Daily Archives: February 9, 2023

Podcast Show Notes: Stephen talks to George Bull about risk in light of the murder of Arthur

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Social Work Shorts (Episode 25): Insights #8

In the latest episode of the Social Work Podcast Insights series Stephen and George talk about risk in light of the murder of Arthur and the media response to the Social Work Profession.

Here is the podcast – click this link

We acknowledge this is a difficult topic and that there may be a range of views. It would be good to have a discussion over on our Discord
Server which you can link to at this link Social Works Shorts brings you Social Work UK on Discord
You will need to download the app and/or create an account

Below are show notes. You need to listen to the podcast and use these notes in conjunction with each other.

Risky terms

Risk – the probability of a FUTURE event.

Uncertainty – future events that  cannot be assigned a probability.

Now – if it’s happening ‘now’ there is no Risk it is happening 100%

Likelihood – the probability of a past event occurring in a specific way – i.e The likelihood of the father causing the injury (in the past)

Irreducible uncertainty/risk – the element in any assessment that cannot be captured despite endless time and infinite resources. (Stephen Webb)

Hardboiled social work

Assuming your instinct and practice experience are enough , with absence of best evidence and professional theory etc.

The Chart

In the chart the curves can be thought of as the group of all children who don’t need a social worker and those that do (in red)

Since life is complex and messy no test could ever separate these groups totally , even when there is a scientific /clinical test we cannot e.g CoviD-19. So, in a test based on opinion and judgement this zone of ambiguity will likely be much higher. In setting our thresholds we only have the following choices –

a – reduce the number of children we miss (false negatives) to as low as possible. This increases the number of unneeded interventions.

b – reduce the number of children we remove or assess but don’t need to (false positives) this would increase the number of children who will suffer harm as they have missed social work intervention (false negatives)

c – attempt to reduce the red area – for example Leeds Councils model of early help that has reduced Looked After Children numbers. This reduces the whole red section i.e. both false positive and false negatives. #Landscape shift.

The numbers on the chart

1 – this point in the chart is where False positives are very high as we set the threshold very low for intervention removal.

2 – is a mid way point with a proportion of false positives and false negatives , but also true negative and positives

3 – is where we only remove or become involved with children who need Social Work involvement and no children that don’t. Highly specific, however we miss some children who need Social Work (false negatives)

Example Airports want their security to be highly sensitive. They want to double check every shampoo bottle or phone battery is not a bomb for example.  So they set the test level to be low when scanning bags thus incurring  a lot of unneeded checks.

How many children is it worth removing (that don’t need to be) to prevent another tragic death?  A very challenging ethical question

Queens Professor of Risk Sir David Spiegelhalter and Brian “it’s amazing” Cox discuss risk and Bayes.

Link to the Community Care article mentioned

Zahawi: take children into care when ‘any inkling of harm’

Academic referencing: Durham’s Moon, Nuclear Weapons, Avengers and middle aged man returns to University.

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After a 13 year break I have returned to University to complete an Education Masters at Sunderland.   This week I have been writing my first essay and returned to the business of academic referencing.

My  inner free child has been screaming variously, “why bother” “don’t the lecturers already know all this”. Then my adult subliminal voice replies, “it’s just the academic game just play along like a good boy”.

So is there real value to this referencing malarkey? I’ve got two stories that may persuade you that there is.

On Saturday all the family visited the Moon at Durham Cathedral. I would recommend people go and see and enjoy the beautiful stark but strangely fitting scene of the moon floating about at the front of the cathedral. In a brief conversation with my son about the weight of the Moon (yes I meant mass science nerds) I was roused by a thought about who was buried at the back of the church and the importance to this massive lunar bauble.

As you enter the church the moon, you can’t miss it, is to the left, but to the right is buried one of England’s and the North’s true heroes St Bede the venerable.

Born in Jarra entering the monastery at 12, he is known as the father of English history, a poet, scientist, mathematician, astronomer, statesman and more or less he is the reason why the year is 2021 today and we celebrate Easter when we do.

Bede like all good scientists took the data from previous works , made clear his sources, then verified, improved and reevaluated at each step his findings all with an open and critical mind.

Whilst calculating the dates of the moveable feast that is Easter Bede made a stunning connection,

It is as if [the ocean] were dragged forwards against its will by certain exhalations of the Moon, and when her power ceases, it is poured back again into his proper measure. (Wallis 1999)

Durham is a really small city and it must have more classists, historians and religious thinkers per head than anywhere else in England.

So how have they honoured this amazing connection between Bede who is buried at one side of its cathedral and a massive moon at the other. Well nothing…. no mention no reference no link. Does Bede’s legacy not deserve even a mention? I often wonder if he lived 300/400 years later and studied in Oxford would he be seen on a similar footing to Newton or Darwin, both similarly motivated by religious views of the universe in their works.

To put right  this injustice we just need a reference……………

Apart from getting angry about moons and long dead saints this week I also enjoyed an episode of Melvin Bragg’s podcast In Our Time. Quite simply if you’re interested in a topic and you don’t start here you have made a wrong turn.

The episode I listened to was the about the Manhattan project (Bragg, M 2021) , the amazing story of how the nuclear bomb was built, with the most incredible part being that the first experimental paper was wrote in the University of Manchester only in 1939 (Meitner, Lise; Frisch, O. R. (1939)) (detailing the potential of a uranium reaction causing an explosion) and the bomb was built tested and dropped in 1945 (a mere 6 years). No scientific endeavour has ever moved at a faster pace, conflict leading to creation then destruction.

To create the bomb the US army assembled the equivalent of the Avengers of scientists to work secretly in the New Mexico desert (ala Breaking Bad, both near hot dog jumping frog Alberquere, Prefab sprout 1988);

Oppenheimier, The American Prometheus,( Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin (2005)), 
Feynman , The Raconteur, surely your joking Mr Feynman, Feynman (1985 )
Bohr, Master of the Atom
Fermi, The pope of physics, The last man who knew everything,Schwart D, }(2017)
Schwartz, David. (2017). The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age. Basic Books, December 2017.

N.B The person who formed the ‘Avengers’ despite not actually joining up with them in the research was a certain Albert Einstein, I guess he was somewhere between Dr Strange and Charles Xavier .

However it is not with these amazing characters  that the next vignette focuses on its another forgotten hero (like Bede) this unassuming fella Georgy Florov. Never heard of him (I hadn’t) well he may possibly saved us all from a nuclear holocaust.

Georgy was part of the soviet airforce in WW2 and despite them fighting against the Nazi’s along with the Americans they were highly suspicious of their capitalist frenemies and endeavoured to match them step for step in every possible endeavour (the space race to the moon being an example).

Georgy prior to entering the airforce was a scientist in the emerging field of atomic reactions and energy. He left his studies for the war effort at a time of great development in the subject. In 1942 he was summoned for a guest lecture in Kazan.  Georgy’s  scientific curiosity lead him almost straight to the library after his lecturer to discover how his field had progressed whilst he had been away at his military outpost.

Once in the  library he looked for journals and references over the past few years in particle physics, strangely he could find nothing. Not a scrap was published from any of the ‘Avengers’ that I listed above, i.e the greatest minds and experimenters in their field.

How could this fertile rapidly emerging field not produce any papers or any new references in the past few years especially from all these big hitters in the prime of their academic lives. Georgy moved the chess pieces in is head and came to the conclusion that the academic silence meant that the Americans where developing the bomb and they had pulled all the top minds into a secret operation.

