‘Step by step, side by side’: the quest to create relational artistry through systemic practice within children’s social care

Abstract

This paper describes a quest towards relational artistry in the development of a systemic training programme in social care. As part of tiered delivery addressing staff at different levels in the workforce a systemic group supervision process was introduced, adapted from Proctor’s (1997) ‘Bells that Ring’ model. The paper describes the adaptation and delivery of the model through live supervision of senior practitioners by Systemic Mentors working in situ alongside the supervision groups. The project expanded in response to feedback leading to further initiatives to embed systemic ideas. These included a ‘systemic rucksack’ containing sets of cards to guide the supervision process. ‘Systemic champions’ went on to co‐produce and deliver workshops on key concepts for the whole workforce and to engage frontline workers and families in creating the next steps in the project. Practitioner Points Going step by step, taking a participative action learning approach to training in social care can maximise the potential effectiveness of training and help to embed systemic practice throughout the workforce Getting alongside staff through live mentoring, using relational artistry, can enhance participation and learning in systemic group supervision Relational Artistry can be described as a creative process of navigating through positioning and re‐positioning in the relational responsive flow of dialogue A Systemic Rucksack, including a collection of cards describing systemic concepts and roles in the systemic group supervision process can enhance theory/practice links and trigger reflexivity

Systemic Reflexivity in Residential Child Care: A Pedagogical Frame to Empower Professional Competence

“…Since our aim is to highlight the role of reflexivity in training RCC workers, this review is mainly based on papers that use "reflexivity" and "reflection" in relation to practice in child protection and care. We set aside other contexts, for example, researchwhere reflexivity has gained prominence after the turn to interpretivism (Alvesson & Sköldberg, 2000;Maton, 2003;Simon & Chard, 2014), but we did look into family therapy, for its influence on social work (Bingle & Middleton, 2019;Partridge et al, 2019;Watson, 2019).…”

“…Enduring relationships, groups, and organizations constitute systems that self-organize and learn: reflexivity, then, is not only a feature of the individual, but it can be (and needs to be) implemented in the organization of social work so that feedback and circularity of communication can sustain transformation. Many papers make reference to systemic theories and practices (Bingle & Middleton, 2019;Dugmore et al, 2018;Jude, 2018;Papp & Rácz, 2016;Partridge et al, 2019;Watson, 2019) that bring to the forefront relationships and contexts rather than individual features. The systemic approach to social work defines problems as relational and social, not intrinsic to the person.…”

“…The constructionist paradigm is used to say that reality is not fixednot "out there"but is co-created. Partridge et al (2019) considered the reflexive process to be a key systemic principle, a collective action that raises the whole system's capacity to respond to needs by enhancing shared awareness. Dugmore et al (2018) promoted a model of embedded and embodied systemic supervision that fuels reflexivity, resilience, and a relationship-based practice.…”

“…This reflexive (rather than prescriptive) practice of supervision is potentially transformative for the team and any others involved. It creates a pause and a space for "safe uncertainty" (Mason, 2015, as cited in Dugmore et al, 2019). The composition of different voices, theoretical perspectives, and domains of action helps the practice overcome the risk of searching for a single truth.…”

“…Group reflective supervision (Bingle & Middleton, 2019) offers the possibility to exert curiosity and be open to the existence of multiple interpretations of reality -sometimes called "the multiverse", a term we have adopted in this article. Several authors (Bingle & Middleton, 2019;Dugmore et al, 2018;Partridge et al, 2019) have associated reflexivity with the professional stance of "curiosity", a concept proposed by Cecchin (1987) as an advancement of systemic "hypothesizing" (Selvini et al, 1980). The latter, initially introduced as a guideline for conducting family therapy interviews, is suitable for rethinking social work intervention as based on the multiplication and interconnection of different ideas.…”