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Licence: CC BY: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Hostile relationships in social work practice
T2 - Anxiety, hate and conflict in long-term work with involuntary service users
AU - Ferguson, Harry
AU - Disney, Tom
AU - Warwick, Lisa
AU - Leigh, J.
AU - Cooner, Tarsem Singh
AU - Beddoe, Liz
PY - 2020/11/12
Y1 - 2020/11/12
N2 - While recognition that some service users do not want social work involvement has grown in recent years, little research has explored what relationships between social workers and ‘involuntary clients’ look and feel like in practice and how they are conducted in real time. This paper draws from research that observed long-term social work practice in child protection and shows how relationships based on mutual suspicion and even hate were sustained over the course of a year, or broke down. Drawing on a range of psycho-social theories, the paper adds to the literature on relationship-based practice by developing the concept of a ‘hostile relationship’. The findings show how hostile relationships were enacted through conflict and resistance–especially on home visits–and how anxiety and other intense feelings were often avoided by individuals and organisations. Much more needs to be done to help social workers recognise and tolerate hostility and hate, to not retaliate and to enact compassion and care towards service users. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
AB - While recognition that some service users do not want social work involvement has grown in recent years, little research has explored what relationships between social workers and ‘involuntary clients’ look and feel like in practice and how they are conducted in real time. This paper draws from research that observed long-term social work practice in child protection and shows how relationships based on mutual suspicion and even hate were sustained over the course of a year, or broke down. Drawing on a range of psycho-social theories, the paper adds to the literature on relationship-based practice by developing the concept of a ‘hostile relationship’. The findings show how hostile relationships were enacted through conflict and resistance–especially on home visits–and how anxiety and other intense feelings were often avoided by individuals and organisations. Much more needs to be done to help social workers recognise and tolerate hostility and hate, to not retaliate and to enact compassion and care towards service users. © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
KW - child protection
KW - emotions
KW - ethnography
KW - home visits
KW - involuntary clients
KW - psychoanalysis
KW - Social work practice
KW - anxiety
KW - article
KW - child
KW - drawing
KW - home visit
KW - hostility
KW - human
KW - organization
KW - social work practice
KW - social worker
KW - sociological theory
U2 - 10.1080/02650533.2020.1834371
DO - 10.1080/02650533.2020.1834371
M3 - Journal article
JO - Journal of Social Work Practice
JF - Journal of Social Work Practice
SN - 0265-0533
ER -