Why did you decide to base yourselves here?

CPP: When we were looking for somewhere, we knew it had to be of benefit for the families and not for us. They are the ones, after all, who are the most important and so we wanted them to feel comfortable when they come here and so people passing by don’t know why they are coming here.

(Observations, Day 13).

The choice of this setting therefore was not coincidental; it was selected carefully and precisely because of its nature and its function, for there are not many establishments which would allow a child protection agency to blend in so well with its surroundings as this one does. By considering how the very nature of their intervention is closely linked with issues surrounding power and control, this group of professionals has attempted to try and understand how children and their parents/carers may feel when visiting the VK. Furthermore by recognising that they may experience discomfort, they have tried to make what is undoubtedly a difficult experience for most families into an easier one. In contrast, the building where the Fenton

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department is based, was chosen by senior managers of the department for very different reasons.

Figure 2. The Children’s Social Care building, England.

Similar to that of the VK agency (figure 1) this establishment is also linked to education as it was once a former school. But the difference is that the school has since closed down and relocated; it is now solely occupied by the Fenton department. The building is made of red brick and is situated on only one level. It is surrounded by a very large car park. Although only part of it can be seen in this image it does actually extend around the side and the back of the building. One of the reasons this location was chosen for the Fenton department was because of its parking facilities. In England, a key part of social work practice involves visiting parents and children within their home. In Flanders however, visiting the homes of clients is carried out by the Kind en Gezin (child and family) agency and therefore, child protection

professionals, rarely, if ever, visit their families at home.

At the front of the car park, something that is not visible in this photograph, for reasons of confidentiality, is a large sign which identifies the purpose of the agency and the service that is provided by the professionals within it. This is rather

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identified by others as families known to children’s services. This lack of

contemplation, in relation to issues of ‘social stigma’ that have been so carefully pondered upon by the Flemish professionals, is not, I believe, as a result of

maliciousness but from a form of pragmatic reasoning (see Goffman, 1963). By having a sign large enough for everyone to see, no client or other professional could miss it when trying to locate it for the first time.

Manager: This building was chosen by (Name). She wanted one building in which all social workers in (names borough) could be in one place and she thought it would be cheaper. But it didn’t quite work out like that ‘cos this building costs a fortune to heat and maintain. But it serves its purpose and it is good to be altogether I think.

(Observations, Day 42).

The main purpose for these premises was therefore to reduce costs and use resources effectively. But another reason for choosing it was so that all the children teams from across the borough could be in one setting. This would make it easier for teams to confer, share information and offer advice with one another. It may also have contributed to a form of collectivism for practitioners who would also benefit from being part of the same micro culture rather than being compelled to develop professionally as a team on a smaller scale due to being separated geographically.

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Figure 3: The corridor, VK agency, Flanders.

When I first visited the VK agency and saw this part of the corridor (see Figure 3), it surprised me that there would be such an austere clinical and

unwelcoming hallway for visiting families at VK. Given the rhetoric which influences Flemish practice, I had thought that this area, the part where families are about to enter the offices of professionals, would have been better laid out. For the wooden boxes which resemble miniature coffins are spaced equally at different stages along the passageway appear macabre, the colour of the walls are grey and together with the cold, stone tiles on the floor they collectively present a bleak and depressing image of what may be in store for the visitor. But as soon as I started walking down this corridor, this initial view started to change.

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I soon realised that these wooden boxes (figure 4) were symbolic and I noticed when I walked past the offices, that there was a different caricature (figure 5) affixed to each door which brought about a certain sense of radiance, humour and creativity.

Figure 5: Caricature, VK agency, Flanders.

This changed the landscape completely; a corridor which I had previously seen as austere and uninviting was now one which was welcoming and warm.

When this VK agency moved from using paper files to using the computer, they asked a local artist to compress all the case files they had into these specially made wooden boxes. When you look into the box you can see black, wiggly lines on the top of each file, these are the remnants of written words recorded by the professional about each of the familiesthey have ever worked with. When families visit the VK agency for the first time and walk down this corridor, they are shown these boxes and reminded that they are not the first or the last family to have ever visited the

confidential centre. The message being conveyed is that they are not alone, for as they can see, there have been countless families who have come before them and who, like them, have struggled with certain issues in their lives. This symbolic gesture has been prepared especially for visiting families to the VK agency by the professionals who

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work there in order to make their visit more comfortable and less daunting or isolating.

