‘We are quite a “Can anyone help me?” kind of team’: The role of the team as secure base in social workers’ sensemaking

Gregory, Mark ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7428-9447 and Biggart, Laura ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1233-9787 (2024) ‘We are quite a “Can anyone help me?” kind of team’: The role of the team as secure base in social workers’ sensemaking. Journal of Social Work Practice, 38 (4). pp. 409-422. ISSN 0265-0533

Preview

PDF (Gregory_Biggart_2024_JSWP) - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

There is recognition that teams act as a locus for the sensemaking activity that underpins social workers’ judgement. Research has highlighted that teams also provide emotional support for practitioners. Although sensemaking involves emotional and social processes, there has been limited examination of how emotional support in teams interacts with sensemaking. This article uses the Team as Secure Base (TASB) model as a framework for presenting findings from an ethnographic study of four social work teams in England. Data comprise interviews with social workers and supervisors (n=22) and fieldnotes from observations (n=23). Teams exhibited behaviour consistent with the domains of TASB, creating a space for safe exploration of social workers’ thoughts and feelings. However, while a strong sense of team membership contributed to participants’ sense of safety and self-efficacy, this impacted on sensemaking in other ways, such as giving less weight to the views of those who were not team members.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sensemaking,child protection,emotions,ethnography,secure base,teams,health(social science),social sciences (miscellaneous),drug guides ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3300/3306
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Social Work Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Psychology
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Social Cognition Research Group Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Research on Children and Families
Related URLs:	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	25 Oct 2024 12:30
Last Modified:	03 Dec 2024 01:34
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/97213
DOI:	10.1080/02650533.2024.2420318

Downloads

Actions (login required)

View Item