Social work reframed? The experiences of social workers applying systemic ideas in child protection

Abstract

The crossover between systemic psychotherapy and social work has received renewed attention in recent years. Expanding numbers of local authorities are commissioning systemic training and encouraging social workers to apply these ideas within the field of child protection. It is therefore vital and timely to listen to social workers’ experiences, in order to attain feedback on how this can best be achieved. This research study interviewed five case‐holding social workers in a London local authority child protection team about their experiences, and used Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to analyse the data. This paper discusses two themes: ‘the importance of the organisation’ and ‘the process of applying learning’. Recommendations for improvements are made for academic and employment organisations from the research findings. The overall argument is that there is a significant opportunity for the field of systemic psychotherapy to learn from and improve the social work field, and vice versa.Practitioner points Organisational stability, clarity and commitment to systemic practice has a significant impact on social workers’ abilities to apply systemic ideas in their practice Social workers value being able to put systemic ideas into practice and learning the ‘doing’ of as well as the ‘thinking’ behind systemic practice Systemic psychotherapy has an opportunity to learn from its application to social work, particularly if applied to diverse workforces, who in turn work with diverse client groups