Mental health social work in multidisciplinary community teams: An analysis of a national service user survey

Abstract

Summary The article addresses the continued lack of clarity about the role of the mental health social worker within community mental health teams for working age adults and particularly the limited evidence regarding this from the perspective of service users. It compares findings from the literature, found to originate from a predominantly professional viewpoint, with secondary analysis of a national survey of service users to assess their views. Findings Three particular aspects of mental health social workers’ role identified in the literature were, to some extent, also located within the national survey and can be summarised as: approaches to practice, nature of involvement, and scope of support. The presence of these features was largely not substantiated by the survey results, with few differences evident between service users’ experiences of mental health social workers compared with other mental health staff. When nurses and social workers were compared, results were either the same for both professions or favoured nurses. The findings point both to the difficulty of articulating the social work contribution and to the limitations of the secondary data. Application The findings are a useful benchmark, highlighting the limited evidence base and the need for further research to improve both the understanding of the mental health social work role and how it is experienced by service users. The profession is keen to emphasise its specific contribution. Research evidence is required to underscore this and to ensure that the role is not subsumed within generic practice.

Perceptions of the social worker role in adult community mental health teams in England

“…This qualitative paper forms part of a larger-mixed methods study that aimed to identify the social work contribution to CMHTs drawing on the characteristics, opinions and experiences of managers, practitioners and service users (Boland et al., 2019; Wilberforce et al., 2019). The views of social workers and their team colleagues were collected via focus groups and analysed using Braun and Clarke’s organic thematic analysis method (2016).…”

What Do Service Users Want from Mental Health Social Work? A Best–Worst Scaling Analysis

“…In the first stage, the lay members of the research team met to discuss what they perceived as being the contribution of social work to their mental health support, with a researcher acting as scribe. This discussion was informed by the research team's prior literature review on social work in mental health (Boland et al, 2019). The group arrived at fortysix 'statements' describing what they valued from social workers, organised into three themes: (i) social worker values; (ii) skills, knowledge and experience; and (iii) activities and tasks.…”

“…Existing evidence, as limited as it is, provides some initial insights. Evidence reviews (Penhale and Young, 2015;Boland et al, 2019), drawing mostly on qualitative evidence, found many personal and values-based qualities crucial to social work across the profession, including honesty, integrity, warmth, openness, courtesy, positivity, reliability and compassion. Many have referenced qualities akin to friendship, or at least a reciprocal relationship with social workers offering a sense of equality between people of equal worth (Penhale and Young, 2015).…”

An Exploratory Survey of Mental Health Social Work in Europe

“…Abendstern et al explored multi-disciplinary perceptions of the role of social work in mental health services in England and highlighted social work’s role in promoting the service users’ voice and in implementing the social model [ 14 ]. In exploring service users’ views of social work in mental health services, Boland et al suggested that there may be less of a clear understanding of social work’s distinctive role [ 15 ].…”