Therapeutic journeys: the car as a vehicle for working with children and families and theorising practice

Abstract

This paper argues that greater attention needs to be given to where social work goes on and the implications of particular contexts for how skilful work can be done. It does so by focusing on the car, arguing that it plays a vital but neglected role in child welfare practice. Some of the most profound life changes vulnerable children experience happen during ‘moves’ in the car, when vitally important opportunities for meaningful communication and therapeutic work arise. The same can be said for drives undertaken as part of ongoing casework. The paper traces the historical emergence and development of the car in social work and child welfare and shows how academic and practitioner accounts of work with children in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s gave prominence to experiences in cars. While such insights have mostly been lost today, the car is as important as ever in child welfare practice. The paper aims to rehabilitate – or perhaps recondition – the car in social care work, both as an object that is crucial to how and what child welfare work gets done and as a subject for developing theoretical understandings of practice. In particular the need is demonstrated for a theoretical perspective which draws on mobility studies and psychodynamic and relationship-based practice, where due attention is given to therapeutic processes and working with the emotions.