Operation D: Words - From none to too many (operations 14, relationship 4)

Although the finality of this operation is working, doing, it may seem to involve much of talking. Not only are the words, talking and language significant, even essential^[1] part of human existence, it is also of virtual importance in establishing the contact, getting to know each other, formulating goals and planning, in monitoring and evaluating, reflecting the work, etc.

Working with no words

There are people among the users of social work that have no faculty of language. We are not referring to people who speak other language or people who cannot hear or vocalise the words, but about the people who do not understand the words in any language, who do not have this mental capacity. In such situations it is possible to have contact on body, movement, perception level, it is possible to get to know them by being together, by observing what they do and how they feel, by trying things out in action, learning by doing. It is possible to sense their desires and their will. It is possible to enter their Life-World, to sense it, and even reflect it – in a dance-like fashion. It is even possible to provide support in the world they live in without the words.

The absence of words and language is crucial in bridging their Life-World with others, and especially while bridging their Life-World to the institutional worlds – in making pronouncements about entitlements, plans, goals, arrangements and relationships. In these words there is a material power of action. Role of a social worker is similar to a translator or a loudspeaker, to convey the sensed desires to the audience that has no faculty of immediate presence, which is needed to understand such an utterance. This involves transforming or transposing the deeds, the feelings and material aspects of situation in the words by the means of logical deduction and induction, which has to be based on the common experience, empathy or even becoming the other (see above), of knowing the situation and the person in a way of praxis.

What has just been noted does not apply only to the situation with no words; it is the basic and generic underlying process of social work in this, and also other operations. The social work, even in the reconnaissance phase, is not only about the words and language but also about “being there”, observation and experimenting – trying out. On the other hand, there is always necessity of translation of such a-verbally gained knowledge and insight into the performative words of language of the entitlements and other formal languages that dominate the caring and helping (guardian) professions and their action.

Fetishism of words

Talking and words having such an importance generally and in the operation of establishing a work relationship especially there is a considerable possibility to get stuck in empty words – the words that have no practical meaning the words that do not yield any action, that bear no, at least indirectly, performative property. Empty words are the ones that are too abstract to have a operable meaning, but even more perilous are the speech acts that are taken as acts in the reality – that equate something said with something actually being done.

If we as social workers, practitioners, students or academics, which skills is most important in social work, they are likely to respond that it is the skill of talking, interviewing. Users, on other hand are more likely to respond differently. They are expecting form social workers to “sort out” something, to provide an access to resources needed, to help them to get a job, a flat etc. This divergence between value of deeds and things for users and of words for professionals, could be a consequence of a strong influence of the psychology and psychotherapy on the profession. Moreover, of a historical contingency that in the process of academisation of social work, psychologists who came to teach social work, often taught methods of social work, consequently turning them mainly towards counselling. The divergence can be attributed, perhaps, to the fact that just talking is the least intensive intervention into the Life-World. In this intensity, we remain on the level of representation of words. The virtual world of words is a safer place than the world of action and events. Or maybe because the ideological, indoctrinating function of social work is more important than the operative, functional. Certainly then because the words make it possible to “catch” the deeds and happenings^[2] - an important issue both for the professional and the user – especially from the control aspect of social  work. This is also, why it is important to “give the word”, to “let the users speak” and decode the utterances into a common action, why in recording them preserve their action charge, that stalks from their life situations.

“To be realistic”

When users express their desires or goals, professional are often concerned that these would not be too “unrealistic” (as if the professionals were the “Guardians of the reality”). The stupid worry of the powerful. Goals and desires are unreal by definition, when they get realised they cease to be. Their essential property is that they are about something that there is not yet, something to become. Realistically speaking, the reality is approached only when we act. If the concepts catch it in the thought, we touch it only with acts – by which we test the reality. Work and deeds are the membrane, the interface between what we think and the things. In them we realise ourselves, (while words can reify us – make things out of us amenable to action of others). The reality is powerful in its own right, it does not need an advocate – an advocate, a support is needed by the one who confronts the reality.

Specifically in social work, for instance in personal planning, we resolve this complication with the “method of first steps”. It is not important how unattainable a goals seems or not, important is to know what will be the first step in attaining it. With the steps that we make to approach the goal, we test the reality.  In terms of action, the desires and goals, provide the direction and the energy (motivation), real work is a series of deeds, actually performed – by which we transform the reality. The slogan of the sixties: “Be realistic and demand the impossible” has retained its special meaning in social work.

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[1] In the context of this discussion it is important to note that some thinkers put the work and some the language as a basic distinctive feature of humanity.

