Relational justice and relational pedagogy in professional social care work

ABSTRACT

The principle of social justice is central to the newly regulated profession of Social Care Worker [SCW] in Ireland and the language of social justice features in the Standards of Proficiency [SoP] and Code of Professional Conduct and Ethics [CPCE]. This is very welcome given the history of institutional neglect and abuse in Irish social care. However, social care work in Ireland lacks a tradition of social justice in theory and practice, and policy is generally couched in minimalist terms of individual civil and political rights, equality of opportunity, and non-discrimination and is heavily focused on protection and risk management. Beyond this, exactly what social justice entails in social care work is poorly developed. This paper aims to advance a critical perspective on social care practice and pedagogy that integrates four interrelating social justice principles: redistribution, recognition, representation, and relational justice. Social care work and similar social professions are ideal contexts to incorporate principles of relational justice and develop models and skills for relational pedagogy because they are guided by an ethic of care at the micro-level of affective interactions, but they must do so in ways mindful of structural injustices and pursue both individual and institutional change.

KEYWORDS:

• Social justice
• relational justice
• ethic of care
• relational pedagogy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The professional register for social care workers is scheduled to open on 30th November 2023 (CORU, 2022, May 4).

2. The nursing profession is separately regulated. Intellectual Disability Nursing has a close relationship with social care work and operates from a social care model (Doody et al., 2012).

3. There are a range of honors graduate and postgraduate degrees providing professionally recognized social work qualifications in Ireland (https://coru.ie/health-and-social-care-professionals/education/approved-qualifications/social-workers/). Separately, professionally recognized SCW qualifications are provided by a range of level 7 and level 8 degree programmes.

4. It remains an anomaly that for-profit and voluntary children’s residential centers continue to be inspected by the Child and Family Agency who commission the services rather than the independent inspectorate HIQA.

5. This will not cover workers who are effectively doing ‘social care work’ under a different title (e.g. project or support worker) nor cover para-professional grades doing similar.