The Reflective Social Worker: A little practice book

By Siobhan Maclean

Reflective practice is a fundamental aspect of social work. It is now more than 40 years since the publication of the groundbreaking text ‘The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action’ by Donald A. Schön, and yet much of the teaching around reflective practice and the way that we see it has not moved on. Accelerated by the Covid 19 pandemic, social work has experienced rapid change, and we urgently need to consider reflective social work in new ways. This, not so little, book explores reflective social work in a very practical way. Hints and tips are provided for readers to support their journey towards becoming more reflective. This is a book that has something for everyone involved in social work from those considering a career in social work to experienced practitioners and managers – we all need to revisit our commitment to reflective practice, bringing our skills and understanding up to date for contemporary practice. Siobhan Maclean has been a social worker for 33 years. She has written widely around the areas of social work theory and critically reflective practice. Siobhan provides training on reflective practice for students, social workers and managers. Siobhan takes a very creative approach to thinking about the professional knowledge base and how to communicate this clearly.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kirwin Maclean Associates Ltd
• Release date: Dec 29, 2023
• ISBN: 9781912130955

Siobhan Maclean

Siobhan Maclean BA CQSW PQSW (Company Director). I am a registered social worker and have a passion for our profession. I qualified in 1990 and have held various social work positions

Book preview

THE BASIC REFLECTIVE PRACTICE FRAMEWORK: WHAT? WHY? HOW?

Good social work finds the simplicity in complexity and the What? Why? How? framework is the best starting point for this. As a simple framework it can help us to work through some of the complexity of contemporary practice. This section will look at the basic What? Why? How? framework and will then use the framework to consider the development of reflective practice. It will explore:

The What? Why? How? framework

The What? Why? How? framework is the simplest framework for reflective practice but yet it is a vitally important starting point for the reflective social worker. When we are working in any situation we should be exploring:

•What is happening here?

•Why has this situation come about?

•How can I work with this to bring about change?

The danger is that busy practitioners might lose their ‘why’ such that they may work on the basis of:

•What has happened now?

•How do I deal with it this time?

The problem here is that the worker has become responsive and reactive rather than reflective. The reflective social worker is one who has a clear hold of their ‘why.’ In fact, it is when we are thinking about ‘why’ that reflection really takes place.

In the global bestselling leadership book ‘Start with Why’ Simon Sinek (2009) introduced the ‘golden circle’. Sinek claims that every organisation knows what they do, some organisations know how they do it but very few organisations know why they do what they do. He claims that When most organizations or people think, act or communicate they do so from the outside in, from the what to the why. And for good reason – they go from the clearest thing to the fuzziest thing (Sinek 2009: 39).

I have always thought that social work should have why at the start and at the heart. Why are you a social worker? Why are you involved with this person? Why are we doing this? Are all questions that we should regularly reflect on. However, I have recently become concerned that social workers are working through the golden circle from the outside in, sometimes missing the ‘core’ altogether. When I am going out to do direct observations with students, for example, I ask them why are you going on this visit? (or something similar in the context) and they will reply it’s a stat visit or I’m doing a capacity assessment – their response is all about the what, not the why. Thinking about the purpose of our work should provide us with a clear combination of what and why. Sinek (2009) promoted thinking about a CAUSE of action rather than a COURSE of action and I find this a useful phrase in exploring whether I am clear about my purpose in doing something.

One of the reasons that I have loved working with students and newly qualified workers in my career is because they have often asked me why do you do it like that? and thinking about their ‘why’ questions has kept me reflecting and up to date. However, over the years I have noted that students and new workers have asked less ‘why’ questions and have focused more on questions like what form do I fill in now? and how do I do that? When I have spoken to students about this, they have described being worried about asking ‘why’ as it is a silly question. It is important to recognise that there is no such thing as a silly question and, in fact, questions starting with ‘why’ are often the most powerful that we can ask ourselves. As Sinek (2009: 1) claims …if we’re starting with the wrong questions, if we don’t understand the cause, then even the right answers will always steer us wrong…eventually.

If you have ever spent any time with children, you will know that they go through a stage of constantly asking ‘Why?’ Most child development commentators note that this stage occurs between the ages of 3 and 5. This happens when children are building their understanding of the world around them, curiosity helps children to create connections and understand themselves and their relationship with the wider world. This childlike curiosity can be incredibly powerful for social workers, asking ‘why’ enables us to come from a position of not-knowing which is always much more reflective.

