key situations in social work model: professional reflection and knowledge management

Tov, Kunz & Stämpfli (2013) Schlüsselsituationen der Sozialen Arbeit.Professionalität durch Wissen, Reflexion und Diskurs in Communities of Practice. Bern: hep Verlag

Key Situations in Social Work - Model 04/2014

Key Situations in Social Work Model: Professional Reflection and Knowledge Management

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Adi Stämpfli, Msc, Lecturer in Social Work, Goldsmiths, University of

London



Professional Reflection is a key capability in social work

Critical Reflection & Analysis:“Social workers are knowledgeable about and apply the principles of critical thinking and reasoned discernment. They identify, distinguish, evaluate and integrate multiple sources of knowledge and evidence. These include practice evidence, their own practice experience, service user and carer experience together with research-based, organisational, policy and legal knowledge. They use critical thinking augmented by creativity and curiosity.”

The College of Social Work, Professional Capabilities Framework

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Reflection enables the linking of theory and practice “Relationierung”

Although reflective practice has become a key paradigm in social work, the ideas and practices associated with its application are not well defined operationally.(Wilson, 2011; D'Cruz et al., 2007).

Reflection models are lacking clear processes of how knowledge, values and practice can be related



Our Vision is ...

…. to build a platform and a network for students, professionals organisations and academics in social work, which aims to support reflection and discourse on situations and to support continuous professional development of social work practice.

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http://it-runde.de/5609/gastartikel-soziale-netzwerke-gehoren-zu-unserem-leben



Model: Key Situation in Social Work …• developed at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts,

Northwestern Switzerland for social work education • offers a theoretical and a learning (individual and organisational)

perspective on how to relate knowledge, practice and values • can be applied in and across organisations such as universities

and practice organisations• focuses i.a. on reflection and discourse in communities of

practice (CoPs) (Wenger, 1998)• is currently being developed further (platform and CoPs) as part

of a funded 20 month project

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Definition of „Key Situation“

• Key Situations in social work are situations which professionals describe as important and reoccurring and which they need to be able to manage in their professional practice.

• Although every professional situation is unique, there are essential generalisable features.

• The number of such situations, as the situations themselves are flexible and change over time in response to changing social conditions.

• From the practitioners' perspective situations are experienced as an uninterrupted course of action and as a symbolically structured context of meaning.

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The most influential theoretical underpinnings of the model

• Illeris (2009): Comprehensive understanding of learning• Jarvis (2009): Learning to be a person in society• Lave & Wenger (1991): Situated Learning • Wenger (1998): Communities of Practice• Dreyfus & Dreyfus (1987): Novice-Expert Model• Schön (1983): Reflective Practitioner: Reflection in Action, on

Action and on Reflection in Action• Dewe (2012): Theory-Praxis "Relationierung"

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Theoretical Premises

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• Socio-Constructivist view: knowledge construction in the human brain through assimilative and accommodative learning in a process of socio-cultural negotiation of meaning

The best transfer of knowledge resources to new situations is possible when knowledge has been acquired in a self-directed problem solving or problem based (social) process.



What I will talk about

• Professional reflection: Working with Key Situations

• Dialogue about professional practice: The Key Situations Discourse Model

• Knowledge management in social work: online platform and communities of practice

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1. Describe a situation of your practice.2. Split the situation into sequences and re-enact each

sequence in role play. Following this describe the emotion of the social worker and the service user and the thinking (reflection-in-action) of the social worker.

3. Choose a heading (from the collection)4. Determine typical characteristics of the situation

Working with key situations:a step by step reflection process

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Professional Reflection



5. Research resources (theories, research, experiential knowledge, skills, organisational, material and time resources)

6. Define quality standards7. Reflect on the situation using the quality standards

and 8. Develop alternative courses of action

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Working with key situations:a step by step reflection process




Conclusion 1: Knowledge, Practice and Values are integrated in reflections

Social work scienceScientific knowledgeof social problems

Scientific knowledge of interventions

Ethical knowledge

Social work professionExperiential knowledge

Organisational and contextual knowledge

Skills




Conclusion 2: Continuous Professional Development of Capability

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Per

form

ance

Person

Environment

Professionalismprof. Competenceprof. Identity inCommunities of Practice

Negotiation of

Meaning

Reflection

Action

Situation 1 Situation 2 Situation 3

Knowledge, Skills, Dispositions, Values individual

Knowledge, Norms, Values, Context, Resources social

Situation 4 Situation 5




Outcomes of Reflections are seldom documented ....



