Child and Adolescent Psychology for Social Work and Allied Professions

Applied Perspectives

Gabriela Misca, Peter Unwin

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781350312937
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Ciencias sociales
• Subtopic: Trabajo social

This essential new textbook meets the challenges faced by those who work with children in order to provide safe and effective practice. It identifies the ways in which social work and psychology need to work together to achieve this. Misca and Unwin reflect on the need for 'research mindedness' in social work education, and offer an invaluable critical analysis of current knowledge of child and adolescent psychology theory and research to help inform best social work practice. Whether a student on a qualifying course or an experienced practitioner, this is essential reading for social workers and psychologists working with children and adolescents.

1

The relevance of child and adolescent psychology to social work

Key learning outcomes

Following the study of this chapter, learners will be able to:

➢ Interpret the Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF) and the Knowledge and Skills Statement (KSS) on children and families.

➢ Develop critical, broad awareness of the context of contemporary social work with children.

➢ Critically reflect on the importance of child and adolescent psychology to social work.

➢ Reflect on the dilemmas within inter-agency working.

➢ Analyse some of the key serious case reviews.

Introduction

This chapter will introduce the rationale behind this book and how it is designed to help social workers and social work students to use psychological knowledge to best inform their interactions with children and families. The need for psychological knowledge in a social work culture, where targets and budgets have dominated for some years, is all the more crucial. Practical tasks, reflective points and case studies will be used throughout the book and all are taken from real-life examples designed to bring psychological theory and knowledge alive. The hypothetical caseload of an imaginary student social worker, Helen, will be used throughout to parallel the likely challenges found with present-day social worker caseloads. It is additionally recommended that readers draw on core psychological textbooks, such as those by Nicolson (2014) and Sudbery (2009), which provide greater depth and detailed theoretical knowledge than was possible to include in this wide-ranging book, which is primarily concerned with key psychological applications across many areas of contemporary social work practice.

This chapter also sets the wider organizational and political context in which social work takes place and focuses on the importance of relationship-based practice (RBP) (Ruch, 2010) as a necessary underpinning of effective social work with children and families.

The importance of child and adolescent psychology to social work

Contemporary social work with children and young people is in turmoil, and this book will suggest that one of the reasons for this turmoil is a lack of psychological understanding about the issues behind the behaviours of children and families in today’s fast-changing world. This book differs from most psychology texts in that it introduces the basics in a range of theories and models and applies them to social work practice. It aims to provide the reader – social work students and practitioners – with an overview of the fit between key psychological theories and concepts with social work practice. This book will also act as guidance for students of psychology and related disciplines who seek understanding of how to apply psychological concepts and theories in practice with children and young people, and aid their career planning and development.

The rapid development of social media in particular has brought with it a culture wherein bullying and a relentless focus on looks and body image, together with distorted views of sexualities, have presented today’s children and young people with new and frightening pressures (Hamm et al., 2015). The mental health of children and young people in the UK is stated to be at an all-time low, with some 800,000 children suffering from mental health difficulties (Office of the Children’s Commissioner, 2017). Could so many children really be experiencing such mental health problems due to the contemporary pressures noted above? Or are children not being allowed to deal with what might be the ‘normative’ pressures of a social media-dominated childhood – are we too quick to rush for psychological services or to label children as having various forms of mental illness?

Different because various forms of terminology are used when describing psychological states of mind, and this book will explore ‘social and emotional well-being’, which is taken largely to refer to positive mental health and wellness. According to Stirling and Emery (2016), this terminology encompasses:

[a] sense of optimism, confidence, happiness, clarity, vitality, self-worth, achievement, having a meaning and purpose, engagement, having supportive and satisfying relationships with others and understanding oneself, and responding effectively to one’s own emotions.

