Difference between revisions of "Mullins2019"

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(Created page with "{{BibEntry |BibType=PHDTHESIS |Author(s)=Eve Mullins |Title=Unpicking social work practice skills: An interactional analysis of engagement and identity in a groupwork programm...")
 
 
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|BibType=PHDTHESIS
 
|BibType=PHDTHESIS
 
|Author(s)=Eve Mullins
 
|Author(s)=Eve Mullins
|Title=Unpicking social work practice skills: An interactional analysis of engagement and identity in a groupwork programme addressing sexual offending
+
|Title=Unpicking Social Work Practice Skills: An Interactional Analysis of Engagement and Identity in a Groupwork Programme Addressing Sexual Offending
 
|Tag(s)=EMCA; Social work; Identity; Sexual offense
 
|Tag(s)=EMCA; Social work; Identity; Sexual offense
 
|Key=Mullins2019
 
|Key=Mullins2019
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|URL=https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/36611/Mullins2019.pdf?sequence=1
 
|URL=https://era.ed.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/1842/36611/Mullins2019.pdf?sequence=1
 
|School=The University of Edinburgh
 
|School=The University of Edinburgh
|Abstract=The importance of the working relationship between people who have offended
+
|Abstract=The importance of the working relationship between people who have offended (clients) and criminal justice social workers (practitioners) as a vehicle for promoting rehabilitation is increasingly recognised. To build and maintain effective working relationships practitioners must demonstrate key practice skills, including empathy, warmth and respect. Previous research has used quantitative methods demonstrating links between aggregated categories of practitioner skills and outcomes post intervention, and qualitative research interviews retrospectively exploring individuals’ views of compulsory supervision or intervention. However, this research has not clarified how these skills are demonstrated in interaction, how they function to promote engagement or the potential micro-mechanisms of change which contribute to rehabilitation and desistance, i.e. the cessation of offending. To address these gaps, I used the innovative qualitative methods of discourse analysis and conversation analysis to examine what happens when practitioners and clients talk to each other, what happens in the ‘black box’. I analysed video-recordings of twelve groupwork sessions from the groupwork programme for addressing sexual offending in Scotland, ‘Moving Forward: Making Changes’. This rolling programme works with adult men convicted of sexual offences, legally compelled to attend. Five practitioners and eighteen clients participated in the study. I transcribed and analysed the video recordings in detail using discourse analysis, specifically discursive psychology, and conversation analysis. These methods enable a micro-level examination of the talk-in-interaction, to consider what people are doing in their talk and how they are doing it, e.g. how practitioners demonstrate empathy. In the analysis I demonstrated the tacit practice skills of empathy, warmth and respect are evident in talk as actions that maintain co-operation in interaction and build solidarity; i.e. managing face, handling epistemic authority and facilitating empathic communion. I further outlined some of the conversational resources practitioners used to ‘do’ these actions, promoting engagement whilst pursuing institutional goals. Through this talk, practitioners shape and direct how clients tell the story of who they are, although clients can resist this. In this way clients’ narrative identities were actively and collaboratively constructed and negotiated in the talk-in-interaction. Aspects of identity considered to promote desistance, e.g. presenting a good core self or a situational account for offending, were presented, encouraged, developed and attributed. Talk about risk also contributed to the construction and negotiation of clients’ identities. Practitioners and clients expected clients to demonstrate they are aware of and attending to the risks around their behaviour, highlighting risk discourse as central. Risk in this sense was used discursively to demonstrate change and agency over the future, establishing a nonoffending self. However, risk talk could challenge clients’ self-image and threaten ongoing engagement. This study highlights the suitability of discourse analysis and conversation analysis to access the ‘black box’ of criminal justice social work intervention. Routine and common-sense practice skills were made visible, making these more accessible to practitioners to reflect on and develop more responsive and reflexive practice. Finally, criminal justice social work interventions are sites where clients’ narrative identities are constructed, as such potential sites for developing non-offending identities. This study highlights this process is inherently and necessarily relational. In developing forward looking self-stories, which encapsulated features of desistance and risk, narratives of rehabilitation were constructed at the interface of the client and the institution.
(clients) and criminal justice social workers (practitioners) as a vehicle for promoting
 
rehabilitation is increasingly recognised. To build and maintain effective working
 
relationships practitioners must demonstrate key practice skills, including empathy,
 
warmth and respect. Previous research has used quantitative methods
 
demonstrating links between aggregated categories of practitioner skills and
 
outcomes post intervention, and qualitative research interviews retrospectively
 
exploring individuals’ views of compulsory supervision or intervention. However,
 
this research has not clarified how these skills are demonstrated in interaction, how
 
they function to promote engagement or the potential micro-mechanisms of
 
change which contribute to rehabilitation and desistance, i.e. the cessation of
 
offending. To address these gaps, I used the innovative qualitative methods of
 
discourse analysis and conversation analysis to examine what happens when
 
practitioners and clients talk to each other, what happens in the ‘black box’.
 
I analysed video-recordings of twelve groupwork sessions from the groupwork
 
programme for addressing sexual offending in Scotland, ‘Moving Forward: Making
 
Changes’. This rolling programme works with adult men convicted of sexual
 
offences, legally compelled to attend. Five practitioners and eighteen clients
 
participated in the study. I transcribed and analysed the video recordings in detail
 
using discourse analysis, specifically discursive psychology, and conversation
 
analysis. These methods enable a micro-level examination of the talk-in-interaction,
 
to consider what people are doing in their talk and how they are doing it, e.g. how
 
practitioners demonstrate empathy.  
 
