Has passion got a place in social work?

For the purpose of this blog the most relevant dictionary definition of the word passion is “any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling”.  To be passionate about the work that we do requires considerably more than just being professional.  A Social Care worker can be professional by adhering to regulations, policies and procedures, attending team meetings, supervisions and generally working to expected standards.  Whilst there is nothing wrong with working in this way it is an approach that tends to put emotion and feelings to one side.  Over the years language has been used in our profession, such as “don’t get emotionally involved” and “anger doesn’t get you anywhere”.  Every time I hear phrases like that my heart sinks.

I’m pretty sure that this blog is going to split opinion but I think it is important to make a case for a more passionate approach to the work we do and I will try and explain why I think that.

Consider a situation where a long term foster placement suddenly reaches a point where it becomes almost unsustainable.  All too often the people involved start thinking in a resource led mind set.  This is perfectly understandable as they are already thinking about where this child can go once the placement breaks down.  Meetings will be held and it is not unusual for the focus to be on how long the current placement can hold on to the child to give everyone time to seek realistic alternatives.  It’s a perfectly professional response to what may be an imminent crisis.  Many foster carers who attend these meetings often say that they don’t feel they were listened to and that they were not treated like a fellow professional.  My contention is that one reason for that is because foster carers can get quite emotional or angry because they know the impact the situation is having on the child and themselves and the passion they exhibit makes other professionals uneasy.  Why??  If a child has been with a foster family for several years and now there is a chance the placement may end, surely we should accept (and even expect) the primary carers to be very emotional, angry and vociferous.  Being passionate in those situations is not unprofessional; it’s an expression of the devastating disappointment that carers feel when they believe they have failed.

Go back to the start of the last paragraph where I said “a long term placement suddenly reaches a point where it becomes almost unsustainable”.  The key word here is almost.  Unless we are passionate and believe that having powerful or compelling emotions or feelings is OK then we run the risk of not viewing looked after children the same as any other child.  We tell looked after children that we want them to be a full part of the family and that we won’t treat them any differently from birth children.  That is, until serious problems arise.  If a neighbour noticed that we were having significant difficulties with one of our birth children and threatened to call Social Services we would understandably get very emotional and angry and we would fight tooth and nail to ensure no-one took our child away.  And that’s because being passionate is a good thing.  Being passionate makes you fight.

Now you may think I was having a go at professionalism before.  Not so.  Professional behaviour is essential to ensure we all work in partnership.  Surely though there must be a way of allowing passion to be part of the professional approach without workers feeling threatened or uneasy.  We need to remember that foster carers have often made a very significant emotional investment in the child and anyone who has a genuine child centred mindset is never going to settle for “oh well, we gave it our best shot”.

Professionals often resort to offering foster carers well meaning words of comfort, assuring them that everyone involved knows they did all they could.  Again this is a perfectly understandable and acceptable professional response but it rarely helps to address the “belief” that foster carers have that they somehow failed.  The more passionate a foster carer is about the care they provide the greater the belief that they have failed.

My contention is that telling foster carers that everyone involved knows they did all they could is effectively laying the responsibility for the placement breakdown at their door.  If we were passionate about what we do we would be more prepared to take our corporate responsibility as seriously as it was intended.  If a placement is almost unsustainable then by definition it is potentially sustainable but for this to have any meaning in every day practice there needs to be a passionate case made by everyone, not just leaving the primary carers to shout at what appears to them to be a soundproof wall.

Being passionate about what we do is not contradictory to being professional and neither is it idealistic.  Over the years we have seen so many failings in how we care for looked after children, both while they are looked after and once they supposedly “move on”.

I said that I expect this blog to split opinion.  Just being professional allows us to say “well we did everything we could” and then move on to the next case.  Being professional and passionate means that every time we believe we have let a child down we feel the pain, disappointment and anger because only then will we be able to truly empathise with the foster carers who are struggling with their sense of failure.