Keeping a clear focus on ‘why’ is vital and asking ourselves or others ‘why?’ can be very useful in developing practice and planning responses and asking ‘why’ regularly is a key characteristic of a reflective social worker. However, it important to note that asking ‘why?’ of the people that you support as a social worker may not be so helpful. Restorative practitioners argue that asking why, particularly in working with children and young people in education settings, is not helpful and does not resolve conflict. In fact, ‘why’ questions can be shaming and blaming (Parker-Shandal 2023:143). Finnis (2021:78) claims that Changing ‘why’ to ‘what’ will always help suggesting that instead of asking why did you do that? it would be better to ask, can you share with me what happened? In social work asking why someone has done something could come across as judgemental and may not be helpful in creating empathic relationships. However, it is vital that we regularly ask ourselves and other professionals why-based questions and this is a key aspect of being a reflective social worker.

If you don’t go any further in this book, you could utilise the simple what? why? how? framework as a basic reflective tool.

This sounds like a basic question, but it is potentially a difficult question to answer. Whilst it is generally agreed that reflective practice is an essential aspect of social work, there is very little agreement about what it is and so defining reflective practice is not straightforward. In fact, although reflective practice is assessed as part of professional training at every level, it remains a contested concept. Indeed, Ixer (1999) wrote the provocatively titled article ‘There is no such thing as reflection’ and in 2012 clarified that reflection means different things to different people.

In answering this question, therefore, it is important to start with your own definition of reflective practice. What does reflective practice mean to you? It may feel like this is a very basic starting point, especially if you are an experienced worker but getting back to basics can help us build skills on stronger foundations.

Section two of this book covers the stages and steps of reflection which ultimately make up reflective practice and therefore you may want to revisit your definition of reflective practice as you work through the book. There are three ideas for thinking about this question in more detail on the next few pages. These activities have real value when completed in groups.

If you had to complete the sentence Reflective practice is… what would the sentence look like? In many years of delivering training on reflective practice, I have asked groups exactly that and the responses have been hugely diverse, although the most common themes emerging on flipcharts have been as follows:

Reflective practice is…

•Looking back

•Learning and development

•Improving practice

•Feelings and emotions

•Values in practice

•Skills and knowledge

•Confusing

Which of these would be included in your own definition of reflective practice? Why?

for students

Sentence completion exercises can be helpful in developing reflective writing skills. See page 92 for more information.

In the ‘Social Work in 40 Objects’ project, Mark Doel (2017) explored what social work means. Recognising that objects hold significance for people, he asked people to suggest an object which represented social work and the results provide a fascinating insight into social work as a contested profession.

How would you represent reflective practice through the use of an object? What represents reflective practice to you? It might be an analogy you draw on or maybe you could identify a specific object which helps you to reflect…Thinking in this visual way can promote a more in-depth reflective consideration and it particularly helps those who are visual thinkers to deepen their understanding of reflective practice.

for supervisors

The use of objects in supervision can be really useful in promoting deeper reflective discussions. For example, can you start supervision with the supervisee sharing an object to describe how they are feeling? Could the supervisee bring an object to share that shows how they feel their work with a particular family is going? What about asking a student to bring along an object that represents a social work theory? The possibilities are almost endless!

What three words is an app which is designed to identify any location on the surface of Earth with a resolution of about three metres – helping to pinpoint a specific location in a potentially large area. Drawing on the idea of the app, it can be helpful to think about three words in developing a clearer understanding of something that seems ‘big’. So, what three words would you use to describe reflective practice?

for practice educators

Assessment of social work practice always involves reflection – the student needs to demonstrate their skills in reflective practice, and you will need to reflect on your assessment of the student. It is vitally important that you have a discussion with students about their definition of reflective practice, so that you have the same understanding of what reflective practice actually entails. I certainly find asking a student to share their understanding of reflective practice can be helpful. Try one of the three activities suggested here and also try revisiting thinking about what reflective practice is throughout a placement.