Georgy wrote to Stalin in the clearest possible terms,

“We must immediately build the uranium bomb without delay”

Thus began the soviet nuclear programme and the cold war.

Without paining too much over the game theory Hawk v Hawk explanation of how Georgy may of saved us all here  is a causal explanation.

  1. Nazi’s surrender may 1945, never developing a nuclear bomb
  2. USA develop the bomb and use it at Hirsohima and Nagaskai August 1945
  3. Eisenhower considers using bomb again in Korean war of 1953 against communist China.
  4. USA decides against using bomb as Communist USSR may retaliate.
  5. In the Cold war and subsequent wars nuclear bombs are not used. MAD (mutually assured destruction) becomes the logical position if super powers use their weapons against one another.

…….. no Georgy no MAD.

So be like Bede and Georgy and not like Durham Cathedral, value the references – the work that has come before. Scaffold your own work on what has come before, pay your academic dues. If you don’t you might also miss something as obvious as a giant 23ft floating Moon right next to the burial site of Bede.

This mature student tried his best in his first essay in 15 years ……..

As a fun task how many of the people mentioned in this essay have chemical elements named after them.

Bibliogrpahy

Bragg, M. (2021) In Our Time: Manhattan project. [Podcast]. 01 November. Available at: [Podcast]. 01 November 2021. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00108h11 November

FEYNMAN, . (1985). “Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman!”: adventures of a curious character. New York, W.W. Norton

Kai Bird and Martin Sherwin (2005), American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. Alfred A. Knopf, 2005

Meitner, Lise; Frisch, O. R. (1939). “Disintegration of Uranium by Neutrons: a New Type of Nuclear Reaction”. Nature. 143 (3615): 239–

Prefab Sprout (1988) “King of Rock and Roll, Album from Langley to Memphis”,  Label KitchenWare

Schwartz, David. (2017). The Last Man Who Knew Everything: The Life and Times of Enrico Fermi, Father of the Nuclear Age. Basic Books, December 2017.

Wallis, Faith (1999). Bede: The Reckoning of Time. Liverpool University Press. ISBN 0853236933.

Student zone: Take note(s)… a skilful art!

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People climbing books. isolated on white background. Vector illustration. Eps 10

What is at the root of academic success.

As a lecturer in Social Work at Sunderland University I get to talk to, listen to, and observe students going about their business. I watch them in my lectures writing copious notes generally thinking, ‘my goodness! Don’t write down and rely on anything I say!’ Self deprecating humour is my go to place! Such things lead me to consider note taking and academic success. I myself often take notes and having read the wonderful book ‘How to Take Smart Notes’ by Sonke Ahrens, I realise there’s more to it than meets the eye. My musings here are largely from or driven by that book. Here are some things to consider.

IQ does not drive academic success – what drives academic success is what you do day in day out

In order to learn you must strategise your learning – it’s not something that happens by chance. What leads to success is how you go about your everyday work and what you do day in day out will affect the quality of your assignments, rather than just what you do when you’re writing the assignment.

Success depends on the environment you create externally and internally

Where you work and how you work – and how you feel about work – will dictate the quality of the work. There’s a well researched phenomena which goes that if you work in a cluttered environment you will think in a ‘cluttered’, messy, way. This applies not only to your desk but also to where you store your files, how you structure your folders on your computer, and generally how you go about storing all manner of things that you need to support your success. Your internal environment is also important. How you feel on the inside. Do you feel alert or tired, sluggish or enthusiastic? Have you set an effective approach goal? Approach goals are about setting positive thoughts in motion. Students who set avoidance goals – ‘I just don’t want to fail’ – rather than positive approach goals – ‘I want to do my best’ – actually do worse in assignments research has shown as a consequence of this avoidance thinking. Positive mental attitude isn’t a silver bullet but it sets out a pathway.

Learning is cumulative and connected

When we’re taking notes and reading books and generally going about our business of studying we need to connect our ideas in some sort of system so that we can see what links to what because, as you may have noticed, ideas are connected and build on each other. Theory influences practice, practice helps us consider methods, methods are influenced by theory – and so it goes. If you watch University Challenge you’ll spot that sometimes they know the answer but often they don’t but they work it out from other things they know.

Insight only comes from exposing yourself to volume of material

I often say at induction events and during lectures that those who do the best are those that read the most. You have to expose yourself to a range of ideas and often to the same idea in different places until you hit a light bulb moment. You have to put the graft in. If you wanted to grow bigger biceps you couldn’t get someone else to go to the gym for you and do barbell curls you’d have to go to the gym yourself and you’d have to go more than once!

Notes

When it comes to taking notes there are two key places to consider

In Lectures

When Reading

In Lectures

Firstly, we can’t multitask effectively. If you are trying to write everything down then you risk missing what’s been said. Whatever you do in class or when watching a video lecture be in that moment – phone away and on silent, distractions eliminated. Don’t try to capture everything – capture only the key points. Use bullet points and short phrases to signpost yourself to further reading.

Note down things you didn’t understand (ask questions in class if you can) and then follow up with reading the things you found difficult – you will find things difficult that’s fine!

Do these things:

  • Arrive in time to be settled
  • Title and date your notes
  • Be ready to focus completely – set a positive attitude – a positive approach goal
  • Develop abbreviations for yourself that you always use to speed things up when note taking
  • Highlight, underline, and capitalise to add emphasis to key points etc. I use arrows to connect points a lot
  • Use headings and sub headings. Have one point per line and leave gaps to add things in

Then, crucially, return to your notes    

The important thing to do is to go back to them as soon after class as possible and review and re-write them adding in other things you remember and then using the guided reading (where there is some),or relevant texts you find yourself, to embellish and enhance what you have noted down. You should undertake this review within 24 hours – sooner if you can. So plan this time into your calendar. This cements learning. Repetition is everything.

Review your notes periodically. When you type up the next notes look through all of the previous notes – this establishes those connections – write the connections down!

When Reading

Read with pen in hand and note or underline (not on the library books obs! Maybe use post-it notes). Once you’ve done this you must do something with these notes and underlines

Be aware that reading is a skill. Different texts require different approaches, some take longer to read, some can be scanned through, and when reading some you need to go off and look things up that you don’t understand. This is completely normal. Don’t panic.

Write up your notes and underlines
Your on-going understanding is reliant on external scaffolding. If you want to really understand something turn it into your own words. Just copying down quotes can risk stripping them of their context and therefore their meaning (and can risk plagiarism). Always write down the outcome of your thinking. This is about having a meaningful personal dialogue with the text.

Writing down is not a record of your thinking it is your thinking
“I’m never sure what I think until I see what I write” Carol Loomis (American Journalist)

Take notes…. consolidate notes…. read your notes… connect your notes…. tell it to yourself (I do this when I’m walking the dog! In my head not out loud!)

Deliberate practice is the only serious way of becoming better at what we are doing. To be good at writing you don’t just write when you have an assignment to do – you need to practice writing, and you can do that when sorting out your notes into a meaningful system!

Stephen is a Lecturer in Social Work at University of Sunderland. He’s a bit obsessed with self-care, well-being and productivity and writes about those things on here in the productivity section and on our sister site Self Care Shorts

Efficiency, Slack and Social Work – Featuring Pareto, Cost Co and Privatisation.

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There is a war raging in UK social work presently.  To name a few of the various battle fronts – the COVID recovery, rising inequality, the lurking shadow of increased privatization and increased levels of professional disaffection.

