The Poetics of social work – how being artful in our craft takes us elsewhere into mindfulness
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.11157/anzswj-vol24iss1id142Keywords:
social work practice, mindfulness, poetry, professionalisation,Abstract
Poetry is an ageless craft that helps people find meaning and gives hope and courage. The poetics of social work describes an evolving framework in which poetry is located as a knowledge base that draws out mindfulness in the midst of uncertainty. Examples are provided of how the spiritual and artful aspects of the social work craft can be made more purposeful and explained through a poetic frame. Notions of light, time and space contex- tualise the way authentic relationships are at the heart of our work.
Many people talk about the art of social work, often in the context of the more mysterious, intangible, and less ‘scientific ‘ aspects of our craft. Usually such references are around the relational intimacies that our work relies on to be effective. In essence this is the connection between people, and the possibilities and hope that emerge from that authentic helping relationship.
An alternative view would be that describing social work as an ‘art’ places the work in a romanticised and nonsensical frame from an era before professionalisation, and the framing of practice in theory, defined skills and qualifications.
The professionalisation of social work has certainly meant ‘more than common sense’ (Maidment and Egan, 2004) is expected in the application of theory and practice. This begs the question of the artfulness of practice. These notions of the art and craft of social work deserve exploration.
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