Surviving as a postmodern social worker: two Ps and three Rs of direct practice.

Ungar, Michael

Much has been written that demonstrates the theoretical applicability of postmodernism to social work (Brotman & Pollack, 1997; Chambon & Irving, 1994; Howe, 1994; Leonard, 1995; Pease, 2002; Pease & Fook, 1999). Little of this literature, however, addresses the needs of social workers who apply postmodern ideas to direct practice in culturally and socially diverse child welfare, corrections, mental health, and community settings. Professionals working in the delivery of frontline human services struggle to work both with and in their communities in ways that celebrate diversity and localized constructions of reality while fulfilling professional and agency mandates. As Camilleri (1999) wrote, "it is time to move from the rhetorical to the problematic of practice" (p. 37).

Based on my personal experience in a number of social work settings and a review of the clinical and community practice literature, I discuss five aspects of social work practice reflecting the principles of an applied interpretation of postmodernism: positioning, power, resource sharing, resistance and reflection. Positioning the worker as part of the associational fabric of a community challenges bureaucentric understandings of the worker as "other." Examining power as constructed through the language used by social workers reveals how that language communicates the agenda of professionals, but rarely the agenda of those "at risk." Through resource sharing, social workers are able to address issues arising from this deconstruction of position and power. Social workers who take a postmodern approach to their work resist decisions and processes that are not in the best interests of those being served. Finally, professional social workers work best when they reflect critically on their practice. Through reflection they make their practice reciprocal, responsible, and transparent. In the discussion that follows, which focuses on aspects of practice typical of social workers in child welfare settings, I examine each of the two Ps (2Ps) and three Rs (3Rs) of a practice based on a postmodern interpretation of social work. I pay particular attention to the practicalines of day-to-day social work, such as negotiating boundaries, ethical decision making, report writing, and conducting meetings.

Postmodernism and Social Work

A paradigmatic shift underway in the field of social work (Howe, 1994; Leonard, 1997; Schriver, 1998), synonymous with a postmodern sensibility, is leading many practitioners to question the relevance of their expert outsider knowledge when working in different areas of practice, such as individual and family therapy (Leonard & Leonard, 1999; Van Den Bergh, 1995; White, 1997), case management (Tracy & Biegel, 1994), community work (Leonard, 1997; McKnight, 1995; Pease & Fook, 1999), rural social work (Arges & Delaney, 1996), social work with aboriginal peoples (Borg, Brownlee, & Delaney, 1995; Connors & Maidman, 2001; Gilchrist, 1997; Pease, 2002), and corrections (Ungar, 2001). In each of these areas there is a need to examine how, as Nelson and Wright (1995) discussed, "the discourse and procedures of participation actually work in practice" (pp.1-2). If postmodernism is to endure as a theoretical orientation for social work, we must understand what it means to the practicing frontline social worker.

Postmodern social workers view knowledge as socially constructed--reality is seen as unfixed and multidetermined through the language used to describe our individual experience of the world. These descriptions of our world and ourselves are given more or less power through an individual's participation in social discourse (that is, collective conversations taking place over time that privilege some descriptions of the world more than others). The practical implication of these discourses is that those with less power have their worlds defined for them by those with more power and are denied the language to describe their experiences in ways most meaningful to them. For example, within a discourse of patriarchy, it is more acceptable for women to view themselves as depressed rather than angry when forced to forfeit careers and stay at home with children or for women to accept a violent marriage rather than label partners as criminally abusive. In these and countless other examples, when a new language is coconstructed to describe our experiences of the world, and those descriptions invested with power socially (for example, physicians stop prescribing antidepressants to women with legitimate grievances; the justice system prosecutes cases of domestic violence), individuals experience their collective reality differently.