Sometimes as social workers we feel we are not doing enough of the right work with the right people and families. How do we provide good services within a turgid economic background, even with a sizable expansion in spending demand on our services will outstrip what we can ‘produce’.

Luckily our government have hired the wise Josh MacAlister to sweep away these issues….. And they all lived happily ever after etc.

To provide a different slant on the challenges I would like to consider the economic concept of Efficiency, (as I type I feel the combined vampiric recoil like I have just brandished a wooden crucifix or clove of garlic)

Efficiency and business speak is the bane of many of the caring professions, but I hope to offer a fresh context and embolden social workers strengthening their hand with some economic battle armour.

Economics can be looked at as the science of scarcity, how to maximize impact from a limited set of existing resources.  Imagine you are the head of Social Care at a local authority, you have a budget normally in the £100’s of millions. How do you best allocate these resources to maximize their impact, across adults, education, mental health and childrens’ services?

Well, this question only leads to a further question – what impact is desirable ,what specific moral choice should we work towards.?

As social workers surely, we are looking to maximize positive lasting change.

The easy place to start our exploration of the history of efficiency is Scottish economist Adam Smith (he of the ‘wealth of nations’ 1776). His famous example was the producing of pins. Smith visited a pin factory that employed ten men each given one or two tasks out of a set of 18 (the total number of steps to make a pin). By specializing and using the correct tools they could produce 48,000 per day, if each worker made a pin from start to finish they would produce only 1-3 pins maximum each.

If only social work was as simple as the pin making production line, I would not have much to write about…..

There are 4 models of efficiency I feel worthy of exploration out of which I’ll attempt to squeeze something useful for Social Work.

Efficiency No.1 – Pareto Efficiency.

You think we have a hard job as social workers? Try founding data led economic and social sciences in Mussolini’s Italy, or further still being the El Duche’s Lecturer and growing one of the best hipster beards around! I give you Vilfredo Pareto.

Pareto’s take on efficiency focuses our minds on the marginal decision i.e., the impact of the next £1. If I had an extra £1 to spend as head of service, I would not spend it (rationally) on service X if I can get better impact with service Y (even if the difference is slight). If every pound is spent to this rule we have reached an efficient outcome. The imaginary local authority could not get a better outcome with any other spending configuration.

This is known as a Pareto optimal outcome. If the head of service changes the spending plan there would be a winner and a loser, a service or a family would gain, and one would lose out.  If I take funds from leaving care and divert them to disabilities, leaving care will suffer and disabilities will gain, for example.

Pareto efficiency, or Pareto optimality, is an economic state where resources cannot be reallocated to make one individual better off without making at least one individual worse off.

Such a perfect situation exists only in economic text books, however I feel it is useful as a Occam’s razor type rule regarding resource allocation,  the effective sharing of resources between Early Help and Child Protection being one prime example.

Efficiency No.2 – Social Work Management Speak (MS) efficiency.

(This is my made-up efficiency)

At this point it is important to highlight that when we hear of efficiency typically in our industry it only means costs savings – Cuts.

I feel a fair definition could be….

Social Work Efficiency (MS). The reduction of costs without a perceived reduction in statutory service delivery.

Perhaps more cynically how far can you reduce costs without OFSTED cottoning on – or more dramatically being put into special measures and possibly being taken over by an arms-length private provider.

The danger of looking only at costs savings above all else will never end well. Paradoxically in this case it will end up in inefficiency and ultimate failure, which in our industry can destroy people and families lives. Cost savings and their impact could be easily managed in Adams Smiths pin factory, with staff turnover and the daily number of pins produced likely to be the only considerations. Social care is far more complex with endless unintended consequences for families and communities. A golden rule is a measure i.e. cost saving cannot become a surrogate for running a good and efficient service  (Goodharts Law)

Efficiency No.3 X- Efficiency and Privatization.

When tenders become available (for example to run a children’s home), firms will compete to win the bid which in the current climate will be the offering the lowest possible price whilst providing an acceptable standard in relation to statutory duties (MS efficiency)

The biggest firms will be able to bid the lowest and still make profits as their costs (HR department’s, management pay etc) will be spread across more contracts than a much smaller company. This process leads only to, bigger winners winning bigger and bigger, so the care system could end up like the UK supermarket industry with a few big players and thousands of tiny corner shops. Already ½ of all Independent Fostering Agency placements nationally are offered by just 6 providers. This has created obvious monopolistic concerns.

X efficiency is where, due to lack of competition or collusion of pricing or non-aggressively battling through contracts, firms can artificially increase their price and not offer creative solutions. Simply why would a dominant firm with a slick pitch team and a slew of attractive national contracts seek to innovate with risky new practices and look to reduce its prices

Josh MacAlisterhas in his part of the care view asked these providers to reduce their costs. I wonder if kind words will win or  the Darwinian truism of hawks relentlessly eating up the doves till there are no doves left be the victor – I’ll hold my breath.

Boring chart lovers behold…….

Efficiency has an Evil Twin (as seen by managers) Slack.

Slack I feel can offer a further useful analysis for social care.

Let’s start this story like all good stories in the aisle of “stack ‘em high sell ‘em cheap” warehouse store CostCo.

Imagine walking round in CostCo not being able to find what you were looking for, faced with long queues and miserable unhelpful staff, other customers wandering around aimlessly , not buying as much as they once did . This was the case 15 years ago with the giant retailer due to management suits demanding it be as efficient or as Lean as possible. Staffing was cut to an absolute minimum, wages as low as possible to pump up its profits and the share price higher and higher.

Well, turns out the Jack Sprat (no fat) school of economics just leaves unhappy customers and staff feeling undervalued, underpaid, and over worked.

Costco turned this situation around through the leadership of their now CEO Craig Jelinek.

Craig’s CV is a short one, he started at CostCo in 1984, over the next 40 years working in nearly every position he became the heartbeat of their culture.  When he got the reins at the top, he increased staffing (number of workers) and wages to $16 per hour (US min is $7.64). He kept the famous loss making $1.5 hot dog and soda deal and in short introduced “slack” in the system.

Slack in this sense meant paying more and having more staff on the shop floor way more than traditional efficiency would say was optimal. The outcome was a WIN for the markets and profits, the lowest staff turnover of any retailer in America (7% compared to industry average of 60%) and happy customers who keep coming back.

In Short Slack created success, the extra bits outside the boring economic charts or profit projections. Jelinek took an economic risk albeit based on 40 years of grinding hard work and getting to know every dusty corner of the business.

It is in the SLACK that us social workers do our best work, whilst record keeping, and timely assessments are a part of the story (despite what management say it is not 100% of the story).

NO Service user has ever said,

“It was when the IRO explained point 13 on the CP plan that the penny dropped and I made the changes I need to make for my family”

Slack sits outside bureaucracy and measurement and on the other side professional procrastination and laziness.  This sweet spot, after we have completed our quota of recordings and assessments to a reasonable level, is where the social work gold dust happens.  The extra human connection, the turn of phrase, the creative idea and that positive risk that was taken – this is social work. If social work services are cut to the minimum in the spirt of efficiency we will pay the cost.

If CostCo can do it bloody hell – so can we! Let’s arm ourselves with this jargon, challenge the glib smoke screen of efficiency savings, ask questions about private providers. If they are charging more ask why where is the additional value?

CostCo’s good example came from embracing their culture and a leader who has walked in every employee’s shoes, there are no short cuts to these type of wins that’s why there aren’t many examples in the business world.

