk

• More information is regarded as better• Able to talk = able to parent?• Openness reduces risk particularly in DA

Closed‘Hidden’

‘I was more hesitant about him because he wasn’t as open… ‘

‘I felt a bit that he was closed quite there? So I spose what I tried to do was pin him down on facts’

• Being ‘closed’ is associated with increased risk and likelihood of lying

• Areas where narrative doesn’t flow/is closed piques the SW’s interest and indicates area for further probing

Openness

Social workers greatly reassured by ‘flow’ and ‘openness’ - Potential for blind spots?

Making sense of the

parental narrative

Coherence

Emotional congruence

Personal responsibility

Awareness of child’s

experience

Openness