Anxiety, defences and the primary task in integrated children's services: enhancing inter-professional practice

Abstract

The past decade has seen substantial changes in the configuration of services for children and families in the UK. Most notably, the inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbié raised serious questions about the professional systems designed to safeguard children and the importance of professionals working effectively together to protect children. The research informing this paper was undertaken with a group of childcare social work practitioners and explored their everyday work experiences of the post-Climbié introduction of the Every Child Matters agenda and Integrated Children's Services. Through the application of psychodynamic and systemic concepts to the research findings, the paper identifies new perspectives on barriers to effective integrated working and makes suggestions for working practices that may overcome them.

Keywords:

• inter-professional working
• anxiety
• repetition compulsion
• the primary task
• work group and basic assumption mentalities, mirroring

Notes

¹ Bion's abbreviationsBasic assumptionsWork-group mentalityDependence - ‘baD’‘W’Pairing - ‘baP’Fight-Flight - ‘baF’