Social work on the edge: not knowing, singularity and acceptance

ABSTRACT

Social work has never been an easy task. Fraught with uncertainty, social workers are charged with making sense of the present and predicting the futures of people, places, and events that represent perpetual possibility. As aspects of perception come into view, their appearance is shaped by structures and status states of individual and collective creation that afford security, yet limit and restrict. This conceptual paper explores the act of ‘knowing’, considering it to be an active process, shaped by emotion and bound by contingent and expectant contexts that limit the possibilities of the future through the collective self-imposition of ideas of knowing and of how the world works. It is suggested that emancipation from limited understandings and subjugated positions lies in an acceptance of that which cannot be known, together with an enhanced connection with who we are, enabled and supported by social work’s core values. The paper’s intent is to stimulate debate on an alternate future that enables and emboldens us to reach beyond organisational and self-imposed limitations that serve to reproduce disadvantage and social injustice. In doing so, it takes a reflective, psycho-social approach that offers a space for critical and transformative thought – the starting point for transformative, value-based, practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Knowing
• emotion
• acceptance
• values
• critical
• emancipation
• risk

Notes on contributor

Ian Dore is a Senior Lecturer within the Social Work department at the University of Brighton. He teaches on qualifying and continuing professional development programmes. He is a registered Social Worker and qualified Practice Educator who worked in front-line child protection practice before moving into academia. His research interests include the notion of ‘knowing’ in social work, evidence-informed practice and the role played by emotion in influencing social work and wider societal systems.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.