Are you understanding me? : the casework relationships being constructed in church school social work

Abstract

This main aim of this research is to evaluate the casework relationships being built by the school social workers at the Directorate for Education services in Catholic Church schools. The research is a qualitative research and it interviews five school social workers and two adolescent clients. The research makes use of the triangulation method and common variable analysis to discover what kind of casework relationships the five school social workers had achieved and what level of importance they gave to establishing casework relationships with their clients. The research also investigates why casework relationships were perceived as important from the social workers and what they thought hindered and pushed forward a casework relationship. The research also takes into consideration five case examples which give a more in depth perception of the casework relationships the social workers managed to establish with their adolescent client. The research takes into consideration adolescent clients between the ages of thirteen and sixteen. Two adolescent clients mentioned in the case examples were then interviewed to gain a different point of view of the case presented. The perceived change and level of satisfaction the clients felt thanks to the casework relationships were also taken into consideration as an independent variable of the possible effects the casework relationships had on the clients’ lives. The research discovered that establishing a good casework relationship was a vital aspect of these social workers’ practice. The social workers gave significant importance to constructing a good relationship with the client and believed it was basic for good practice. The social workers gave various statements to what pushes forward or hinders a casework relationship. Some of these statements were: the appearance of the social worker, the jargon used and the relationships with other professionals. The five case examples give real life instances of how the casework relationships were established, what might have unsteadied them and how they progressed through the social work intervention. The two clients that were interviewed said that they felt truly supported by their social workers and described their casework relationship as a good one. In summation, this research has portrayed an exploration of whether an important part of social work theory is being given sufficient value and whether it is being transferred down to practice.