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BJSW Advance Access originally published online on May 24, 2007
British Journal of Social Work 2008 38(7):1388-1407; doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcm043
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.

‘We Don’t See Her as a Social Worker’: A Service User Case Study of the Importance of the Social Worker’s Relationship and Humanity

Peter Beresford, Suzy Croft and Lesley Adshead

Peter Beresford is Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Centre for Citizen Participation at Brunel University and Chair of Shaping Our Lives, the national user network.

Suzy Croft is Senior Social Worker, St John’s Hospice London and a member of the editorial collective of Critical Social Policy.

Lesley Adshead is a Research Associate at Birkbeck College, University of London

Correspondence to Peter Beresford, Brunel University, Mary Seacole Building, Uxbridge UB8 3PH, UK. E-mail: peter.beresford3{at}btopenworld.com


  Abstract

This article draws on a large-scale UK qualitative research study of what service users want from specialist palliative care social work. The study included a diverse range of people with direct experience of such social work as patients with life-limiting illnesses and conditions and people facing bereavement. Service users included in the study generally valued such social work highly. The article focuses on two aspects of practice which were associated with the high value they placed on specialist palliative care social work. These are the relationships they had with the social worker and the qualities and skills that they saw the social worker as having. Service users highlighted the notion of ‘friendship’ as a key positive in their relationship with the social worker and human qualities associated with warmth, empathy, respect and listening. The article explores the tension between the characteristics of practice valued by service users and the direction of travel of social work influenced by policy and professional considerations. It suggests that it may be necessary to review political and policy judgements of what social work is and should do, if it is to be consistent with what service users value—traditional social work values and an increasing international emphasis on user-centred and individualized support in social care.

Keywords: social work practice, service user views, relationship, profession, user involvement, palliative care


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