The principal challenge to embracing an applied postmodern theory has been a mistaken belief that postmodernism presents an insurmountable problem of relativism: If realities are simply the result of shared language, then who is to say that one reality is better than another? Far from a problem, the need to negotiate the meaning of individual realities is the strength of a postmodern perspective. As Howe (1994) commented: "The social work professional is no longer the sole arbiter of the meaning of events" (p. 525). Each individual with whom we work holds a conviction that his or her interpretation of reality is both justified and frequently just. There is no way to demonstrate objectively that one preferred reality is better than another, except to discuss the relative privilege that each enjoys in the dominant discourse.

Progressive social workers who embrace aspects of postmodernism have found that they can tolerate multiple points of view and still assert that there are behaviors and beliefs so universal as to be accepted as guiding principles for social intervention (for example, human rights, taboos against incest, preference for peace instead of violence). The strength of a postmodern perspective is its embrace of the multiple realities through which consensual human goals are expressed. A celebration of diversity is a natural consequence of a postmodern emphasis on a plurality of perspectives and multiple and competing constructions of reality.

It seems to me that postmodern theory has been used to nurture a deeper sensitivity to the marginalization experienced by disempowered and at-risk populations, although it has not credibly translated this knowledge of self and others into a framework for intervention. Although social workers have been advised to emphasize dialogue and search for shared realities among clients while being attentive to the discursive power laden in their professional language (Leonard, 1997; Roche et al., 1999), in the practical exigencies of day-to-day frontline practice, such abstractions leave workers perceiving postmodernism as too ephemeral (Ungar, Manuel, Mealey, Thomas, & Campbell, in press). In the discussion that follows, I outline five aspects of what I self-consciously refer to as one approach (among many) to postmodern practice, highlighting the 2Ps and 3Rs of practice. The reader is cautioned to accept this interpretation of postmodernism as only one of many possible models that might be put forth. It is disturbingly paradoxical as a postmodernist to write about anything resembling a singular truth.

Positioning: Outsiders or Inside Outsiders?

Social workers who apply postmodern theory to their work are encouraged to examine their positioning in their communities or, more specifically, the "communitization" of their practice (analogous to Freire's [1968/1970] "conscientization"). Attention to positioning as professionals makes them aware of their place in the associational life of their communities (McKnight, 1995). Although ethical practice is typically based on a clear delineation of boundaries between workers and clients (Lowenberg & Dolgoff, 1996), a postmodern sensibility leads social workers to challenge the artificiality of such distinctions. Workers are both professionals and community members, and as such are privileged participants in the same discourses as clients. An ethical practice is not one that maintains strict boundaries, but one that places workers closer to other members of our communities and realizes the strengths of complex patterns of association. Lists of questions workers may ask themselves with regard to their position, and each of the four other aspects of a postmodern practice (discussed below), are included in Table 1.

Proximity brings with it obvious advantages, as social workers understand better the constraints on individual clients' lives through firsthand experience. Postmodern theory cautions them, however, to deconstruct the privileged position from which social workers view others' lives. The language of social work and its interventions can further marginalize clients when, through interactions, identity constructions are enhanced which describe people as inferior, ill, incompetent, or victims.

The implication of this focus is to shift practice from working with communities to working with and in communities. The well-positioned worker with individuals, families, or communities maintains services relationships that remain informal, fluid, nonhierarchical, and boundless (Holloway, Fuller, Rambaud, & Eggers-Pierola, 1997). As Collier (1993) showed in his work with farm families, unlike urban families, farmers who live in rural communities who reach out for help can feel their privacy seriously threatened: "A farmer opposed to revealing problems to an outsider who is obviously a social worker will be more comfortable with someone who visits and can be consulted without displaying to the rest of the community that he or she is asking for or receiving help" (p. 72). Such contextual specificity for practice reflects the importance of how workers are positioned and what they know about those with whom they work.

