A Perfect Day
‘Just a perfect day, feed animals in the zoo …
… Oh it’s such a perfect day, I’m glad I spent it with you …
… Problems all left alone …
… You made me forget myself, I thought I was someone else, someone good …’
Lou Reed.
How often have you given a client a perfect day? A failing parent, a service user can be given something that will help them to forget themselves, think they are someone else, someone good.
Remember learning about modelling when you were at college. Remember that teaching consists of showing, telling, modelling, doing with and finally letting go.
Go on, give a client a perfect day, model responses, be upbeat, positive, focus on their positives, explore their strengths, show them who they really are, show them what life can be like, show them the sun, break down the barriers.
Be a social worker.
‘You’re going to reap just what you sow.’
If you sow fear, you will live with fear.
Visit my website: www.another-way.co.uk
Wednesday 18 April 2007
Making People Change
You can’t make people change. You can influence people to change. Force creates resistance, force with a threat applied can create compliance but people will not change, they will just comply in order to avoid the negative outcome, but when you are not there or the negative outcome is removed, they will revert to what they know and understand.
Imagine walking down a path in the woods, you come to a fork in the road, one of the paths is familiar and easy, it has its difficult bits but you have been there before and know your way about. The other path is muddy, full of broken rocks, there are ferocious dogs and shadowy figures hanging around in groups, jeering at you. There are dark places which might conceal dangerous drops that you are not equipped to cope with, the path might be twice as long as your usual one or not even go to where you want to get to. Which path would you choose?
No, don’t tell me, let me guess.
Those obstacles on that dark and scary path are human fears. The unknown, the unfamiliar, the frightening, the different. If you can deal with people’s fears so that the path is not scary any longer, people are more likely to choose it. If you make it attractive, it becomes even better, if you plant obstacles on the other path then people are less likely to choose it. Of course you have to know what they find attractive and what they are afraid of.
On the other hand, if you just tell them that they have to go down the dark way, you need to make your threats bigger then the threats of the unknown. You need bigger and more ferocious dogs, perhaps the threat of taking their children away will do it – if they believe you! Perhaps you could show them the dogs are real by taking them to conference?
To get people to change, you have to understand their fears, you have to join with them, connect with their goals and fears, help them to overcome their fears. What you really have to do is to walk down the path with them. Explore it bit by bit until their confidence grows and they take off running.
You can’t do any of this by judging, arguing, instructing, disagreeing, dictating.
Visit my website: www.another-way.co.uk
Imagine walking down a path in the woods, you come to a fork in the road, one of the paths is familiar and easy, it has its difficult bits but you have been there before and know your way about. The other path is muddy, full of broken rocks, there are ferocious dogs and shadowy figures hanging around in groups, jeering at you. There are dark places which might conceal dangerous drops that you are not equipped to cope with, the path might be twice as long as your usual one or not even go to where you want to get to. Which path would you choose?
No, don’t tell me, let me guess.
Those obstacles on that dark and scary path are human fears. The unknown, the unfamiliar, the frightening, the different. If you can deal with people’s fears so that the path is not scary any longer, people are more likely to choose it. If you make it attractive, it becomes even better, if you plant obstacles on the other path then people are less likely to choose it. Of course you have to know what they find attractive and what they are afraid of.
On the other hand, if you just tell them that they have to go down the dark way, you need to make your threats bigger then the threats of the unknown. You need bigger and more ferocious dogs, perhaps the threat of taking their children away will do it – if they believe you! Perhaps you could show them the dogs are real by taking them to conference?
To get people to change, you have to understand their fears, you have to join with them, connect with their goals and fears, help them to overcome their fears. What you really have to do is to walk down the path with them. Explore it bit by bit until their confidence grows and they take off running.
You can’t do any of this by judging, arguing, instructing, disagreeing, dictating.
Visit my website: www.another-way.co.uk
Negative Review
Received an email from Geoffrey at my publishers this morning telling me that one of my books had received a “very negative” review from an established publication in Scotland. He has put a copy of the review in the post to me.
I am not in the least bit surprised – in fact if I had not had negative reviews from establishment figures then I would be disappointed. The status quo needs upsetting! In fact I feel strangely excited, waiting for the review to arrive to see if the reviewers’ arguments are what I guess they might be!
Social Work is in a deep dark place right now. Social Work as it is practised today can be extremely disempowering for service users and for workers. In my work with clients and in my writing I am trying to do my bit to re-establish a feeling of excitement, to explore what it really means to empower people. That sometimes means going against the grain – trying to do things differently.
As professionals we need to be responsible for our practice, and yet our responsibility and choice is often taken away and we become the mouthpiece of corporate, suit wearing, career focused, establishment oriented, ex-social workers (or worse).
We are taught that people are the experts on their situation, yet the risk-averse social work culture that we work in all too often forces us to act like experts. Choice is power and we take choices and power away from the most disempowered people in our society and substitute our own choices. In the face of the majesty, passion and variety of human beings, our empathy and humility is so often replaced with arrogance and we stomp over people’s lives like jackbooted officers of the authority.
Just saying this has upset people. Well good!
John Stuart Mill said that every movement must experience three stages: Ridicule, Discussion and Adoption. In the book (The Barefoot Helper) I wrote that I expected responses that fit into each of Mills’ categories.
Feedback from front line practitioners has been brief but overwhelmingly positive and the book is on university reading lists. That’ll do.
