Autoethnography for social workers: New approaches

This autoethnographic article aims to advocate for the use of autoethnography (AE) and collaborative autoethnography (CAE) as both methodological tools and avenues for professional development and empowerment among early-career researchers (ECRs). Through an exploration of the significance of AE and CAE, particularly for ECRs, this article underscores their value in decolonizing research practices and shaping the future of scholarly inquiry. Drawing on personal experience and relevant literature, the article discusses how these methodological approaches have played a pivotal role in the author’s maturation and establishment within academia. It delves into how, as methodological processes, AE and CAE empower ECRs in various ways: (1) amplifying ECR voices in academia; (2) cultivating sociological imagination, critical analytical skills, and scholarly confidence; (3) enhancing ECRs’ positionality and reflexivity in research; (4) fostering solidarity, liberation, and activism, particularly through CAE; and (5) providing publishing opportunities.

Married Professional Women and their Work: Collaborative Autoethnography on their Struggles and Meaning-Making

This reflective paper explores collaborative autoethnography (CAE) as a research method by analyzing 15 of our CAE English language teaching and applied linguistics studies published from 2015 to the present. Focus is given to tying CAE to its ethnographic roots, including autoethnography and duoethnography. The implications of CAE representing a methodological expansion of ethnographic methods from researching and reporting on the other to researching and representing one’s own authentic experiences are explored. We discuss the “counter-narratives” that CAE spaces facilitate, where minoritized opinions and experiences can be safely shared and (re)affirmed, including how to facilitate transformative experiences in practice. Two implications for CAE practice are shared. The first concerns the need for CAE participants to be conscious of different levels of participation, particularly as life circumstances change, and to flexibly accommodate these. The second concerns how CAEs should represent a process that facilitates growth and transformation rather than a final, published product. We conclude by noting that while CAE may have shortcomings, it represents a promising avenue of exploration for practitioners interested in developing professional practices through reflection and discussion with research collaborators.

Drawing upon embodied and feminist knowledge, arts-based research (ABR) is a methodological approach aimed at advancing work that is liberatory both in its findings and its processes. To examine this phenomenon, three social work scholars engaged in a reflective research process to study the meaning of arts-based research through a methodology blending arts, collaborative autoethnography (CAE) and phenomenology. The team explored our own experiences of using art in research, and the implications for feminist social work. This article begins with a brief overview of ABR before introducing the strategic use of art creation and discourse within our CAE. We present the findings uncovered through analysis of our qualitative data - including our own artwork - and the experiences they represent. Thematic findings include: power dynamics in research and academia as revealed through ABR, and the liberatory components of ABR. Lastly, we discuss the implications of the findings, strengths, and limitations, and suggest future research. Implications for social work practice and research include: opportunities for integrating humanistic and engaged praxis as tools of liberatory knowledge production; the promotion of feminist-based inquiry as resistance to social pressures; and the use of ABR as an anti-oppressive research approach.

Collaborative Auto-Ethnography on the Introductory Experiences as Novice Music Therapy Supervisors

Transformative Learning in Healthcare and Helping Professions Education: Building Resilient Professional Identities is a co-edited book (Carter, Boden, and Peno) with invited chapters from educators who share our passion for learning in healthcare and the helping professions. The purpose of the book is to introduce professional learners (students, residents, and others in professional training) to transformative learning for building resilient professional identities amid practice environments that include widespread burnout and compassion fatigue. With a diverse set of authors engaged in clinical and educational practice in academic medicine, nursing, dentistry, physical therapy, mental health counseling, science education, psychology, social work, and inter-professional collaborative practice, we offer strategies for building resilience throughout the years of professional training and into professional practice. We do so through the experiences of authors involved in healthcare and the helping professions to illustrate how some are coping with the challenges of burnout and compassion fatigue through learning that can be transformative.This book explores the nature of professional identity formation by examining ways that professionals in training can thrive amid the challenges of today’s stressful practice environments. First-hand stories of resilience illustrate how learners, as well as educators in these professions, are addressing adversity, career decision-making, service to the underserved, and the self-care needed to provide excellent care for others. The prominence of transformative learning within adult learning theory is illustrated for its potential to revise the meaning that learners make of their experiences and open up new possibilities for renewed vitality in professional education and practice environments.The book has two primary audiences: professional learners in healthcare and helping professions education, and their educators who are often professional practitioners themselves. These educators have a significant role in influencing the next generation of professionals by serving as mentors, role models, and teachers. The importance of fostering learning that is transformative has never been more important than it is today for those who will work in these demanding professions. We invite readers to discover experiences and strategies for achieving individual wellbeing, as well as opportunities for building a culture within professional education and practice settings that will foster resilience.