Power: Language of Agendas

Identity is constructed through power-laden language (Foucault, 1972/1980; Gergen, 1994). How do we decide what behavior best reflects who we are? How do we communicate what we want and need? And whose social agenda dictates how we may behave and the public policies that constrain our lives? Our individual truth claims are relative, temporal, and contextually specific, competing for veracity within our collective conversations. Because social work, more than most helping professions, engages people with marginalized truth claims, the profession is uniquely situated to deconstruct the power of privileged and less privileged social discourses. Too often, however, as Ife (1997) noted: "[P]roviding services in a professional relationship defines the professional (or giver or service) as the expert who really knows what is required, rather than as the servant who is there to do the master's or mistress' bidding" (pp. 4-5). There are obvious dangers to promoting a singular professional voice of authority based on an argument for one truth (Pease, 2002). As de Montigny (1995) explained in his ethnography of social workers' practice, social workers are pressured to maintain their discursive power. Respect for a multiplicity of interpretations and a nonhierarchical stance that challenges the othering of those to whom services are provided is an important aspect of an applied postmodern social work practice.

Resource Sharing: Money without Cooptation

As Smith (1995) wrote: "[A] characteristic of human resources is that they are generally extended rather than depleted by use" (p. 51). A postmodern practice, by positioning the professional with and in communities in ways that deconstruct professional power, opens space for the discovery of new health resources. It challenges the myth of scarcity. Community advocates like Wachter and Tinsley (1996) encouraged people to envision an idealized community in which they relate to one another in ways that establish and sustain connections. Wachter and Tinsley called their vision a "community campus." There are many examples of the community campus that facilitate a better use of a community's resources, complemented by the resources provided by social workers. Community justice forums now being used in aboriginal and nonaboriginal communities have also been used effectively in the field of child protection, in which case conferences have become opportunities for communities to support families (Pennell & Burford, 1997). Wraparound processes (Van Den Berg & Grealish, 1996) that encourage community ownership for troubled youths are also based on a belief in the hospitality of communities to welcome those otherwise excluded. Both demonstrate a postmodern sensibility to the resources communities have that are sufficiently robust to challenge the detached positions and power of professionals.

As inside outsiders, human services professionals can share resources with communities, although they have generally been reluctant to do so substantially. As Hoch and Hemmens (1987) argued, rational incompatibilities between formal and informal helpers lead to working at cross-purposes, wasting valuable social and health resources. Although volunteers seek relationships and a debureaucratization of services, their alliance with services professionals results in heightened expectations that drain resources. More formal documentation and planned, timed, interventions result in a de-emphasis on natural and spontaneous helping relationships (Nelson, Laurendeau, Chamerland, & Peirson, 2001).

Divesting resources to communities, however, can be a double-edged sword. As Shragge (1990) observed in his study of alternate services organizations in Montreal, the more legitimate their activities become, the more likely they are to be "coopted or absorbed" rather than recognized for the authentic and effective nature of their activities. Far from an argument for nonintervention, however, a postmodern practice seeks the substantive sharing of resources synonymous with the multiple ways different communities privilege forms of helping.

Resisting: In Whose Best Interest?

As inside outsiders in the community, and potentially as outside insiders in the social work profession, the postmodern social worker resists decisions and processes that are contrary to the interests of the community with which he or she works. This is achieved in two ways. First, resisting the homogenizing effects of bureaucentric practice means the postmodern social worker must call on the self-perpetuating system of his or her employer to show tolerance for the very diversity that threatens it. Second, the professional social worker must find ways to be part of a professional discipline that promotes particular solutions to people's problems, while resisting the tendency to privilege professional discourse above indigenous ways of knowing and healing.

The skills necessary to accomplish this are a mixture of those associated with advocacy, mediation, case management, and ethnography. The work by Ife (1997) provided a provocative look at this process of privileging marginalized discourses. Remarkably congruent with a postmodern perspective, Ife wrote of critical practice: "The authentic voices of the marginalised must be heard, and the role for social workers is to make sure that this becomes possible, by helping the marginalised to gain access to public forums, and by helping marginalised people to develop the skills and vocabulary needed to address the structures of power and domination" (p. 181). Similarly, Altman's (1995) work on partnerships between communities, large nongovernment organizations, and governments battling AIDS in Australia showed that change is most likely to occur when internal agents, such as social workers, within these bureaucratic structures offer a challenge to their organizations, usually as a result of their close affiliation and identification with the community being served. Like a Trojan horse, these inside outsiders are a critical part of the petitioning for resources.