 
 
In the analysis I demonstrated the tacit practice skills of empathy, warmth and
 
respect are evident in talk as actions that maintain co-operation in interaction and
 
build solidarity; i.e. managing face, handling epistemic authority and facilitating
 
empathic communion. I further outlined some of the conversational resources
 
practitioners used to ‘do’ these actions, promoting engagement whilst pursuing
 
institutional goals. Through this talk, practitioners shape and direct how clients tell
 
the story of who they are, although clients can resist this. In this way clients’
 
narrative identities were actively and collaboratively constructed and negotiated in
 
the talk-in-interaction. Aspects of identity considered to promote desistance, e.g.
 
presenting a good core self or a situational account for offending, were presented,
 
encouraged, developed and attributed. Talk about risk also contributed to the
 
construction and negotiation of clients’ identities. Practitioners and clients expected
 
clients to demonstrate they are aware of and attending to the risks around their
 
behaviour, highlighting risk discourse as central. Risk in this sense was used
 
discursively to demonstrate change and agency over the future, establishing a nonoffending self. However, risk talk could challenge clients’ self-image and threaten
 
ongoing engagement.
 
This study highlights the suitability of discourse analysis and conversation analysis
 
to access the ‘black box’ of criminal justice social work intervention. Routine and
 
common-sense practice skills were made visible, making these more accessible to
 
practitioners to reflect on and develop more responsive and reflexive practice.
 
Finally, criminal justice social work interventions are sites where clients’ narrative
 
identities are constructed, as such potential sites for developing non-offending
 
identities. This study highlights this process is inherently and necessarily relational.
 
In developing forward looking self-stories, which encapsulated features of
 
desistance and risk, narratives of rehabilitation were constructed at the interface of
 
the client and the institution.
 
 
}}
 
}}

Latest revision as of 10:02, 17 January 2020

Mullins2019
BibType PHDTHESIS
Key Mullins2019
Author(s) Eve Mullins
Title Unpicking Social Work Practice Skills: An Interactional Analysis of Engagement and Identity in a Groupwork Programme Addressing Sexual Offending
Editor(s)
Tag(s) EMCA, Social work, Identity, Sexual offense
Publisher
Year 2019
Language English
City
Month
Journal
Volume
Number
Pages
URL Link
DOI
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School The University of Edinburgh
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

Download BibTex

Abstract

The importance of the working relationship between people who have offended (clients) and criminal justice social workers (practitioners) as a vehicle for promoting rehabilitation is increasingly recognised. To build and maintain effective working relationships practitioners must demonstrate key practice skills, including empathy, warmth and respect. Previous research has used quantitative methods demonstrating links between aggregated categories of practitioner skills and outcomes post intervention, and qualitative research interviews retrospectively exploring individuals’ views of compulsory supervision or intervention. However, this research has not clarified how these skills are demonstrated in interaction, how they function to promote engagement or the potential micro-mechanisms of change which contribute to rehabilitation and desistance, i.e. the cessation of offending. To address these gaps, I used the innovative qualitative methods of discourse analysis and conversation analysis to examine what happens when practitioners and clients talk to each other, what happens in the ‘black box’. I analysed video-recordings of twelve groupwork sessions from the groupwork programme for addressing sexual offending in Scotland, ‘Moving Forward: Making Changes’. This rolling programme works with adult men convicted of sexual offences, legally compelled to attend. Five practitioners and eighteen clients participated in the study. I transcribed and analysed the video recordings in detail using discourse analysis, specifically discursive psychology, and conversation analysis. These methods enable a micro-level examination of the talk-in-interaction, to consider what people are doing in their talk and how they are doing it, e.g. how practitioners demonstrate empathy. In the analysis I demonstrated the tacit practice skills of empathy, warmth and respect are evident in talk as actions that maintain co-operation in interaction and build solidarity; i.e. managing face, handling epistemic authority and facilitating empathic communion. I further outlined some of the conversational resources practitioners used to ‘do’ these actions, promoting engagement whilst pursuing institutional goals. Through this talk, practitioners shape and direct how clients tell the story of who they are, although clients can resist this. In this way clients’ narrative identities were actively and collaboratively constructed and negotiated in the talk-in-interaction. Aspects of identity considered to promote desistance, e.g. presenting a good core self or a situational account for offending, were presented, encouraged, developed and attributed. Talk about risk also contributed to the construction and negotiation of clients’ identities. Practitioners and clients expected clients to demonstrate they are aware of and attending to the risks around their behaviour, highlighting risk discourse as central. Risk in this sense was used discursively to demonstrate change and agency over the future, establishing a nonoffending self. However, risk talk could challenge clients’ self-image and threaten ongoing engagement. This study highlights the suitability of discourse analysis and conversation analysis to access the ‘black box’ of criminal justice social work intervention. Routine and common-sense practice skills were made visible, making these more accessible to practitioners to reflect on and develop more responsive and reflexive practice. Finally, criminal justice social work interventions are sites where clients’ narrative identities are constructed, as such potential sites for developing non-offending identities. This study highlights this process is inherently and necessarily relational. In developing forward looking self-stories, which encapsulated features of desistance and risk, narratives of rehabilitation were constructed at the interface of the client and the institution.

Notes