Engaging individuals with lived experience in social care research is crucial for transforming how knowledge is generated and applied in practice. This study explores the involvement and perceptions of experts by experience in the SCRiPT study, which aimed to build research capacity in social care through Research in Practice Teams (RiPTs). These teams included social care professionals and experts by experience who contributed their lived expertise to research design and execution. A qualitative approach was used to analyse data from semi-structured interviews and focus groups with RiPT members, social care staff, and experts by experience. Despite the challenges of recruiting experts by experience into social care research, it was found that experts by experience made significant contributions, offering unique perspectives based on their personal experience with health and social care services. Their input improved the relevance of research, helped shape study design, and ensured the research was more applicable to practice. They also brought valuable research experience, with some contributing to data analysis and ethical discussions. Furthermore, their involvement added enthusiasm and energy to the teams, inspiring greater engagement. Efforts to ensure accessibility and inclusivity were made, including clear communication, adjustments for different impairments, and additional support from a user-led organisation. Experts by experience were seen as equal partners, and their involvement led to positive changes in team dynamics and attitudes. Initially, some team members were unsure of the experts' role, but later interviews revealed a shift in perspectives, with many recognising the contributions. This study underscores the positive impact of involving experts by experience in social care research. It highlights the potential for co-production to enhance research capacity, improve service delivery, and influence future research practices. Findings suggest that a participatory, collaborative approach can lead to meaningful involvement and improved outcomes, reinforcing the need for experts by experience to be recognised as essential, equal contributors in research teams.

The development of professional practice is based on practice learning, yet there is no consensus about its definition. The currently evolving use of the term ‘practice learning’ provides us with an opportunity to consider the nature of learning for professional practice at initial entry through to post qualifying stages of development. A number of streams of thought are influencing the understanding of practice learning and we aim to consider some of these and how they inform those involved in supporting and guiding practice learners at different stages of their professional development. In presenting our conceptualisation of practice learning we argue against oversimplified dualities of classroom‐based academic learning concerned with theory and workplace‐based practice learning concerned with practice. Additionally we make explicit the career‐long nature of practice learning which is as embedded in continuing professional development as it is in the requirements for qualifying programmes. Having established what we mean by ‘practice learning’ we consider the impact of organisational learning theory on the management of practice learning. The consideration of the characteristics of organisations which learn leads to a brief examination of approaches to teaching and learning which promote knowledge creation in a way which is meaningful to practitioners. We will argue that the development of understandings of organisational learning and knowledge creation should become part of the knowledge base for those supporting and guiding practice learners, in addition to the traditional knowledge base of adult learning theory. Before exploring the nature of practice learning it would be helpful to consider briefly what we mean by professional practice for which practice learning is preparing people. Professional practice in social work is a complex set of activities which involve direct work with service users, and their families, as well as work with other professionals and agencies. A range of knowledge and skills are used with a firm value base which recognises diversity and oppression as key elements in UK society. Such professional practice is learned and developed in a range of ways over time through training, practice, understanding, analysis and reflection. However, the nature of just what practice learning is and where it occurs has become a focus of debate in the UK as a result of recent developments in initial professional education and training for social work.

In this article, I suggest that social workers should be servants and seekers of truth and that they should do their utmost to re-legitimise the quest for truth in social life and professional practice. I hold that while post-modernism must be applauded for its incisive critique of the totalising tendency' of the quest for truth, especially when fuelled by passionate ideological conviction, yet its forthright rejection of truth itself has had disastrous social consequences and serious deleterious effects on professional practice in social work. Over the last two decades or so, the baby (truth] has been recklessly thrown out with the bath water (totalistic Ideologies) and the consequences have been sorely felt in society, in the personal lives of individuals, in the human service professions as a whole and in social work, especially of course in the writings and professional practice of those who have enthusiastically embraced post-modernism. I also suggest, however, that social work needs to take full advantage of the insights of post-modernism (and especially of Foucault) in order to avoid falling into a totalistic chasm' as the profession pursues its own quest for truth.

The application of a rights-based approach to social work practice is integral to ridding society of social injustice and human rights infringements. As the next generation of social work practitioners in Africa (a continent at the top of the pyramid in human rights violations), what social work students know about the rights-based approach could prove pivotal in preparing them towards entrenching social justice and human rights tenets in their professional practice, as is consistent with the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. This study aims to share the reflections of Nigerian social work students regarding their knowledge of and preparedness to utilize the rights-based approach to social work practice. In employing a qualitative design, semi-structured interviews was conducted among graduating social work students in a large-sized university in Nigeria. Data were subjected to thematic analysis and following the analytical procedure, findings reveal inadequacies in professional social work education and training in the context of equipping students with this practice approach. Although this inquiry involved a cohort of student social workers in their final academic year, the findings may have broader implications for social work education in Nigeria and indeed Africa given the rapidly standardized move in social work education. To offset this trend by means of competency-building, pragmatic suggestions are offered to social work educators with a view to ensuring that social work students are not only equipped in the knowledge of this practice approach but also ready to employ such knowledge to practice.