Reflecting: Shared Truths

To accomplish change, the postmodern social worker must critically reflect on his or her position in discourse, use of language, and the relative privilege of his or her constructions of reality, as a private citizen and as an agent of social control (see Fook, 1999). Postmodernism is best expressed through acts of reflexivity that emphasize the praxis of action and reflection (Madigan & Law, 1998; Rodwell, 1998), also typical of feminist social work theory. Similarly, as Parker (1992) explained in his discussion of postmodernism and critical psychology, "reflexivity is used to denote our deliberate awareness of our place in things and our difference from others" (p. 93). Parker encouraged reflection as the way people dissolve the space between the observer and the observed, that is, problems and our role as professionals in sustaining them. However, as one of only five approaches to a postmodern practice discussed here, reflexivity is an inadequate replacement for social action. Parker mused: "There is certainly something odd going on when the connection between the individual and the social is made in terms of 'reflexivity' instead of political practice. My caution is that we have to understand the political functions of that connection" (p. 93).

Self-reflections on language and power engage social workers with colleagues and community stakeholders in discussions that deconstruct the relative position and power of each. These conversations can be part of a reciprocal formal process that workers and clients engage in through report writing, case conferences, and other meetings. In other words, it is imperative that social workers operationalize what they theorize to be good practice through innovation in the most mundane of tasks. It is the social worker's role to concretely demonstrate an openness to hear, and then to account for, the multiple realities of others. Home visits, storefront offices, school-based social services, community coalitions, and alliances that are attentive to the dynamics of power between participants are all practical steps in creating reciprocity between workers and clients (see Ungar, 2002). The worker who asks questions and inquires about rules and roles in these unfamiliar (or, perhaps, familiar) spaces is better equipped to intervene in ways meaningful and respectful to those with whom he or she works.

Social work informed by postmodernism is transparent. Diagnoses, written records, and conversations with clients and colleagues are part of a process to coconstruct the realities of others (White, 1995, 2000). The postmodern social worker perceives and reflects on the artificial and temporal nature of professionalization that establishes universal truths. Even as he or she adheres to expected roles, the thoughts and processes that sustain authority are challenged. Accomplishing this is as simple as questioning one's own authority in a court report, listening to the wisdom of communities and investing resources in their solutions, or reading to a client his or her DSM-IV diagnostic criteria and asking if the description fits. The objective is to foster awareness of the position and power of professionals as constructed through language, and reflexively, of the marginalization and relative power of clients.

The following case study taken from work typical of that done by social workers in the field of child welfare illustrates the integration of the 2Ps and 3Rs of a postmodern practice in the everyday lived experience of a frontline social worker.

Case Study: Julie, Tom, and Samantha

Julie's first child was was removed from the home at age 10 months after being very badly neglected. Eventually the boy was placed for adoption. Julie was 16 years old at the time. A year later, she gave birth to a second child, a girl named Samantha, who was taken from her at birth pending an assessment of Julie's capacity as a parent. The child's father, Tom, who was 25 years old, had lived with Julie for three months. On two occasions Julie had called her social worker at the child welfare office to help her deal with Tom's physically abusive behavior. Both parents, however, insisted they wanted their baby back and that they had the resources to look after her. They argued that they would move from their substandard housing, would allow Tom's parents who lived a few blocks away to help care for the child, and Tom, unemployed at the time, would be going to work with an uncle who owned a laundry business.

Although their plan made sense, the social workers involved felt that Julie's capacities, both mentally and emotionally, were limited. She had left school three years earlier, had herself been abused as a child, and still presented as an immature and emotionally volatile young woman. She was afraid of Tom, and she did not like his family very much. When together, Tom encouraged her to be uncooperative with social services and Samantha's temporary foster parents. Julie frequently missed appointments to see her baby even though a volunteer who agreed to take her, but not Tom, for supervised visits provided transportation. By the time Samantha was four months, social workers and support staff were arguing against returning the child to Julie and Tom. Shortly thereafter, Samantha was put up for permanent adoption. By that point, Julie was pregnant with her third child.

