Some reflections on supervision

http://www.jamescordenfansite.com/2008/03/29/james-corden-lily-allen-the-interview/

Hopefully the above link takes you to an interview between James Corden and Lily Allen and perhaps even more hopefully I can explain why I used it.
 In the interview Corden manages to divert Allen away from what she was intending talking about. My guess is it was likely to be quite bland promoting both of them equally. Instead Corden turns it into something far more interesting, he steps out of the role of interviewee for a while and takes over the session. He demonstrates an ability to show emotion and takes a risk in exposing this, Alllen immediately responds, initially she is a bit embarrassed but she is out of her stride, the dynamic has changed and has became something far more interesting. In fact it has became a far more powerful and in some ways more subversive dynamic. It makes for fascinating telly and it helped me think about supervision.
Why? Well because the supervision dynamic is captured in two ways, one of them is power while the other is trust.
In the Corden interview the power lies verey much with Lily Allen, she has the role of the interviewer, it's her show and she can call the shots. Corden subtely shifts this dynamic, skillfully and with apparent ease and the power transfers to him. It comes aroung through Corden's willingness to grasp the emotion, his preparedness to go somewhere that has the potential to be unpleasent.  In doing so the power shifts to him and for both interviewer and interviewee the dynamic becomes intially uncomfortable but eventaully much more powerful and rewarding.
For supervisee's there is a lesson here; subverting the process, although risky can have a significant pay off.
My other thought was about trust. As someoene who in a previous job was a supervisor supervision meant much more if there was trust. If you knew the worker was on top of things and had the right values and approaches supervision developed into something else. A professional space where growth could occur, a space where refelction and analysis grew and consequently the relationship between the supervisor and supervisee grew creating a more resilient bond, a more meaningful relationships.
So what of all this. Well put simply perhaps if supervisee's took some more Cordonesque risks and supervisors began to embrace a greater degree of trust we would have a more dynamic meaningful relationships.
It worked for James and Lilly, it's worth a try.

Contradictions and Difficult places

I have been neglecting my blog a little partly because I like to allow things to emerge rather than to write daily or weekly and partly because I am busy in other areas. So I made a promise to myself over the weekend that I would post today.

This entry is essentially about personalisation but I suppose it could be about any element of social work practice, particularly practice in these difficult times. Personalisation is a conflicted notion. For many social workers it offers as many threats as it does opportunities and it feels for some of us like we are welcoming a lovely wooden horse into the gates of our city only for a load of soldiers to spill out of it and take it from us.

My first contradiction in personalisation is how we as social workers feel about it. There are many good things. Increased choice for service users, greater involvement, allowing more of the decisions to rest with the expert, i.e. the person themselves are a few but there are equally worrying aspects of it; the shift to free choice means potentially thin times for service providers, for LA’s they are often providers and purchasers. Purchasing services allows local authorities to promote services they feel have a “fit” with them either in delivery or ideology or both. A greater menu does not guarantee that not all of the dishes available are too your taste. So there can be a conflict right at the heart of the process.

Equally service user choice is (copyright @jaxrafferty) at best an illusory choice, a little like Henry Ford you can only choose what is made available and the making available comes with a series of choices and decisions you are not part of, so how much of a choice is it really?

Further there is the issue of shopping in Waitrose as Jose Murinho once put it. If your driver for buying care is to buy a lot at a low price this could precipitate a disaster, take for example respite care. This is often seen as high value, for obvious reasons. However it is also high cost (for similarly obvious reasons) so purchasers may avoid it. Equally LA’s may avoid it as it requires greater application to contractual obligations and regulatory arrangements so there is limited desire to purchase. The risk of course is that things get advanced and people need respite but then can’t access it. What appears to be a win win becomes a lose lose.

There are other contradictions. Families are experts and can and should direct the process however there may be other motivating factors involved that families are not aware of or are kept from them. Professional relationships ebb and flow. Services once seen as useful and beneficial may go out of fashion, or be seen as “old” and in need of modernisation. LA’s often see no good in anything that is “old” this can be very confusing for service users who may have established relationships with services then find them withdrawn at short notice and with little or no explanation. In such cases families are likely to lose trust in LA’s and see them as having some form of “agenda” If this happens it is often difficult to recover from. Once the trust goes from any relationship the quality of the appreciation and understanding goes with it.

For social workers this can be frustrating. When decisions are taken on any basis other than need there is dilution in the quality of the relationship. The complexity of the relationship increases and the sense of creeping agenda’s come to dominate. Social workers find themselves caught in a cul de sac of competing priorities and ever changing agenda’s causing frustration and disappointment. Something that promised so much becomes tangled up in a series of issues that are beyond your control. In these circumstances people can begin to loose faith and feel that they are marginalised. Not a nice place to be.

