Editorial

This general issue presents responses to practice challenges in diverse contexts in Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey and the UK. It also represents a range of research approaches, from interviews and surveys to analysis of large government datasets, observations and theatre-based approaches.

The issue begins with three articles that explore the theme of professional forms of knowing that exist at the thresholds of our awareness and understanding. The first article by Cate Curtis explores the subject of intuition in social work practice, which has been the subject of a long debate in the helping professions. It draws upon data from a study in New Zealand that combined a questionnaire with in-depth interviews to examine how practitioners identified sexual abuse and harm in children and young people. Participants reflected the diversity of opinion on the subject, with some being critical of the use of intuition while others preferred it to formal assessment tools. The article concludes that concerns about intuition are often based upon seeing it as a form of quasi-mystical sixth sense, whereas it is best conceptualised as a form of tacit knowledge.

The theme of threshold forms of knowing is continued in the next article by Mari Dalen Herland entitled ‘The words may limit our understanding: reflexive research, affect and embodied writing’. The author uses a reflexive and embodied approach to examine her own experiences of interviewing adults who had experienced child sexual abuse in Norway. Polyvagal theory was used to help understand the researcher’s own experiences of bodily disturbances, such as anxiety and nightmares when interviewing participants, in terms of an empathy reaction. The article concludes that research practices, such as reflexive and embodied writing, may assist in accessing ‘other life worlds’ by bringing the researcher back to the core bodily way of knowing the world.

The final article examining forms of knowing at the threshold of awareness is the article by Henry Smith entitled ‘Too hot to handle? Unthought anxiety and parallel process in social work supervision’. Based upon data from systemic group supervision sessions with child protection social workers in the UK, the author examines how the concepts of parallel process and Bion’s theory of learning from experience can help us to understand how phenomena that provoke ‘unthought’ anxiety in practice situations can be repeated in supervision. The article provides a good example of how psychoanalytical and systemic ideas are complementary rather than competing and can combine to provide new insights.

The theme of empowerment and human rights is the theme for the next three articles in this issue, beginning with an article by Zeliha Tören and Bilge Aslan Açan, which examines the relationship between disability, human rights and empowerment. The concept of empowerment has a long history both within the social work profession and the disability movement, but the research base has been limited. Social workers working in disability services within Turkey were interviewed using a phenomenological approach to explore how they perceive the concepts of disability and empowerment. They described how they conceptualised disability within a human rights model but had to work at a micro level within a neoliberal and aid-orientated system and experienced structural obstacles that hinder the implementation of an empowerment approach.

The theme of empowerment and human rights continues in the next article by Manuel Bellerin, Nuria Cordero Ramos, Manuel Florez Sánchez, and Raúl Álvarez Pérez, which used a collective theatre creation approach with a group of people experiencing homelessness in Seville, Spain. This is a method aimed at incorporation of the artistic contribution of all group members combined with narrative practices and creative methods to promote participation, resulting in a theatre production entitled ‘The truth that no-one wants to see’. The focus of the project was on empowering the agency of people experiencing homelessness and recognising their forms of knowledge, including their capacity to find dignity in their experiences.

The final article on the theme of empowerment and human rights explores the darker side of how professionals can be disempowering by examining incidents when professionals are verbally abusive towards service users in an article by Tiina Syyrilä, Mari Vänttinen, Saija Koskiniemi, Mia Mäntymaa, Jouka Ranta, Minna Säilä, Aini Pehkonen, and Marja Härkänen. The article is based on a cross-sectional study of statutory reports of threats towards service users by registered and unregistered professionals in Finland over a four-year period. The study analysed 1,433 statutory reports and found that abuse could include verbal oppression or dominance, sometimes accompanied by physical violence or threats of violence. Around half of the alleged perpetrators were registered professionals, while the other half were non-registered. The article concludes that, although such abuse is relatively rare, it can have a significant negative effect on service users and procedures for whistleblowing and staff training need to be strengthened.

The next article by Kate Blake-Holmes and Laura Cook addresses the largely hidden population of children growing up with a parent experiencing mental ill-health. Located on the structural fault line between adult and children’s services, they face a number of complex barriers to being included in decision making. The study used a biographical narrative approach to interview 20 adults who had been carers of parents experiencing mental illness during their childhood. The study found that participants were involved in the care of their parents and were relied upon by professionals, but not included in decision making, principally because of concerns about them being too young and also in relation to patient confidentiality. The study identified the principal themes of missed opportunities to engage them as a child in need, barriers to recognising their needs, and young people’s relationships with services as a mitigating factor in the extent to which they are affected by being a carer.

Social workers’ understanding of self-care is the subject of the final article by Primož Rakovec and Petra Videmšek. A questionnaire was used to engage social workers from a range of backgrounds in Slovenia. An overwhelming majority described their working lives as stressful and approximately half were considering changing jobs. Almost all the participants felt that self-care is very important for their well-being and professional practice, but only around a third felt that they knew how to take care of their well-being. The study concludes that there should be greater recognition of the importance of self-care by employers, professional bodies and universities.

As a whole, the papers make for a rich and inspiring journal issue that offers insights into the challenges of social work practice. We would like to thank all the authors for sharing their work with us and we are very appreciative of their excellent contributions to this issue.