Discussion

In the case of Julie and Tom, their social worker knew both of their families of origin well. The foster parent was also from Julie's community. The social worker visited Julie in her home and, although respectful of Julie's hopes to parent better, understood the lack of resources she would encounter if Samantha was returned. Models of practice based on an urban point of view have valued low context, well-bounded community--worker relationships. Rural social workers and social workers from ethnic minority communities, which value high-context enmeshed community relationships that include interactions through church, school, work, sports clubs, or other social institutions, place more value on the warp and weave of complex relationships. These social workers enjoy the advantages of being a part of the communities they serve (Ungar et al., in press)

In the case of a high-risk family with a newborn, that community capacity may not be enough to ensure the child's safety. However, that capacity is more likely to be present when services providers are willing to redirect funding (resource sharing) to support the natural networks that already exist. In Julie's case, years of involvement with the child welfare system as a child and an adult had unfortunately left Julie with few natural supports on which to draw. Social workers need to invert their thinking about the relationship between communities and the institutions and services that are available to them to make available resources that families need on their own terms (Ungar, Teram, & Picketts, 2001).

Changing the position and power of the worker meant that when Julie said she needed help with transportation, it was provided. When she insisted she was going to live with Tom, workers needed to understand what that relationship meant to her. Far from supporting her in an abusive relationship, the professionals working with Julie appreciated that, given her personal narrative, Tom's abuse and her neglectful parenting were not perceived by Julie as being as problematic as they were to those mandated to intervene. State-mandated workers felt they had no choice but to remove Julie's children, but that decision was, following the second child's birth, presented to Julie as the result of competing discourses and not as an objective solution to her "problems."

The following are excerpts from a parenting capacity assessment that I filed with the court that contributed to Samantha's permanent removal from her parents: The first is an excerpt from a letter written to Julie and Tom, which replaces the executive summaries included at the front of such reports; the second is taken from a section of the report devoted to re-presenting the parents' point of view. It both acknowledges the needs of society (and social services staff) to ensure Samantha's long-term well-being and attempts to recognize the alternate story of her parents. In so doing, it is an attempt to resist the hegemony of social norms that marginalize families, and especially women, living in poverty. Furthermore, it is an attempt (albeit an imperfect one) at bringing into practice a critical reflection on the power of the worker. Although a postmodernist might argue against such authoritative reports that reify the expertise of the assessor, in practical terms courts hire social workers to assess and make recommendations. The challenge is how to meet these services demands while applying a postmodern sensibility that demonstrates in practice the deconstruction of professional discourse?

 Dear Julie and Tom,

 I enjoyed meeting you both and have
 learned much from you about how challenging
 it is to cope when your child is placed in
 foster care. It makes me sad, however, to have
 to tell you that for many reasons which I explain
 in this report, I am recommending that
 Samantha be made a ward of the court and
 put up for adoption, and that you both not
 have contact with her while she is growing up.
 ... In this report, I have asked the court to
 also consider what you both want, which is
 having her returned. Unfortunately, I believe
 Samantha would be at a great risk for problems
 later in her life if she comes home now.
 Most people who study children, myself included,
 believe a child her age needs a strong
 relationship to a parent. It's best, therefore,
 that Samantha be adopted as soon as possible.

 Perhaps with time your relationship will
 become what you both want it to be and you'll
 have a few more supports to help you raise a
 child. While I saw you both trying to care for
 your daughter, there were a few things that
 could have been changed which would have
 helped me think you are ready to take
 Samantha back. I'll list those here and then
 you can read the report for more detail....I
 realize you disagree with me on many of these
 points.

