The practitioners’ perspective on the upside and downside of applying social capital concept in therapeutic settings

Abstract

Social capital, and more particularly the social networks that define its existence, is said to benefit health and well‐being. In individuals recovering from alcohol and drug addiction, social capital accruing from social networks support treatment, recovery and maintenance. Therefore, the concept of social capital is important for public health practitioners working in recovery interventions. This qualitative study seeks to explore what practitioners perceive as the importance of social capital and how they apply the concept in interventions to support individuals recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. Eight public health practitioners involved in drug and substance abuse interventions in West Yorkshire, England, were interviewed. The results of the interview were then deductively coded using two priori themes of perceived impact of social capital on health outcomes and application of social capital theory in recovery interventions. The findings reveal that practitioners understand the impact of social capital as the effects of social networks on recovery and apply the concept in their interventions. However, the nature of interventions created based on similarities in condition (alcohol and substance addiction) and intended outcome (recovery) create bonding social capital with mixed outcomes. This paper argues that the wider benefits to service users are unintentionally inhibited by the overwhelming downsides of bonding social capital. For instance, closed support groups comprised of individuals with high similarities further exclude the already socioeconomically deprived service users from integrating and accessing resources outside their groups.

Investigating recovery from problem substance use using digital photovoice

“…This was exemplified by the negative feelings produced by not being able to relate to people around them, even when they were in a space created for them to do so. Findings by Sigodo and colleagues supports the notion that support groups encompassed of individuals with similarities may further exclude marginalised service users from integrating and accessing resources external to their group (Sigodo et al, 2020).…”

“…Previous literature has highlighted the mixed outcome of bonded social capital in recovery and the progressiveness of bridging social capital, indicating that bonding capital in recovery may unintentionally intensify inequalities and further disenfranchise service users (Boeri et al, 2016;Sigodo et al, 2020;Zschau et al, 2016).…”

“…This may add credence to Salehi and colleagues assertion that natural networks, rather than artificial ones, may be more important for an individual's sustained recovery (Salehi et al, 2019). Some networks may be detrimental by encouraging co‐dependence rather than recovery, a factor which is particularly concerning considering that individuals cannot remain in artificial networks indefinitely (Sigodo et al, 2020). While participants in this current study were aware of artificial social networks and understood how to access them, many in the sample expressed hesitation at the thought of doing so.…”

“…For individuals in recovery, social networks which assist people in achieving high levels of social capital include treatment centres, nondrug using family and friends, religious/spiritual groups, workplace networks and social club/activities (Boeri et al, 2016). Previous research has indicated that service users with strong social capital have better rates of recovery (Sigodo et al, 2020).…”

Implementation of a computer-assisted face-to-face intervention for mapping the social support networks of patients with severe mental illness in routine clinical practice: Analysis of the appropriateness and acceptability of the intervention

“…These research findings have, however, rarely been translated into clinical practice. Care professionals in particular lack tools for collecting, mapping, describing, assessing and fostering the social networks of patients (Sigodo et al, 2020; Tee et al, 2020; Webber et al, 2015). The collection and analysis of social network data are often the exclusive preserve of researchers who are trained in network science, which limits the availability of tools and their use by health and social care professionals (Birkett et al, 2021).…”