Abstract
This is my final editorial for Qualitative Social Work (QSW). It has been a pleasure to serve as European Editor for the journal and to work alongside Karen Staller and Robyn Munford, as well as our Associate Editors. Dr. Lisa Morriss, who has worked tirelessly to support QSW during the past two years in her role on the Editorial Board, is now moving into the role of Co-Editor. Lisa is based at Birmingham University in England; her considerable passion for qualitative social work research will ensure that QSW continues to prosper. Lisa’s energy, creativity and diligence make her an ideal choice for the role of European Editor and readers can expect to see Lisa championing the journal at European conferences and other qualitative research networks. Lisa’s professional background in mental health social work is equally of huge value to QSW, enabling her to engage with the real-world dilemmas of social work practice across the globe (Morriss, 2016).
Regarding my own position, I am currently appointed to lead the setup of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (England and Wales), which is an organisation that will come into being in the Spring of 2019. The overarching aim of the new Observatory is to improve the impact of empirical evidence in family justice policy and practice, given long-standing concerns that, even high-quality research, plays a limited and uncertain role in frontline decision-making (Broadhurst et al., 2018). I am pleased to support the Foundation in this role over the coming months, working closely with the full range of family justice stakeholders (social workers, lawyers, barristers, judges and children and families) to shape the new Observatory. The issue of research impact is increasingly central to all our work as we are pushed to demonstrate real-world relevance and application. Looking ahead for QSW, the challenge is how to complement traditional methods of disseminating research with other forms of communication and engagement that enable wider research and influence. In this respect, our new European Editor, as a registered social worker, is ideally placed to consider the impact challenge in her new role.
I want to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to Karen Staller, Robyn Munford, Lisa Morriss and Ali Roy, for their continued support and advise (particular thanks to Lissette Piedra for greatly aiding the make-up of this issue). In addition, I want to thank everyone on the editorial board, the Sage team, and Ian Shaw for advice and support through my term as European Editor.
In this issue
Turning to the papers in this issue, I am once again impressed by the quality of the work that we receive for the journal. In the first article, Kathy Lay and Susan Larimer used a phenomenological lens to describe the lived experience of women in recovery as one of vigilance – a way to preserve recovery through remembering, being careful and seeking community. In the second article, Raymond Lee reminds us of the historical underpinnings for the clinical interview that we often take for granted. His paper examines how groups established by chapters of the American Association of Social Workers in the 1920s develop an empirical understanding of the dynamics that underlie a therapeutic interaction between social workers and their clients. Their influence radiated beyond the profession. Chicago sociologist Ernest Burgess advocated for the use of the ‘verbatim interview’ as a common focus of interest for both sociologists and social workers.
Social work is a challenging profession. Three further papers in this issue capture these challenges for readers. Denise Tang presents a case study of Hong Kong youth service providers in a rapidly changing society. Bea Van Robaeys and her colleagues studied how one organization engaged in contextual-transformative practice with vulnerable people in diverse contexts. They found that in such contexts and communities, social work practices must be readily recognizable by clients and should demonstrate respect for cultural differences. Mijntje ten Brummelaar and colleagues interviewed professionals working in two juvenile justice facilities in the Netherlands to understand how they engaged youth in a coercive placement situation. The authors found that for these professionals, safety and boundary limitations were linked with participation. Their findings indicate a need for engagement that considers the perspectives of both adolescents and professionals. Toward this end, the authors present a conceptual model of factors that might facilitate the participation of these youth.
Our final paper in this issue is by Elmien Truter and colleagues who considers resilience-promoting practices among South African women child protection social workers. The study reports the clear occupational risk factors that social workers face, including work pressure, inadequate professional support, financial strain, that combine with the unique challenges that child protection face in their work to safeguard children, which includes compulsory removal of children from families. The authors consider ways forward to tackle these occupational hazards.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.