So we find ourselves in a world like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory all of the exciting prospects come with them a risk that is not always visible and we have to rely on integrity and the support of others to get us through it. We can leave feeling confused and used and we need to get back to those that matter most to us.

Like Charlie Bucket the way we feel safe and protected is in the environment we feel closest to, it may change over time but it is here that we find the protection that intimacy can afford, and we find that it’s not so bad after all. For social workers this may mean an increased reliance on colleagues and professional bodies but it can also be a virtual experience. For families it can be virtual as well but the comfort is derived from the understanding that despite the confusion and obfuscation you are need and relied on.

For Jane Gregory.

#whatwedo

Perhaps it’s a bit if an indictment about me and what I find exciting but I am very excited by the #whatwedo event on Twitter today. In case you don’t know all of Scotland’s local authorities are taking part in a one day exercise where they will tweet about what they do. For someone who has an interest in the power of social media I feel that this is an exciting and worthwhile event.

My own local authority like almost has a Twitter feed. It is used as far as I can see to make announcements and as a platform to share information. If your dog gets lost and you live in the same place as me check Twitter because it is likely to be on it. During the storms last year my kids were glued to it to find out if their school was open or closed.

Some of the local councillors tweet, one in particular will share relevant information from the council as well as advertising his surgeries and sharing what he does on a day to day basis. Perhaps not interesting for some but for others this insight into the work of a councillor is invaluable in letting the electorate know exactly what he does. Wouldn’t it be equally interesting if individual Chief Executive’s and Director’s of departments did so as well?

I strongly believe that Twitter is much more than an announcement platform. The Third Sector and in some cases some social entrepreneurs seem to have captured the market in using Twitter in increasingly more imaginative ways. Social Media Week in Glasgow provided powerful evidence of a vibrant social media community that is making great advances in sharing and generating new and informative ways of engaging using the internet. Let’s hope we can capitalise on the momentum.

Equally let’s hope that today’s event is rendered more worthwhile by being part of a longer term strategy for local authorities to engage with social media in different and exciting ways. Understandably local authorities need to be mindful about the sensitivity of information that they deal with as well as being able to ensure that what goes out on social media is “safe” but it does seem that these considerations can hamper local authorities in their use of a dynamic and exciting new means of communication.

Twitter seemed to me to reach a high point during the general election with political parties seeing the value of this form of engagement, some MP’s are regular’s on Twitter (Cathy Jamieson and Tom Watson) while some organisations and individuals are pushing hard for Twitter to have a greater use in dealing with those who are in receipt of particular council services

For me Twitter offers another opportunity for engagement for those who find engagement a challenge, local authorities need to embrace this method of engagement and communication in a more sophisticated way rather than using it solely as another platform for making announcements. The possibilities are endless but if councils make information available to Twitter and encourage debate and conversation using this medium I cannot see how this could be anything other than a valuable and exciting development in how councils work with and share their approaches with the residents of their area.

Finally in my own field of social work the possibilities are there to be exploited. Local authorities need to develop meaningful social media policies that start form a strengths based approach and do not get bogged down in issues around governance and information sharing protocol, to do so would detract from what is a powerful and exciting opportunity that is there to be exploited.

Removing my own blinkers

Removing my own blinkers

I worked in local authority children and families Social Work for the best part of twenty years.  Just over a year ago I moved and became a lecturer and I still can’t quite believe the changes that this has made both to me and to the profession I work in. There are many personal changes that will at some point form a blog but for now I want to look at one of the professional changes that I have experienced. For the sake of brevity it will be generalised but I think and hope most people will see what I am driving at and as always I welcome any comment or views.

Statutory services like Children and Families and Mental Health have the primary role to play in some form of societal enforcement, when I was younger I remember the term “soft police” being used to describe these activities; the removal of children on emergency measures and the detention of adults with mental health difficulties are two obvious examples of the work of statutory services. Legislation does allow for others to make these choices but in all of my own time in social work it was always the statutory services who took these actions.

I had and have no problem with this. I have taken people’s children off them. I have instigated detention procedures. I have been out with the police in risky and dangerous circumstances and like a lot of social workers I have spent a lot of professional time in police stations, courts and prisons. That was my job (and might be again) and I accepted it and to some extent became inured with it. But most importantly and for the purposes of this blog entry I realise now that this was what I thought social work was.

