Language Practices in Social Work

Categorisation and Accountability in Child Welfare

Christopher Hall, Stefaan Slembrouck, Srikant Sarangi

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Topic: Social Sciences
• eBook ISBN:
  9781135179953
• Subtopic: Communication Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Analysis of language and discourse in social sciences has become increasingly popular over the past thirty years. Only very recently has it been applied to the study of social work, despite the fact that communication and language are central to social work practice.

This book looks at how social workers, their clients and other professionals categorise and manage the problems of social work in ways which are rendered understandable, accountable and which justify professional intervention. Features include:

• studies of key practice areas in social work, such as interviews, case conferences, home visits
• analysis of the language and construction used in typical case studies of everyday social work practice
• exploration of the ways in which professionals can examine their own practice and uncover the discursive, narrative and rhetorical methods that they use.

The purpose of this engaging study is to increase awareness of language and discourse in order to help develop better practice in social work. It is essential reading for professionals in social work, child welfare and the human services and will be a valuable contribution to the study of professional language and communication.

1Introduction

So it’s mayhem up there

Social worker on the phone

Social worker: Believe it or not we’ve actually got four child protections all on intensive care. So it’s mayhem up there. So the consultant hasn’t yet I mean he said he’ll come back to me with more information but I mean I think it is extremely questionable if this child will survive. They are clear that at this stage it is a child protection referral.

This is the opening of a television programme Someone to watch over me broadcast on the BBC in December 2004. It was the last in a series of six programmes about social workers in Bristol in the UK during 2003. Each programme followed how two or three social workers managed their work with children and families, with clips from meetings with other professionals and parents, telephone conversations and shots to camera. They aimed to display the crises and tragedies which are the daily dilemmas of social workers. The cases were all very serious with children injured, at risk, in care and, in this case, the baby had serious brain injuries. After this opening we become witness to various meetings and commentary from professionals which took place in the hospital, relating to one of the four cases, a baby with severe brain damage.

Meeting between social worker and doctors

Doctor: Now this little one is 6 months old whilst feeding become very floppy and stopped breathing.

Social worker: In Dad’s care?

Doctor: I haven’t got that yet ehm and a CT scan was done which showed left temporo-parietal haemorrhages and inter-hemispheric fissural haemorrhages. During the transfer to Bristol both pupils became fixed and dilated and a repeat CT scan showed generalised brain oedema with complete loss of all ventricles and this morning the child is having a lot of very abnormal movements. The radiologist has the impression from the CT scans that this is not survivable ehm appearance.

Doctor 2: Ok yeah. Catastrophic brain trauma isn’t it ehm. I mean at some point we are going to need to let them know that the police will need to talk to them and social services.

Social worker: And check basics like are there any other children.

Having heard this serious diagnosis, the professionals meet to plan the next stage.

Meeting in social work office

Social worker: The parents are here. They are stressed. They don’t know there is any query on the explanation they have given that he choked and became floppy.

Team manager: That’s what they think. That’s what. That’s their.

Social worker: At the moment.

Doctor: We need to go and talk to these parents and broach the child protection issues. Following I think that we’ll try and examine him.

Team manager (writing notes): So see parents, inform police and record plan in the medical notes about in the event of death.

Doctor: It’s potentially. If he does die, I mean, we are dealing with a murder.

The father denies that he harmed his son and has told the social worker that the baby choked while he was feeding him. The baby’s mother is standing by him. The family live some distance from the hospital and the social worker’s priority is to inform their local police of the latest developments.

Commentary to camera

Social worker: It’s really sad. My job in this kind of circumstance is to ascertain facts and get an account from the parents and explain to them what’s happening.

Social worker on the phone to police

Social worker: His injuries are consistent with being shaken they are … we’re very unlikely to get any other medical explanation but they are still obviously … checking everything they’ve got. But whether he started coughing and Dad panicked and shook him as part of trying to deal with that situation he started choking. Or whether he was shaken and that led to a choking we don’t we don’t know. I hear what you are saying you’re dealing with a potential murder inquiry and all the rest of it but I can just say that these are coming across as ehm distraught parents.

(We don’t hear the response from the police)

Social worker: Alright. Yeah yeah yeah. (sigh) I know it’s the wrong time of night for me to do this but can I play devil’s advocate? Can we keep this Dad up here ehm even if you have to arrest up here and can you interview him up here. Alright? Speak to you tomorrow. Bye bye.

(Social worker puts down the phone)

Team manager: Who was that?

Social worker: Detective Inspector.

Team manager: Right I think I’ve got the gist of all that.

Social worker: Bollocks.

Team manager: Are they pushing?

Social worker: His boss is saying ‘arrest and bring him back to Cornwall’.

Team manager: No no no no no.

