This article begins with an overview of the current context for the delivery of social/welfare services and goes on to consider client–worker relationship boundaries that fall within and outside conventional ethical parameters in professional practice. Alternative interpretations of "relationship" are discussed, noting in particular what consumers of services have identified as being beneficial qualities demonstrated by professional "helpers." Using touch and adopting notions of compassion, love, and reciprocity are discussed, noting how these ideas collide with the current ethical thinking commonly used to guide Western social work practice. Finally, a reexamination of "professionalism" is proposed, including ways to facilitate worker–client connectivity. Throughout, the complex tensions between balancing ethical considerations with ideas relating to trust, risk, and authenticity are articulated.
This role-play focuses on a whistle-blowing scenario involving data management issues in a research lab, complicated by uncomfortable personal relationships. Whistle-blowing involves raising concerns or allegations of wrongdoing or misconduct. There is an obligation for whistle-blowers to do so in good faith, which means based on reasonable belief or facts. Suspecting that someone has engaged in research misconduct is one of the most difficult situations researchers face. This is especially true when relationships are strained for other reasons. If you have the suspicion of research misconduct, the possible consequences for all involved can be serious. To handle the situation responsibly and in the best possible manner for your career and the other people involved, you should move deliberately and carefully. Universities are required by the federal government to have procedures for protecting whistle-blowers against retaliation and for reporting misconduct. Inform yourself not only of the formal rules (see your university's policies) but you should also inform yourself of the informal rules for having a dispute in a professional manner while protecting yourself and your career. See the paper on how to report research misconduct and still have a successful career afterwards (Gunsalus, 1998). Also, any paper discovered to have incorrect information should be retracted and errata should be issued for the benefit of other researchers.
Based on a theme that emerged from a study conducted with 25 Indigenous stakeholders between 2009 and 2010, this article argues for the inadequacy of Western models of the practitioner–client relationship, and a need to consider rural and cultural characteristics of Indigenous social work in relationship building and maintaining. The findings suggest that historical and affective contexts, life contextualized scenarios and the collective interest which affect professional boundaries and the dyadic relationship are important in terms of addressing the relationship in a tribal community. The article ends by highlighting implications for Indigenous social work.
Social workers are often entreated to 'make use of the self' when they seek to form helping relationships with service users. This can raise tricky questions for the practitioner seeking to be professional and maintain 'appropriate boundaries' with service users: what and how much of my self can I share? This article reflects on a concept from social pedagogy known as the '3 Ps' to explore the challenge of managing boundaries in relationships as a professional. Three questions are explored through personal reflections on my experience as a social worker and more recently as an academic: (1) What parts of my 'self' can I share when seeking to build relationships with service users or others who it is my job to support? (2) What costs are there when I withhold aspects of myself from these others? And (3) What benefits and risks might there be in crossing boundaries?
Fostering and maintaining strong collaborative relationships are critically important for paraprofessionals and special education teachers working together to provide a high-quality education for students with severe disabilities. Through in-depth interviews with 22 teachers and paraprofessionals comprising nine educational teams, we examined educator perspectives on what influences the quality of their professional relationships, as well as how their perspectives on these influences converged or diverged. Teachers and paraprofessionals identified five themes of influences to the quality of their relationships: teacher influences, paraprofessional influences, shared influences (i.e., related to the collective efforts of teachers and paraprofessionals), administrative influences (i.e., related to school and district leaders), and underlying influences (i.e., related to contextual or other factors). The findings highlight the complex nature of these relationships and emphasize the importance of supporting teachers and paraprofessionals as they work together to meet the needs of students with severe disabilities. We offer recommendations for future research and practice aimed at strengthening the quality and impact of special educator–paraprofessional collaborations.
'Die vorliegende Studie untersucht an drei Fallbeispielen das Zusammenspiel von Profession und Organisation sowie Patient und Familie. Ausgangspunkt ist die empirische wie theoretische Erkenntnis, dass die Art und Weise, in der Patienten und Professionelle im Krankenhaus miteinander kooperieren, von mehreren Faktoren abhängt: (1) vom Status der Professionellen, (2) von der Konfliktkultur innerhalb der Klinikhierarchie, (3) von der organisatorischen Struktur der Klinik und (4) vom familialen und milieuspezifischen Wissen der Professionellen. Hinsichtlich der Einbeziehung von Familienangehörigen in die Kooperationsbeziehung zwischen Professionellen und Patienten ist festzustellen, dass sich die Einbeziehung bisher eher auf Ausnahmen in einigen Versorgungsbereichen beschränkt, die alleinige Fokussierung auf den Patienten ist dagegen die Regel. Auch in Bereichen wie der Pädiatrie, in der die Familie letztlich konstitutiver Bestandteil von solchen Kooperationsbeziehungen ist, werden die Eltern eher als Störfaktor denn als Partner wahrgenommen. Es fehlt auf Seiten der Gesundheitsprofessionen neben den entsprechenden Wissensgrundlagen vor allem aber auch an organisatorischen Handlungsroutinen, mit denen die Familie in das Versorgungssetting integriert werden kann.' (Autorenreferat)
There has been a great deal written in recent years about the complexities of social work decision making and the need for a more ecological conceptualisation of the decision-making task in child welfare and protection. This article outlines some of the findings from a PhD study of secure accommodation decision making in Scotland which sought to understand the dynamics of local social work decision making in cases where children and young people pose a significant risk to themselves and/or others. Observations of decision-making meetings, interviews and focus groups were used to develop a multidimensional perspective on decision-making practices in one large urban local authority. Professional relationships were found to impact on information gathering, 'thinking through' decisions and managing emotions, 'working' the decision-making system to the benefit of your referral and having your assessment accepted by others. Trust emerged as an important quality in relationships between professionals who share decision-making responsibilities. Drawing on theories of trust, relationships and decision making, the article challenges the dominant rational choice model of social work decision making and develops new links between theory and practice by highlighting the importance of understanding the impact of professional relationships when seeking to improve social work decision making. The article also emphasises the need for further research to enhance our understanding of the multiplicity of ways that professional relationships can impact on decision-making practice and its outcomes.
