Professional helping as negotiation in motion: social work as work on the move

Ferguson, Harry

doi:10.1080/23800127.2016.1247523

Cited by 16 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 36 publications

(30 reference statements)

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“…Sometimes this kind of improvisation occurs through the worker consciously reflecting in action, while at times it is largely unthought about and is based on tacit knowledge and is intuitively enacted. This means that what practitioners are able to say about how they think and reflect on what they do covers only some of the richness of their performances (Ferguson, 2016c).…”

Section: Reflective Practice In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

How social workers reflect in action and when and why they don’t: the possibilities and limits to reflective practice in social work

Ferguson

2018

Social Work Education

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126

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The need for professionals to use reflection to learn about and develop their practice is now a universally stated goal. In social work however there has been little research into whether and how reflection in action actually occurs and this paper explores the possibilities and limits to reflective practice by drawing on research that observed encounters between social workers and children and families as the work was being conducted in real time. The findings show that practitioners often do reflect in action by elevating their minds above the interactions they are having so that they can think critically about and adjust what they are doing. But there are times when reflection is either limited or non-existent because practitioners defend themselves against the sensory and emotional impact of the work and the high anxiety they are experiencing. Drawing on psychoanalysis and social theories of the body and senses, the paper argues for a revision of the concept of reflective practice to take account of how the self is defended. The limits to reflection must be fully recognised while seeking ways to develop the capacity of practitioners to think clearly and critically so that vital insights about service users and the helping process can occur. Reflective practice is a core concept in social work and probably the most well known theoretical perspective across the entire applied professions of teaching, health and social care. Its origins lie especially in Schon's (1983) formulation of how professionals engage in 'reflection in action' by thinking about their experience and what they are doing while they are doing it and afterwards using 'reflection on action' to think about and link their practice to knowledge (Redmond, 2006). Despite its popularity there has been very little research into how, or indeed if, practitioners do actually reflect in practice (White, Fook, & Gardner, 2006, p. 19). This paper draws on an ethnographic study of social work practice in child protection, in which I observed and audio-recorded the face to face encounters between social workers and children and families, mostly on home visits, and incorporated questions about reflective practice in interviews with practitioners (Ferguson, 2016a, 2016b).

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Section: Reflective Practice In Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

How social workers reflect in action and when and why they don’t: the possibilities and limits to reflective practice in social work

Ferguson

2018

Social Work Education

Self Cite

126

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“…Examining mobility through a feminist political economy lens (Armstrong et al, 2008;Roseman, Gardiner Barber, & Neis, 2015), we argue that the journey to and from fixed sites requires skills and responsibilities such as the ability to navigate routes or the skills to operate a vehicle and ensure the safety of oneself and others (Brommelstroet et al, 2017, p. 5). Hatton (2017, p. 337) notes that the wide resonance of the concept of invisible labour is due to its success in drawing attention to labour that has received little attention in popular and scholarly research on employment, and this applies to the mobility of healthcare workers because, with few exceptions (see, for example, Ferguson, 2016), there is little academic literature on healthcare workers' experiences of the journey to and from fixed sites. A fairly substantial body of literature does exist on work in the home or close to the home (Bartoldus, Gillery, & Sturges, 1989;Lyter & Abbott, 2007;Stevenson, McRae, & Mughal, 2008), or workers' experiences of work in hospitals (Armstrong et al, 2008;Toffoli et al, 2011) but research on mobility to and from fixed sites is very limited.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Healthcare workers ‘on the move’: making visible the employment-related geographic mobility of healthcare workers

Jackson

Price

Barber

et al. 2019

Health Sociology Review

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Many healthcare workers are 'on the move' as part of their employment, travelling often great distances to such places as patients'/clients' homes and community clinics. Healthcare workers' experiences of this employment-related geographic mobility have been relatively invisible even though mobility is necessary for home and community care. Interviews with professional (e.g. nurses) and paraprofessional (e.g. personal care assistants) healthcare workers in Nova Scotia (Canada) found that mobility includes safety risks, and health and economic costs, although a few professionals had employment contracts that helped to protect them against such risks and costs. Paraprofessionals appear to be most impacted by the economic costs given their lower incomes. Many healthcare workers also experienced travel positively, as time away from fixed sites, and associated this time with freedom. The risks of mobility were understood by some workers as part of a duty to care, but a few suggested that the health and economic costs are an undue burden, pointing to an opening for challenging these conditions. There is a need for regulations to ensure all healthcare workers are safe as they are mobile to and from fixed sites, and do not have to shoulder the health or economic costs of mobility.

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“…As well as a focus on time, our research was informed by theoretical and methodological work that enables exploration of the mobile, sensory and emotional dimensions of everyday experiences that are not captured using traditional methods, such as interviews conducted while seated/still (Ross et al, 2009;Ferguson, 2016c). We shadowed social workers everywhere they went, in cars, on foot, around offices and into and around service user's homes, paying attention to the influence of atmospheres and feeling of places (Pink and Leder Mackley, 2016), the dynamics of relationships, emotional experience and use of self in practice (Davys and Beddoe, 2010;Ruch et al, 2018).…”

Section: Time Experience and Research Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Snapshots of Practice to a Movie: Researching Long-Term Social Work and Child Protection by Getting as Close as Possible to Practice and Organisational Life

Ferguson

Leigh

Cooner

et al. 2019

The British Journal of Social Work

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Professional helping as negotiation in motion: social work as work on the move

Cited by 16 publications

References 36 publications

How social workers reflect in action and when and why they don’t: the possibilities and limits to reflective practice in social work

How social workers reflect in action and when and why they don’t: the possibilities and limits to reflective practice in social work

Healthcare workers ‘on the move’: making visible the employment-related geographic mobility of healthcare workers

From Snapshots of Practice to a Movie: Researching Long-Term Social Work and Child Protection by Getting as Close as Possible to Practice and Organisational Life

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