Contemporary Practitioner Experiences of Relational Social Work: The Case of Child Welfare

ABSTRACT

Relationships are core to effective social work and provide the glue that binds diverse aspects of practice. Relational practice has come under threat in an era of managerialism, yet at the same time, it is undergoing a revitalisation in social work discourse. For practitioners on the ground, this can create something of a dilemma, because while their discipline steers them towards building relationships in their practice, their efforts are often unsupported by their organisations, which potentially adds to their workload. This paper presents Australian research that was designed to explore how social work practitioners in the child welfare field experienced the emotional labour involved in building and maintaining relationships in organisational environments characterised by economic and technical rationalism. In-depth interviews were used to explore how participants managed their feelings and the findings revealed how they had to “dig deep” into personal and professional resources to connect and converse with clients and colleagues in a meaningful way. When considered through a gendered lens, this issue raises questions about the ethics of workload distribution for relational work in a profession that is predominantly female.

IMPLICATIONS

• The process of building relationships can be undermined by organisational environments that are heavily influenced by managerial principles and this can potentially threaten the ethos of relational practice.

• Practitioners need to sustain critical reflection on the value of relationships in order to maintain focus on them.

• Considering this issue through a gendered lens raises questions about the ethics of care afforded to practitioners.

KEYWORDS:

• Relationships
• Relational Social Work
• Organisational Context
• Emotion Management
• Gender

Acknowledgements

The author acknowledges the valuable input from Professor Myfanwy Maple for her guidance throughout this research project and the AASW for their assistance in recruiting participants. Thank you must also go to Professor Fran Crawford for her support and useful feedback when writing this article and of course to the participants for their precious time and valuable insights.

Disclosure Statement

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

Data Availability Statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not consent for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data are not available.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.