STOREEZ

Mary Heath's Tools for Critical Thinking

In our current state with the profligacy of social media. we are more connected than ever. We find ourselves plugged into this superinformation highway where we may assume that facts are quickly accessible. The ability for any individual blogger, news organisation, or interest group to utilise these platforms is rendered relatively barrier-free with the various affordable ways where ideas can be shared and disseminated. Information and research can be unreliable and one sided, even if published by reputable sources.

I had the opportunity to attend a talk by Mary Heath in Australia many months ago who discussed how we can reflect on various dimensions of critical thinking when considering any claim, in the hope of living our lives ethically. Critical thinking serves the function of allowing us to expand our understandings of any piece of information within the various multiple layers of social and power relationships. 

A Map for Managing Risk in Intimate Partner Violence.

 

Just thought of submitting another reflection  on working with family violence. This has been a topic that has held more meaning for me over recent years in practice. 

My experience as a social worker has made me realise the complexities of family violence. This work is rendered all the more onerous when as social workers, we have to put on the hat of social justice and determine the level of risk when family violence is present. This risk assessment would involve assessing the intensity of the abuse and how likely it is to happen again. It is also not uncommon for us to have protocols that may include working towards separating the victim from the abusive situation and attempt to influence her to apply for a personal protection order (in the case of intimate partner violence).

Caterpillar Dreams

 

She wriggles

slowly with perseverance 

up and down

the bumpy  road

 

She wriggles

carefully with intent

in and out 

avoiding the webs and trappings

of fixed assumptions

 

She weaves 

with confidence

the threads of diversity

Diversity

of beings and identities. 

Lessons from Fikri: Storytelling

 

I was attempting to play the role of the normative (TV-defined) father to my 17 month old boy, placing him securely in my lap with the book "Little Bear won't sleep" (a 9-month-birthday gift from his mother). I was happily reflecting on the aptness of the title, especially since this little bear of mine fights and struggles to stay awake each night. This culminates in a process where he has to be led bawling by me into a darkened room, and treated to a 30 minute to one hour exercise of carrying and lullabye-singing to put him to sleep (another story for another time). 

Working Harder than our Clients

 

Let's face it, the main reason why we wanted to be social workers was for the very fact that we want to be able to help others. The part about empowering persons and facilitating change only came later once we started our social work education. We had experiences where we found that friends and people could depend on us for help, and we decided that social work was probably the best job which suited this ability and skill we have. 

Difficulties, however, arise when we realised that what we defined as helping others, is actually different from how social work officially defines help. There is that bit about "client self-determination" that we have to consider. To what extent is the help in line with what our client needs, and are we providing help that would make our clients dependent on us for future survival. In the context of caring for a family member or friend, we can provide unconditional support over many years, but this might not useful within a professional social work context, where our interventions have to strike a balance between helping enough to engage our clients, and not helping too much that our clients become overly dependent on us to resolve their problems.

Honouring my Boss (now ex-boss): 10 Commandments

Contrary to my prior posts, the open expression of emotions and appreciation is not something easily done by myself (we could have a discussion on whether its related to my culture, or my own historical upbringing, but that would probably have to be another post by itself.) 

How then do we honour the work of someone who had been instrumental in our personal development and professional growth? A post to acknowledge the gifts of knowledge received might do the trick. 

Here are the list of things I've learnt under Mr Chua, and gifts I hope to pass on to the "next generation" of social workers:

1. Believing that everyone has their strengths and ability to play an important organisational role. 

2. Constantly question certainty and, more importantly, critically assess the structures that maintain certainty. 

3. Inspire people to be the best that they can be, as opposed to forcing them to do things against their will.

4. Don't sweat on small things that would not make a difference in the larger scheme of things. 

5. Manage upwards and downwards

6. Be accessible to your colleagues

7. Reflect on the implications of your decisions. If making decisions is like playing a game of chess, reflect on 2-3 moves in advance. 

8. An inaction can be a powerful action. 

9. There is no set template of interventions for our clients. It's usually good to start where our clients are and plan interventions and positions that fit. 

10. When you are not in crisis, you are not improving

 

Doing Good

 

I was enjoying my usual Sunday game of Floorball, and was preparing to leave the courts in Kallang area, when I saw a fellow floorballer (you might want to google floorball if you are not sure what this sport is about) leaving the area.

Thinking of wanting to do some good, I called out to him and found out that since he was going to the MRT train station, I could give him a lift.

What I didn't realise however, was how different the area now was, with the spanking new Sports Hub being recently opened and all. I managed to get myself lost in a sequence of multiple roundabouts, and almost entered the expressway.

I was rather apologetic to the guy, and he was really nice about it. After some discussion i realised that the station was actually nearer to the floorball court area than I previously though, a u turn and another sequence of roundabouts later, we finally found a place that he could alight. Unfortunately he still had to walk some distance to the station.

He was really nice about it, thanked me and got on his way. As I sat in my car, partly due to my strained thighs, but mostly to reflect on what happened, I thought a bit of some "life lessons" I could draw from this incident:

Narrative Responses to Children's Trauma

 

Angel Yuen (2007) proposes the exploration of responses to trauma as opposed to delving too much into the effects of the said trauma in children's lives. The re-experiencing of a traumatic event may actually re-traumatise the persons we work with and may not necessarily be a collaborative agenda for intervention. 

Dear Yayi,

 

 

You left us on a Tuesday. Only two days before that I saw you lying in your bed, in pain. You were sleeping when I was about to leave, so I did not want to wake you. As if you knew, you grunted at me as I turned my back, reaching out your hand. I held it as I kissed your forehead. That would be the last time. I will treasure that simple memory. 

Conducting Interagency Case Conferences

 

 

 

The conducting and facilitating of interagency case conferences has been an undeveloped (and possible ignored) activity in the local Singaporean Social Service Scene. This is interesting, considering the Person in Environment perspective that social workers adopt as their grand philosophy, and the multiple systems that interact with the people we work with. Training programmes (and even literature) on collaboration have usually tended to just focus on how important collaboration is, and only 2 years back, I had the opportunity to attend a training workshop by Barbara McKay (From the Institute of Family Therapy in London). This was where conversations started on how social workers who facilitate case conferences should move away from promoting monological discourses (where each system would just be pushing their own agenda) towards a dialogical one, where dialogue and discussion is promoted towards the aim of supporting the people we work with.