Since coming here I have visited and learned about a variety of resources that provide services to vulnerable and needy groups. Charities, local organisations, and churches all provide us with student placements and I have visited and been involved in many of these. In the process of doing so I have came to realise that I was somewhat blinkered by my role in a local authority. I now feel that I can see a much broader and wider scope of services and I feel much more positively about what I have seen.

Excuse my generalisations but what I seem to be becoming aware of is that the statutory sector are involved much more in the delivery of the “soft police” services. Children and families work appears to me to be dominated by notions of risk and protection and in the current economic climate work is prioritised on the basis of risk. For some social workers the only thing that is allocated to them is child or adult protection. Services are delivered in conjunction with partners in this area and social workers seem to be spending more and more time with the police delivering services that are by nature short term.

Again, and I am generalising, the third sector seem to be developing along a different direction of travel. Some of the most innovative and exciting work I have seen in a long time is being ushered in and with the onset of personalisation service users are given greater opportunities for choice than they have had for some time. It seems that with this a blurring of a boundary has occurred. For me I am not sure where “social care” stops and “social work” begins.

Innovation and creativity are in a short enough supply. The economic crisis has seen to that. The guarantee of resources for statutory services is that they deliver high level risk and protection services. In doing so they must (and should) work to well developed and rigorously produced guidelines. These dovetail with an increased degree of personal regulation as demanded by the various codes of conduct.

This “top slicing” leaves any other service “up for grabs” and the third sector has not been slow at coming forward and moving onto the ground recently vacated by the statutory sector. While this changing of geography is all a part of public service we should be aware of the risks involved and we should I feel be having a greater and more public discussion and debates around its merits and risks.

Finally I have a nagging worry. If and it is a big “if” the statutory sector ever gets an increased period of growth what will it grow into? It seems to me that it has given up so much ground it has created a niche market that it might struggle to break out of. I know that this shift has been as a part of the various reviews around the country but I do feel that the statutory sector is in danger of becoming the “protection profession” Losing some of the ground may have some short term benefits but it remains to be seen if there is any long term thinking involved.

Re stating the obvious but doing it differently

Re stating the obvious but doing it differently

I know that what I am about to write might be familiar to many of you but I thought I would share this for two reasons. One is that although familiar it is still worth an airing and secondly I feel that using this blog, and Twitter to get it out into the public space is what blogging and tweeting is all about.

On Wednesday I was at a pre placement meeting for a second year Masters student in a community care team in a large Scottish local authority. It was an ideal placement, the student is doing their dissertation on direct payments and wanted a placement like this to link all the final year strands. The practice teacher was an independent and had worked as a senior social worker in community care in the same local authority for many years and the link worker was a very experienced social worker.

During the meeting we were discussing the importance of a second placement student being able to identify some of the organisational and cultural aspects of the placement and link these to the theory and practice. The link worker illustrated this using an example of a resource allocation group, she told the student there were weekly RAG’s as the demand for residential placements was high. The meetings used to be on a weekly basis but nursing homes were not prepared to wait. If they had beds and social workers were delayed in accessing the RAG the beds they wanted were given away so the RAG moved to a weekly basis to prevent beds being given away in this manner.

We discussed how this could be linked to the increasing marketisation of social work and bemoaned the bureaucratic nature of the profession, this led to the practice teacher reminding us all of the bygone days of resource transfer monies  (the monies NHS gave to local authorities to provide non hospital care based care packages) there was a warm glow in the room recalling these salad days and a sense of annoyance at where we were at now.

Of course these reminiscences were definitely of the rose tinted variety and there were challenges and issues then, perhaps the power of the private sector now was about our own willingness to commission them then and we are now reaping the benefits of paying that particular piper. There are other considerations about the “then” as well but that is straying from the point.

Just before going out to his meeting I was looking at a paper written by Arthur Midwinter around the time of local government re-organisation in Scotland. In it he quoted Iain Laing the then Secretary of State for Scotland who was promoting the shift away from Strathclyde Regional Council to smaller ”unitary” authorities. One of the arguments he was advancing was that the move to local authorities would decrease buearocracy and increase choice for service users and social workers (carers were not as prominent then but he would have meant them as well)

Considering that view now makes for some interesting thoughts. Weekly RAG’s? Care homes giving beds away on the basis of occupancy rates as opposed to “need” the complicated arrangements between care purchaser and providers? The dynamic of registration, inspection and ongoing professional development for workers? The economies of scale argument? All of these issues suggest to me that the development of new policy approaches inevitably bring with them the development of new arrangements to support and implement them. Unitary smaller authorities will (also) inevitably develop particular arrangements to support these based on the political, social and geographic make up of the authorities.