Ethical knowledge



Skills

documenting knowledge



Online Plattform to document situations as „boundary objects“• The co-constructed reflections are documented on an online

platform and are thus made accessible to others.• The Key Situation Model makes use of a Wiki (akin to

Wikipedia) where all 8 elements of a situation are documented. Key Situations can thus be used as boundary objects: “When artefacts are seen as mediating tools rather than reified knowledge, we come to recognise that much of our knowledge lies in the discussions we have around mediating artefacts rather than in the artefacts themselves. This then creates opportunities for the re-creation of the original artefact.” (Eraut, 2013, p. 217)

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Online Learning and Teaching OLAT

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Conclusion 3: Documentation makes situated knowledge accessible



Ethical knowledge



Skills




“Social work researchers (...) argue that IT should be designed to support the knowledge-sharing process rather than simply supporting the mechanical process of information (...)”. (Jang, 2012, p. 6)

• The platform based on situations constitutes an innovative tool and can be used by the professional and scientific community to access its situated knowledge. However, knowledge is situated: bound by context and people and is fluid, flexible and open to interpretation and change.

• Therefore, discourse aims to develop the quality of the practice, knowledge and values documented in a key situation.

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discourse

Platform enables discourse on documented practice and knowledge



Online Learning and Teaching OLAT

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discourse



• Currently we are developing the platform as part of a funded research and development project to make it more user friendly and open it up to professionals and academics.

• We are planning to establish around 15 CoPs consisting of practitioners and academics who will look after a range of key situations in which they have expertise (Quality Assurance)

• We are testing different ways to access situations.• The projects runs from February 2014 to September 2015. The

core team consists of three academics and an E-Learning specialist.

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discourse

Project #Key Situations



Key Situation Network: Members

•Students and qualified practitioners from practice and academia can become members of the network. They can get access through the platform. •Collaboration in a thematic CoP is open to all members who have an interest in the domain of the CoP, in virtual forms of cooperation and who may wish to broaden their existing networks across boundaries of academia and practice. •Our network is currently being established. We have practitioners, lecturers and students in Switzerland and Germany who are already using the model and the platform.

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discourse



Conclusion 4: Discourse enhances professional development• In addition to reflection and documentation it is

essential that the professional and scientific communities engage in a discourse on (situated) knowledge and practice to foster the development of shared understandings and to further develop hybrid forms of professional knowledge.

• Key Situation network members can make connections, communicate and meet in (virtual) rooms through the platform.

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discourse



• The underlying premise of the model is that every profession can be described by its typical, reoccurring situations.

• A project team consisting of social work practitioners and lecturers applied a modified “developing a curriculum” methodology (DACUM) (Norton & Moser, 2008). They analysed the fields of social work and social pedagogy in Switzerland and produced a collection of professional key situations.

• The resulting 130 situations describe the typical activities that social workers need to be able to manage.

• The term key situation was chosen in reference to key competency and key role.

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knowledge management

Innovative, situation-based knowledge structure



• Knowledge management traditionally focuses on the publication of research, theories and reports into specific areas of practice (Jang, 2012). The problem of accessing this knowledge is a challenge.

• Publication alone, even when suitable access is provided, does not lead to its use in practice (Gray et al. 2009).

• Evidence based practice has its limitations and as a way forward D’Cruz et al. (2009, p. 82) suggest a (....) approach that allows engagement “with a material reality, while also recognising the multiple (and relative) meanings possible for these material realities”.

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Knowledge Management in Social Work: Evidence Based Practice



• Knowledge is memorised in situated connections and cannot be transferred easily to new contexts or situations. However, situated knowledge allows associations but needs to be adapted to new situations.

• Through association, practitioners can easily identify relevant key situations with the aid of the title. The platform supports search function and multiple access routes.

• These can then be used in reflection processes to refresh knowledge, to discuss in supervision, to comment on, to form the basis for a reflection process in a CoP or in a team, .....

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Intuitive, associative access to knowledge



• Effective knowledge management relies on publication of knowledge and its use in professional reflection and discourse.

• Situations offer an ideal way to structure knowledge. Situation can easily be identified in associative, intuitive ways and can than be used for reflection and discourse.

• Situated knowledge is more easily transferrable through association and adaptation to new situations.