AbstractThis article argues that psychosocial theory can enhance understanding of intersubjective dynamics between workers and young people involved in crime and violence. After introducing some conceptual tools from psychoanalysis and post‐structural theory, a case study follows a worker's efforts to bring about a young man's desistance (including the worker's use of self‐disclosure) and how this is stymied by systemic failings in a homeless hostel in the UK. The article concludes that professional work in services targeted at young people with multiple support needs requires a deep sensibility to intersubjective and unconscious dynamics within professional relationships and organisations.
This article explores trust in children&rsquo ; s relationships with professionals in the context of safeguarding concerns. With exception, existing research with children about trust in professionals often fails to unpick trust. Using sociological conceptualisations of trust, most often considered in relation to adults, this article unravels this complex concept. It arrives at a conception of trust as socially situated, an attribute of relationships, and a combination of interpretation (knowledge and experience) and faith. This conceptualization of trust is examined in the context of interview accounts from children that were aged 8&ndash ; 10 in an English primary school. Interviews invited their perspectives on three fictional vignettes about peer conflict, domestic abuse, and child sexual abuse. My analysis, although small-scale, argues that focusing on the process of trust in children&rsquo ; s professional relationships and the social, cultural, political, and relational contexts that shape this process, is a lucrative way to gain enhanced understandings of how trust is generated and what facilitates and undermines trust. It sheds light on children&rsquo ; s interpretations of existing relationships and imagined interactions with professionals, revealing the knowledge that they hold and what they do not yet, or cannot know, and how this knowledge (or lack of) influences their trust. This analysis is socially situated attending to children&rsquo ; s biographies, which offers insights that provide good grounds for improving children&rsquo ; s relationships with professionals.
"In diesem Beitrag werden Erkenntnisse aus Gruppendiskussionen zu den ausgewählten Aspekten Körperkontakt und Macht in professionellen Beziehungen dargestellt, die in dem Forschungsprojekt "'Ich bin sicher!' - Schutzkonzepte aus der Sicht von Jugendlichen und Betreuungspersonen" erhoben wurden. In dem aus Mitteln des Bundesministeriums für Bildung und Forschung finanzierten Projekt wurde danach gefragt, was Kinder und Jugendliche, die in stationären Settings betreut werden, unter Schutz verstehen, ob und wo sie sich (un-)geschützt erleben und auf welche konkreten Maßnahmen Professionelle zurückgreifen, um nachhaltigen Schutz herzustellen. In den Gruppendiskussionen, die in Heimen, Internaten und (Kur-)Kliniken mit Kindern bzw. Jugendlichen und Betreuungspersonen geführt wurden, kam der Aspekt des Körperkontakts zwischen Betreuungspersonen und Kindern und Jugendlichen vielfach ins Gespräch. Angesprochen wurden Berührungen zwischen Kindern bzw. Jugendlichen und ihren Betreuungspersonen. Dies wirft die Frage auf, wie Körperkontakt zwischen diesen Parteien zu gestalten und/oder zu regulieren ist, sodass ein grenzwahrender und Macht reflektierender Umgang in Beziehungen gewährleistet ist. Dieser Beitrag rahmt zunächst das Thema Körperkontakt in professionellen Beziehungen theoretisch, es werden dann Themen aus den Gruppendiskussionen gebündelt, um daraus Herausforderungen für die Praxis herzuleiten." (Autorenreferat)
Purpose – Business to business (B2B) professional services depend on inter-firm cooperation for the co-creation of value. Such cooperation rarely happens overnight; it requires time for the relationship to develop. The purpose of this research is to investigate how different performance attributes of a professional service differ with the tenure of the relationship.
Design/methodology/approach – This exploratory study utilizes seven years of longitudinal customer data provided by a B2B professional service firm. The firm's customers assess satisfaction, value, loyalty, performance quality and their image of the firm after each project.
Findings – Data were classified into three tenure related groups – i.e. transactional, emergent and mature relationships. MANOVA and post hoc contrasts of the average attribute scores of the three groups were conducted. The data support the conclusion that high performance in professional services is evident in mature relationships.
Research limitations/implications – Data come from company archives and reflect the firm's efforts for tactical management of client relationships, not independent informant reports from randomly selected accounts.
Practical implications – Satisfaction surveys can be employed tactically by professional service providers to develop stronger relationships with their clients en route to co-creating extraordinary value from high levels of service quality and the client's high regard for the provider's professional qualities, such as expertise, customer focus and initiative.
Originality/value – To the authors' knowledge, no one has shown empirically the dramatic performance advantage stemming from relationships. This is important because theory suggests that customer relationships hold strategic value. Because they are immobile and inimitable, they represent a potential sustainable competitive advantage. However, relationships take time to develop. This begs the question of whether they are worth the time and effort to develop. In the professional service context, where buyer and seller seemingly must collaborate to co-create value, mature relationships indeed yield higher performance, compared to transactional and emerging relationships.
