Sense‐making in a social work office: an ethnographic study of safeguarding judgements

Helm, Duncan

doi:10.1111/cfs.12101

Cited by 37 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Individual judgements are made through repeated interactions with other components of the system (such as colleagues, clients, managers and other professionals) and recent ethnographic research (Ferguson 2011;Helm, 2016;Helm, 2011) has begun to shed light on the vital role that teams play in dialogue and the shared process of sense making. The work of authors like Munro (2011) suggests that top-down solutions and cultures of audit and target need to be reconsidered in favour of bottom-up responses that build on the foundations of existing strengths.…”

Section: Discussion and Recommendations For Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Organisational culture can be described as "a psychosocial process which makes a bridge between individuals' inner worlds and the social institutions in which they live and work" (Taylor et al 2008 p.24). The culture of the organisation, group and/or team and its norms can influence how we frame decisions (Helm, 2016), how we construct a narrative about a service user and partner agency through a process of 'telling' the story of the case (White and Stancombe, 2003) and can even determine which theories (Smith, 2014) and values (Jaskyte, 2010) are sanctioned to use during any process of analysis.…”

Section: Judgement and Decision Making In Organisational Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Ecology of Judgement: A Model for Understanding and Improving Social Work Judgements

Helm

Roesch‐Marsh

2016

The British Journal of Social Work

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Professional judgement is viewed as a crucial yet complex aspect of social work practice. Significant factors in judgement are understood to include individual psychological and emotional processes, interpersonal communication and the relationship between social work as a profession and society. Each contributory factor must be described and understood clearly in its own right and there is also a need to describe and understand the ways in which these different elements interact as parts of a complex system. We propose an ecological model of judgement that facilitates consideration of the complex non-linear interactions between multiple components forming a system or 'ecology' of judgement. Originating in the concepts of ecological rationality and systems thinking this paper proposes the ecology of judgement as a clear and logical model which practitioners and organisations can use to support and promote critical reflexive judgement in practice.

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Section: Discussion and Recommendations For Practicementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Judgement and Decision Making In Organisational Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Ecology of Judgement: A Model for Understanding and Improving Social Work Judgements

Helm

Roesch‐Marsh

2016

The British Journal of Social Work

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“…In the interests of confidentiality, pseudonyms are used throughout the paper. Full details of ethical and methodological considerations are available in Helm ().…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can I Have A Word? Social Worker Interaction and Sense‐Making

Helm

2017

Child Abuse Review

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This paper explores the ways in which practitioners in children and family social work teams make sense of information in their work. By examining observations and recordings from an ethnographic study, the paper focuses on how informal discussions within the office space inform and affect social workers' analysis (or sense-making). Three elements of sense-making activity are illustrated with vignettes and extracts from field notes: methodical doubt, proximity/reflexivity and security. These three distinct features of practice are then discussed and the significance of the findings considered in relation to contemporary practice. The paper highlights the importance of informal interaction and discussion in the social work office as part of the process of social workers' sense-making. It indicates that feelings of trust and security may be linked to intellectual curiosity and an ability to work with uncertainty in sense-making. Ethnography can provide a means of illuminating this complex and inaccessible element of practice and the findings add to the body of knowledge. Practitioners and organisations may wish to reflect on the findings and consider how they contribute to, and are affected by, such cultures and practices

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“…In this process, information is neither neutral nor objective, rather it can be interpreted and understood variously such that it may not mean the same thing for all parties (Hall & Slembrouck, 2007). Indeed, research suggests that professionals also construct their and other professionals' responsibility and that this 'sense making' can be shared between people and across teams (Helm, 2016). Professional narratives may maintain unhelpful ritualized ways of working that reinforce professional boundaries and disrupt collaborative working (White & Featherstone, 2005).…”

Section: Interprofessional Workingmentioning

confidence: 99%

How everyone’s business can become no one’s business: A systems study of interprofessional referral to child contact centres

Caffrey

2020

Children and Youth Services Review

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Research suggests that interprofessional working is key to child protection but it is also challenging since misunderstandings and omissions can easily occur. This article explores interprofessional working in referrals to supported child contact services in England. It aimed to understand why procedures and tools introduced to improve interprofessional working in this area failed to have the desired effect. The study adopted a systems approach and involved 58 hours of observations in six case study child contact centres covering both supervised services (which offer a high level of monitoring of contact) and supported services (which provide little oversight). In addition, 47 interviews were conducted with individuals working in centres and solicitor, social worker and judge referrers. The findings demonstrate that cases which could not be safely managed continued to be referred and accepted at supported child contact centres because all actors believed it was someone else's role to analyse the case and make a decision to accept or reject. Only social worker referrers took responsibility for this role but some social workers continued to refer cases that could not be safely facilitated because they assumed the service provided a higher level of vigilance then existed. The study draws attention to the limits of tools and protocols in enabling safe practice and the importance of exploring the potential for, what I term, 'systemic role contradictions'. Key practitioner messages • Tools and forms alone are unlikely to address problems in interprofessional working when the challenges are fundamentally at a cognitive level. • Actors in a system may experience, what I term, 'systemic role contradiction', whereby each assumes that the other is responsible for key aspects of a process because the task is inappropriate to their own expertise. • The complex, adaptive nature of child protection systems makes interprofessional working inherently unpredictable. • Actors construct their roles based on 'local rationalities', including understandings of their own and others' capacity and (mis)perceptions of services provided by other actors. These rationalities should be explored to identify problems.

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Sense‐making in a social work office: an ethnographic study of safeguarding judgements

Cited by 37 publications

References 17 publications

The Ecology of Judgement: A Model for Understanding and Improving Social Work Judgements

The Ecology of Judgement: A Model for Understanding and Improving Social Work Judgements

Can I Have A Word? Social Worker Interaction and Sense‐Making

How everyone’s business can become no one’s business: A systems study of interprofessional referral to child contact centres

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