By Social Worker To be
There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?” Foster Wallace (2005)
As a young, inexperienced social work student starting a career in the child care and protection field, this tale from Foster Wallace really resonates when I observe social work practice in Oranga Tamariki (OT). During my brief time in the organisation, I have seen many ‘fish’ working incredibly hard for the safety of Aotearoa New Zealand’s (ANZ) tamariki but, at the same time, being disconnected and unaware of the water around them, or in another words, the environment and further context surrounding their work. The only difference I would suggest from Foster Wallace’s quote is that, from my point of view, it would probably be the younger ‘fish’ coming fresh out of university explaining to the older ‘fish’ with years of experience what water is. It seems to me that the longer you have been swimming, the more difficult it becomes to see the water.
The point of this aquatic allegory is to illustrate that often, in statutory child protection, social workers seem to find themselves practicing through a disillusioned default setting that fails to look at the bigger picture. This can easily happen considering the constraints of the system in the present neoliberal context. Child care and protection social work has been challenged by welfare austerity, managerialism, auditing, and surveillance of practice, which has altered the operationalisation of services and the meeting of clients’ needs (Beddoe, 2010) . This professional environment – dominated by risk management, organisational accountability and governmental expectation to meet standards – has tragically windswept professional social work core values such as social justice, relationship building, and critical reflection.
The opportunities for social workers to critically reflect on their practice development and decision-making while linking it to the big picture has become crucial in the present risk-averse hierarchical bureaucracy. Professional supervision is the space to do so, but unfortunately in the hectic and under-resourced climate of OT, supervision is often far from being a priority. In many occasions, when supervision finally takes place, the session is mainly driven by the supervisor’s managerial needs of the supervisee’s caseload. This is despite the recent development of the OT Professional Supervision Policy and Standards , which pushed for a commitment to improve practitioners’ skills and knowledge within supervision. In ANZ, the importance of professional supervision in social work practice is also emphasised by the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers (ANZASW) Supervision Policy and the Social Workers Registration Board (SWRB) Code of Conduct .
For supervision to be a place for discovery, replenishment and meet the transformative action purpose, it must be reflective, critical and involve the examination of the needs of people alongside dominant political agendas and discourses. In reflective supervision, the social worker, through a process of deconstructing and reconstructing meaning, identifies power and authority and demonstrates how it impacts upon both clients’ lives and professional practice (Fook & Gardner, 2007). Evidence shows that social work supervision that promotes critical reflection and learning is key for developing professionalism, building positive practice outcomes with clients and providing support to communities (Weld, 2012).
It is clear, then, that the ability for social workers to learn, assess and examine their work through reflective practice and develop alternative pro-active ways of working through critical reflection needs to remain central to child protection social work. For the sake of our profession, its fundamental values of social justice and social change and, especially, to ensure the best outcomes for tamariki and their whānau, we need to advocate for quality supervision to happen in the institutions we work for. Critical and reflective supervision is the alternative to the default setting of unconscious and disengaged practice. Supervision is a key tool in recognising the water all around us, as we swim through the murky and exciting sea of child protection social work.
References
ANZASW (2015). Supervision policy. Retrieved from: https://anzasw.nz/wp-content/uploads/ANZASW-Supervision-Policy-Updated-February-2015.pdf
Beddoe, L. (2010). Surveillance or reflection: Professional supervision in “the risk society”. British Journal of Social Work, 40 (4), 1279-1296.
Fook, J. & Gardner, F. (2007). Practising critical reflection: A resource handbook. Maidenhead, UK: Open University Press.
Foster Wallace, D. (2005). This is water. Retrieved from: https://fs.blog/2012/04/david-foster-wallace-this-is-water/
Oranga Tamariki (2017). Professional supervision: Policy and standards. Retrieved from: https://practice.orangatamariki.govt.nz/assets/practice/use-professional-supervision/5139fa22bf/professional-supervision-policy-and-standards.pdf
SWRB (2018). Code of conduct. Retrieved from: https://swrb.govt.nz/for-the-public/code-of-conduct/
Weld, N. (2012). A practical guide to transformative supervision for the helping professions. London, UK: Jessica Kingsley.
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