And now finally here is my point and indeed the point of writing this particular blog entry. The advancement of localism in all its forms contains a threat that workers become “localised” and become experts in the local environments that they operate within. This approach undoubtedly has its strengths but a potential weakness is that workers lose a big picture approach. The critical debates that go on in one particular local area will be similar to the debates in others and there is to me a risk that workers become insular. That is where this form of media offers real possibilities. My own increased blogging activity has come about as I feel there is a need to advance some of these debates and this platform is ideal for doing so.

At the end of the meeting I felt disappointed that I could offer no solution to the creeping increase in privatised, market led services or the increase in the process developed to support and possibly promote these approaches, if anyone can offer any insights I would love to hear them. What I could do was use this blog to raise them and encourage others to join the debate. In this case social media offers a powerful global engagement tool that can counteract some of the negative elements of localism.

Whatever happened to the protest and the rage?

Whatever happened to the protest and the rage?

Yesterday’s teaching for our new level 1 student’s focussed on technology.  I was developing with the students the theme of how social media can contribute to social work practice. In doing so I was encouraging them to discover and follow blogs written by social workers. This idea seemed to go down well, perhaps because it allows an insight into the profession and let’s people training to be social workers see what being a social worker is actually like. This was what I wanted to achieve, to allow students the chance to look in and interact with professionals.

Today it is ethics and values. We are introducing the concept of traditional and emancipatory values and we will spend the best part of this academic year exploring this topic with students. Our aim is at least in part to allow students the opportunity to locate themselves and their own value base and link it to the concept of values and ethics. I see a real link between these two subjects and if students take my advice and follow a social work blog they should be able to develop links using social media as a platform to develop their learning. If they do I will be very pleased. Social media is a wonderful platform for this type of activity and it is readily accessible for all of our students.

Reflecting on social media’s role I feel that perhaps we have some way to go to establish our own ethical approach to social media and its potential uses. Last night I engaged in a brief but interesting twitter debate discussing the role of managerialism in direct payments and in community care in general. We were expressing some concern that the initial laudable idea of direct payments was becoming entangled in an increasingly bureaucratic process that was in turn influenced by the registration and inspection process.

Interesting debate? Yes, but also risky. More risky for some than others. I do not work for a local authority so it is unlikely there would be any come back for me. Other’s did. Perhaps the local authorities would be happy for staff to engage in such a debate and would be interested in their opinions and views. Perhaps also they would be willing to take on some of the criticisms to look at how they needed to alter or change their approach. I hope they would be but I suspect that their (at least initial) reaction would not be so welcoming

I imagine they would be concerned over the public nature of such a debate, over the risk of a compromise of their identity or indeed a risk that service users would be identifiable. All of these concerns would be fair and reasonable and I hope they would be carefully considered before a response was given. Social media is ideal for such debates, anonymity is in this sense helpful in allowing the debate to flourish. My worry is that a lot of local authorities and indeed other organisations have not arrived at a definitive position on the use of social media in engaging in critical analysis of service provision and delivery. It is then likely that their immediate reaction would be defensive and would place staff that use social media in a risky position.

Surely a profession such as social work would see the value in social media for engaging in debate? I would hope so but there are factors that mitigate against this. I do not think I am alone in feeling that the regulation and inspection of services has in some cases stifled creativity and imagination. As has the financial retrenchment that organisations have experienced, there is a prevailing culture of risk aversion in organisations. This mixed with the (valid) concerns over possible compromises in confidentiality is a challenge for organisations.

Social media is a valuable tool that fits well with the ethical background and values bases of our profession we need to embrace it and develop its use.

This blog entry is dedicated to Vic.

Inspired by Monster

Inspired by Monsters

I have decided to be more diligent with this blog. Up until now I have been blogging about a variety of subjects that catch my attention and to be honest I feel that I should be doing much more and blogging more regularly.

This change of heart has been motivated by two events. One is the regular @monstertalk blog. The thoughts and observations of a practising social worker come on a daily basis. Anyone reading it can’t fail to be impressed by the content of the blog and the regularity of its production. The second event was that I loaded my tumble drier in the dark this morning.

The significance? Well it’s winter, or at least it feels at lot like winter in my corner of Lanarkshire.  Darker mornings and heavier jackets. This also means that it is the start of term time for our students. Our new Level 1’s begin their academic career this morning and I am teaching them.

So this seems an ideal time to blog on the subject of beginnings and teaching. We have over sixty Level 1’s, from as far apart as Kenya,  Zimbabwe and Devon last week we had a two day induction. As part of the ice breaker exercises they introduced each other telling us a little about themselves. The experience in the room was quite something. Lots of social care work, personal experience of caring, family experience of the social work profession and one student who advised they wanted a career in the “industry.”

