Knowing the Audience

“We are only useful where we understand how we are understood.” 

                                                            Zen Priest, Hilda Ryumond Gutierrez Baldoquin

From this week’s reading, we are reminded to keep in mind our audience. What that really means to me is that if we cannot identify on some level with the people that we are attempting to communicate with, we will definitely not be heard, let alone be understood. If our objective is persuasion this is even more important. Commonality, a place where we can relate and experience common ground is essential.

When you think of all of the issues that begin to divide us in our society, something has to be there to go beyond these constructs and boundaries. We are put into little boxes; gender boxes, race boxes, age boxes, socioeconomic boxes and they create barriers that must be breached. As I am beginning my Child Welfare Service Internship, doing home visits, encountering clients, the power dynamic which is present makes this even more important.

It seems critical in that position of power, which is yielded over people, people who are sometimes in crisis, that the way in which we are perceived is understood. How we are received and how we are understood has to continually be examined. Sometimes it is easier, or somehow safer to distance ourselves from others through a professional title or concept of “other.”  In reality though, when we relate and find commonality, we can then be heard. We have to find the common language, the common experiences and the common ground and that is when we understand how we are understood.

intervention principles in practice and theory

Intervention principles and procedures in social work is something that we have encountered recently.  This concept is a great place to see practice and theory come together. As Wood and Tully indicate in their writing, “Social Work is not merely something one understands, it is something one does, on step at a time” (pg. 80).  In short theory is just that, theory alone, if we do not use it in the helping profession.

 

Part of the intervention principle is the three phases of the process model: the contract phase, the task phase and the termination/reconstructing phase. The implementation of structural social work in practice does not need to be over theorized. As social workers working with clients this should be a natural process. We discuss with our clients strengths and needs, what needs are to be addressed, and how we are going to arrive at a place in which these needs are met. Once we get there we reassess the situation and identify and address present needs.

It is a relief for me personally to realize that sometimes what we are naturally feeling and doing in practice, lines up with theatrical frameworks that are offered. I have heard from experienced social workers that much of their practice, after reflection and encounters with current theories offered in social work today, have actually been used, without even knowing it!  Social work really is a combination of knowing and doing.  I love this thought. If begin to know too much and do to little we fail our clients. If we do too much and know too little we fail again. A good balance of both is what we need to strive for.

connecting knowledge and power

“Whatever group controls the way things are seen in some ways also has the power to control the way things are” (Fook, p. 43, 2012).

When we talk about writing for social change, hopefully positive social change, we are relying on the thought that useful information is being shared. Somehow informing others inspires change and ultimately effective action. I cannot help but thing about the writing of Jan Fook that was very recently encountered. In her chapter, New Ways of Knowing, she discusses postmodern thought and makes the connection between knowledge and power.

It makes me think that we really do need to share our perspectives and are hopes for positive social change. It is important that we develop our voices and continue to put the word out. As Fook indicates in her writing whoever’s interpretation of reality is shared and eventually accepted somehow becomes in control of these very ideas. If individuals do not share what they have to offer, to express their world views and ways of seeing, there is no counter conscious developed to combat the mainstream media, the capitalistic agendas and the dominant culture which continues to exploit those that it can.

Something that makes me realize that what you and I have to share is important and valid goes along with this concept. We have to ask, as postmodern thought does, “who are the legitimate generators of knowledge?”  When we do ask this question we realize that there are no individuals or groups of people who have the monopoly on knowledge. They only do when opposition to these views is not offered or alternative views are not expressed. No group’s knowledge is more important than another.

Last point, we really have to be aware of where we get our information. Do we rely on the narrowed views of a particular circulation, television station, someone deemed a professional?  Do we remember to question who the authority is, what the authority says?  If we don’t we better start now, actively seek knowledge from different sources and then we most share what we have. We are obligated to share this information, this knowledge because in it is the power to make those positive changes.