ANÁLISIS Y DISCUSIÓN DE RESULTADOS
5.1 Códigos y categorías
The prevailing literature discusses the loss of the social worker‟s professional identity in multidisciplinary teams;
Early work on the concept of multidisciplinary teams (e.g. Payne 1982) saw professional identity as important and desirable, so as to survive the knockabout environment that a multidisciplinary team could become. Moreover, multidisciplinary team work is seen as isolating members from the departments and professions from which they originated and thus deprive them of a sense of support and professional identity from others of a similar background (Berger 1991). This was believed to be particularly acute for social workers who were often outposted from their own departments into an environment dominated by others with NHS backgrounds (Brown et al., 2000:426).
As Brown et al (2000) described above, some scholars have discussed social workers‟ losing their professional identity in the CMHTs as they are now working in teams, which function under the control of the MHT and working alongside the professionals with NHS backgrounds. In these two CMHTs I observed, issues related to loss of professional identity were mainly raised through the interviews with AMHPs and MHSWs; not many other professionals believe that social work professionals are losing their professional identity.
“It is. It‟s devaluing to be quite honest, I don‟t feel like a social worker anymore” (AMHP 2)
“The only thing different now is all the professions sitting together. In real terms, in terms of how I am as an individual worker, there is not a huge difference. But in terms of what we‟ve lost, I think that we‟ve lost a lot. And that‟s the whole identity of you as a social worker, you know about the notion of being a profession and I think that goes to a great threat. And I think that will continue. (AMHP 1)
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Some social workers feel that they have become more like CPNs rather than social workers in the CMHTs, once again emphasising that they have lost their social work identity.
“So they would become pseudo CPNs as far as I can see and lose the identity of social workers and it would come as a major shock to them if they went back into a social work agency, because they wouldn‟t understand commissioning and that‟s basically where social workers‟ heads are at now isn‟t it, commissioning? Well I think it is”. (MHSW 5)
“Social workershave lost their identity really and become more like CPNs”. (MHSW 5)
Also some senior AMHPs and MHSWs explained their concerns regarding newly qualified MHSWs not getting proper social work practice in a CMHT. It seems that these senior social work professionals are disappointed and worried about how newly qualified social work professionals quickly get absorbed into the medical model, if their first appointment is to an integrated CMHT (Field work diary/09.09.2009). A MHSW expressed his concerns in this regards as follows.
“I‟m just thinking of the people now who are left in the team who are social workers, they‟re newly qualified workers and I don‟t think they‟ve got a social work identity. I don‟t think they come from anywhere that‟. I mean one of them is a nurse anyway and the other one is so newly qualified and has never done any social work stuff and is so being trained up by CPNs that you‟ll never know that they‟re social workersand what they‟ll end up with”. (MHSW 5)
However, none of the newly qualified MHSWs expressed concerns about losing their professional identity. They did not see any difference between what they are currently engaged in vs. their social work role. I also identified this issue throughout my informal discussions with the AMHPs and the MHSWs. Still many other professionals do not believe that MHSWs are losing their professional identity. I identify this as a gap between other professionals‟ understanding of social work professionals‟ background, what they are really capable of doing, what they are trained to do and what they really like to do. However, CPN7 revealed that she considered that social workers have no professional identity and what she really expects social workers to bring into the CMHT.
“I don‟t think they have (professional identity) and I think that‟s a shame and I think it could be different to that but I think social workers for some reason as a profession have allowed themselves to be eroded quite significantly. I work at a University
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running the Masters in Psychosocial Interventions and we have a lot of social workers on it, and the time that they shine is when we do the family work and they present the family cases and they shine. You know they get 100% whereas the nurses get 40% because they really come out, they bring all their theories out, they bring all their practice out, I don‟t think they get that opportunity in day to day practice”. (CPN 7)
This provides further evidence to suggest that social work professionals in CMHTs have no opportunities under the current system to express their own professional identity.
In summarising the above, I found from interviews and observations that role definition, role clarity, role confusion and concerns about professional identity, are all relevant to and play a significant part in social work professionals‟ daily routine. As these findings reveal, social work professionals still feel their role is not clearly understood and valued. The implications of this can be considered in the light of the revelations in the BASW Policy Paper on „Social Work‟s Contribution to Multidisciplinary Teams‟ where Godden et al., (2010:4) emphasise that “human beings in work and social settings need to feel that they are understood and their roles are clear and valued by others. Without such role clarity people can feel dissatisfied and undervalued”. In this Policy Paper they explain the relevance of this to the multidisciplinary working in CMHTs as follows;
Multi disciplinary working can be beset by problems of individual staff, or groups of staff feeling the malcontent of role confusion. In a social work context role adequacy (feeling knowledgeable about ones work) and role legitimacy – believing that one has the right to address certain client issues is very important for professionals, and particularly important for social workers who can be perceived as suffering from a lack of clarity regarding their role. Feelings of role adequacy and role legitimacy appears to be variable depending upon the particular team, its makeup, supervision and support, the degree of isolation and degree of training, knowledge, specialisation, leadership and the degree that other professionals understand the role of social work (Loughran et al 2010). (Godden et al., 2010:4-5)
The dominance of the medical model was also identified as a point where social work professionals lose their professional identity, as they start to feel like they are working for the MHT rather than the social services.
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