This morning’s teaching is on a module called “Skills, Knowledge and Technology” I am responsible for this module and I am gradually reshaping it. My aim is to bring in much more content relating to social media, to encourage a shift away from the “social “ aspect to the “media.” The vast majority of our first years, and indeed all of our students have facebook. On closer examination they seem to use it to chat and arrange their social lives. I want to try to bring social media to them as a tool. I want to encourage them to read and contribute to blogs and to use to go beyond their current usage of the internet and use it to support their studies. So, bloggers beware!

The beginning of a new term is an exciting time, students are keen to get started and there is an atmosphere of impatience amongst them. Over the summer the university is very quiet, most people are on holiday. The corridors are empty and you don’t need to queue to buy your lunch. From today the university becomes like a night club. Returning students are excited to be back with their colleagues, new starts are keen to get under way to make new relationships and discover more about their chosen subjects. Academics focus on their teaching, module handbooks are printed, powerpoint presentations are checked, updated and in extreme cases re-written. Blogs are revamped and revisited and we allow all our monsters to come along and offer us their insights and opinions.

Outside might well be dark but the process of bringing the light begins just now.

BBM, A force for good or an enabler of evil?

Last night on Newsnight Ken Livingstone made a point about the riots in London and other parts of Britain being linked to the current economic and social climate. Today’s Daily Mail branded his comment as at best, poor judgement or at worst a way of excusing the behaviour of those involved in the disturbances in London and other parts of Britain.

The Telegraph has also implored David Cameron to intervene in the riots and aim his powers at those involved in rioting and looting “with extreme prejudice” There continue to be the usual calls from the hang ‘em and shoot ‘em brigade that all the usual suspects (young people, immingrants, beggars, etc) are rounded up as we attempt to disentangle the complicated social, economic and political reasons behind recent disturbances. What is for certain is that disturbances on this scale in major cities and over three nights cannot be orchestrated by children and are not merely wilful acts of violence and criminality. We owe it to ourselves and to those who have been injured, killed or lost property and revenue to have a more considered view of the reasons behind the current unrest.

The death of a Mark Duggan who was shot by police in circumstances that remain unclear is seen as being the catalyst for this wave of unrest. Prior to being shot Duggan updated his status on BlackBerry messenger saying the “feds” were following him. This action has led to a widespread discussion about BBM and new media in general, with Facebook and Twitter being cited as playing a role in organising and orchestrating the events of the past few nights.

BBM is easily portable, cheap and requires little in the way of technical support. Mark Duggan was a working class black man who lived in a deprived area of London. Of course BBM would be his choice of communication device. It makes perfect sense to have a portable pay as you go handheld device for him. It also stands to reason that devices like BBM would be popular among others in who shared his demogrpahic, again for the reasons stated above. Yet there has been considerable attention brought to bear on how new and social media played a role in the riots. And considerable attention has been paid to BBM’s ability to encrypt messages and for these messages to be transferred quickly around user groups.

Twitter has also been heavily discussed. The fact that Twitter is similar to BBM in that the user develops a group of followers with whom they can communicate with quickly has again been seen as playing a role in the unrest. Tweets supporting the rioters and encouraging unrest have been published. Often written in the language of the disenfranchised young person they have been seen like BBM to be an enabler of this rioting as (as the telegraph put it) the “underclass” strike back

Is there then a developing moral panic about the use of mass communication devices and networks? For me this seems to be the case, young people are now seen to be able to spread their disaffection far and wide, and more crucially quickly and secretly. Technology is being used for subversion and increasingly the covert nature and the linguist coding of the language used is placing the police at a disadvantage they are struggling to recover from.

It is easy to paint a picture of technologically savvy, group of disaffected violent youths using the internet to orchestrate violence. The hacking of the Sun’s website by the teenager known as Topiary demonstrates how a generation who have grown up with the technological advances offered by the internet have appropriated this technology for their own ends. Hand in hand with this goes a fear from others, who may not share the same familiarity with technology that these devices and sites are a dangerous aspect of today’s society and that young people’s use of them is often to increase unrest and dissatisfaction. In short our moral panic of today is the shady youngster using the mysterious world of the internet to damage the fabric of society.

Is this fair or reasonable? When there is little unrest there is little examination of how young people communicate. Equally young people are naturally curious; it goes with their age and stage of development. The vast majority of young people are technologically enabled, and the vast majority have ready access to the internet and to devices like BBM. There is little scrutiny of this, it is seen as an area of growth in today’s society, often it is seen as a positive area of growth.

