The Relational Worker
Introduction
Jane Addams, leader of Hull House, one of the leading settlements in the United States, talked of ‘the work of being social’. She brought people from advantaged backgrounds, a community of university women, to live in the Near West Side of Chicago. These women became part of and extended the network of connection in the neighbourhood around Hull House. Addams is seen as the mother of social work in the United States. (Lillian Wald who led a New York settlement is seen as the mother of nursing).
Social work today is very different.
It has moved from civil society to public systems. From a source of support to the citizen to an agent of the state with powers to remove children or restrict the liberty of adults. From community engagement to clinical practice. From natural relational skills to a profession backed by extensive training. All of these shifts have brought benefits. There is an attention to child maltreatment, domestic violence, and mental health that didn’t exist in the early part of the 20th century when Addams was doing her work.
But maybe something has been lost?
When I started working with people on the edges of society several years ago, I found they had exhausted not only social workers but all other professional groups. They were out of professionals’ reach. But they found something in workers who appeared to do little more than relate, much as family members or close friends relate.
Most of the workers had been to university but only a few were professionally trained. As far as I could tell, they were engaged in the work of being relational just as Addams university women were engaged in the work of being social.
For five years I studied these workers and the people they helped in the United Kingdom and the United States. I published what I found in five academic papers (see the published work below). This publication is intended to promote a wider conversation about the findings, and their implication for policy and practice.
I concluded the research confident of the value of the relational worker for people who experience the greatest challenges in life. But I also wondered whether their value could be extended. I end the piece with a series of testable propositions to continue this conversation.
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1. Sandu, R. D. (2021). What are the characteristics of severe and multiple disadvantage as perceived by young people facing such disadvantage and by the workers who support them?. Journal of community psychology. Advance online publication. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22572
2. Sandu, R. D. (2020). Worthy and Able: How helping relationships alter the trajectories of young people who face severe and multiple disadvantage. Journal of community psychology, 1–22. doi: 10.1002/jcop.22460
3. Sandu, R. D. (2019). What aspects of the successful relationships with professional helpers enhance the lives of young people facing significant disadvantage?. Children and Youth Services Review, 106, 104462. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2019.104462
4. Sandu, R. D. (2019). What is the profile of workers who build effective relationships with young people facing severe and multiple disadvantages?. Journal of community psychology, 1–18. doi: 10.1002/jcop.22256
5. Sandu, R. D., Anyan, F., & Stergiopoulos, V. (2021). Housing first, connection second: the impact of professional helping relationships on the trajectories of housing stability for people facing severe and multiple disadvantage. BMC Public Health, 21(1), 1–15. doi: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10281-2
