Human encounters: The core of everyday care practice

Abstract

Although there is increasing recognition within health and social care policy that relationships are central within ‘people work’, little attention is given to exploring the nature and purpose of these within everyday care practice. Social pedagogues appreciate that human relationships, in all their complexity, are intrinsically valuable and, therefore, central to everyday care practice. This article explores human encounters as the foundation of relational practice, and we discuss how the space for true encounter incorporates spiritual care and a movement from dependence to interdependence. It proposes that everyday care practice is best understood as a series of human encounters that requires courage to embrace the complexity and uncertainty of encountering the essential humanity of those we care for. In order to do so, practitioners need to develop moral integrity, enabling them to navigate situations of care without fixed recipes. Drawing on perspectives from care ethics and the Nordic care tradition, this article contextualises the discussion within the authors’ extensive care practice experience and, in focusing on human encounters as the basis of relational care, presents implications for practitioners in diverse everyday care contexts.

Receiving thank you letters in inpatient child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS): A qualitative study of nurse's experiences

“…Understanding and evaluating their contribution in this new way illuminated personal qualities and skills that had previously been either 'hidden' or that they had not associated with being an important feature of their professional practice. They were better able to celebrate, and be more confident about, their 'everyday care' practice (Monteux & Monteux, 2020) in contrast to the more privileged technical aspects of treatment and clinical intervention. Hunt (2020) adds that inpatient psychiatric units can be 'othered' or forgotten by society.…”

“…Depersonalization, another factor for burnout which Maslach (1993) explains as the distortion of how one perceives themselves, others, and their environment, may also be countered by gratitude offering of an authentic, grounding perspective into the working self. Nursing care, especially in CAMHS, requires practitioners to be capable of navigating situations of care without ‘fixed recipes’ (Monteux & Monteux, 2020). Reflexive practice, where professionals consciously examine, challenge, and tolerate uncertain and complex situations (Fook, 2002), is key to this.…”

Ideas for Mapping Lifeworld and Everyday Life in Practical Social Pedagogy

“…The first refers to defining the social pedagogues as "everyday life experts," a definition applied 51 specifically to those working in residential centers for children and young people. 52 I can agree with Cameron's rationale for this classification: "I aim to move beyond the limitations of defining it as 'care work', to bring relational, creative, practical, educative and advocacy competences to the fore, and to recognize practitioners as professional experts who should be valued and rewarded as such." 53 However, I do not agree at all with the name itself.…”

Creating hope in dystopia: Utopia as Method as social pedagogy in early childhood studies

“…Instead, following Mannion (2010), Lundy (2018) advises that by 'practising a "warts and all" participatory approach, with all the possibilities of failure, we provide a face-valid response that may or may not work; but, critically, this is in itself empowering because it is not accepting that things are impossible ' (p. 340) Children's right to development and participation must allow for the not-yet-tried, the as-yet-unseen -and the possibility of failure (Peleg, 2017). Participation in the Anthropocene must be characterised by intergenerational and mutual interdependence (Monteux and Monteux, 2020). By proposing Utopia as Method, Levitas (2013) urges us to move fast in order to anticipate and avert deeper dystopia: 'The economic and ecological crises mean that change is both essential and inevitable.…”