Journal of Social Work

In the few social work publications dedicated to exploring phenomenological philosophical concepts, embodiment or the lived body, promoted especially by phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty, seems to have received special attention. Roughly, and according to a phenomenological philosophical perspective, the lived body signifies a mind–body unity that is believed to constitute acts of human perception, including social perception. This article aims to critically appraise three accounts of embodiment in social work literature, focusing on issues of application for the sake of clarifying the value and relevance of applied phenomenology in social work practice. After providing an overview of the reception of phenomenology in the social work literature, and introducing the three cases to be explored and their respective application of Merleau-Ponty's concept of the lived body, the article discusses Merleau-Ponty's own view on phenomenology, followed by a critical discussion of the three cases.

An applied phenomenology of embodiment turns out to be an ambiguous proposal, while simultaneously posing a challenge to the common-sense notion of professional reflection in face-to-face interaction between professional and client. The value of applying a phenomenology of embodiment to social work practice must arguably correspond to the question of how the lived body of the professional is disclosed reflectively in the encounter with other bodies, rather than simply how professionals adopt a theory to make sense of bodily experience at work.

This article contributes to clarifying the social situatedness of professional reflection, while also strengthening the case for phenomenological social work by exploring issues of application.

The article presents findings of an ethnographic study carried out in Poland with homeless people living on the street and in a hostel. Interpretative orientation was used to ensure the opportunity to gain in-depth knowledge about their perspectives. The paper has two aims. First, it reconstructs the limits and risks of “(un)helpful help” and its impact on experiences of stigma. Second, it addresses how good intentions and policy efforts can have negative consequences, drawing on data from two separate research studies. The first research included seven male homeless people living on city streets. The second was carried out with 20 homeless people served by an agency working for homeless people. A qualitative methodology was employed for this critical ethnography, according to which the authors analyzed the data using a constructivist grounded theory approach.

The research revealed a number of support measures which, instead of positively changing their situation from the participants’ points of view, can exacerbate it by further stigmatizing homeless people with support based on helpers’ stigmatizing approaches which can compound homeless people's negative experiences of “help.”

An understanding of the mechanisms of structural and systemic stigmatization from the participants’ perspectives can help shift responsibility for their situation away from homeless people themselves toward society's responsibility as a whole. It highlights how there needs to be a change of consciousness and approaches within assistance systems, shifting the balance from an asymmetrical to a symmetrical relationship based on partnership and collaboration.

Incited by the United Nations adoption and ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, social workers are prompted to increasingly pursue an inclusion-focused approach. Our research was carried out in the Netherlands and sought to identify social work practices conducive to fostering social inclusion, in this case with respect to adults with mild intellectual disabilities. For 2½ years, a responsive methodology was employed in a combined action and social design research. Sixteen social workers and five people with intellectual disabilities were involved. The study was conducted in three different settings across the Netherlands, both rural and urban.

Three social work practices were captured that generate social inclusion: agency, advocacy, and intrapreneurship.

Identification of generative practices provides guidance to social workers in shaping the promotion of social inclusion. It provides guidance in reflecting on past and current inclusion-focused social work performance, it may encourage social workers to adopt inclusion-focused pathways inspired by agency, advocacy and intrapreneurship, and knowledge of generative practices toward social inclusion can help to specify social workers’ competencies.

Children's social care services can be a challenging place to work, with staff regularly reporting higher stress levels relative to the general population and other public sector settings. Thus, it is important to provide staff with good support. Previously, we completed a randomised controlled trial (RCT) of Schwartz Rounds (SRs) and reported a series of non-statistically significant differences between intervention and comparison groups. We also undertook a process evaluation, to identify enablers and barriers to the successful implementation of SRs in children's social care.

Compared with studies of SRs in healthcare settings, we identified several similar enablers, such as senior management buy-in and effective administrative support, and some similar barriers, such as high workloads and poor publicity. We also identified specific enablers and barriers for social care settings, including the synergy between existing practice models and SRs, the nature of trauma in social care compared with healthcare, and some related to the different nature of organisational and workload pressures.

Understanding the differences between SRs in healthcare and social care will be useful for local authorities who may want to support their staff via the provision of SRs. They should also be useful in any future definitive evaluation of SRs for social care by helping to maximise the possibility for a successful implementation.

There has been increased attention on the performance of social work researchers and strategies for strengthening the connection between research and practice. However, little is known about the research culture of social work discipline groups within universities and what contributes to a sustainable high-performance culture. Twenty experienced social work researchers from Australian universities were recruited and participated in qualitative interviews. Informed by a critical realist perspective, participants shared what they perceive as influencing social work research culture in university settings.

Participants reflected on the beliefs, values, and behaviors contributing to a positive research culture in universities and social work discipline groups. Four key themes were developed: research culture is enhanced when there is a cadre of research-qualified staff; collaboration enhances research culture; time for research needs to be protected; and the professional narrative about social work research influences research culture in universities. Precarious employment for research staff, limited focus on research training in social work qualifying degrees and workloads that focus primarily on administration and teaching were seen as inhibitors of research culture.

Attracting and retaining high-performing social work researchers assist in setting benchmarks for research performance, strengthening the quality and purpose of research training, supporting junior colleagues to navigate research systems, and creating opportunities for collaboration. While multidisciplinary collaborations within a particular field can sometimes detract from a focus on research culture in social work, they can also raise performance expectations and strengthen positioning for competitive grants.

Meetings to enhance shared decision-making, such as family group conferences, potentially contribute to enhancing meaningful involvement of families. Such meetings are also claimed by some to reduce the need for children to be in care, either by increasing support from family for parents or by identifying care from within the family network. This rapid realist review aims to develop an understanding of how meetings that facilitate shared decision-making between professionals and families might work to safely reduce the need for children to be in care. It identifies mechanisms that are thought to make a difference and contextual factors that influence the impact of identified mechanisms.

A comprehensive search of academic and gray literature identified 64 documents spanning seven types of shared decision-making meetings. Data from these papers were collected using an iterative process of juxtaposition, comparison, contrast, and combination with a developing program theory. Data from the literature was supplemented with consultation to ensure relevance to the UK setting. The review identified three key mechanisms that made shared decision-making meetings more likely to be effective in safely reducing children's entry to care: enabling participation and engagement; building trust and reducing shame; enabling participation in decision-making processes. It describes how these work before, during, and after meetings.

The findings help us understand the complicated research findings about the relationship between meetings and care entry and provide a theory about what is needed to make such meetings work that is of practical use for practice and future research