(p. 5)

Mental health problems will be the term used in this book to refer to the emotional and social challenges faced by children and young people, and mental illness will be used to indicate that some kind of formal threshold or diagnosis has been reached (Padmore, 2016). This book will take stock of the pressures, including the rising rates of family breakup and the issues within reconstituted families, to suggest ways in which professionals, such as social workers and psychologists, might best help families and children to lead fulfilling lives.

Professional practice roles in the field of child and adolescent psychology are not easy ones for professionals, and retention rates in children’s social care are poor (Bowyer & Roe, 2015). This is partly because of the nature of the abuse and violence witnessed daily by social workers, but also because of a political and managerial system that not only starts from the premise that no child will ever be harmed by a carer, but which also then shackles the ability of social workers and their educational and health colleagues from forming consistent and effective relationships with those families and children. The ever-increasing layers of audit, inspection and bureaucracy have been widely critiqued for keeping social workers from dealing with the real issues (Chararbaghi, 2007; Harris & Unwin, 2009; Tait, 2014). Social work has also been hounded by the press after a series of child tragedies, and is under increasing pressure from neoliberal government regimes, with their associated emphases on targets and performance management (Harris & Unwin, 2009; Jones, 2014). Social work is looking for a new identity and new credibility, as articulated by the Social Work Reform Board (SWRB) (DfE, 2010). Our vulnerable children and young people are looking for competence, commitment and consistency from social workers who have the time and insight to know and understand them. Social work needs to develop cultures that retain staff who can take pride and satisfaction in work which is rooted in a strong psychological understanding of how families, communities and organizations work.

Social workers are not short of guidance and advice about how to practise, and there are two main areas of practice guidance that will underpin this book: the ‘bottom-up’ PCF which is managed by the British Association of Social Workers (BASW, 2018) and the ‘top-down’ KSS (DfE, 2018). Both of these documents are found in Appendices 1 and 2. The PCF was introduced in 2012 by the then College of Social Work (DfE, 2015b), and describes the capabilities that all social workers should aspire to develop throughout their career. Its intention is to raise standards of social work practice and encourage the lifelong learning culture propounded by reports such as the Munro Report (Munro, 2011) and the Social Work Reform Board: Progress and feedback (DfE, 2010). These capabilities have been overseen by the BASW since the abolition by the Conservative Government of the College for Social Work, a college initially set up after the death of Peter Connelly (Jones, 2014), a young boy known to social workers. An update of the PCF (BASW, 2018) added three overarching principles or ‘super domains’ of Purpose, Practice, and Impact to the PCF, designed to further guide social practice, as follows:

1. Purpose: Why we do what we do as social workers, our values and ethics, and how we approach our work.

2. Practice: What we do – the specific skills, knowledge, interventions and critical analytic abilities we develop to act and do social work.

3. Impact: How we make a difference – our ability to bring about change through our practice, through our leadership, through understanding our context and through our overall professionalism.

The nine domains, as slightly modified in 2018, are the interdependent ones of:

1. Professionalism

2. Values and Ethics

3. Diversity

4. Rights, Justice and Economic Well-being

5. Knowledge

6. Critical Reflection and Analysis

7. Skills and Interventions

8. Contexts and Organizations

9. Professional Leadership

All of these above domain areas have relevance to the subject matter of this book and are intrinsic to the debate and learning throughout its chapters, pitched at the level of the expectations they hold for a social worker who has just finished their professional training and is about to enter practice, this being known as the ‘End of last placement/completion of qualifying course’ level (BASW, 2018).

The government had issued a more categorical Knowledge and Skills Statement (DfE, 2015) for children’s social work which stated what social workers need to know and be able to do when children might be at risk of harm. This statement covered areas of relationship, communication, assessment and taking appropriate action, all of which will be discussed throughout the book’s chapters. This statement was also updated (DfE, 2018 – see Appendix 2) when BASW and England’s Chief Social Workers issued a joint statement to explain how the PCF and the KSS would complement each other:

The KSS set out what a social worker should know, and be able to do, in specific practice settings, in specific roles and at different levels of seniority. The KSS maps on to the practice domains of the PCF (knowledge, critical reflection and analysis, interventions and skills) and should help guide everyday practice.