The colonisation of Africa saw an onslaught of African ways of knowing and celebration of western epistemologies. During colonial and postcolonial eras, African indigenous knowledge systems have been decimated, trivialized, and received little to no attention in the education and professionalization of most disciplines. Therefore, what constitutes 'basic knowledge' in most disciplines has generally ignored traditional African knowledge systems despite their utility in specific contexts. Despite the call to decolonize social work, its education continues to be based on teaching content developed outside of Africa. The resources used in social work education are often informed by western epistemologies, though the decolonization process requires the development of approaches, perspectives, models, and theories that speak to African contexts. In this current paper, we argue that African proverbs that are central to African epistemologies can form a prominent jigsaw part in the knowledge base for decoloniality in social work. Very few scholars have studied the applicability of proverbs in the social work profession. These proverbs are found in almost all African languages and cultures, which makes it easy for social workers to apply them in their localities. During training, social workers should be taught to identify proverbs in local cultures and apply them in their professional practice. Such proverbs may guide the conduct and professional behaviour of social workers, their interaction with clients, as well as influencing techniques and approaches used in problem solving. There are innumerable proverbs found in the breath and width of Africa, and only a few will be selected to demonstrate their pertinence in social work practice. The proverbs help to promote contextualism in the practice of social work. They help promote good communication between social workers and clients, promote good moral and professional conduct, and respect for clients. Current and previous volumes are available at: https://ajsw.africasocialwork.net HOW TO REFERENCE USING ASWDNET STYLE Mabvurira, V. and Makhubele, J. (2024). Integrating African epistemologies in social work: The role of proverbs. African Journal of Social Work, 14(6), 321-327. https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ajsw.v14i6.3

This article discusses the creation of a research-focused virtual community of practice (vCoP) for geographically-dispersed third space professionals, motivated by desires for enhanced professional collaboration, visibility and identity. The authors used collaborative autoethnography (CAE) to evaluate their personal reflections as vCoP participants. Data were gathered in two collaborative writing activities and analysed using thematic analysis (TA). The TA identified two connected themes, which capture the vCoP members’ aspirations to transcend their current roles and be research-active through connecting with like-minded professionals. Collaborative writing activities, including authoring this paper, cultivated elements of academic identity such as independence and purpose. A non-hierarchical and supportive vCoP environment allowed the members to work beyond time and institutional constraints to foster the evolution of the community and an emerging sense of professional identity beyond that typically associated with third space roles. The paper offers a model of collaboration that could help groups in similar situations.

'Resilience' refers to a person's capacity to handle difficulties, demands and pressure without experiencing negative effects. The concept of resilience draws from and reinforces a strengths perspective. The term refers to the belief that we have personal wisdom and capacity to persevere and grow from experience. Adopting a resilience mindset helps us to tap into these capacities and to flourish, even in the face of challenge. The pressures and demands of social work practice requires social workers to remain steadfast and strong despite all the personal and professional challenges. Since our country experiences many challenges like natural and manmade disaster and the COVID 19. There are evidence that social workers had experience mental and emotional fatigue. A study which aims to describe Resilient social work practice and actual experiences of Filipino Social Workers both personally and professionally amidst challenges and pandemic is needed to shed some light on how Filipino Social Workers deals with all these difficulties. Specifically, the study answers the following questions: 1. What is their perspective of resilient social work? 2.What are examples of resilience as practice by social workers on a personal and professional level? 3.How do social workers build resilience in professional practice? 4. In what ways (what aspect of their personal and professional level) did the participants practice Resiliency? Through online platform social workers in Davao Region from different social work settings participated in the study descriptive-qualitative research and concluded that social workers utilized various resiliency tools both personal and professional in their practice in dealing with clients in various organizations.

AimsIt is widely seen as best practice for professionals and policymakers to develop and prioritise quality measures in equal partnership with patients. This rarely occurs with children and young people...

The social work profession is a practice-based profession that promotes social justice and advocacy for marginalised individuals. In spite of the fact that the policy practice is considered as crucial component of social work practice, the real participation of social workers in policy practice seems very less. It has a potentially significant influence on social work profession, both as a field of study and an area of practice. History is filled with an evidence showing that the policy practice paved the way for the development of social work profession as people used different social work skills to campaign for the formalisation of the social work profession. Social workers have been held up as exercising substantial power to influence policy being policy implementers (Schorr, A. L. (1985) ‘Professional practice as policy’, Social Service Review, 59(2), pp. 178–96; Scott, W. R. and Davis, G. F. (2007) Organisations and Organising: Rational, Natural, and Open System Perspectives, Upper Saddle River, Pearson Prentice Hall). Social workers having practice experience make them excellent advocates because they understand clearly the challenges confronted by their clients, including clients’ presenting problems, holistic environmental factors, and client strengths that can be drawn on so as to assist them. This article throws light on linkages between social work and social policy, policy practice in social work and role of social worker as a change agent in policy practice.