For efficiency’s sake here are some take away messages

  1. Efficiency comes in many forms not just cost cutting.
  2. Economics must come into play when we have scare resources and competing demands.
  3. Slack is the space where we do our best work as Social workers and is therefore the antithesis of privatization and Management speak.
  4. Whilst SLACK can be championed by private companies like CostCo there are no shortcuts – the wisdom is hard and long won.  Private providers in our industry I feel are bereft of this thoughtful culture.
  5. The danger of bigger winners winning bigger and bigger is creeping nearer to social workers. We need to gear our thinking up to slay this beast, so don’t be frightened to learn a little ‘Biz’ jargon to fight for what you believe in.

About the writer…..

George Bull

George has been a social worker for 10 years working mainly in child protection and Early Help. He has lectured with Jamie Scorer at New College Durham, University of Sunderland and University of Northumbria in solution focused practice.

Voices: Our Scars

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In the second of our ‘Voices’ we are delighted to introduce you to Miranda. Miranda writes prose and poetry that is born out of her personal life experiences and her observations through practice with others. She illuminates places and events from the inside-out.

Our Scars

They didn’t mean to do it. Not really.

Characters larger than life who just didn’t belong in a row of terraced housing in Leeds. My mum liked to waft around in her kaftan, gin and tonic in hand. My dad had a red face and a loud laugh and always sat at the head of the table and held court.

In the early days the house was always full. Parties every night, everyone bursting at the seams. My dad’s voice could be heard right down at number 32 at the bottom of the hill. Reckless hilarity playing out often until 6am. It was hard for my brother and me as we had to be up for school. After no sleep we would climb over the bodies on the stairs and into the kitchen carnage to make some breakfast. Often to find there was no food. Always an array of empty bottles on the counters and the floors. Once my brother sliced his foot open on some broken glass. We had to call Mrs Zimmer next door who took him to the hospital. We couldn’t wake mum and dad.

Those were the fun times. Dad was changeable like the weather. On his sunny days he would grab us as we ran past and pull us onto his knee. Tickle us until we couldn’t breathe. Smother us with whisky kisses. Slap us affectionately around the head until we saw bright lights and sharp pains. Then tell us to piss off. Sometimes he came home (from his mysterious ‘work’) with bulging bags of boiled sweets. Or a crisp 10 pound note each. Other times he came home with a rough beard and dark circles under his eyes. Then he would just go to sleep. Mum would mutter under her breath something about whores. We never really knew where we were with dad. I guess that made it more exciting. I know my brother was really scared of him.

We knew that he hit mum. Sometimes she would have a black eye or a bruise on her cheek. She would try to hide it with make up or sunglasses. She would say that she had walked into the door. To some people my mum may have seemed invisible. She was fragile like china. To us she was like an ethereal fairy queen. Pale and beautiful. Bewitching and detached. To be admired from a distance. She tried to be a warrior in the end. Rising up to triumph in the face of adversity. Not easy after two bottles of Vodka.

My brother and I had to lie to our teacher. She often asked if we had eaten breakfast. Once she asked us if our washing machine had broken. Another time she gave me some shiny shoes and said that her daughter had grown out of them. Looking back I think she was worried about us. Life wasn’t perfect but we muddled through.

Until that day. The day everything changed.

Mum and dad had been to the pub. Their days of wild parties had diminished. Dad looked worn now like an old overcoat. He hung in loose folds. Mum was lined and her face was hard. She didn’t speak very often. Well not to us anyway. Her shine had gone. We always tried to hide when they came back from the pub. We would stay in the shadows while my dad’s face grew redder and we knew what was coming. Mum would stand and wait for the punch. He would usually miss. After nine pints of lager and four whisky chasers he was a poor aim.

We watched as she threw something over dad. It all happened in slow motion like a bad film. I ran in and tried to push her over as she lit the match. Dad would have gone up in flames but my brother pulled him out of the back door and he landed on the rosemary bush. I wasn’t quite so fortunate. I didn’t actually ignite. Just smouldered a bit. I remember the pain. I remember the screams. Mrs Zimmer’s face leaning over me with her mouth open. I must have looked bad. Fade out.

I was in hospital for several weeks I think. It was all a bit of a blur. My brother came every day. He cried a lot and said that we had a new home. Mr and Mrs Blake. He said they always made breakfast. Mum and dad had disappeared. He wasn’t sure where they were. No one was really telling him anything. He had heard Mrs Blake and the social worker talking about a court case. I don’t think he really wanted to know.

That was my brother all over. He left number 91 Rigby Terrace that day with emotional scars. I left with a melted cheekbone and singed eyelashes.

If the content of this article has led you to think you need support or someone to talk to then the organisations listed below at the links provided can offer such services. Please do contact one of these organisations if you feel you need help

Samaritans – Mental Health At Work

https://www.samaritans.org/

https://www.womensaid.org.uk/domestic-abuse-directory/

Home | Refuge Domestic Abuse Helpline

https://www.nationaldahelpline.org.uk/

https://www.mensaid.co.uk/

DesignStudio rebrands Mind with focus on social change | Design Week

https://www.mind.org.uk/

Social Work and Poverty Echoes through Time, Stewart, Sterling and Situated Choice

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1895 London, Mary Stewart walks into work in her new role as hospital almoner (churchy term for some one that gives out charity/alms to poor). With this the profession of social work was born.

Mary, made referrals, conducted home visits, trained aspiring social workers, battled against bureaucracy, worked with drug and alcohol misuse, mental health problems and child abuse.

Sound familiar?

Mary’s work had a laser focus on poverty, with her work based on hospital patients that were too poor to afford treatment (the NHS coming 60 years later).  She saw poverty as a major causal factor, heavily linked to health and wellbeing and the safety of children.

It seems after hiring the services of the Third Sector ‘007’ Josh McAllister and this week the publishing of Kingston upon Hull University’ findings we have amazingly come to the same conclusion as the first social worker 125 years ago.  The Hull report found that Children in the poorest areas are 14 times more likely to be referred to social care than children in the richest areas.  Simply, its not who your parents or family are its your postcode.

Can social work be boiled done to the simplest equation?

POVERTY = bad outcomes for children and families + Social Care intervention.

Mary’s work chronicled the lives of London’s poor in her own recording system, The Almoner’s Handbook. It highlighted poor living conditions, lack of funds to purchase quality nutritious food and a lack of social and employment opportunities.

Imagine Mary working solo in one of the biggest cities in the world, on a daily basis observing the relentless anguish caused by poverty but being powerless to change the labour market, housing, the price of alcohol or the availability of fresh fruit and vegetables.

Are we equally stuck in 2021 as social workers, merely typing up the misery of people’s lives into computers with no leverage to hack at the root causes of poverty? 

Despite being a trailblazer Mary was still a product of her time and the discrimination of the deserving and undeserving poor was evident throughout her work.

In one example she refused to assist a Lady who was found to be “gossiping in the street”, whilst another who was extremely grateful to speak to Mary received a waterbed, free GP visits, and a trip to the seaside. However, let’s not pretend as social workers we don’t find it easier to advocate for families that we have a better connection with or are in some way fond of.

Or should we ask our selves a harder question? Is sexual abuse, emotional harm and domestic violence evenly spread in households regardless of income.  For example, the middle-class professional father who enacts such violence on his wife and children and then often himself, is strangely never regarded as a social care issue.

Are there any answers?