[2] Etymological root of word “concept” stems from Latin “capere” – “to take”, “to catch”.

Operation B: Guardianship – an obstacle to productive risk taking (operations 7, risk 3)

The risk avoidance rather than risk taking is the function of professionalistic paternalism assumed frequently when working with people. It is the guardian role that social work is endowed with that makes professionals preoccupied with adverse consequences of risk taking. If there is harm it is the guardian’s responsibility, the benefits are to be enjoyed by their protégé. Such division of moral labour equals a dissociation of the interests and results in inability of identification of one with another. If one is to support strivings of fellow human beings one has to assume their perspective, identify with their interest in the situation (benefits) and only then, preferably together with the user, within this perspective develop the risk reduction interventions.

The statutory guardian role of social work is pronounced in the case where people are seen as being unable to make sound decisions about their life contingencies – as it is the case with children and with people who are considered to have diminished mental capacity. In such cases, legal capacity is not acknowledged or it is removed and a legal guardian instituted. However, this is in fact a robust infringement of the essential human faculty – the free will, capacity to decide, make choice.

Upon this realisation, the trend is to do away with this inhuman operation – at least with a complete removal of legal capacity. Alternatives are seen in at least limiting the removal, i.e. not removing the capacity in its total but in a circumscribed way, which focuses on the very specific interdictions – like preventing a person from driving if there is a serious risk of an accident, or substituting the removal of legal capacities with support in decision-making. The latter resting on the logic that if a person is not fully abled to decide in sovereign fashion (who is fully?), this “disability” should be overcome with support in this activity (also eventually by statutory intervention) – everybody needs support in the decision making process – some do not have it or need more of it.

The guardianship issue is one of the classic dilemmas in social work. In one way social work is a guardian profession, substitution of the will for those who “will not”, a constituent of the profession. In the other, social work surfaces as the advocate of the oppressed, as champion of their will. Social work is caught in a perpetual dance between these two roles. More on that in one of the previous blogs.

Four basic operations of social work (1 – introduction)

Perhaps the best way of presenting what social work does is by its basic operations. In order to have a better life, one has to change it, which brings about certain risks. To know what to change one needs to know what is there in one’s life, what are the resources that can be used and what needs to be imported from elsewhere. I order to induce change, but also to govern once life, one needs power to do so. A partnership or an alliance in a working relationship is needed in order to be not only supported but also increase the ability to reflect and perform. The key words of these four basic social work operations are therefore: relationship, power, change and resources introducing the operations that we choose to name: 1) work relationship or alliance, 2) empowerment, 3) risk analysis or harm reduction; and 4) investigation of the Life-World and enabling access to resources.

These four operations are defined by their purpose, which in turn presupposes their ways of doing them. The purpose of forming a work relationship or alliance is to gain an insight, a reflexion of the situation one is in, but also in a manner of dialogue to instigate  work, and change and is done mainly by speech and reflection, notwithstanding meaningful deeds and action. The purpose of empowerment is clear – to gain power – and this is mainly done by advocacy and negotiation in order to enhance one’s status – personal and social capital. The purpose of the risk analysis or harm reduction is security of venture (not so much risk avoidance) and is being done by analysing, securing and support in risk taking. The investigation of the Life-World and enabling access to resources has the purpose in being provided and equipped and is done by enabling access to resources and activation of own resources.

The purposes intrinsic to the operations as listed above are just instrumental to the personal finalities and are just tools to accomplish the latter. No matter how small and petty a specific personal goal may be, it has an overarching property regarding the purposes of the basic operations and the operation itself. The goal of an operation and its underlying desire is the basis of the operation and its purpose, finality and its “raison d’être”.

The social work basic operations are therefore not to be regarded as means of reaching some metaphysical or transcendental ends but means of reaching personal, group or even institutional desires usually articulated as goals, often as needs, sometimes in terms of necessities, sometimes in terms of wishes.[1]

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[1] This blog is an introduction to a piece I am writing on the topic. There will be blogs following describing and analysing them in more detail.

Dancing between the advocate and guardian (Excerpt)

This blog is an excerpt from the chapter Social Work as a Science of Doing[1] which I have published in a book that Tom edited with me more than ten years ago. I got it out to help me preparing a workshop in Demir Kapija institution, in Macedonia. The workshop is on personal planning. And it is in an institution used for the people with label of intelectuall disabilities. That makes the notion of dance between the role of an advocate and guardian more important.