(BASW, 2018b)

Social work with children and young people can take many forms – safeguarding children and working with disabled children and young people, young carers, young people with mental health problems, fostered children, children and young people within adoption services, refugee and sanctuary seeking children, and young people in transition to adult services. The diversity among the UK’s young population is wider than ever, and even those of us living or perhaps training as social workers in largely white areas, will meet families and move to jobs in ethnically diverse areas. Misplaced ideologies and ‘political correctness’ stigma around working with diversity have beleaguered social work for some years, with inappropriate interpretations having been taken, which have at best led to poor outcomes and at worse led to child deaths. Laming (2003), in his report on the death of 8-year-old Victoria Climbié, a black African child, was quite clear that, while race and ethnicity were important considerations, the welfare of children overrides any cultural sensitivities. A reluctance to become involved in further investigations involving children from ethnic minorities was further exemplified with the death of Khyra Ishaq (Radford, 2010), whose mother threatened social workers with a racism complaint, as a result of which investigations were not progressed.

Qualities of social workers with children and families

Direct evidence about the desired qualities of social workers can be found in the voices of children and young people, who have spoken about transiency and lack of meaningful relationships with social workers. McLeod (2010) interviewed young people in care with a view to finding out the attributes they sought in social workers, the title of her article being ‘“A friend and an equal” Do young people in care seek the impossible from their social workers?’. Sustained relationships were highly valued and one young man is quoted as follows:

My last [social worker] I had her for a lot of years and we were really great together and had a good laugh and that, but the new one I don’t hardly know her.

(p. 779)

Moreover, McLeod (2010) stated that positive relationships between child and social worker were linked to better long-term outcomes for children.

Recent government-sponsored reports such as that by the SWRB (2010) and the Munro Report (Munro, 2011) do offer the potential of a return to the types of RBP valued by clients (‘client’ is the deliberate terminology preferred throughout this book as being a more individualized term than ‘service user’, and a term familiar to both psychologists and social workers). These above reports argued for a learning culture to be at the heart of contemporary social work, with improved development opportunities and support for social workers. The Munro Report (Munro, 2011) gave high praise for the Hackney Borough Council initiative Reclaiming Social Work (Cross et al., 2010), which apparently had the effect of a 55% drop in sickness rates and a consequent 50% drop in reliance on agency staff. The inference here is that families in that authority are better off without such a degree of reliance on agency or temporary social workers, and that what is valued are workers with the ability to develop the types of relationships that are deeper in nature, allowing the psychological working of children and families to be understood and appropriately interpreted.

Both the SWRB (DfE, 2010) and the Munro Report (Munro, 2011) challenged the overly bureaucratic systems that have come to characterize modernized social work; systems that have often prevented social workers from developing the types of relationships with children and young people that mean underlying psychological issues can be constructively addressed. Psychology is a profession concerned with deep understanding and respect for individuals and, championed by the British Psychological Society (BPS, 2017), it has largely managed to avoid the performance management culture that has enveloped other professions such as social work and nursing. Psychologists also rarely suffer the negative effects of bad press whenever an individual child tragedy occurs, this situation being in direct contrast with the experiences of their social work colleagues.

Reflective point

➢ Why do you think there is a different media approach towards social workers and psychologists?

➢ Do you think that the media factor is one that makes social work more psychologically stressful than it need be?

➢ What steps could a social work organization take to change media perceptions?

Relationship-based practice in working with children and families

The Munro Report (Munro, 2011) also stressed that continual professional development within a learning culture which valued RBP (Ruch, 2010) represented the best way ahead for children and families. RBP is a social work approach designed to enable practitioners to work in-depth on the psychologies of families’ problems, rather than in a reductionist way. Adherents of RBP would argue that the insights that flow from this approach are effective ones that help challenge power imbalances and structural oppression. RBP necessitates some degree of partnership betwee...