KWALON - Volume 23, Issue 2, 2018

Sociaal werk staat of valt met goede gespreksvoering. Immers, het belangrijkste instrument dat een sociaal werker heeft is het aangaan van een relatie met een hulpvrager waarin door middel van gesprekken gezocht wordt naar de kern van de hulpvraag. Ook de hulp zelf bestaat grotendeels uit gesprekken. Die gesprekken hebben tal van onderwerpen, variërend van werk en inkomen tot opvoeding en relationele problemen. Over deze hulp wordt dan weer afgestemd tussen sociaal werkers en andere hulpverleners, leidinggevenden en ambtenaren. Ten slotte worden al die gesprekken weer vastgelegd in teksten die de besluitvorming die door middel van deze gesprekken heeft plaatsgevonden, weer moeten verantwoorden. Tekst en gesprek spelen dus een leidende rol in het sociaal werk. Rapportage en gespreksvoering zijn dan ook onderdelen die je vaak in de opleiding tot sociaal werker terug ziet. Het onderzoek naar deze onderdelen van het sociaal werk staat echter, zeker in Nederland, nog in de kinderschoenen. Dit heeft een aantal redenen. Ten eerste is sociaal werk in Nederland een beroep dat je aan een hogeschool leert. Universiteiten hebben geen opleiding tot sociaal werk. Hiermee vormt Nederland een uitzondering. Omdat het doen van onderzoek tot voor kort was voorbehouden aan universiteiten, is in Nederland het onderzoek naar het sociaal werk pas goed op gang gekomen sinds de invoering van lectoraten aan hogescholen. Ten tweede is het onderzoek naar uitvoeringspraktijken op microniveau in het algemeen van recente datum. Door een meer sociaal-constructivistische manier van kijken is de aandacht voor ‘doen’ steeds belangrijker geworden; immers, daar waar mensen handelen, wordt betekenis gegeven en krijgt samenleven vorm (Hall, Juhila, Matarese & Van Nijnatten, 2014).

In this article we discuss the value of applied conversation analysis for social work practice. Results from a doctorate research on ‘Attachment in Interaction are presented’. Data from this research stem from a larger project entitled Professional Parenting in Family Treatment Homes. We show how applied conversation analysis can be used to reveal good practices, clarify how these practices work interactionally, and to reclassify traditional concepts like attachment in interactional terms. We argue that applied conversation analysis is a good method to answer how questions, i.e. questions that, in our opinion, should be asked when doing applied research.

Social workers play an important role in helping multiproblem families to deal with multiple, interrelated and often intergenerational problems. Social workers indicate that effective collaboration – with clients, their family members and other professionals – is crucial. Defective collaboration can have major consequences for effective support. In this study, six social workers were followed intensively in their collaborative relationships with families, families’ social network and other professionals providing services to these families. Video recordings and stimulated recall interviews were used to explore the behavioral indicators of this collaboration. The value of the method for research and practice is described.

Alliance is an important common factor in the treatment of youth and family problems. When working with multiple family members, building and maintaining strong alliances can be particularly challenging. Alliance at Work (Alliantie in Beeld) is a research project that investigates how alliance processes affect the treatment outcome of IAG, a Dutch homebased family preservation program. Two videotaped IAG sessions of sixty families are analyzed with the System for Observing Family Therapy Alliances. Participants completed the working alliance inventory and treatment outcomes were monitored. Methodological implications and relevance of this observational research project are discussed.

This article describes a video-based observation research method to investigate the approach of healthcare professionals in a Dutch hospital when identifying palliative patients. We analyzed video recordings of eight multidisciplinary consultation meetings of four medical disciplines: cardiology, oncology, urology and geriatric care. The method of video-based observation suited the aim of this research. The most valuable aspects were the subtleties (e.g. non-verbal information) in interdisciplinary communication about palliative patients.

To be able to influence the patient’s behavior in a constructive way, it is important for physicians to have good communication skills and view the disorder from the patient’s perspective. The knowledge that the patient acquires through his or her own experience with the chronic illness, the physician needs to be able to understand the patient well, and to discuss and draw up a treatment plan effectively. This communication is even more important for people with a chronic illness, because they have a long-term and sometimes intensive relationship with the physician, while the perceived disease burden is high. This video observational research shows where the physicians have a good idea of ​​the patient’s life and where they don’t.

In various ways, the five research cases discussed in this volume show some characteristics of video observation as method: its intimate view on practices, the subtlety it allows in the analysis, and the variety in methodological elaboration and application. It brings us to discuss three methodological issues in the application of video observation: its presumed ‘natural’ character, the tensions between description, interpretation and intervention, and the extent to which ethical considerations are taken into account.

In this contribution we reflect on the values and challenges of working with video observation in social work theory and practice. We do not discuss the methods themselves as part of our discussion; instead we focus on the contribution that working with such methods can bring to social work. We answer the question of why social work should be put into images using video observation, and we put forward questions that should be asked when doing so.

Dit onderdeel bevat de Engelstalige samenvattingen van de artikelen in dit nummer.