and reach thousands of daily visitors
17 APRIL 2009
NO 1425
Working with children
Of course in any agency dealing with children, work with parents and others will always be an important part of the social worker's job, and this work can bring real relief to the children. But in regard to the children themselves, we have to face two facts. The first is that, as we know only too well, the amount of psychotherapy available is minute in comparison to the need for it. The majority of the children therefore, although they may be urgently in need of this kind of help, will not be able to obtain it. The second fact is that if psychotherapy were available, not all children who need it could make use of it, because their conflicts are not only intra-psychic conflicts projected on to the outside world, but also real conflicts which exist between themselves and the people in their environment, conflicts which are beyond the capacity of the child to deal with. Workers in Child Guidance Clinics recognize the reality of this problem, and Psychiatric Social Workers have always aimed to work with the parents of children in treatment. However, in spite of help to parents, we know that some children will fail to make use of treatment because their parents cannot, because of their own problems, let his happen. Other social work agencies may pick up these cases at a later date along with other cases in which the child's environmental circumstances are threatened in some obvious or subtle way, or are impoverished or chaotic, and the presenting problem is first and foremost a social problem. But the problem is the child's problem, and although the adults in his world will also need help, work with them is a long slow job, and their ability to take help is often limited. We know there will be many cases in which we cannot afford to concentrate on work with the adults and wait for this to affect the child, however logical an approach this seems to be.
I suggest that another reason why we often hold back from direct work with children about their problems is that the needs of many of the children who come our way seem overwhelming. We are horrified at some of the experiences they have been through. We see only too clearly the gaps in their lives and recognize that their basic needs are not being met. We know that as Social Workers we ourselves cannot fill these gaps or meet these needs and we feel impotent. At this point we can lose confidence in the relevance of our social casework techniques and abandon the attempt to reach the child's feelings because they are altogether too painful. Before we know where we are, we find ourselves concentrating on filling the gaps for the child at the expense of the other part of our job, which is to look at the gaps with him.
To work effectively with children, the first and most fundamental thing we have to know about is the strength of our own feelings about the suffering of children. All adults find this a difficult proposition, and we are familiar enough with the ways in which other people deny or minimize the reality of the child's feelings. But we too are only human, and we shall find that our own tolerance level will fluctuate.
In casework practice with children or adults, there is a general recognition of the value of acknowledging and surviving the hostile feelings which are present in the majority of our clients at one time or another. This is important, but possibly we could be more consciously aware of the suffering behind the hostility and of the need our clients have for us to acknowledge and share this too with them. The capacity to suffer is a sign of health in the individual, an inevitable part of the process of integration of bringing together good experiences and bad ones, love and hate.
CLARE WINNICOTT
Winnicott, C. (1963). Face to face with children. In Kanter, J. (Ed.). Face to Face with Children: The Life and Work of Clare Winnicott. London. Karnac.