Social worker: Well. You heard my no no no no and I said well there’s no point in my saying no no no no even though in my head I’m going no no no no no and that’s why you heard me say ‘these are just distressed parents’. Is there any way if you have absolutely got to arrest him, is there any way of doing it in Bristol?

The social worker clarifies how she is trying to communicate her point of view to the police.

Commentary to camera

Social worker: Because they didn’t know anything about the case they seemed to spend a large part of the day going ‘this is really serious this is a shaken baby’ just getting it through. And they were going ‘yeah yeah but we need more medical information’ and just try to make sure that everybody had got the severity of the situation. And now I’m like ‘hang on, why do you need to get up here and arrest him tonight?’ And you know maybe this chap has murdered him and maybe I’m absolutely wrong in saying that but you’ve got parents that are extremely distressed. He was coming across as a doting dad who had been really scared and if he … The majority of times that babies and children are shaken parents do not plan to do it and they’re not parents that don’t care. They are parents that love their babies that go beyond it. Now that doesn’t mean it’s right. It doesn’t mean you can allow that child to stay there. You’ve got to take all the action but it’s not some cold calculating monster. It’s a loving parent.

Team manager: I’ve seen them come up to the ward and take parents off before now. And we’ve fought very hard for that not to happen.

The police are going ahead with the arrest.

Commentary to camera

Social worker: I can’t get away from the belief that whatever political body it is in government if they really cared about vulnerable people in society they would put more resources into it. Because they know they know how many families we are working with you know nationally. They know what work we are doing. If they run it so that people have so many cases and are continually working to their absolute maximum capacity and beyond because there aren’t enough staff and there aren’t enough resources, then they should take some responsibility for when things go wrong.

The police go ahead with the arrest in the hospital and take the father away to his home area, some 200 miles away. The social workers and the police meet.

Meeting with police

Team manager: Why did he have to go down under the circumstances?

Police: I can’t really comment on that. It’s a decision made by my D[etective] I[nspector]. Team manager: Fine. Ok.

Social worker: At the risk of being … If we can work out why (inaudible) If we can just get him back.

Team manager: I’ve got to just go and fax something on another case that we’ve got to go in and remove a baby … I’ll just find out what I’ve done with the papers.

Police (on the phone to his superior): Hello Tom, it’s Harry. Have you received a fax that’s come through there? It’s a letter written by the consultant ehm who is in charge of the case this morning. Well, ehm it’s got, well, I’ll read it to you with regards to this patient. ‘It is imperative that this father be transported to the Bristol Children’s Hospital immediately.’

Social worker on the phone

Social worker: They arrested him in front of other parents in our parents room huhh and ehm he went for … That was by Bristol Police on the instruction from Cornwall. And then he was taken down to Cornwall and we’ve spent the morning frantically trying to get him back.

Planning in social work office

Social worker: What I need to do is ask the admin to cancel Karin. Are you ok? Alright?

(Social worker puts an arm on the team manager’s shoulder)

Team manager: Yeah. I’ve just got so much on.

Social worker: Don’t worry. Karin we are alright. We’ll get through today. I’m just going to ask admin to cancel appointments. We’ll get through today.

Team manager: But what about?

Social worker: And then we’ll do tomorrow.

The next day, social workers meet with the police to present the evidence.

Meeting with police

Social worker: We met with the parents yesterday. 5pm. Dad felt he was starting to be hungry started feeding him. I don’t know what he was feeding. He took he estimates about 10 mouthfuls of food and then he closed his mouth.

Police (takes notes): 10 mouthfuls of unknown food.

Social worker: Yeah and then he started coughing. He opened his mouth during this and he could see that there was food in his mouth so he said that he took the spoon and tried to gently scrape the food from around his mouth. He continued to cough ehm and was choking. He was really distressed. He was panicking. He began to panic at that point. He put him on his shoulder and had been ehm patting his back.

Police: Did he say how many times he patted his back?

Social worker: No. And he went limp and remained limp throughout. He dialled 999. He then heard the sirens and ran out. He was very clear in saying that he had not shaken him at all.

Police: He actually said that, did he? Social worker: Yes.

Police: Who informed them this last evening. There were the fact that there were the suspicious nature of the injuries.

Social worker: They were informed yesterday evening. Police: Yesterday evening.

Social worker: That the injuries were consistent with him being shaken. Police: Ok.

Social worker: They answered everything they were asked. He understood that we needed to do our jobs bu...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Categorisation and accountability in professional texts and talk
• 3 Collegial communication in policy review interviews
• 4 Inter-professional decision-making in a case conference
• 5 Negotiating roles in a home visit
• 6 Reporting events in case notes
• 7 Parents’ accounts of social work
• 8 Justifying action in a public inquiry
• 9 Narrative transformation in media reporting
• 10 Conclusion
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Author index
• Subject index