Using Friendship to Build Professional Family Work Relationships where Child Neglect is an Issue: Worker Perceptions

Abstract

Effective working relationships are those which are characterised by close personal contact, even friendship-like in nature, contained within professional boundaries. However, such personal ways of working remain a contentious aspect of professional relationships. Indeed, workers operating in this way commonly experience disapproval from colleagues. Guidance regarding how workers build personalised professional relationships while operating in a disapproving environment is limited. This is even more pronounced for building relationships with families where child neglect is an issue. This paper draws on a study of perceptions of eight parent–family worker relationship cases in New South Wales, Australia. The study utilised qualitative research methods to analyse and compare participants' perceptions of the experiences and meaning of working relationships with families where child neglect is an issue. The paper will explore how the workers' use of friendship-like characteristics to build highly personalised, yet professional and ethical, relationships created discord with some colleagues, including accusations of unprofessional and unethical practice. Drawing on these workers' experiences, along with literature that challenges traditional ways of working with clients, it will be argued that dominant ideas about ethical and professional practice hinder the development of effective relationships with clients, create unnecessary stress for workers, and should be challenged.

有效的工作关系应包含亲近的个人接触，甚至类似于朋友关系，但又在职业范围之内。然而在职业关系中这种个人化的工作方式一直备受争议。以这种方式工作的人也常常遭到同事的反对。对于在逆境中如何建立个人化的工作关系，没有多少指导。在与儿童照管不良家庭建立关系方面，这个问题尤为突出。本文依据澳大利亚新南威尔士州对8对父母-家庭工作者关系的研究，使用定性研究的方法，分析和比较儿童照管不良的父母在与家庭工作者建立工作关系的过程中所感受到的经验和意义。文章探讨了利用类朋友关系建立起个人化的职业、伦理关系的工作人员，如何在同事间惹出非议，包括不专业和不道德的批评。基于这些工作人员的经验，以及对传统客户关系提出挑战的文献，我们认为关于职业道德和专业化的主流观念，阻碍了与客户建立有效关系，为工作人员制造了不必要的压力，应该遭到质疑。

Keywords:

• Friendship
• Family Work
• Child Neglect
• Working Relationship

Acknowledgement

The research reported in this paper was supported by a PhD scholarship provided by the Australian Centre for Child Protection, University of South Australia.

Notes

¹ Pseudonyms have been used to protect participants' privacy.