As mentioned previously, each of the professionals working at VK agency have their own office. From this space they can do their work and meet with parents and/or children and other professionals. On each of their doors is a caricature which has been designed and painted specifically with their individual characteristics in mind. These exaggerated images add a little humour to what is a serious situation for most of the families who visit the centre. They also enable parents and children to see the professionals in a different light for they offer the visitor an impression, through a little gentle mockery, that the professional they are visiting is far from perfect. These caricatures acted perfectly as a kind of bookmark for those families who had to return to the centre, for once they knew which caricature they needed to look out for, it provided them with a landmark, or rather a meeting point, and they need never worry again about entering the wrong office.

Figure 6: The corridor, Fenton Department, England.

Here is one of the corridors in the Fenton department premises. All of the corridors look virtually the same as this one and surround a large office

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(which is on the right hand side of this picture) which accommodates one of the area teams. The door on the left leads to the photocopying room. At the end of the corridor is another corridor that leads to some meeting rooms and at the end of that corridor is another office for social workers and support workers. I have walked up and down this passageway many times over the past four years and I have always enjoyed the way the light floods in from the skylights at the top of the building. I have also liked listening to the hubbub of practitioners talking to each other; a pleasant din that would stem from the office on the right. It was not until I returned from one of my trips to Flanders that I realised how little visual stimulation or symbolic

representation there is of anything with particular meaning for families or for professionals. There are, admittedly, some pictures dotted around the corridors and these, I believe, came from IKEA. They are prints of flowers that have been used to add some colour the blank cream walls which dominate the interior of the building. But, in contrast to Flanders, there is nothing representative or creative for

professionals or families to muse upon when visiting the building, nothing

particularly ocular which might give meaning to the practitioners working there or make families feel more comfortable or welcome and rather less wary.

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There is an instant observable contrast between this office door for social work professionals and the previous one displayed above from Flanders (see figure 5) with a caricature affixed to it. This generic sign represents the two managers, six social workers and eight support workers who work behind this door (see figure 8). Not all of these social workers have their own desks, a few have to hot desk depending on the shifts they are working. We do not generally allow families to enter this office because of data protection issues. There are so many people working on different cases a family member could quite easily over hear the personal details of another

case.

Figure 8: The social work office, Fenton department, England.

There is also the issue of privacy for the visiting child or parent. The room behind this door does not have any walls or partitions (apart from two glass offices in each

corner where the managers are based). Therefore discrete conversations have to be held elsewhere in the building.

Social worker: The offices aren’t the best designed. But you can overhear what others are talking about on the phone and see when they are getting stressed so we can offer them support when they need it, that’s the way things are done here. But the manager can’t hear that from their office so they don’t always know what’s going on.

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One benefit of having so many social workers together in one place is, as this social worker points out, that it can strengthen a group’s identity. By being in one open space, everyone can hear what each other is talking about and how individuals are going about holding certain conversations. Althusser (1971) would argue that practitioners can listen to and then be interpellated by the circulating discourses within this office. This notion of positioning acknowledges the active way in which ‘persons endeavour to locate themselves within particular discourses during social interactions’; in this situation, it can demonstrate just how a professional’s identity can be constructed within this kind of micro culture (Burr, 2003:112).

The concept of positioning acknowledges both the power of culturally accessible discourses to frame our own experiences and restrain our behaviour whilst permitting a practitioner to connect with those discourses and use them in other professional circumstances (see Harre and Langenhove, 1999). However, within the Fenton department, this is not always a good thing. For when it comes to locating oneself in a certain position one must consider the hierarchy of the

organisation and the structure of rights within the available discourses. These may, as we shall see in the next chapter, provide ‘possibilities and limitations’ for each

practitioner as to what they may or may not do within each micro culture (Burr, 2003: 113).

In Flanders, on the other hand, all ten practitioners have their own offices. There is still opportunity, however, to develop a group identity as they meet each morning in this room to discuss new referrals. They also meet togetherat various points throughout the day, to conduct peer supervision sessions. It is here that they discuss their own cases and seek advice and support from their colleagues about how best to progress with some of the dilemmas they face.