In many ways the whole of this little book is designed to answer the question what is reflective practice? So, in this section I will limit thoughts around the question to three main areas where reflective practice intersects with other important concepts in social work:

The contemporary origins of reflective practice are seen as lying with John Dewey, whose book ‘How we Think’ was first published in 1910. Dewey (1933) introduced ideas about states of thinking and began to identify some of the links between reflection and learning. Schön’s University thesis focussed on Dewey’s ideas about thinking and many commentators agree that the work of Dewey significantly impacted on the ideas later developed by Schön. Indeed, Schön’s work highlighted significantly the links between learning and reflection and subsequently other writers and researchers have made more of this, connecting reflective practice almost exclusively with learning and development:

Reflective practice is something more than thoughtful practice. It is that form of practice that seeks to problematise many situations of professional performance so that they can become potential learning situations and so the practitioner can continue to learn, grow and develop in and through practice. (Jarvis 1992: 180)

Discussing reflective practice in nursing, Jasper and Rosser (2013: 41-42) recognise the key link between reflection and professional development, posing three interesting questions:

1.How do professional practitioners continue to develop throughout their working lives?

2.How does basic initial knowledge and skill transform into expert knowledge and skills?

3.How do we learn outside a formal learning environment?

They go on to explain that Reflective learning is the process of learning from our experiences, reconsidering and rethinking our previous knowledge and adding this new learning to our knowledge base to inform our practice. (Jasper and Rosser 2013: 41)

Reflective practice is taught from the outset of social work professional training, and it is quite rightly presented as central to the learning process. Reflection is also addressed in practice educator training as key to the facilitation of learning – as recognised in Kolb’s experiential learning cycle (see page 198).

I am concerned that reflective practice in social work is too closely linked to learning and development. Granted, we learn through reflection, but reflection gives us so much more and I worry that practitioners see reflection as solely for students or something that needs to be done for professional qualifications and registration. Certainly, I have found that reflective discussions in supervision can often be limited to students. I hope that in working through this little book you will recognise that reflective practice is about more than just learning.

There are three areas I want to specifically address in relation to the links between learning and reflection:

When I first trained as a practice educator, the then relevant body, the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW) referred to three keys that practice educators needed to support students with, and these three keys have been influential in my own professional development since:

1.Theory and practice

2.Reflective practice

3.Anti-oppressive practice

The standards that I assess students on and the context of my practice education has changed many times in the 30 years that I have been a practice educator and yet these three keys still stand the test of time. Students need support to think about how their learning in these three areas can be applied to practice and I believe strongly that social workers should revisit these concepts regularly in their career since these are the cornerstones of practice.

For me, the three keys only work when they are connected together. As social workers, we should draw on theory in our reflection and we need to reflect carefully on our choice and use of theory. Most importantly everything in social work should be anti-oppressive, including reflective practice. Issitt (1999) coined the phrase ‘anti-oppressive reflective practice’ but almost 25 years on, I am left with the question ‘is reflective practice in social work truly anti-oppressive?’ Models of anti-oppressive practice can be particularly useful in reflection in social work and perhaps it is use of these models specifically which could support the development of anti-oppressive reflective practice.

The 4D2P model

Developed by Prospera Tedam the 4Ds and 2Ps provide a framework to assist social workers to understand the steps through which they can evaluate their own non-oppressive practice on an ongoing basis (2021: 51.) I find the framework particularly helpful in understanding and explaining the difference between non-oppressive and anti-oppressive practice. The first three Ds are standard in social work practice, but it is the fourth D that makes practice anti-oppressive.

The first three Ds are:

Discuss: all social work begins with discussion. Preferably discussion with the person about their situation and their concerns, sometimes discussions with others.

Discover: in the discussion you will discover a range of issues about the situation. Tedam also explains that as part of the social work process you will discover things about your self.

Decide: social workers are making decisions constantly. We need to make decisions on the basis of what we have discovered in our discussions.

You might, for example, have a discussion with a person you are supporting where you discover that they have experienced oppression, in the third stage you need to make some decisions about what kind of oppression this is. It is only in moving onto the fourth D that you can claim to be anti-oppressive:

Disrupt: Tedam explains that The aim is to disrupt oppression and oppressive systems, and it is interesting to note that although a single individual cannot create and sustain oppression, it can sometimes take one person to disrupt and change oppressive practices. (2021: 53)

The two Ps which underpin the four Ds are power and privilege. We need to be clear about our own power and privilege in everything that we do. How might our privilege impact on what people discuss with us? How might our power impact on decision-making and the potential for us to disrupt practices?

Reflective moment

The 4D2P model can provide an excellent reflective framework, particularly in thinking through whether our practice is truly anti-oppressive. Think about a situation where you learnt about someone’s experiences of oppression and apply the model:

Discussion: What did the person tell you? How might you have made the discussion more helpful for the person?

Discover: What