Our Assessments

There is now an extensive evidence base in the UK around the impact of poverty including, life expectancy decline, limited healthy life expectancy, poor health outcomes for children, problematic mental health, and poor social mobility. 

Yet do we own this evidence in our assessments? Do we in our analysis place the responsibility solely on parents, when our Child Protection caseloads are often situated (the vast majority of the time) on a select few estates in our Local Authorities rather than spread equally or randomly.

To call this out I feel we need to be brave and start using sentences such as the following in our assessments,

Whilst these parents have made negative choices and are responsible for the consequences these have had on their children, the impact of poverty and poor access to mental health services and improved work prospects have had a demonstrable negative impact on this vulnerable family.

Whilst the interventions offered have improved some aspects of parenting capacity, the lack of good schooling, positive local role models and access to pro social activities are likely to play a far greater role in the long term outcomes for this family.

As Kingston upon hull (2021) have evidenced this families poor financial circumstances have increased their prospects of being involved with social care and having concerns investigated irrespective of any individual features or characteristics.

Whilst this feels a radical step, if it’s true and evidenced based, are we not duty bound in terms of our professional standards to seek to include this in our work? Or, we are just playing a professional version of the Emperor’s New Clothes fable. Or even worse are we playing Mary Stewarts game of feeling that the families we work with are somehow bad or undeserving of good outcomes.

Situated choice

Micheal Blastland’s book the Hidden Half, raises a potential area that social workers can seek to explore to offer a ladder out of the poverty trap, using the lens of escaping a life of crime.The Hidden Half discusses the Shared Beginnings, Divergent Lives study. The study offered a longitudinal investigation over a 70 year period, with the focus being on following up life outcomes for boys in borstals in the Boston area in the 1940’s.

The basic question was who continued to offend and who turned their lives around despite the bad start. The crucial question, however, was what made the difference in those that turned their back on a life of crime.

Did Mary Stewart wonder about her families that she visited, comparing the ones who did slightly better or managed to get out of the slums with the ones who lived short harsh miserable lives (as the majority did). Possibly like social work Mary never got to see the success stories as they would naturally not be in need of her services as much due to their improved lives.

Micheal Blasland points out that the team, when looking at the data, could find no statistically significant correlation between any variable (education level, zip code, marital status or type of offence).  It seemed it was just the roulette wheel of life – RED or BLACK – return to prison or a happy and long family life.

The researches were totally stuck until they started visiting the 70 year old men by physically tracking them down (no mobile numbers in the 1940’s etc). What they quickly discovered was that the men who never returned to crime each had a story about a ‘Sliding Doors’ moment when they made a clear life choice.

One example was a man returned home to his wife after a hard day at the saw mill –
“I hate this job I could make ten times back in the gang”
To which his wife replied, 
“Quit the job and I quit this marriage”
From that point on the guy stayed in work and was never arrested again.

Others talked about solemn moments where they considered joining the army and made a life changing positive decision for themselves, or hard work and chance encounters offering up opportunities that they grasped with both hands.

In short, they all recalled making life changing situated choices that set them on a different life trajectory.

To give a current example the England forward Raheem Sterling’s success can be tracked down to two situated choices. One, his mother making the decision to leave the family home in a poor and violent area of Jamaica to live in the UK when Raheem was 4 and the other when Raheem’s behaviour was unmanageable at home and a youth worker in a residential project had the idea of a football match in the local park. Should he ask Raheem, could Raheem be bothered to go to the park, are the questions that would of swirled around their heads. The rest is history, Raheem made a positive situated choice when he very easily could have refused.

So, what has this got to do with social work?

I feel the issues we address such as child abuse, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and mental health can often lead to a narrow focus which only serves to narrow the opportunities for positive change. People are never single issues solutions and interventions should not make this mistake.

I would suggest we consider this. When a case is allocated look at how many assessments have predated yours. How many times has the traditional Children Act led intervention been meted out with no or little lasting change?

For example, would the father who has been suffering from depression benefit from an engaging employment skills course or clearing his debt. Are these actions more achievable and more beneficial than a long NHS waiting list and short course of CBT?  Or would a young mother who is socially isolated and struggling with their child’s schooling not benefit from volunteering a few days a week at the child’s school.

Do our interventions open doors up to families or do they just seek to close the Child in Need or Child Protection door behind them when they scrape through our artificial risk threshold. Whilst any intervention we offer can end up in a dead end, should we not seek the ones that would maximize the potential of the individual and their families, supporting situated choices.

Crucially I am not denigrating mental health support and traditional services, I am just suggesting that if we don’t support an expanding of horizons and options for families we are doing no better than Mary Stewart visiting the same poor families to offer help that are living in conditions they have no means to escape from.

As social workers we must believe that all families are deserving of enhanced life options. We need to be willing to explore creative options and take a chance to jointly develop a map out of their current circumstance and hopefully that may create at least some lasting change.

About the writer…..

George Bull

George has been a social worker for 10 years working mainly in child protection and Early Help. He has lectured with Jamie Scorer at New College Durham, University of Sunderland and University of Northumbria in solution focused practice.

Voices: It’s a struggle being poor

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In the first ‘Voices’ that Social Work Shorts would like to bring you this is a testimony from a 38-year-old single mum living in the South of England and is taken from the insightful collection of illuminating and much needed writing in a book created by Dominic Watters (Twitter @SingleDadSW).

You can find the book at this link. 

It’s a struggle being poor

I’m a Dutch national of African descent and single mother of two boys. I have been living and working in the United Kingdom for the past 15 years. I was in a tumultuous relationship for nine years which resulted in my children and myself being made homeless. We were initially placed in a hostel for eight weeks in another borough before my local council rehoused us into a temporary one bed council complex, where we were placed with families who faced similar circumstances that I’ve been experiencing. After three years, I’m currently still waiting to be housed into my permanent place.

I’ve worked at Gatwick Airport for the past 15 years and was made redundant due to the impact Covid had on the airport. During lockdown, not only did I lose my job, my electricity and shopping expenses increased due to the kids being stuck indoors. Prior to when the government finally decided to introduce school meal provisions and the £20 Universal Credit top-up, I succumbed to using my credit card to provide for our basic needs. At times, I had to reach out to the local church for help with food and supplies.

Going through all this, I was also faced with the task of home-schooling my children in an overcrowded space and unable to engage in social activities which has been very challenging. This negative impact has definitely tested my boy’s mental health.

As if this hasn’t been stressful enough, I also endured racist abuse from my new next door neighbour’s boyfriend (they moved in during Covid) who referred to me as the N-word after a violent outburst in the middle of the night. I was both angry and scared for my children and I felt trapped in my own space. I reported this and he has been spoken to by the police. Although I hope this won’t happen again, he’s still there.

It is a real struggle having a narcissistic ex-partner who doesn’t pay child maintenance, myself not being financially secure. Living in half-way housing and trying to keep my sons unaffected has proved to be very testing for my own sanity at times but I’m pleased to say that I have found a new job as a teaching assistant at my boy’s primary school.

Snippet taken from the Social Distance in Social Work: COVID Capsule One

About Social Distance in Social Work: COVID Capsule One

A social work student facing eviction from his home and experiencing food insecurity authored this book in the hope that it could get his voice heard. As a single dad living in a council estate block of flats, Dominic @SingleDadSW lets the reader into an environment drenched in poverty. He invites some of the leading thinkers, practitioners, and people with lived experience of services to discuss the impact of the COVID crisis.