Visit my website: www.another-way.co.uk
I am not in the least bit surprised – in fact if I had not had negative reviews from establishment figures then I would be disappointed. The status quo needs upsetting! In fact I feel strangely excited, waiting for the review to arrive to see if the reviewers’ arguments are what I guess they might be!
Social Work is in a deep dark place right now. Social Work as it is practised today can be extremely disempowering for service users and for workers. In my work with clients and in my writing I am trying to do my bit to re-establish a feeling of excitement, to explore what it really means to empower people. That sometimes means going against the grain – trying to do things differently.
As professionals we need to be responsible for our practice, and yet our responsibility and choice is often taken away and we become the mouthpiece of corporate, suit wearing, career focused, establishment oriented, ex-social workers (or worse).
We are taught that people are the experts on their situation, yet the risk-averse social work culture that we work in all too often forces us to act like experts. Choice is power and we take choices and power away from the most disempowered people in our society and substitute our own choices. In the face of the majesty, passion and variety of human beings, our empathy and humility is so often replaced with arrogance and we stomp over people’s lives like jackbooted officers of the authority.
Just saying this has upset people. Well good!
John Stuart Mill said that every movement must experience three stages: Ridicule, Discussion and Adoption. In the book (The Barefoot Helper) I wrote that I expected responses that fit into each of Mills’ categories.
Feedback from front line practitioners has been brief but overwhelmingly positive and the book is on university reading lists. That’ll do.
Visit my website: www.another-way.co.uk
Tuesday 17 April 2007
Hi, first post
Hi, I was just sitting here (writing another damn report) when I received a comment about my website www.another-way.co.uk from a social worker in the UK, here it is:
"Wonderful! Refreshing to see in my already jaded opinion of social work only two years into training. Kerri."
I know what you mean about feeling jaded Kerri, it can seem like an oppressive, painful and meaningless job at times. But what we do and the way that we do it is filled with meaning for the people who need our support. Obviously the relationships that we build with service users is often vital for their sense of wellbeing - no matter what they feel about it. And it is up to us as professionals to make that relationship a functional one. That can be extremely hard to do with service users who don't want the relationship. But it can be done.If they are resistant, we have to change.
It is all too easy to end up thinking that there is a 'them and us' scenario and the gap gets wider and wider until we feel we are dealing with a different species. In reality they and we are the same, we all want the same things, love, peace, calm, sex, happiness, food, warmth, money, holidays, fun, friends and so on. The only difference is that we are usually a bit further on the way to achieving many of those things. When you think like that you end up envying some aspects of service users lives, for me, I often envy their stronger friendships, communities and family ties and so on. When you work from this place, a place where we are all the same, then you can really start to build a real partnership and a therapeutic alliance with the families you work with.
Unfortunately as we all know, the formal and informal systems that we have to work within often have values that are at odds with the concept of building helping relationships. That can leave workers fighting against the tide of services users, colleagues and systems. But let's face it, social work is about challenging disabling systems and empowering service users.
Maybe that means that we have to learn better skills that can help people to communicate, maybe it just means talking about service users strengths in Case Conferences and supervision instead of just rolling out the usual problem focused talk. What it does always mean is that systems disempower individuals. Now that's not always a bad thing, but it usually is.
That is the thin line that child protection workers have to walk, to enable parents and children to be strong and to take control of their lives and yet at the same time for us to assess, monitor and advise while not disempowering. It can be a complete mind f****! But it can be done using empathy, understanding and a few tools and skills. That way lies some salvation for us as workers because we can actually do this job and feel each day that we have done a good job. No, don't laugh! It's true!
"Wonderful! Refreshing to see in my already jaded opinion of social work only two years into training. Kerri."
I know what you mean about feeling jaded Kerri, it can seem like an oppressive, painful and meaningless job at times. But what we do and the way that we do it is filled with meaning for the people who need our support. Obviously the relationships that we build with service users is often vital for their sense of wellbeing - no matter what they feel about it. And it is up to us as professionals to make that relationship a functional one. That can be extremely hard to do with service users who don't want the relationship. But it can be done.If they are resistant, we have to change.
It is all too easy to end up thinking that there is a 'them and us' scenario and the gap gets wider and wider until we feel we are dealing with a different species. In reality they and we are the same, we all want the same things, love, peace, calm, sex, happiness, food, warmth, money, holidays, fun, friends and so on. The only difference is that we are usually a bit further on the way to achieving many of those things. When you think like that you end up envying some aspects of service users lives, for me, I often envy their stronger friendships, communities and family ties and so on. When you work from this place, a place where we are all the same, then you can really start to build a real partnership and a therapeutic alliance with the families you work with.
Unfortunately as we all know, the formal and informal systems that we have to work within often have values that are at odds with the concept of building helping relationships. That can leave workers fighting against the tide of services users, colleagues and systems. But let's face it, social work is about challenging disabling systems and empowering service users.
Maybe that means that we have to learn better skills that can help people to communicate, maybe it just means talking about service users strengths in Case Conferences and supervision instead of just rolling out the usual problem focused talk. What it does always mean is that systems disempower individuals. Now that's not always a bad thing, but it usually is.
That is the thin line that child protection workers have to walk, to enable parents and children to be strong and to take control of their lives and yet at the same time for us to assess, monitor and advise while not disempowering. It can be a complete mind f****! But it can be done using empathy, understanding and a few tools and skills. That way lies some salvation for us as workers because we can actually do this job and feel each day that we have done a good job. No, don't laugh! It's true!
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