 Julie and Tom have a different perspective of
 what I observed. Julie insists that she is attached
 to Samantha and wants her home with
 her. She believes she has shown herself to be
 mature enough to parent and that how she
 acts when she is visiting Samantha at the foster
 home shows how good a parent she is....For
 Tom, the removal of Samantha was an unforgivable
 intrusion into his life. He has never
 before had involvement with Child and Family
 Services. He is very angry that he is being
 judged and his personal life closely examined
 when he feels he has done nothing wrong. He
 also insists that he and Julie have made incredible
 efforts to improve their living situation
 and create a stable home for their daughter....

 In the time I have had to get to know
 Samantha's parents, I can see that they are
 trying as best they can to do the right thing for
 their child. They do not mean to abandon
 Samantha; they are confused about how they
 must act to convince others to place the child
 with them. Tom does not mean to hurt Julie;
 he says he is frustrated and angry about circumstances
 in his life and explains his violence
 as the result of the financial challenges he
 faces. I believe this is the way the couple sees
 themselves. They believe they are victims of a
 system that will not do what they want it to
 do....This is my understanding of the
 couple. I hope they will be able to express to
 the courts and Child and Family Services more
 directly how they feel.

Resistance to hegemonic notions of normality may not always be supported, but they deserve "re-presentation" in official accounts of others' lives. The report on Julie and Tom was not one with which they agreed, but it did make an earnest effort to represent their voices and deconstruct the relative power and position of the author. Obviously, Julie and Tom defined their world differently from the social workers who took their child away.

Summary: Looking Forward to Postmodern Practice

Grafting on a postmodern interpretation of practice to modernist social work structures is not an ideal solution to the problem of professional discursive hegemony. Holding loosely to principles of community empowerment, participation, partnerships, or any other jingoistic services philosophy does little to change social work practice without a concurrent change in beliefs about the relationship between social workers and clients. Tinkering may only further mask the hidden agendas of control that Margolin (1997) argued are now part of social work practice, unless the fabric of the profession changes in its training, theory, and finally, practical application of theory. By addressing the implications of postmodernism to social work practice in child welfare, clinical, and community settings, there may be a way of practically changing the way social work is done that reflects the emerging understanding of discourses, power, and the need to share resources.

There are, however, drawbacks to discerning five principles of a postmodern practice, as nowhere in this discussion has the veracity of the services delivery system itself been challenged. Although that is a long-term goal, workers in the meantime have to practice in ways agreeable to their employers. The 2Ps and 3Rs of a postmodern practice position social workers as a part of the system and as the architects of something different.

Table 1

Questions for a Postmodern Practice

Positioning

 * How are those being helped and those helping
 positioned in their communities?
 * What aspects of the community's associational
 life do both share?
 * What cultural, social, economic, political, ethnic,
 racial, or geographic characteristics do
 they have in common?
 * Where does the work of helping take place?

Power

 * Whose definition of the problem is heard the
 loudest?
 * Does the way a problem is defined place limits
 on the solutions being considered?
 * How do community members exercise power
 over their well-being?

Resource Sharing

 * What resources do human services workers
 have available?
 * What resources do the communities with
 which social workers work have available?
 * What has the community asked for and what
 are outsiders willing to share?
 * How much money for services is under the
 direct control of community stakeholders?

Resistance

 * How can alliances be built between the community
 and human services workers?
 * What strategies can social workers use to involve
 government in community processes?
 * When is the system serving its own needs instead
 of those of the community?

Reflection

 * How can social workers as inside outsiders
 help community members reflect on the nature
 of their relationships with those with
 power?
 * How can professionals make their work transparent
 to the community?
 * What "outside expert" knowledge is valued, or
 not valued, by a community?
 * What part of the system mandate does the
 community share?

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Michael Ungar, PhD, is associate professor, Maritime School of Social Work, Dalhousie University, 6414 Coburg Road, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada B3H 2A7; e-mail: michael.ungar@dal.ca.

Original manuscript received May 7, 2002 Final revision received December 6, 2002 Accepted April 21, 2003