The COVID crisis made everyone aware of keeping their distance from other people because of health concerns, but SingleDadSW was reflecting on the distance between people due to poverty, culture, class, and other factors. Social Distance in Social Work: COVID Capsule One is both an action in the face of destitution, and a collection of notes from the crisis. A collection of pieces that he has curated to tell a story and capture a moment in time.

A book that discusses established and new approaches in Social Work:

  • • Social Justice & Social Distance
  • • Food Poverty & Food Insecurity
  • • Lived Experience & Living Experience
  • • Child Protection & Social Harms
  • • COVID Crisis & Crisis Capitalism
  • • Social Work During the Pandemic

Featuring all exclusive work by Ray Jones, Phil Watson, Brid Featherstone, Cal Webb, Gerry Nosowska, Simon Haworth, Lewis Roberts, Ian Gould and more… and includes a foreword by Ruth Allen, chief executive of BASW.

Book Endorsements

‘A stunning book right from the heart of exciting, newly emerging social work practitioners. At its core is a genuine commitment to the application of rights-based practice made possible by the authors personal, deep understanding of social justice and the impact of structural oppression of poverty.’

Rob Mitchell, principal social worker, co-author of ‘Social Work, Cats & Rocket Science

‘We are a human rights profession. But it can be hard to embed this into everyday practice. This book is a precious and creative contribution to understanding how we can do that.’

Ruth Allen, chief executive of the British Association of Social Work (BASW)

The transition problem – student to practitioner

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In their book ‘The Lost Art of Running’ Shane Benzie and Tim Major talk about research that was undertaken with athletes that sought to explore their running gait and style. The research was conducted indoors on a treadmill so that the researchers could control conditions. They watched the athletes and learnt lots about how they ran and offered suggestions to improve. They runners got better at running.

They then moved outdoors and…. the improvements disappeared. The changes didn’t work the same. Because outdoors – real life if you like – isn’t the same as in the lab. The runners still used what they had learnt but had to re-engineer and, in some cases, relearn some of what they knew. Social Work is the same. What you learn at University and what you learn on placement gets you through the door and you then need to transfer that knowledge into the real world of practice.

Croisdale-Appleby noted this in the 2014 report Re-visioning Social Work Education and said ‘the first year of practice is absolutely vital for social workers as they consolidate the learning from their degree and develop new knowledge and skills in their first employment setting’

Playing the guitar

Let me give you another example. I’m a guitarist and have taught many people over the years to play the basics. If I was to hand someone a guitar they would intuitively know what to do with it…. to a point. They would know not to try and blow into it like it was a wood instrument. They would know it wasn’t something to help them with cooking. They would probably pluck the strings. I’d then teach them a little theory. Which string needs to be tuned to which note and what shapes to place your fingers in on the fret board to make chords to strum. We’d then practice. We’d replay, over and over again, the same shapes and learn to change between them. Over time we’d learn to play a song with the chords we had learnt and invariably the student says I’d like to play ‘song x’. So you look at ‘song x’ and realise that the guitar student knows most of the chords but needs the chord of F to play it all. F is not an easy chord for a beginner. They feel like they are back to square one and their confidence takes a knock. But over time (a long time) they overcome this, learn F, and a whole other set of chords, and they become proficient enough to play with other people and maybe join a band. They have to learn to then play in time with others… this is not as easy at it sounds. Then… someone might ask them to improvise a guitar solo which they’ve never done before so they use their intuition! ….based on the theory they know and the practice they have done Full circle! And the first time they do it it may well be alright but it might not be brilliant but they’ll practice and it will get better

Intuition > Theory > Practice > Time > Intuition (or as we call it Practice Wisdom)

Starting in practice

Evidence from Grant Sheridan and Webb (2017) suggests that newly qualified social workers felt ‘quite well’ or ‘very well prepared’ for practice in general. However, when this is broken down into preparedness for specific tasks, confidence levels drop. Essentially I’d suggest this is because specific tasks are often context specific (the type of social work you are doing and the organisation you are doing it in) and role specific – that is – not generic. You have to reapply the skills from the treadmill on the outdoor running track.

The conclusion of formal social work education is only one layer of the learning experience which is continuous throughout your career (or should be).

They also found that respondents felt most prepared to ‘promote and enable’ (89 per cent) and least prepared to ‘intervene and provide’ (32 per cent). Again because intervene and provide is context specific whereas promote and enable has a more value base feel about it. Respondents in the study reported feeling ready to conduct assessments, build relationships and communicate but less prepared for commissioning services and dealing with IT systems. Well they would because you can’t teach this as it is too organisation specific. They said they felt prepared for applying theory and demonstrating values but not for caseload management. It’s not the face to face work that seems to cause the stress but the ‘office’ function the research tells us.

The Dunning-Kruger effect

There is also something else going on that relates to the Dunning-Kruger effect. There are certain points in our lives where we are likely to overestimate our abilities and feel quite confident. Usually when we have achieved something that has taken great effort. Like completing a degree or securing a promotion or becoming a manger… or becoming a lecturer! The problem occurs when you transition from something where you are at the top of your game and you have to translate that knowledge into something else. This transition tends to undermine your confidence and you feel like an imposter.

Objectivity's Blind-Spot: The Dunning-Kruger Effect | Procrastination.com

Moving from being a student into practice is one such transition. You’ve just graduated and you know loads of stuff. You’ve just had a great placement and a got a good mark for your dissertation and then you have to translate the knowledge you have (which is valuable) into the new practice environment. You are likely to feel immediately out of your depth and like you know nothing and your confidence will take a hit.

At this point you need to remember some things. This feeling is completely normal for us all, to one degree or another, when we transition. You do know loads of stuff you just need to rework that knowledge into a new environment – stay calm. When transitioning it’s essential to stay focussed and organised. You are going to have to ‘lean into’ this for a while and it will take pretty much all of your energy. As in the diagram above your confidence will take a hit but apply the theory, engage in practice, take your time, and you will develop the practice wisdom to climb up that curve again….. and next time you transition you are likely to have to go through the same process again! Joy!

Remember your degree can not completely prepare you. It can only give you what you need to get started. It gets you the key to the door. Like people say about driving a car. You only really learn to drive a car after you’ve passed your driving test. This is the same. You are qualified, you are good enough, you can do this… but… the transition is going to be difficult and now you know that you can prepare for it.

  • Have growth mindset, a positive attitude, and that will help.
  • Keep on top of your planning and organisation and take time out for yourself.
  • Don’t lose yourself in the transition.
  • Work with your manager and mentor in an honest way and seek out support.

Whenever things are changing those who create as much order as possible do the best.

References:

Newly Qualified Social Workers’ Readiness for Practice in Scotland Scott Grant, Lynn Sheridan and Stephen A. Webb British Journal of Social Work (2017) 47, 487–506

Croisdale-Appleby, D. (2014) Re-Visioning Social Work Education: An Independent Review, London, Department of Health

Getting to grips with theory: Transactional analysis

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I honestly don’t know why but I’m a huge fan of ideas and theories that emerged in the late 50’s and 60’s. It was certainly a time when ideas about the importance of ‘self’ took hold with people like Rogers and Maslow exploring how to be our best selves – scaling the dizzy heights of self-actualisation! One such idea to come out of that same era was Transactional Analysis which is a way of examining the interactions between people.

It was developed by Eric Berne (1910-70) in the late 1950’s as a basis for understanding behavior through communication. Its origins are in groupwork where the transactions – the communication interactions – were analysed to develop understanding. It draws on a range of theoretical perspectives and considers ideas about the subconscious mind and its influence, so, is psychoanalytical. It is humanist in that sees the individual as important, and cognitive as it considers cognitive processes and seeks when necessary to attempt to adapt cognitive processes.

