Clients considered that care was evident when social workers had a strong ability to connect with them. Empathy and compassion (n=12), deep listening (n=12) and trust (12) were identified as the most important aspects of forming connections between social works and clients.
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Empathy and compassion of social workers
Being shown empathy and compassion were considered important signs of care by three quarters of the client participants in this study. Jessie explained how she knew her social worker was empathetic towards her:
When I’ve told her something really serious she doesn’t just go, ‘Yeah, thanks for that’, and write it down. You can kind of tell by her face that she feels sad about that too. She’s not just like, ‘Ok, so this happened on such and such a date’. You can tell that she has felt it as another human and it affected her. It matters to her.
Eve explained the powerful influence of genuine empathy in creating a connection between herself and the social worker:
One thing that has really helped me feel cared about is her empathy. That’s pretty huge. The first time we talked about some heavy-duty stuff she actually cried, and I couldn’t believe it. I was just like, ‘Are you alright’, and she went, ‘Just don’t worry about this, this is just me’, and I thought, ‘Oh, I love that, I love that’. The worst thing is somebody just going, ‘Aha, aha’. I have done counselling myself, so I know all that reflecting back and all that, but I just thought, “God bless you’, because all this stuff about transference and not getting close to people drives me crazy.
Bob, Emma and Luke also commented on the value of empathy and compassion as follows:
Care is about being empathic and compassionate. They are the main things (Bob).
Empathy and compassion are really important because if I don’t get it I don’t feel cared for (Emma).
Compassion, yeah, that’s the thing that really shows me that my social worker cares. She feels for me and understands, but not in a patronising way (Luke).
Alex shared two stories that she believed demonstrated a lack of compassion. The first involved a hospital social worker. Alex had taken herself to hospital with a lung infection. She was having trouble breathing, was treated by the medical staff and then told she could go home. A social worker was called because Alex was upset and had no means of transport to get home. She was appalled at the lack of care and understanding she received from the social worker. She explained:
I couldn’t afford a taxi home and it was night time and she said, ‘You should have money put aside, how do you live like this?’ I got really angry and said, ‘I’m poor you stupid cow, I can’t afford taxis like you’. I was so angry. The thing that gets me the most is that they are supposed to help and they let you down.
149 The second story occurred at Centrelink. Alex was seeing a social worker about her inability to work. She was made keenly aware of the unequal nature of the
relationship between herself and the social worker in terms of privilege and she also felt betrayed. She described the interaction as follows:
I went through papers and papers and had a doctor’s letter to prove my illness and she just turned around and said, ‘Well none of that matters, I think you are fit to work, I think you need to have more confidence in yourself’. She just had no compassion or understanding of my circumstances. I thought, ‘Yeah, yeah, you and your shiny Volvo and your fancy clothes and full cupboard at home - you can say all this’. For those of us who can’t get a job, can’t handle a job, not being the least bit compassionate is so not helpful. It’s kind of like going to Robin Hood and getting deceived by the sheriff pretending to be Robin Hood. They end up robbing you.
Emma believed that a social worker’s ability to demonstrate compassion can be determined by their reaction to crying. She said it is important to feel free to be able to cry without feeling judgment or discomfort. She explained:
If you start crying and someone just sits with you in a lovely gentle way and doesn’t feel uncomfortable with that, you know that they are a compassionate, caring person. If you start crying and they say, ‘Why are there tears, what are the tears about?’ it makes you feel uncomfortable and as if you need to stop to make them feel better.
Several participants argued that just having someone there for them at times showed empathy and compassion. According to Scott the best thing about his social worker was that he knew that he was always there for him. He explained:
I know he will always talk to me if he can when I call and will come and see me when I need him. I’ve got his number in case I need to call. I know that if he can’t talk to me when I call he will get back to me. Sometimes when he comes to see me it’s hard to talk, but it’s nice just having him there, just sitting with me. It is reassuring. I can tell he is a compassionate person.
Others spoke about how it was not always necessary for social workers to be
productive. They said that sometimes all they needed was for their social workers to ‘totally be there’, to ‘hold a hand’ or ‘just listen’. Jessie worked with a social worker who would spend time teaching her to do craft work. Jessie explained that this was a lovely thing to do when she did not have the energy or emotional capacity to talk about her problems. She commented:
She would just let me be, but I knew she was there for me whenever I wanted to start talking. She didn’t push me though because I knew she had that
compassion for what I was going through. None of your friends want to hang out with you because you are no fun. So, when that person did that with me it kind of felt like there was still a way I could be with them even though I
150 couldn’t manage to talk. I felt a lot less isolated. Also, because I was doing
something, even though it wasn’t to do with my problem I felt like I was moving forward, even just a little bit. I was not just staying stuck.