The elephant in the room in adult social work is often a cat

Firstly, thanks to @Harr_Ferguson for the title which was inspired by this tweet:

I remembered this tweet today whilst driving home and reflecting on having heard several stories this week from amazing social work colleagues where pets featured in a critical role.  The colleague who, having tried to engage with someone through their letter box had the dog set on them.  The parents who were walking the dog every night past their son with a learning disability who was living independently in his new home to reassure them that he was OK.  The mum and son with very complex communication needs whose face lights up when he sees the family dog come into the room.  And finally, the amazing colleague who was planning to finish for the weekend only after they had sorted out 11 cats and 3 dogs so that the person they were supporting could feel safe enough that their pets were cared for to accept a period of convalescence and recovery from a period of acute ill health.

Social care is full of evidence to suggest that pets are associated with psychological and emotional well being.  Something that we could perhaps pay more attention to in adult social work.  Dr Sara Ryan (yes Connor’s mum) has written a really thoughtful paper on how pets are important members of the families they belong to and yet how often they are unseen by the “professional” in the room – it’s here if you want a read:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9566.12176/abstract

Sara’s paper reminds us that as social work practitioners, it is far too easy for important family member to become invisible when they are sat right in front of us – an observation which Harry Ferguson has written about in his brilliant piece about the unbearable complexity of social work decision making in the British Journal of Social Work.  See here:

http://bjsw.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/06/29/bjsw.bcw065.abstract

In our induction for Newly Qualified Social Workers, we often talk about a real case which we got very wrong.  The lady had 20 cats.  We thought we knew best.  We thought we could see something as professionals that she couldn’t about her life and experience.  We took her away from everything she knew, everything that was important to her in her life.  The result was that she deteriorated very quickly.  It is telling, that when we talk about the lady with the cats, we only talk about her cats as a passing, almost jokey remark at the start of the story.

And if you want to know just how wrong we can get it in social care – see the case of Fluffy the Cat https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2015/01/29/what-price-liberty-damages-dols-and-a-cat-named-fluffy/ whose 91 year old owner was removed from his home and unlawfully deprived of his liberty in a care home leaving his beloved cat behind.

Today, pets have featured heavily as we have reflected on this week, appearing in several of the stories which I have heard being told as part of the end of week come down.  All social workers will recognise the end of week come down.  It is the really important bit of the week when social workers take care of each other and the complexity of the decisions they have supported people to take.  It is the moment where social workers use story telling to reflect about the week which has past and as the social work office winds down, it is the process which enables practitioners to go home without carrying the weight of every potential risk with them into the weekend.  Without that moment of story telling, social workers, the best social workers, the ones who will be back fighting for people’s human rights once they have rested and recovered, will often spot the small things they have missed during the heat of the busy week.  That is the time when the pets emerge.

Today, as we told our end of week stories, we heard of that we had seen 11 cats and 5 dogs.  We spotted something we didn’t know before, something we didn’t previously notice about what is important to the people we are supporting.  And when we next speak to them, because of that moment of insight, we will be able to include in our conversations with them that they have another member of their family that we are interested in.

And crucially, we had a moment of laughter and mutual support which came out of that recognition – because we are pet owners too and we know what our pets mean to us. In that moment you become less professional and more human and you are closer to the person you are there to support.  Which is a really good thing.

This week, however, I am left with unanswered questions which I leave me unsettled – what happened to the lady’s cats?  What if we got it wrong?  What if it was being removed from her beloved cats that was the tipping Point?

Honestly, I will never know what happened to the cats.  But we do know what happened to the lady with the cats, we moved her, leaving her cats behind, she became very distressed and after a long and lonely 6 months on various hospital wards she died.  It was traumatic for all concerned.  Including the social worker who has never forgotten her.   To quote Professor Ferguson “The powerful impact of unbearable levels of complexity and anxiety on social workers requires much greater recognition.”

Have a safe weekend to all our EDT and hospital weekend colleagues working this weekend.