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Conclusion 5: Effective Knowledge Management



1. The reflection process enables professionals to relate knowledge to (their own) practice and to focus on quality.

2. The model, its platform and the contributions of the network's members make diverse forms of knowledge visible, tangible, accessible, understandable and transferrable. Because knowledge is linked to specific situations it becomes alive and relevant.

3. Knowledge can thus be shared and exchanged, which4. Enables a discourse, a joint negotiation of its meaning in

relation to professional practice situations in social work and fosters coproduction of new professional knowledge.

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Benefits of the Key Situation in Social Work Model



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Application of the model

Can you envisage ways in which this model could contribute to your professional development, your reflection and your practice?



• The model and the platform are currently used in pre- and post qualifying social work education.

We envisage that it could be used ....• in organisations to improve the quality of their practice

(knowledge management, professional reflection, prof. development, induction).

• by Practice Educators to support students’ reflections & learning.• by Researchers to support transfer of their (new) knowledge.• by Lecturers to refer to practice situations.Overall the network and the platform help to bridge the gap

between academia and practice, between theory and action.

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Application of the model



Interested? www.schluesselsituationen.ch (German)

Staempfli, Adi; Kunz, Regula & Tov, Eva (2012). Creating a bridge between theory and practice: working with key situations. European Journal of Social Education, 22/23, p. 60-78.

Tov, Eva; Kunz, Regula & Stämpfli, Adi, (2013) Schlüsselsituationen der Sozialen Arbeit. Professionalität durch Wissen, Reflexion und Diskurs in Communities of Practice. Bern: hep

[email protected]

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Thank you for your attention!

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Adi Stämpfli, Msc, Lecturer in Social Work, Goldsmiths, University of

London



ReferencesD'Cruz, Heather; Gillingham, Philip & Melendez, Sebastian (2007) Reflexivity, its Meanings and

Relevance for Social Work: A Critical Review of the Literature, British Journal of Social Work, (37), 73-90.

Dewe, Bernd (2012): Akademische Ausbildung in der Sozialen Arbeit – Vermittlung von Theorie und Praxis oder Relationierung von Wissen und Können im Spektrum von Wissenschaft, Organisation und Profession. In: Becker-Lenz, Roland/Busse, Stefan/Ehlert, Gudrun/Müller-Herman, Silke (Hrsg.): Professionalität Sozialer Arbeit und Hochschule. Wissen, Kompetenz, Habitus und Identität im Studium Sozialer Arbeit. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 111–128.

Dreyfus, Hubert L./Dreyfus, Stuart E. (1987): Künstliche Intelligenz. Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt.

Eraut, Michael (2013) Developing Complex Performance Through Learning Trajectories and Re-creating Mediating Artefacts. In: Deitmer, Ludger; Hauschildt, Ursel; Rauner, Felix & Zelloth, Helmut The Architecture of Innovative Apprenticeship. Technical and Vocational Education and Training: Issues, Concerns and Prospects Volume 18, pp 207-218

Gray, Mel; Plath, Debbie & Webb, Stephen A. (2009) Evidence-Based Social Work. A Critical Stance. London and New York: Routledge.

Illeris, Knud (2009). Contemporary theories of learning. Learning theorists ... in their own words. Oxon: Routledge.

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ReferencesJang, Kyeonghee (2012) An Understanding of Optimal Knowledge Management for Social Work

Practice: Based on a Process-Oriented Conceptualisation of Knowledge Integration. British Journal of Social Work 1–20

Jarvis, Peter (2009): Learning to be a person in society. In: Illeris, Knud (ed.): Contemporary theories of learning. Learning theorists … in their own words. London: Routledge, 21–34.

Lave, Jean/Wenger, Etienne (1991): Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Norton, R. E., & Moser, J. (2008). DACUM handbook (3rd ed.). Columbus, OH: Center on Education and Training for Employment, The Ohio State University.

Schön, Donald A. (1983). The Reflective Practitioner. How professionals think in action. London: Temple Smith.

The College of Social Work (2012) Professional Capabilities Framework. www.tcsw.org.ukWenger, Etienne (1998) Communities of practice. Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge

University PressWilson, George (2011) Evidencing Reflective Practice in Social Work Education: Theoretical

Uncertainties and Practical Challenges, British Journal of Social Work, (Advance Access online), 1-19.

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key situations in social work model: professional reflection and knowledge management

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