It can be used to explore the Individual, two person relationships and group interaction. Let’s explore its components.

Using Transactional Analysis in the Workplace - ReadyToManageStrokes

‘Strokes’ is a motivational concept where a ‘stroke’ is an act of recognition from one person to another. The communication of acceptance or ‘liking’, is referred to as positive stroking, whereas criticism and ‘discounting’ are negative stroking. There are parallels here with the concept of reinforcing in behaviorism and also ideas of affirmation and validation

Positive strokes would be things like praise, compliments, recognition, affection, rewards, sympathy, consolation, and even self-satisfaction from a job well done. Negative strokes would be put downs, criticism, ridicule, scolding, or punishment. Strokes can be ‘Conditional’ that is they relate to what you do and are not directly about you as a person – ‘you did  that task very  well’. Whereas unconditional strokes are not about what you do but are about you – ‘I really like you’. There is no condition just a statement.

Strokes can have ulterior motives where people say things to gain favor. I remember one student I taught used to say things like, ‘You’re looking good today Stephen – lovely shirt’, usually around assignment marking time!

Life positions - I'm okay, you're okay - GP-Training.netOk-ness

This idea refers to a basic attitude of acceptance towards self and others and states that people adopt one of four positions.

  • I’m Ok – You’re not Ok – this is rejection and belittling of the other. Maybe it’s ‘I don’t like you’ or ‘I don’t like what you represent’. It could be because the other person is constructively challenging and the person doesn’t like being challenged.
  • I’m Ok – You’re Ok – the preferred position – acceptance of self and others. This is the state we need to try and establish when working with people. Such a position can generate forward momentum.
  • I’m not Ok – You’re Ok – reflects avoidance of the other and maybe suggests things to be explored with the person. At least if the person thinks ‘you’re ok’ then this may give you a starting position as they may trust what you are saying.
  • I’m not Ok – You’re not Ok – Berne suggests reflects a depressive hopeless attitude to life. The question is how to create forward momentum and change in such a position.
A history of Eric Berne
Eric Berne

Ego states

Berne suggest there are three ego states – the parent, the adult, and the child. We can all, whether we are adults, parents or children adopt these ego states.

The Parent Ego state is when we adopt behaviours, thoughts and feelings copied from parents or parent figures so is a ‘taught’ ego state. The Adult Ego state is found in behaviours, thoughts and feelings which are a direct response to the here and now and are a ‘thought’ ego state. The Child Ego state is where we replay behaviours, thoughts, and feelings from childhood and is a ‘felt’ state.

Parent (“exteropsyche”): is a state in which people behave, feel, and think in response to an unconscious mimicking of how their parents (or other parental figures) acted, or how they interpreted their parent’s actions. For example, a person may shout at someone out of frustration because they witnessed that as a response, a way of being, in a parent or important person.

Adult (“neopsyche”): a state of the ego, which is very pragmatic and practical, thinking things through logically to make predictions and maybe absent of major emotions that could affect success. Learning to strengthen the Adult is a goal of Transactional Analysis. While a person is in the Adult ego state, they are directed towards an objective appraisal of reality. This resonates so much with me in terms of my writing about productivity and being organised. Developing this ego state means we can relate to people and events in a structured way. Not lacking emotions necessarily but being in control of them.

Child (“archaeopsyche”): a state in which people behave, feel and think similarly to how they did in childhood. The Child is the source of emotions, creation, recreation, spontaneity and intimacy. We need to spend some time in this state I’d argue but it needs to be carefully managed.

Transactions that are complimentary sustain and lead to smooth conversation

So, Adult to Adult could result in solving a problem, whereas Parent to Parent could lead to critical gossip (something lots of people enjoy! We are only human!). Child to Child or Parent to Child could be about playing together.

Banning Small Talk From Your Conversations Makes You Happier, Says Science (Ask Any of These 12 Questions for a Change) | Inc.com

Crossed transactions cause communication to be broken and give us what is sometimes referred to as ‘a bumpy conversation ride’. Where the stimulus in the conversation originates in Adult and is directed to Adult but the respondent returns conversation from say Child directing it to Parent, or equally, Parent to Child, we may see a problem. I’m wanting to have a serious productive conversation, but I get a petulant child response, or a critical parent response and I’m left on the back foot not knowing quite what happened. Or indeed I’m after a bit of jovial childlike banter and I make a joke that falls flat on its face when someone responds from Adult and I’m left deflated. This happens a lot with my jokes…I need to think about that…. 😉

Within each of these ego states are subdivisions. Parental figures are often either more nurturing or more criticising. Childhood behaviours are either more natural (free) or more adapted to others. These subdivisions categorise individuals’ patterns of behaviour, feelings, and ways of thinking, that can be functional, beneficial, and positive, or dysfunctional, counterproductive, and negative.

Critical Parent can be lecturing or judging – all about what you should do or shouldn’t do. Remember this is not just ‘real’ parent to ‘real’ child – you can be ‘in’ Critical Parent in adult conversations. ‘I don’t know what you do with your time. I need the report now!’

Nurturing Parent on the other hand is sympathetic, advising, and takes care. ‘You seem to be missing deadlines can we talk about what we can maybe do to help?’

In the same problem above Adult may be objective, rational, and problem solving. ‘Let’s reach an agreement on giving you a little longer but it must be done by then. Let’s see what work we can take off you to give you time’.

The Adapted Child may then play the game (Berne loves game playing ideas) and may manipulate the situation trying to drive Adult into Nurturing Parent. ‘I’ve just found everything so hard lately’. Or maybe will be submissive and conform to Adult expectations. ‘Yes, whatever you want me to do’.

The Natural Child might be playful or impulsive and may rebel. ‘Sorry but I can’t I’m taking today off – nobody bothers about the dates things are due anyway!’

Strengths-based conversations: quick tips for practiceHow is this relevant to SW?

  • It helps us understand the other person
  • It gives us opportunity to consider how to respond in a helpful way to build rapport.
  • It helps communication by trying to shift the other persons ego state to Adult to establish an Adult to Adult conversation.
  • TA tells us you can have considerable impact on modifying behaviour by how you communicate. The Adult ego state seeks to ‘control’ the other ego states.

Using TA for effective communication

For effective communication you need to keep the transaction complementary i.e. focus on sender to receiver and receiver to sender where the message is sent to the ego state from which you expect a reply. Using ego states we can look at how others communicate and how we communicate with others.  It’s possible to identify which ego state we are in and which ego state we are expecting a reply from.

We can also use TA to help us plan transactions. For example, we can identify which ego state would be most valuable for us to send the message from and which ego state it would be better for it to be received by. If we receive a reply from the wrong (non expected) ego state then we can either try to shift the other person’s ego state or if we cannot do this it may be better to stop the communication and try again another time when the person may be in a different ego state.

We can listen to people’s communication to identify if they are habitually in one ego state and then decide if communication to that ego state would be appropriate or not. TA therefore can be used to elicit the reactions you want from other people (and this will happen consciously or unconsciously).  We are trying to achieve Adult to Adult

We can help communication if we need to by trying to shift the other person’s ego state by inviting people to move into a different ego state. They may not always move into it though, particularly if someone is habitually in one ego state. Do this by acknowledging their current ego state (by the appropriate message or response) and then invite them into another ego state by the words (and body language) which you use.

