Professional Boundaries in Social Work and Social …

1 Professional Boundaries in Social work and Social Care A Practical Guide to Understanding, maintaining and Managing your Professional Boundaries FRANK COOPER. Foreword by Jonathan Coe Professional Boundaries in Social work and Social Care of related interest 500 Tips for Communicating with the Public Maggie Kindred and Michael Kindred ISBN 978 1 84905 175 0. A Practical Guide to Working with Reluctant Clients in Health and Social Care Maggie Kindred Illustrated by Cath Kindred ISBN 978 1 84905 102 6. Social work Under Pressure How to Overcome Stress, Fatigue and Burnout in the Workplace Kate van Heugten ISBN 978 1 84905 116 3.

2 Mastering Social work Supervision Jane Wonnacott ISBN 978 1 84905 177 4. Mastering Social work Skill series Relationship-Based Social work Getting to the Heart of Practice Edited by Gillian Ruch, Danielle Turney and Adrian Ward ISBN 978 1 84905 003 6. The Social Worker's Guide to Child and Adolescent Mental Health Steven Walker Foreword by Stephen Briggs ISBN 978 1 84905 122 4. Reflective Practice in Mental Health Advanced Psychosocial Practice with Children, Adolescents and Adults Edited by Martin Webber and Jack Nathan Foreword by Alan Rushton ISBN 978 1 84905 029 6. Reflective Practice in Social Care series The Survival Guide for Newly Qualified Child and Family Social Workers Hitting the Ground Running Helen Donnellan and Gordon Jack ISBN 978 1 84310 989 1.

3 Professional Boundaries in Social work and Social Care A Practical Guide to Understanding, maintaining and Managing Your Professional Boundaries Frank Cooper Foreword by Jonathan Coe Jessica Kingsley Publishers London and Philadelphia First published in 2012. by Jessica Kingsley Publishers 116 Pentonville Road London N1 9JB, UK. and 400 Market Street, Suite 400. Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA. Copyright Francis Cooper 2012. Foreword copyright Jonathan Coe 2012. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form (including photocopying or storing it in any medium by electronic means and whether or not transiently or incidentally to some other use of this publication).

4 Without the written permission of the copyright owner except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd, Saffron House, 6 10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Applications for the copyright owner's written permission to reproduce any part of this publication should be addressed to the publisher. Warning: The doing of an unauthorised act in relation to a copyright work may result in both a civil claim for damages and criminal prosecution. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 84905 215 3.

5 EISBN 978 0 85700 446 8. Contents Foreword by Jonathan Coe 7. Chapter 1 Introduction 11. Chapter 2 How Tight Are Your Boundaries ? 17. Chapter 3 Why Do We Have Boundaries ? 29. Chapter 4 Generic Boundaries 41. Chapter 5 Confidentiality 73. Chapter 6 Beginnings and Endings 87. Chapter 7 Professional Boundaries and the Law 95. Chapter 8 Broken Boundaries 105. Chapter 9 Understanding Negative Consequences 131. Chapter 10 maintaining Boundaries 140. Chapter 11 Self-awareness 159. Appendix I Useful Organisations 168. Appendix II Further Reading 170. Index 171. Foreword The creation of Boundaries is at once a psychic necessity and an illusion.

6 The need to draw lines allows for the existence of categories this is this and not that and, in this way, Boundaries make thinking possible. We also establish rules that demarcate psychic space: don't touch me there, don't ask me that. However, there are no real lines, even on a physical level, just horizons where one entity meets another and the outer skin defines the borders between the two. In the psychic world, the lines are more blurry still. Who is to say where one's self ends and the other begins? Andrea Celenza (2007). The American psychoanalyst Andrea Celenza captures a central issue in thinking about Professional Boundaries that they are both real and chimerical.

7 Whilst there must be clear and unequivocal rules which outlaw some forms of behaviour (don't have sex with your clients, don't steal their money, etc.), in day-to-day practice most Boundaries require reflection, thought and readjustment where necessary. Of critical importance is the need to be able to articulate any action, with colleagues and with supervisors, and to focus on the client's wellbeing as the trump card in choice-making. One of my earliest memories is from 1971: my father bringing home a client of his, a young woman who had been prescribed Thalidomide during her pregnancy, and her daughter, whose crude prosthetics fascinated and alarmed us as we rolled around the floor together.

8 Reflecting on this some 40 years later my father, the Social worker, did not feel good about his decision to invite her into our home: What must she have thought?' he said. Special treatment, and the urge to provide it, is one of the early warning signs that we teach practitioners to be aware of, part of a potential slippery slope' of behaviours which can lead to significant 7. 8 Professional Boundaries in Social work and Social Care harm for clients, and Professional disgrace for the practitioner. Frank Cooper provides helpful checklists and some core questions to assist practitioners in their decision-making.

9 Awareness of Boundaries in Professional practice has been around a long time, and they were memorably articulated by Hippocrates, in the Oath written in the fifth century bc. It included mention of staying within what one is trained to do: I will not use the knife [ ]. but will withdraw in favour of such men as are engaged in this work . It was clear on the need for confidentiality: What I may see or hear in the course of treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about. And it outlawed improper relationships with clients: Whatever houses I may visit, I will come for the benefit of the sick, remaining free of all intentional injustice, of all mischief and in particular of sexual relations with both female and male persons [ ].

10 But, as Cooper notes, there has been a dearth of education for Social workers and there is no mandatory component on Boundaries in formal Social work qualifications. Statutory regulation for qualified Social workers has thrown a light on the previously hidden; we now know that significant numbers of cases coming before Professional conduct panels have concerned violations of Boundaries , in fact they represent one in five of all misconduct findings, a rate far in excess of figures published by, for example, the General Medical Council. Boundary transgressions occur across all professions and the Clinic for Boundaries Studies is aware of cases involving hospital doctors, surgeons, complementary therapists, priests, psychoanalysts, counsellors and Social workers.