Perhaps somewhere in this moral panic is a fear that young people are beginning to use technology that has long been used to surveille and monitor them to their own ends, the fear may well come from a sense of young people taking ownership of what has always been seen as the newly developed mechanisms for society to watch and monitor itself, and more often that not young people. Technological advancements are no longer the preserve of the powerful. Advancements in technology coupled with high demand has reduced cost and increased ownership. Inevitably young people have appropriated and personalised this technology, often with the enthusiasm of youth causing consternation among those who prefer to watch rather than be watched.

The real face of a carer

Listen to the true voices

David McKendrick makes a heartfelt plea for social workers to listen to the experts - the carers themselves - when assessing caring situations

“What? The true face of carers? This is the theme of Carers Week? Listen, don’t ask. You don’t want to know. If you did have a clue what a carer’s true face is, it would frighten the pants off you!”

This is a quote from Hugh Marriott, a carer and author of The selfish pig’s guide to caring, about Carers Week which ran from 13 to 19 June. If you want to know if this is the truth then ask Crawford Fallon. I did and it is. For the last 10 years Crawford has been the sole carer for his wife Elizabeth, who was brain injured after being involved in a hit and run accident.

Elizabeth’s injury came after a night out. The couple were walking home when she was hit by a car. In an instant their lives changed. There was no warning,.they were not consulted and the repercussions of that night have changed their lives completely.

Before the crash, Crawford and Elizabeth were happily married and living in their home town of Shotts in North Lanarkshire. Elizabeth was a nurse specialising in working with infectious diseases and Crawford was developing a career in the mining industry.

Crawford had to give up his job and become a full time carer for Elizabeth. Elizabeth’s injury makes her unpredictable, she can become aggressive and can shout and swear. On occasion she has been violent and has hit Crawford. Elizabeth has hurt herself and talked of suicide. Initially, there were many offers of help from family and friends but these have all stopped. People are embarrassed by Elizabeth’s behaviour and don’t like being seen out with her.

Like many carers, Crawford attends to Elizabeth’s every needs. Over the years Crawford has kept an intimate diary detailing what he has done. He has developed a whole new range of skills, he is an expert and there is quite literally nothing that Crawford does not know about caring for Elizabeth.

Before Elizabeth’s accident Crawford had never cared for anyone, least of all someone with a brain injury, so he has had to learn. This has often been by trial and error. Crawford has made mistakes and each mistake has been costly, resulting in either his or Elizabeth’s distress - or both.

Crawford’s learning has been unsupported with little help. There have been no university tutors, practice educators, senior carers or colleagues to learn from. There has been no safe learning environment and no boundaries. Elizabeth’s personality can change seemingly without warning. But Crawford has become expert at reading the signs - he has to be.

Recently Crawford was visited by a social worker who was completing an assessment. Like all social workers he had a deadline, he had a caseload, he had to complete all the relevant paperwork and had to fill in all the computer screens. Crawford went out to make him a cup of coffee and on his return the social worker was asking Elizabeth how she would feel about someone coming in to help care for her.

Elizabeth became angry. This can happen and when it does Elizabeth can shout and swear or even become aggressive. Crawford knows this, he is the expert. If you read his diaries or ask him to share his expertise he will tell you. Crawford used all of his patience to explain to the social worker that working with Elizabeth requires skill and tact. Elizabeth does not understand the concept of a deadline, or of a report or the need to have your case notes updated.

Crawford has been here before with doctors who have offered diagnosis after diagnosis. He has been there with occupational therapists, dieticians, psychologists and psychiatrists. Amidst all of this Crawford is still engaged in a complex legal battle over the original injury. Losing this could put his home at risk as he and Elizabeth exist on state benefit. Crawford has to care and fight, and balancing both of these is becoming an ever more challenging task.

Crawford needs to be organised - for him this is the key - and his diaries help. He has by now experienced most of the challenges involved in caring for Elizabeth. There is not much he has not dealt with. He has dealt with tantrums, violence, tears, depression, anger and frustration, and understands all of these.

He understands all to well his own burden. Fighting on all fronts is draining and he too is feeling the pressure. Caring for Elizabeth saps his energy and creativity. Like many carers he feels he is the only one who can care for Elizabeth.

He finds it easy to share his knowledge and expertise but hard to give up his role. He worries that someone else won’t care for Elizabeth properly. He worries that the progress they have made will reduce if someone else comes in. He worries that if someone else comes in he will lose his identity.

Crawford likes to keep fit. He finds solace in the solitary pursuit of running. He uses this time to refresh himself, to de-stress, to reflect on what has worked and what he might do differently. Crawford needs re-assurance. He needs patience and understanding and he needs to be involved. Crawford needs to be recognised as the expert.

