Mental Health Social Work Observed by Mike Fisher Clive Newton Eric Sainsbury

Author:Mike Fisher, Clive Newton, Eric Sainsbury [Mike Fisher, Clive Newton, Eric Sainsbury]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Social Work
ISBN: 9781000438116
Google: 6yVEEAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2021-11-07T01:01:20+00:00

‘Unsupported’ Clients

Unsupported’ clients (11 cases) shared the feeling that their social workers had failed to acknowledge something fundamental in their circumstances, and had therefore overlooked areas of personal distress which had a crucial bearing on their continued need for outside help. In contrast to ‘supported’ clients, ‘unsupported’ clients recalled initial interviews as characterised by misunderstandings which subsequent contact did nothing to dispel. Discussion was tense and fraught with unspoken resentment at the lack of recognition for their feelings. In 4 cases, for example, mothers of young children felt ignored by their social workers who were seen as visiting ‘only for the children’. Not only was insufficient attention paid to their distress, in their view, but the social workers also intervened too much in the care of the children and undermined the mother’s role and feelings of competence. Another client, caring for her mentally-ill brother, complained that her social worker never gave her the opportunity to discuss her fears for the future as they both grew older – ‘She says “contact me if you need me” but she’s never there’. All these clients considered that their social workers had failed to grasp issues which were fundamentally worrying them, even though opportunities for doing so had arisen many times during their visits. They tended to feel that their social workers were not interested in their distress and they perceived this lack of interest as irreversible. In the absence of overt negotiations of content, the focus of visits tended to be determined by unspoken assumptions.

In most of these cases, therefore, there were elements of hostility or indifference towards the social worker. One client, who felt implicitly criticised by her social worker, described how she would ‘just sit there’, allowing acutely uncomfortable silences to develop. Another felt belittled by her social worker’s attempts to get her to do more about the house: she complained she was being ‘treated like a child’. Unsupported clients, therefore, recalled contact with a social worker as a bitter experience or at least one to which they were indifferent (cf. Rees, 1978). That their social worker ‘ignored’ their distress was not entirely unexpected and such experiences confirmed their view of the world as an unfriendly place in which no one really cared about them.

The practical service offered by social workers was still important, however, to some clients for whom short-term child care, day care, advocacy and material help featured prominently. But such help never acquired the positive symbolic overtones experienced by the ‘supported’ clients. Rather, it was grudgingly recalled that although the social worker was not much good, occasionally his or her services were found to be useful. The rider was usually added that, had the social worker really cared or tried harder, better help could have been offered; one family complained that their social worker had obtained a second-hand mattress for them while the family up the road ‘got a new mattress in a plastic cover’. Compared with the ‘supported’ clients, of whom three-quarters received practical help, only three ‘unsupported’ clients recalled receiving such help.

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