Social work is always about doubles, about Max and Maurice, Lolek and Bolek, Pooh and Piglet. It is about being the two at the same time. And it is about being able to dance between these two faces. The classic endowment of social work is that it has to safeguard the (virtual) interests of a person, who cannot do it themselves. On the other hand it is also the essential task of social work to advocate for the same person’s actual desires and necessities (that they can nevertheless express).

The guardian role in the human professions (medicine, health care, education, social work) is historically based on the pledge of the feudal masters to take care of and protect their subjects, to be their patron and protector. It is the basic relationship of the feudal society. The bourgeois society in turn is based on the sovereign, autonomous, independent individuals forming contractual relations. For those who are not capable of doing this or are not acknowledged as such, a special institute is needed which insures them a place in the social process. This gap is filled to a certain extent by the philanthropic professions who have taken on the guardian (patron, protective) role for people lacking in contractual power. Basic characteristics of this role are that, on the grounds of presupposed knowledge, somebody takes care of the virtual interest of an individual; in doing this, security and care are of paramount importance, mandate from the society is given on the basis of the deficiency of the individual to be cared for; the underlying model of treating a person in care is one that of a child or a stranger, both being helpless and ignorant, in a need of help and patronage.

The advocate role is based on the tradition of the struggle for social emancipation of marginal groups (workers, women, ethnic minorities…). In principle it is intended to present the interests of the people who have lost their voice; it intends to make up for the deficiencies and lacks and to recreate the people as fully invested members of the society. It is a professional stance that takes into account the perspective of power and strives to strengthen the social position of the individual. Basic characteristic of this role are to start from the actual interests and desires of an individual, to create knowledge on the basis of analysis of reality, to stress rights and prevent injustice, to get a mandate from the individual or a concrete social group, to concentrate on the irregularities and injustice in the society and to let the person regain the lost advantage. This is done on the principle of exchangeability of the roles (Prince and the pauper)[2].

	Guardian	Advocate
Interests	Virtual	Actual
Knowledge	Beforehand, prior	After, situation based
Mandate	From the general society	From the individual, concrete group
Deficiency	Inside the individual	In the social order
Figure of the user	Stranger, child	Absent individual, Prince and the pauper

Contradiction between guardian and advocate roles is resolvable in different ways: by separating the roles (one member of the team takes one and another member the other role), by abstaining from the role of guardian (in case the court or any other instance has that role anyway), or by synthesis of both roles.[3] 

Synthesis is possible if we follow both roles, continuously negotiate (in dialogue) our mandate and the possible outcomes, having in mind the interests and benefits of all the actors involved, especially of the user; if we consistently employ the least restrictive necessary measures and, together with the users, strive to reach the optimal solution.

For example, in removing a child from the parents, we can imagine the procedure as being twofold: moving in the direction of removing the child – at the same time checking the possibilities that will prove the removal unnecessary. Optimally we would create an alliance; the worker also on the side of the parents. Walk the path together, examining the possibilities of the child staying, eventually realising that the child cannot stay and has to be (temporarily) removed.

It is of vital importance to make decisions experientially. Sometimes we deem the desires of the users to be unattainable and impossible. However, we are not the advocates of reality; reality is strong enough to speak for itself. We, together with the user, have to test it. The experience will tell us what is possible and what is not. Social workers need not know in advance what is “real” and what is not. The user’s desire is a hypothesis to be tested. Life is an experiment anyhow.

Synthesis is possible also, because assessment, planning and happening are interwoven. In social work it is useless and even harmful to follow traditional scientific pattern of reasoning. Social work is not bound to assess first and intervene after. Concrete actions that we take from the start, go beyond pure assessment as they immediately change situation (a young offender gets a job, finishes school, the father changes his communication patterns with his children). Good and concrete plans for the future change the present.

We can act as both - advocate and guardian, also because we can make things happen. If we as social workers can really sort things out and change something, the synthesis in action is possible. In this ability we assume the role of commissioner, integrating the user’s actual desires and necessities with their perceived virtual interest. We can plan and construct the arrangements (services, settings, resources, etc.) that will satisfy both – what he or she really wants and is supposed to be good for her or him.

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[1] Flaker, V. (2006) Social work as a science of doing : in the praise of a minor profession. V: Flaker, V. (ed.), Schmid, T. (ed.). Von der Idee zur Forschungsarbeit : Forschen in Sozialarbeit un Sozialwissenschaft. Wien: Böhlau Verlag, pp. 55–78. The excerpt is on pp.: 68–71.

[2] N.B.: These general roles and stances should not be confused with the concrete roles of an advocate or a guardian.

[3] Separation and abstinence are reasonable and productive in some situations, but we give up power invested in deciding. And this power can be the power to be used for the solution, desired by the user.