Crawford and Elizabeth need social workers to understand that their relationship is intimate, that amidst all the frustration and anger there is a bond that has been challenged and strengthened by adversity. Crawford and Elizabeth need each other and they need social workers to understand this.

For Crawford, the important thing is that each professional has an understanding not only of their role but of how all of them work together and understand each other. Co-ordination is the key. If professionals took the time to read up on Elizabeth before they visited her they would understand that change frightens Elizabeth and that when she is frightened the fight or flight instinct takes over. Trying to put together a package of support that will have an impact won’t happen under these circumstances.

Crawford needs social workers to talk to him. He knows the Elizabeth’s behaviour can put people off. He also knows that this can be avoided. New ideas or changes need to move at Elizabeth’s pace, she needs to be consulted and her views sought. Crawford needs to be there to help Elizabeth to understand what is being suggested. After all of these years Elizabeth trusts Crawford implicitly. He knows and she knows he knows.

In Crawford and Elizabeth’s world the professional pressure for social workers matters little. They are sympathetic. They know that social workers work in a busy and demanding environment, that they are often blamed and they get bad a press. All of this is relevant but not important. For Crawford and Elizabeth, these challenges are professional not personal.

Crawford and Elizabeth’s challenges are personal. Their lives are dominated by Elizabeth’s needs and Crawford’s desire to meet them as best as he can. Crawford does so because he loves Elizabeth, their bond is deeply personal and goes beyond any challenge that life has thrown at them.

Crawford has accrued knowledge and expertise. This has been developed in the most pressured and challenging environment and Crawford has retained all of this knowledge. He is desperate to share it. There are no issues of confidentiality - it is theirs and if it helps it is yours.

Yet in helping Elizabeth gain more independence there is a risk for Crawford. If Elizabeth gets the support she needs he needs to re-define himself and there is a risk here. Such a transition will prove difficult. While Crawford and Elizabeth want this, they know that getting it will mean another change. They know this but they still want it.

Crawford has aspirations and wants to go back to university. He sees a future but he needs to know that the present is safe. In order for this to happen, social workers need to listen to Crawford and to learn from him.

Social workers need to ask him about Elizabeth. They need to ask him about him. They need to ask them about them. Social workers need to talk to others such as psychiatrists and dieticians. For Crawford, social workers need to value the uniqueness of his experiences and of his relationship with Elizabeth.

Carers do not feel connected to many of the organisational pressures that are around for social workers. They want a service that meets their needs. The financial pressures of local authorities are not immediate to them. Why should they be? The pressures they are experiencing are just as great. They are personal pressures, everyday challenges to which there is no end in sight. Crawford and Elizabeth need social workers who can listen to and learn from them.

David McKendrick is a Lecturer in Social Work at Glasgow Caledonian University

From Miami to Kilmarnock

On two seperate programmes on BBC this week a sad but all to familiar story was heard from two young men.
In Miami Louis Theorux visited Miami's mega jail. Toward the end of the documentary he interviewed a young man who had just been convicted and sentenced. The young man expressed his relief at his future being settled. Initially Theroux thought that he was relieved to have the matter finished and know that he had some kind of release date. Theroux seemed surprised when the young man advised that his releif was at being safe. Safe from what was going on in his life on the outside, safe from his community.
Monday night it was the turn of a similar young man from Kilmarnock expressing his view that prison was the most positive option available to him. He too expressed that in prison he was safe, cared for and fed. In short he was in an environment he could manage. For many people prison is a frightening option yet for both these young men it offered something desirable.
As someone who has spent most of his working life with young people this is a situation I am all too familiar with. The "outside" is full of pitfalls; drugs, alcohol, struggles with family, struggles with housing, struggles with access to work and training all feature largely for many young people.
What also features largely is a genuine fear of the daily challenges that their freedom has, challenges they often feel unequipped to deal with.
For many young people they are ill equipped for these challenges as they were never given a realistic road map of adult life from those who had the responsibility to do so, parents, carers other family members were unable (and in some cases unwilling) to commit to the development of the skills required to manage their world. Often there were compelling reasons for this, parental drug or alcohol problems, issues with their own physical and mental health and their own restricted access to many of the formal institutuions that develop our capacity to manage diverse and challenging environments. If the primary carers expereienced these difficulties it seemed unlikely that their children would be able to learn the skills that they needed to achieve some form of ability of their own.
Of course societal factors play a key role, the structural inequalites of access cannot be overstated both of the young men featured on the documentries came form equivalent social and economic circumstances. In my own expereience there are not too many rich priveleged young people in places like Cortnon vale, Polmont or Barlinnie.
Interestingly there are exceptions for some young people from these family and economic circumstances. Some manage to avoid prison often through education sometimes through a mixture of determination and luck. What struck me the most was young people who had expereienced such poverty of opportunity were often able to articulate their position very effectively. The term "resilience" is often used to describe this and for me it seems that we as a society should consider ways that we can reward this capacity. I often had discussion with young people where the best I could offer was to say "stick in, keep going, there is always hope", many did and it to their credit much more than anyone else's that they did. For doing so brought no tangible reward. Perhaps we should consider how we develop some recognition structure for those who do stick in, for me they often seemed the most disadvanteaged.
A failure to consider this and any other "new" options certainly wont prevent the stories from Miami and Kilmarnock. For me prison also offers the security and safety to young people that is not availble to them outside. Outside the risk of addictions of other forms of excessive behaviours allow escape for the confusing and unsafe world that young people are exposed to.

