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Constructing resilience: social workers' understandings and practice

  • Isabella McMurray
    ,
  • Helen Connolly
    ,
  • Michael Preston-Shoot
    ,
  • Veronica Wigley
Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Sustainable Development Goals

  • SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being
    SDG 3 Good Health and Well

Abstract

Concepts and constructions of resilience have assumed a significant position in contributing to understandings of the psychosocial development of children and young people. This paper examines how concepts of resilience are constructed within the literature, and then explores social workers’ perceptions and use of resilience with young people who were ‘looked after’ or at risk of becoming ‘looked after’. It addresses the interface between social workers’ views and understandings of the emotional health needs of their clients, and the responsiveness of accompanying service interventions. Using the Framework for Assessment as a platform for discussion, 32 semistructured interviews were conducted with 19 social workers relating to a purposive sample of 52 children and young people (31 boys and 21 girls). Social workers experienced difficulty in conceptualizing resilience, often providing cursory, general or non-expert explanations. Furthermore, social workers described all children and young people within the sample as being resilient, drawing only upon face-value observations to evidence this. Related to this was the low frequency of social workers’ reports of children and young people's mental health difficulties and the concomitant low referral rate to secondary tier services. The authors argue that social workers’ optimistic perceptions of the resilience of children and young people within this sample, alongside their positive appraisal of their emotional needs, impact on the interventions that are put in place. The paper concludes that the tendency of social workers to project optimism onto their client base calls our attention to a possible transference of the collective need for the social work department itself to be resilient within that local authority.

Publication Information

Output type

Research Output: Contribution to journal Article Peer-review

Original language

English

Pages from-to (Number of pages)

Pages 299

Journal (Volume, Issue Number)

Health and Social Care in the Community (Volume 16, Issue 3)

Publication milestones

  • Published - 25/03/2012

Publication status

Published - 25/03/2012

ISSN

0966-0410

External Publication IDs

  • handle.net: 10547/224877
  • Scopus: 42249088299

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