Sub-theme 2.5: Social work and the organisational context

In exploring the impacts of news media reporting at an organisational level, participants identified the importance of a measured and supportive response:

Other places there’s almost a fear of media type of thing, an example in the media opens up that anxiety and that fear that we could be

scrutinized in that way, where’s there’s not that collective sense of just being quite confident in what you’re doing and how you’re doing then that would breed quite quickly amongst the team … (Participant 5, Interview)

While this was not an issue of major significance for the majority of participants (n = 16), four whose practice is in high profile fields deemed it an important consequence of media reporting. Two forms of reactions were identified by participants: support (for those in hospitals) and panic (for those in child protection services). Working in hospitals, two participants reported that while their work was not the focus of reporting, their clients and organisation were the source of frequent, almost weekly, media coverage. While for the most part this was identified as being non critical, historically there have been numerous examples where the competency of the organisation, and the social work department, were drawn into question.

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I was horrified (at seeing my own practice get negative coverage) and I felt quite violated. My initial response is to say to my higher boss ‘What are we going to do about this! These things should be a criminal matter, violated is a really good word and then I calmed down. I was able to rationalise it and calmed down and when I was more informed that my organisation was following it through I was okay with it then and then I felt as a team we were quite uniformed. (Participant 14, Interview)

As shown above, participants who worked in hospitals reported that the organisational response to critical coverage was calm and protective, rather than anxious and reactionary.

Participants expressed that they felt supported by the organisation in that it managed to investigate allegations in a helpful manner that did not assume guilt and did not look to punish but improve services. The high profile nature of their practice and the balance between negative and positive coverage created a context in which workers were not fearful of exposure. This was in contrast to the participants who worked in public sector protective services.

The two participants who worked in child protection services expressed a sense of panic and recrimination from their organisation when their practice received coverage. Even though the organisation has a media unit and a long history of media interest, the response in their view seemed to be guided by a broader concern of political fallout and the need to identify the individuals at fault and make them accountable. This was deemed by participants to be a toxic response that in part contributes to the high turnover that the field experiences.

Participants observed that a culture of fear permeated this service and this was experienced at all levels, including the lack of positive self-promotion from the organisation. As opposed to hospitals, participants who had worked in child protection argued that through a

misguided understanding of confidentiality, a culture of secrecy developed that did not allow workers to engage with the media and ultimately led to the lack of any positive promotion. This was identified as directly impacting participants’ sense of worth:

It makes you feel very despondent and it makes you feel very frustrated that the media portrays things so inaccurately, I’ve seen young people’s lives splashed across the media and it’s often quite incorrect information

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… I find it very frustrating because as a child protection social worker you have very little voice of reply, you’re not allowed to speak to the media even to correct them it’s not something we engage in … it’s made very clear from the beginning … (Participant 8, Interview)

One participant highlighted how the media reporting of social issues impacts organisations’

resourcing and therefore practice. Working in the field of out-of-home care, an article during the reflection period drew attention to the hard work and poor remuneration of being a foster carer (‘Foster families out of pocket, sparking $6m top-up plea from Foster Care Association of Victoria’, The Age, 18.2.2014). The article was used as a form of advocacy to raise awareness of this situation and the need for increased funding. The participant reported an almost immediate drop in the number of individuals who were on the waiting list to be assessed for their suitability as carers as the article highlighted the emotional and financial hardships experienced. This case example demonstrates the complexity of the impacts of media coverage of social issues on practice. Analysis of how reporting of social issues impacts practice is beyond the scope of this thesis and provides opportunities for future research, a notable example being Zufferey’s (2007) exploration of reporting on homelessness and social work.

6.7 Conclusion

Chapter 6 has explored participants’ reflections on the relationship between news media and practice which led to the discovery of several key insights of relevance to the research question and aims. The discussion about the impacts of reporting identified larger themes for participants regarding societal attitudes towards a profession whose purpose and ability is not understood and therefore questioned. The confusion concerning the function of workers, beyond protective services, was the most significant impact, as participants believed that the lack of coverage contributes to a general sense of misunderstanding.

Implicit in participants’ accounts were agenda setting theories of media influence as they identified that personal experience played a bigger role in terms of how clients understand the profession.

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A key new insight for participants was that the lack of client trust stemmed not necessarily from the assumption that workers are ‘going to take the kids away’, as argued in the literature, but that the lack of coverage leads to a questioning of the professional

competency of workers. The absence was identified by workers to be representative of and perpetuating the low professional status that social work holds leading it to be seen as a second-tier profession. The possibility of media coverage was deemed to have some positive impacts in making several workers hold their own work to a higher standard.

Although rare, receiving media scrutiny of individual practice was reported as being a challenging experience, but whose impacts were not long-lasting. The more destructive elements were the organisational responses to reporting that created a toxic culture of anxiety and recrimination. The reflection process highlighted for most participants the limited impacts on daily practice, but presented larger issues regarding the

deprofessionalisation and the poor recognition of the social work profession.

Exploring the impacts of news coverage on practice positioned social workers as part of a professional project that was unappreciated and misunderstood. How participants understood social work throughout these discussions, and how it differed from when the profession was discussed more broadly, will be the main focus of Part Three.

The next chapter of this thesis will explore the intrapersonal impacts of news media coverage as described by participants by focusing on identity, confidence and self-worth.

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Chapter 7:

Theme 3 – Identity, self-confidence and self-worth

7.1 Introduction

Throughout the interviews, and to some extent the workshops, discussion and follow-up questions focused on exploring the intrapersonal impacts of social work’s news media coverage. The questions broadly looked to better understand the effects that reporting had on participants’ professional identity, self-confidence and self-worth. While the effects of coverage were suggested by participants to be wide-ranging (including confidence, anxiety, reflection, frustration and the struggle with the need for recognition), they were all

underscored by a clear frustration with the news media not understanding social work. The topic was explored in greater depth during the one-on-one interviews, possibly due to their more private and confidential nature. This section presents the main themes in relation to this topic as identified by the analysis of the research data.

While this chapter focuses on what participants reported, Part Three will draw on several points raised here (especially the degree of participant confidence in the aims of the social work profession), to explore in greater depth the professional identity formation and maintenance processes that were occurring throughout the research.