Thoughts on Labours future

In today’s Herald there is an editorial that considers carefully the position of Labour in Scotland. It informs  that although Labour’s vote in Scotland did not go down, a large number of “traditional” Labour voters migrated to the SNP while Labour picked up a large number of Lib Dem votes.

What is clear, and what was clear on last night’s Dispatches is that the coalition government has damaged the Lib Dem’s more that any other party, partly as a result of the coalition itself but also because they appear to have politically out manoeuvred at every turn and over every significant policy by the wilier Conservatives.

In Scotland the Lib Dem vote collapsed. Labour picked up some of it but what may be of greater interest is that there are a significant number of voters who are no longer vote on the premise of who they “always” supported. Voting is now an entirely subjective affair. In the midst of the disaster that Labour experienced is there some kind of opportunity?

I am not convinced that the majority of those who voted SNP voted for independence. The SNP are a well organised centrist party who have a strong leader and who have articulated a vision for Scotland while at the same time maintaining a powerful Scottish identity. At their core the SNP wish to distance Scotland from the coalition government. This had a resonance with the electorate and we now have a majority SNP government who are making progress on at least one of their economic aims.

Labour in Scotland appears hidebound by England. This is a dangerous position for Labour. The SNP now can put clear water between themselves and the worst of the coalition's excesses, particularly in the public sector cuts saying “It definitely wasn’t us. It’s the Tories who are making us all pay for the excesses of the previous Labour government” cleverly blaming both of their opponents and restating their own position as the defenders of Scotland.

What now for Labour in Scotland? A root and branch review? Well at least, Labour was decimated, the Labour vote is now harder than ever to classify and there is a need to establish exactly what Scottish Labour is.

In the election this was never clear Labour did not identify well enough with Scotland and Labour was not identifiably Scottish. These two areas need to be addressed and addressed quickly and comprehensively. Failure to do so leaves Labour looking uncertain and potentially indulgent.

Labour need's to ask a series of difficult questions. Not least of which is “Who are our supporters?” Evidence would suggestthe retention of a strong base and there has been a migration of a number of voters who wished to vote against Lib Dems. The problem with voting patterns such as this is that such voters are inconsistent, while they are with Labour just now how does Labour retain them. Labour needs to remember there is no brand loyalty.

Secondly, how does Labour manage to be a Scottish branch of a unionist party? What makes Labour different form the others? What makes Labour more attractive? The emerging answer seems to be renewed commitment to a more federalist approach. The danger here is that Labour is seen as SNP lite, only interested in this because the opponents favour similar approaches

Finally, how does Labour build toward a solid base, how to does it  re-emerge from this defeat and gain support, and from where? Does it go after those previous Labour voters who migrated to the SNP? Or does it target those who did not vote, try to develop a new voter base?

There are others of course, but for me these are the ones that occupy my mind. What I see as being of primary importance is how Labour develops the “root and branch” review. How does the party in Scotland reflect, critically and positively on the defeat? The root and branch review needs to be a new jumping off point.

Reviews such as this need to concentrate on more than apportioning blame. It needs to be reflective and critical, it needs to develop a real strategy that can be communicated and that people can buy into. It needs to recognisably Labour and recognisably Scottish. It needs to seek the opinions of all of those involved and synthesise these into a series of policies that brand Labour in as effective a way as possible. Labour needs to accept it is a party of opposition, a period of reflection should be seen as a strength. But after this Labour needs to be seen as decisive. Labour needs a leader who people can organise behind, one who is seen as credible and more importantly one who has confidence in the policies they articulate. Labour need to change, and change quickly.