This issue embraces different research methodologies, analysing personal accounts, exploring insights derived from authors’ own educational or supervisory work, describing small scale qualitative studies and one larger survey. Different kinds of relational work in education, therapy, supervision, teams and intensive support are presented, so it is to be hoped that this issue will provide something of relevance to every reader. Before discussing the papers themselves, we will consider the wider context.
The editors have, for the last few years, used editorials to highlight political and macro issues, and to link these to the journal’s mission to explore psychotherapeutic approaches to social work and health care. This editorial is no exception. There is an abundance of choice at present, so we have selected one subject that risks despair, and another that evokes cautious hope. The first is UNICEF’s announcement in December 2015 that the number of children born in conflict zones rose in 2015 to 16.6 million – a staggering figure. Some of these newborns are the product of sexual violence to women, others the product of ordinary parents in extraordinary circumstances. All these infants need the shelter of adults for their physical, emotional and cognitive development. How much more difficult it is to provide that when a mother has been harmed in the very making of the new life, and when whole families are living in fear of bombs and brutality. It is hard not to ask what the matter is with our species, as we seem to have a monopoly on excessive destruction of our own kind. We know the importance of relationships and we know that physical safety as well as attachment security is needed for our sensitive offspring to grow. Our capacity both to have empathy and to lose it utterly is repeated over and over in our history. So that is what risks despair – that we do not act on what we know.
The source of cautious optimism is the Paris climate talks. These have reached agreement, with an apparently ‘bottom-up’ approach to decision-making, allowing countries to develop their own plans rather than have them imposed autocratically from above. Although we are cynical about the UK government’s preference for fossil fuels and fracking over sustainability and solar energy, the Paris agreement is a remarkable achievement. It resulted from 195 countries and close to 50,000 people engaging in the talks – also staggering figures. Notably, of course, the agreement was reached through talking (and listening), not violence. It happened in relationship, and although it needs more than talk to become a reality, this represents the best our species can do – think, feel, connect, and reach accord.
Turning to the papers in this issue, the first, by Susan Hunt, Chris Goddard, Judy Cooper, Brian Littlechild and Jim Wild addresses parental violence, and although not discussing children in war zones, they are concerned with violence in children’s domestic environments. Where children are at risk, so sometimes are social workers. This paper reports a large survey of social workers’ experiences of parental hostility and intimidation, and the responses of their employers. Their survey found that only about half of the respondents found supervision adequate, and that fewer received support from the organisation. The authors describe the intense emotions experienced by social workers threatened and intimidated by clients, and the impact on the quality of their work in protecting children. They make a strong argument for the role of supervision in supporting and sheltering the practitioner, and thus in enabling the social worker to continue to work with dangerous parents and do their best to protect their children. Their recommendations are sadly not new, but bear repeating. Supervision and managerial support are essential parts of providing social work services.
Sadie Parr’s article synthesizes findings from three qualitative studies examining intensive support in different fields. The studies explored both client and key worker perspectives. The author argues that the relationship is the key ingredient, and that it is more than ‘chemistry’ between helper and helped. Knowledge and skills can be seen in the workers’ sensitivity, adaptability and straightforwardness. Additionally, service users perceived them as similar from the point of view of life experience, accent and speech. The meaning of the relationship to service users is illustrated convincingly. These relationships are prime examples of the value of talking and listening.
The third paper, by Esther Goh & Shamini Praimkumara reports on a small and detailed study exploring the motivations behind mothers becoming sex workers in Singapore, and also their decisions to cease sex work. Sex work is highly stigmatized in Singapore, as elsewhere, and is not usually seen as compatible with good motherhood. This compelling account shows the limited earning choices facing these mothers. Nonetheless, the authors challenge notions of victimhood in favour of the ‘agency’ mothers use to gain income from sex work. It is flexible, close to home, and pays far better than the other unskilled labour available to them. The paper explores the way that the women’s relationship with their children influences their movement in and out of this form of earning. Nonetheless, the paper makes uncomfortable reading, as by putting their children first, some of the women have engaged in work that has to be hidden, risks ostracisation, and is inherently risky. At the same time, to spare their children discomfort and shame, they leave. The study was conducted in small agency set up for outreach to the women and their children, again showing the value of building relationships. This aspect of the paper provides hope that the women (and their children) may find more choice in their future education and employment.
The next two papers rely upon case studies, both involving the author themselves. Cheryl Lowe’s article supplies a sound introduction to the concepts of transference and counter-transference, and to the difficulties of recognizing it as it happens. She shows how noticing limitations in her therapeutic work leads to an honest review on her own upbringing and current issues. These are then considered alongside the client’s issues and team relationships. She offers psychodynamic and attachment-based theoretical reflections to make sense of the experience. Irwin Lander’s article illustrates ‘forgiveness therapy’ with a case example in which a son, who is an offender, is able to understand himself and forgive his mother once she tells him what she has suffered herself.
The last two papers also draw on the authors’ experiences, but in different contexts. Sally Riggall teaches Egan’s Skilled Helper Model to social work students. Her small scale
study entailed interviewing students who had been learners, and who report favourably on the value of using the Egan model during their practice placement. Yanoch Yerushalmi supervises psychiatric rehabilitation workers and considers the demands placed on them by the ‘vicissitudes’ presented by service users, and the demands of maintaining relationship with fellow professionals in multidisciplinary teams.
Finally, we want to draw readers’ attention to the online publication next year of a special 30th anniversary collection of papers reflecting each decade of the journal. The first issue was published in 1983, and the selection is drawn from the earliest papers through to 2014. It has been a while in the planning, and will be available throughout 2016.