Who is Wally

Social Care Practitioners in the Crowd

The Conversation

Context: A social care worker is out one night

with friends and meets some new people. One girl stands out to him so he initiates a conversation…

The Conversation

She turns out to be an accountant who like himself just qualified from her training. After he asks her some questions the following part of the conversation turned to his profession.

The Conversation

Girl: So what do you do?SCW: I am a social care worker.Girl: Oh and who are ye, I have never heard of

that profession before?SCW: Well social care workers focus on the

needs of people in society and work to respond to those needs.

Girl: Oh - well what parts of society?

The Conversation

SCW: Hmm, all parts really, such as, we work with young people in different settings…

Girl: Oh I know this… it is called youth work – you are a youth worker, I know some one else who does that…

The Conversation

SCW: No, I am a social care worker, a youth worker is a different training, but we do both work with young people. Social care workers have broader application than just youth work – we can be based in specific areas and sectors of society.

Girl: Is that like community work, like in areas with lots of problems?

The Conservation

SCW: well yes and yet not specifically. We can work in the community. And there is another training called community development worker or project workers that work in these areas also.

Girl: Are ye the guys that might have to take children from their families if they are being bold and put them in other places?

The Conversation

SCW: No that is a person called a social worker, they work directly for the State, but they would regularly refer cases to social care workers and environments set up by us.

Girl: Oh right… so you do a lot of different type of work but you are mixed in with a lot of other professionals who do kind of similar type things through their training??

The Conversation

SCW: I suppose… when you say it like that we do sound kind of vague, don’t we?

A Basic Definition

Social Care is a profession committed to the planning and delivery of quality care and other support services for individuals and groups with identified needs (IASCE: 2009)

The Vague ‘Fit’

Youth Work is a profession committed to the planning and delivery of quality care and other support services for individuals and groups with identified needs…

The Vague ‘Fit’

Social Work is a profession committed to the planning and delivery of quality care and other support services for individuals and groups with identified needs…

In search of the ‘Vagueness’

Take a psychodynamic view of the social care profession.

The social care profession’s inner child.

In search of the ‘Vagueness’

In search of the ‘Vagueness’

As a profession we emerged from the inner child drive of the ‘do good-er’, the person in the community who wanted to help out, save souls, befriend the needy etc. We went where the needs were.

In Search of the ‘Vagueness’

As with all ‘child in self’ we took on these roles to support the family – in this case Irish society and citizens. And we remain linked in this bond to society to this day.

In Search of the ‘Vagueness’

So the social care profession’s ‘inner child’ is responsive and giving in the ‘family system /

societal system ’, however…..

This is not an identity it is a role

A Massive Role

In Search of the ‘Vagueness’

Our inner child is a strong primal drive to respond and to give.

Directed at needs generally so we are needed everywhere for anything that

is needed in the system.

In Search of the ‘Vagueness’

What is the possible identity transfer from such an inner drive energy?

Handyman / woman?Everywhere but no where?

Vagueness?

In Search of the ‘Vagueness’

The gift of the social care profession’s ‘inner child’ is the drive energy we

need some times to stay in the work we do.

However we can not put it on to our ‘inner child’ to tell us who we are…

Can we?

Growing up

We Grew as all children do and stayed loyal to our bond made to ‘Family System / Societal system’

New Legalisation / Societal ObligationsTraining / Professionalism

Standards Nationally / InternationallyInspections / Freedom of Information

Health and Social Care Professionals Act 2005 –legislation to define social care practice

Growing up

So How Old Are We Now?

The final report of the Joint Committee on Social Care Professionals (2002) linked social care

practice to having an ‘in-depth knowledge of life span development’…

SO LETS USE THAT PARAIGM TO TRACK OURSELVES

Growing up

Terms used about social care practice

Developmental Links / Challenges

Lack of clear professional grouping

Identity Confusion

Understanding SCP will be complex

Role Confusion

Hard to pin down Belonging / Place

Growing up

Social Care Profession’s Developmental Milestones seem to indicate:

ADOLESENCE

OH CRAP!!!!

ANALYSIS

Recapping on our analysis to date:

The Social Care Profession has an ‘inner child’ driven to respond and give and has grown into

an adolescent currently struggling with identity and role confusion coupled with a

distressed sense of belonging.

ANALYSIS

Like all adolescents it seems the social care profession has reached a point

in development where the next stage of growth involves a push through the confusion and making clearer who we are or want to become.

ANALYSIS

Questions raised:How do we move through the next

part of our growing up?Getting established in legislation

allows use to claim…We exist - retrospectively?

ANALYSIS

Does this legislation resolve the dilemma and challenge of our

adolescent selves in our struggle to get a sense of who we are? Does it

resolve the ‘vagueness’?

Possibilities

Looking at ourselves beyond the ‘inner child’ role.

Why do we have to look beyond ‘doing’?

Many other professionals share skills and roles similar to social care – we can not be differentiated clearly just by role and skills

base

Possibilities

Our Adolescent has skilled up and developed well, but still feels lost in

the crowd.Our adolescent can’t get a clear enough sense of self separate to

others around him / her.

Possibilities

The next stage of our growth is one that moves us to early adulthood…

Pulling together all we are to date into a sense of self that replicates in all

environments and contacts.

Possibilities

• A symbolic example might demonstrate how this type of perspective might be helpful. If a builder was provided with a load of bricks, sand, cement and stone he will build something but the same materials might be used differently by an architect, a stone mason, etc.

Possibilities

• The implications within this symbolic example is a suggestion that social care would be more clearly identified by an overarching understanding of how the social care ‘backpack’ is utilized in practice. In other words the social care ‘backpack’ requires a governing framework to shape the expression of social care practice.

Possibilities

What would that look like to the social care profession?

An overarching integrative framework of practice and contact derived from all we have developed to be to date

Possibilities

An Overarching Integrative Framework of practice and contact could give

shape to the practitioner as he/ she engages in any environment / client /

issue.

Possibilities

An Overarching Integrative Framework of social care practice and contact

could be the developmental milestone that addresses the

‘vagueness’ of our adolescence.

New Perspective

• For social care profession an overarching framework for practice suggests more clarity of identity and place, because social care practice is broad in its generic form.

• The process of developing an overarching framework for social care practice requires an exploration of the factors fundamental to social care practice.

New Perspective

• Depending on the sector or client base a social care practitioner maybe working within, different emphasis may be put on factors considered fundamental to social care practice.

• However it is arguable that a commonality of factors is shared by all sectors of practice in social care work. It is commonality (Lapworth, Sills & Fish: 2001: 26) that offers the potential for a framework for social care practice to be constructed.

Commonalities

• People and their needs are the focus of social care practice.

• Social care practitioners’ work directly with clients and client groups and experience clients’ needs demonstratively and in real time.

• Social care practitioners work across a broad range of needs within client’s experience.

Commonalities

• Use of the practitioner’s self, personality, and experience is involved in the delivery of social care practice to clients.

• We can take from a wide range of theory base to inform our understanding of clients and all elements of social care practice.

In Summary

• The adult version of our social care selves could be gathered under an overarching integrative framework. • The commonalities of social care

practice could be used to establish such a framework.

In Summary

• Having an overarching integrative framework could establish a collective sense of our type of practice and philosophy – the beginning of a stronger sense of identity?

Here I Am