Transactional Analysis implies that you can have considerable impact by the way you communicate with others.

You can use your Adult ego state to think about what behaviour is appropriate and then engage in that way to facilitate helpful conversations. 

Invisible: Two Presidents, Catwoman and Social Work Reviews

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Last month the government announced a wide scoping investigation into childrens’ social work and the care system with Frontline boss Josh MacAlister appointed as the head honcho.

Josh is a rising star of private sector social work, he’s the brainchild of Frontline a programme that seeks to fast track top students hopefully from Universities that have rowing and lacrosse teams to be social workers putting the profession on an even footing with legal careers. It offers a short 5-week intensive summer school before entering practice and placement, with a clear trajectory of management and beyond. Why should social work not get the best and smartest kids from University is the rhetorical question it seems? For nearly ten years he has received funding and been a go to man for the conservative government, in short, he is the archetypical Govian innovator (Michael Gove himself in the care system for 4 months as a child).

Enter Catwoman

I hate to bore you all with yet another Catwoman and social work story, but I think there is a surprising link found in the biography of Ertha Kitt.

Ertha was born in 1927 on a cotton planation as a consequence of a rape by a white doctor. Her mother (who was half African American and half Cherokee) was forced to give Ertha up to another family as her then new partner could not abide her “yellow” mixed race skin. Her new family raped and abused her and set her to work as a slave in their home leaving her to be tormented by their own children. Her route to stardom is one of the most remarkable stories in modern American history.

The indefatigable Ertha became a sultry actor (batman, mission impossible, Disney, Miami Vice), singer (Santa Baby) and performer (too many stage plays to mention). One of many big breaks came when she got a once in a lifetime role as Catwoman in the ultra kitch 60’s Batman TV series! KAPOW!!!!. 

During this time Orson Wells described her as “the most exciting women in world” 

50 years before The Black Panther movie one year before MLK got assassinated there was Eartha holding a gun to the head of the Joker, seducing Batman and generally stealing every single scene. Catwoman’s role would be to upset the status quo make villain and hero feel uneasy and unsure about what they have previously assumed and the positions they occupied.

During this exact period President Johnson’s wife, the extraordinarily named Ladybird Johnson, held a meeting at the White House to discuss why the youth of America had become so disaffected. There was rising crime, broken homes, drugs and gangs, all of which were major concerns. All this set against the disastrous Vietnam War Johnson had started, a war that was a bad idea executed badly that costs millions of lives.

To crack the problem Ladybird assembled a white crowd of socially clambering Stepford Wives and to quietly sit in the corner and to provide ‘faux’ racial balance, Eartha. With the pristinely ironed and noxiously perfumed beige mob assembled, speaker after speaker, talked about the tidy highways, excellent school system and really nothing to do with disaffected youth let alone any offer any solutions. Towards the end Eartha raised her hand and summed up the mood for the youth of America thus,

“Boys I know across the nation feel it doesn’t pay to be a good guy,”. “They figure with a record they don’t have to go off to Vietnam. You send the best of this country off to be shot and maimed”.

Hearing this Ladybird Johnson bursts into tears and was furious with Eartha. A little later her husband the president walks in and Eartha again unprompted starts questioning him about the war, motherhood and the root of the problem. The body language in the picture below explains how he responded to her.

TRUTH TO POWER!!!!!

Eartha did not care one jot for upsetting the room or the ultimate decision maker the president, she cared more for the children than her own standing.  Her reward for upsetting Ladybird and the president was the CIA basically shut her career down with her not working for over 15 years in the US again.

I am 10000% confident the review by Mr MacAlister will not dim his lights in the hearts of the senior Tories or his bank balance, he will not risk his career one jot so his suggestions will be palatable to his pay masters.

However is Eartha’s position a foolish one to occupy. The economist in me would suggest an outcome that optimizes the probability of something being accepted or achieved and the impact of the expected outcome, even if your right implementation is important. What value in making a suggestion that you know will never be put in place, or if it is watered down. For example Munro’s review (as she acknowledges) got universal nods of approval but little policy or actual change.

The Trade off being

MacAlister – High chance of acceptance + Low potential impact
v.
Ertha – Low chance of acceptance  + High potential Impact

Tony Robbins

Another maverick who spoke to a president is the I Am Not Your Guru documentary maker and motivational zillionaire Tony Robbins. He was invited with another group of the politically harmless to speak with Obama in early 2014 about his health care bill.

Whilst Tony agreed with Obama’s policies, he made a point that stunned the room. Tony explained to the president that the error that he is making is that his policy on issues such as health care are based primarily on Obama being the smart and him feeling his policies are the best ones, however for policy to work this is simply not enough. It’s about relationships and if you don’t take the other half of America with you and your party will pay a price (and look how that turned out insert Trump MAGA emoji here).

The message here is even if you have a good, or even the best idea it has to be gripped and accepted by the populous for its implementation to be successful. Johnson and Obama could not be further apart politically, but they fell on the same trap that is looming over MacAlister’s Review. The first sign of this came when MacAlister jettisoned many voices and tarnished thousands of potential relationships with the people he seeks to aid, namely care leavers and other stakeholders. 1000 care experienced people applied, 40 were successful of which about 10-15 will form part of the review board.  (You stand a better chance getting into Oxford or Cambridge with this offering a poignant Irony to the type of student McAllister wants to have on his Frontline programme.)

Imagine for a second a care leaver whose life story is a series of assessments, letters, and case notes on a computer, being asked to help but just getting another generic “no thanks” response to your ideas.

Ex piano tuner Alison Moyet I feel comes close to an accurate description in her 80’s hit Invisible,

You’ve got me so confused and there’s words I could use
But I’m afraid to say them
I feel I’ve been had and I’m boiling mad

You don’t have the time and you won’t spend a dime
Not even to call me
You don’t know I exist and I wouldn’t be missed
If I had the nerve to quit you

Invisible – I feel like I’m invisible
You treat me like I’m not really there
And you don’t really care

I wonder if Josh Mccalister is a Moyet fan?

Earlier this month I attended a conference that Mr Mcallister spoke at concerning Connected/Kinship Care.

At one point an experienced Carer/advocate raised the issue of several disparities between work/leave entitlement between kinship care and adoption and the post code lottery of levels of support and financial assistance to carers. MacAlister responded that he will look into theses issues and address them were possible. His unique cocktail of suave confident good looks, positivity and engagement really convinced me and likely many others in the conference. He on the face of it did better than Obama and Johnson.

However, after a day’s contemplation I realised the scale of ironing out these inequalities in just one small corner (kinship care) of his vast review. The following would have to be re-aligned.

  • Employment law, The Paternity and Adoption Leave Regulations 2002
  • Children (leaving Care Act) 2002
  • SGO support regulation
  • Local Authority financing

The scale of this task is tremendous and the votes in parliaments, debates and implementation would need to go on for many years beyond the publishing of Mr MacAlister’s review. Potentially Mr MacAlister is naive, and we can’t expect him to know the ins and outs of every area, but each of his recommendations I feel should be separated between easy wins and herculean legislative labours. Any one can provide a wish list, the real magic is in high quality and lasting implementation.

I wish MacAlister all the best with his review, but would urge him to be the Eartha and Tony Robbins in the room and don’t fall into Obama and Johnsons trap in leaving the Invisible people behind just because you think you’re the smartest.

Links

Munro’s review

Frontline website

Moyet singing

Eartha Kitt meets president