Constructing resilience: social workers’ understandings and practice

Abstract

Concepts and constructions of resilience have assumed a significant position in contributing to understandings of the psychosocial development of children and young people. This paper examines how concepts of resilience are constructed within the literature, and then explores social workers' perceptions and use of resilience with young people who were 'looked after' or at risk of becoming 'looked after'. It addresses the interface between social workers' views and understandings of the emotional health needs of their clients, and the responsiveness of accompanying service interventions. Using the Framework for Assessment as a platform for discussion, 32 semistructured interviews were conducted with 19 social workers relating to a purposive sample of 52 children and young people (31 boys and 21 girls). Social workers experienced difficulty in conceptualizing resilience, often providing cursory, general or non-expert explanations. Furthermore, social workers described all children and young people within the sample as being resilient, drawing only upon face-value observations to evidence this. Related to this was the low frequency of social workers' reports of children and young people's mental health difficulties and the concomitant low referral rate to secondary tier services. The authors argue that social workers' optimistic perceptions of the resilience of children and young people within this sample, alongside their positive appraisal of their emotional needs, impact on the interventions that are put in place. The paper concludes that the tendency of social workers to project optimism onto their client base calls our attention to a possible transference of the collective need for the social work department itself to be resilient within that local authority.

Additive and subtractive resilience strategies as enablers of biographical reinvention: A qualitative study of ex-smokers and never-smokers

“…The concept of resilience has been developed into a theoretical framework known as the resilience construct (Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000;Ungar, 2004) which examines the reasons why many individuals, regardless of the negative factors in their lives, are somehow able to draw upon a range of resources which assist them to deal with negative experiences and situations or "bounce back" from adversity (McMurray, Connolly, Preston-Shoot, & Wigley, 2008). Ungar (2004) suggested that discussions about resilience should not only take into account the internal psychological traits or properties of the individual but also a whole range of external social factors, including gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status.…”

Resilience as Reflexivity: A New Understanding for Work with Looked-After Children

“…They suggest that the lack of a theory for the process of resilience development in the social work literature, corresponds with an equally atheoretical approach to applying it among social workers. McMurray et al (2008) point out that Daniel's (2006) study, the only research they identified that explored the utility of resilience theory for child welfare social work, "proposed that social workers had a pre-existing knowledge of resilience theory ... However, the atheoretical discussions from social workers in this study stand in stark contrast to Daniel's research.…”

“…As scientists in the positivist quantitative tradition, these researchers were interested in factors related to what they defined as measurable resilient outcomes. By the 1990s, these ideas from developmental psychology were being imported into related fields including social work, as researchers sought to operationalise the psychologists' empirical findings for child welfare practice (McMurray et al 2008). Resilience theory's roots in developmental psychology are visible in the continued focus on developmental outcomes that characterises most resilience-related literature published in the United Kingdom.…”

“…There are two research studies which do illustrate this situation (Daniel 2006;McMurray et al 2008). They suggest that the lack of a theory for the process of resilience development in the social work literature, corresponds with an equally atheoretical approach to applying it among social workers.…”

Resilience in Child Welfare: A Social Work Perspective

“…McMurray, Connolly, Preston-Shoot, and Wigley (2008) looked at how social workers constructed and utilized the concept of resilience in child welfare practice in the U.K. They found that social workers had difficulty conceptualizing resilience, and linking the concept to practice, and noted that "knowledge of the concept of resilience was generally derived from their everyday understanding rather than a policy-based or theoretical comprehension" (p. 307).…”