Beyond Balancing Competing Needs: Embedding Involuntary Treatment Within a Recovery Approach to Mental Health Social Work

Abstract

The recovery model of mental illness has become increasingly influential over the past two decades and while the synergies with social work are strong, there has been no examination of how social workers manage working within a recovery framework with involuntary clients in risk management-oriented settings. In this paper we report on a qualitative study with 10 mental health social workers exploring how such tensions are managed in everyday practice. While the social workers identified numerous dilemmas, they drew on a combination of recovery principles and social work values and practice approaches in an effort to move client agency closer to the centre of multidisciplinary interventions. We conclude that while the implementation of a recovery approach in the Australian mental health system has been at best uneven, its official embrace lends social workers a sense of legitimacy in advocating for client rights in the complicating context of involuntary community treatment.

精神病患者的恢复模式在过去二十多年里影响日益增大。虽然与社会工作颇有配合，但社会工作者在恢复框架内、在风险管理的环境里如何与非自愿病人相处，这方面的研究尚不多见。本文发表了对十位精神健康社工人员的定性研究，其中就探讨了以上矛盾是如何在日常实践中解决的。社会工作者见到了难题，他们将恢复原则、社工规则和实践方法进行组合，使客服机构尽量靠近多学科干预的中心。我们的结论是，在澳大利亚精神健康体系中实施的恢复方法往好里说也是不均匀的，不过官方的接纳，为社会工作者在非自愿社区治疗的复杂环境里促进病人权益的时候，增添了一种合理合法感。

Keywords:

• Mental Health
• Practice Knowledge
• Intervention
• Qualitative Research