Overview of six sub-studies

The thesis builds on three empirical (I, V, VI) and three conceptual sub-studies (II, III, IV). The three empirical sub-studies were published as independent articles with separate research questions, data and methodology, which reported the analyses of empirical data. This summary article aims to theorise the themes discussed in the sub-studies without further analysing the empirical data. The three conceptual sub-sub-studies are part of the one whole and therefore perhaps more coherent in nature. The research theme of the six sub-studies forms a logical whole, exploring issues of knowledge in health social work and the use of biographical approaches in social work practice from different angles. In this summary report, the sub-studies are connected to each other by an interest in defining biographically informed social work practice in health social work. Table 1 in the Appendix presents a brief overview of the six sub-studies.

The first sub-study (I), Knowledge and Social Work in Health Care – the Case of Finland, explored how health social workers acquire and maintain professional expertise, how they perceive knowledge and research, and whether they differ in this respect from social workers working in municipal social services. It used a mixed methods approach,

45 and complemented survey data with focus group interview data. Jennifer C. Greene and colleagues (2010) maintain that, in social work, complex social phenomena are often better studied using a mixed methods approach, and argue that this applies to assumptions about the social world in the philosophy of science as well as to research design, data collection and data analysis. Using qualitative as well as quantitative methods in the same study can provide knowledge about both micro and macro level phenomena. The methodological purposes for mixing methods can be triangulation, for example, or as in this case, complementarity.

The survey data used in this sub-study were drawn from a larger national survey conducted among Finnish social workers by Karvinen-Niinikoski and colleagues (2005) in the autumn of 2003. The purpose of the research project Konstikas sosiaalityö (The tricky social work) was to study professional practices in social work as well as the prospects and structures of the development of social work expertise. I participated in the research group that planned the survey, prepared the questionnaire and analysed the data. The questionnaire was sent out to a total of 1582 social workers, all members of the largest trade union for social workers in Finland. The response rate was 45.3% (N = 716). The final data were weighed accounting for language and consisted of answers from 583 social workers. Attrition analysis showed that the distribution of some main background variables of the respondents corresponded well with those of the whole sample, so, despite the rather low response rate, the researchers considered it possible to draw conclusions regarding the state of social work in Finland on the basis of these data.

The questionnaire contained a large amount of questions. For my own study, I used answers dealing specifically with knowledge and research, making comparisons between social workers employed in health care (N = 110) and social workers employed in municipal social services (N = 295), which is the major employer of social workers in Finland. SPSS was used as statistical software. The survey data were analysed using frequencies and cross tabulation, and, where possible, significance was tested using the Chi-square test for independence. An open question regarding the respondents’

views of the future was analysed using SWOT analysis. In addition, a qualitative focus group interview of seven health social workers was conducted in a university hospital. The interview data were analysed using qualitative content analysis, and the results were used for reflection on the survey results. The results of the study showed some significant differences between social workers employed in health care and social

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workers working in municipal social services. The main differences involved education, work experience, working conditions and professional support.

As regards the ethical aspects of collecting and handling the empirical data, the survey research data were analysed and presented in such a way that no individual respondent could be identified. With qualitative data, ethical issues regarding data collection and analysis are often more complex. The participants of the focus group evidently knew what the other participants in the group had said, and they were asked not to reveal this outside of the group. The group itself can possibly be identified, but individual members of the group are hardly identifiable because of the turnover of employees in the unit. The interview results were reported in a general way. It has to be noted that the survey data of Sub-study I were collected more than a decade ago, and Finnish health social workers’ attitudes towards knowledge may have changed somewhat since then. All social workers with ‘social nurse’ education have retired by now. My guess is that, with more workers now holding a master’s degree, research knowledge may be more easily acquired. On the other hand, the professional identity of the health social worker may previously have been stronger.

Empirical Sub-study V, entitled A Social Work Perspective on the Biographical Research Interview with Natalia (2014), was conducted on the basis of a presentation at a workshop of the Research Network RN3 of the European Sociology Association, held in Łódź, Poland in September 2012. In this workshop, four sociologists and myself each presented our analysis of a lengthy transcribed biographical research interview, which had been conducted by Polish biographical researcher Agnieszka Golczyńska-Grondas (2014a) as part of her research project. Our biography case analyses were later published in a scientific journal (ibid.; Riemann 2014; Urbańska 2014; Waniek 2014; Sub-study V). The research interviewee in this study was a woman who had spent several years of her adolescence in residential care. She had responded to an invitation letter sent out by the university to former residents of children’s homes and volunteered to tell her story to the researcher. The interview was 45 pages long (printed in Golczyńska-Grondas 2014b). Since my analytical task was to bring a social work perspective into the sociological workshop, I decided to use a social work practice approach which is fairly commonly used by social workers in Finland, namely the strengths perspective (Saleebey 2013). I analysed the content of the interview, looking for strengths and resources that, in a practice situation, could have been discussed with the respondent. From a social work

47 practice viewpoint, I found major differences in this research interview compared with the research situation. The strengths-based practice approach worked quite well in the analysis despite the fact that, in social work practice, the interview and the analysis would have been conducted through much more dialogue with the narrator.

In research, the researcher generally interprets the interview; in social work, the client’s own interpretation of their life and life story forms an essential part of the assessment. No computer software was used for this analysis.

The research data of empirical Sub-study VI, entitled Does past life matter? Social workers’ views on biographical approaches (2016), consisted of 16 final essays written by social work practitioners attending a course on the use of biographical approaches in social work, conducted in 2005–2006 as part of the EU research project INVITE.

The instructions for the final essay asked the participants to assess what they had gained from the course and whether and how it had possibly changed their way of working with clients. The number of pages analysed was 103 (3–17 per person). The respondents represented different fields of social work: psychiatry, addiction treatment, rehabilitation, long-term residential care for people with brain injury, the elderly, pre-adoption counselling and vocational college. The texts were analysed using qualitative content analysis. No computer software was used.

The essays analysed for the study were handled in a way that ensured the anonymity of the respondents to the greatest extent possible. In this case, the risk of identification of individual respondents cannot be completely avoided. Since the fields in which the respondents were working were considered important, they could not be excluded when presenting the results. When there is only one respondent working in a particular field, identification is always possible in principle. However, the essays were not about highly sensitive issues or about identifiable clients; they were about the respondents’ professional views on the use of biographical approaches, which are not essentially secret.

The results of this study were simple and clear: the main benefits of biographical approaches in social work practice were seen on the one hand as providing a space for clients to reflect on their lives, and on the other hand as providing a space for social workers to listen to their clients’ life stories. Listening carefully was also seen as ensuring a better understanding of clients’ life situations. The challenges posed by biographical approaches were the client/worker relationship, ethical issues and the prerequisites for biographical-narrative interviewing.

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Sub-studies II–IV, that is, Social Constraints and the Free Will – Life Course and Vocational Career (2009) (II), Biography, Narrative and Rehabilitation (2009) (III), and Social Work Case Analysis of Biographical Processes (2009) (IV), were produced within the educational curriculum designed in the EU research project INVITE – New Ways of Biographical Counselling in Vocational Rehabilitative Training, conducted under the Leonardo da Vinci programme in the years 2003-2006 (European Studies on Inequalities and Social Cohesion 1-2/2008 and 3-4/2008; modules originally published online in 2006)⁶. These sub-studies were mainly based on the literature and thus conceptual. They introduce some basic biographical concepts and present and discuss biographical approaches relevant for vocational rehabilitation and social work practice. In the co-authored Sub-study IV, my input is a theoretical discussion on the analysis of biographical-narrative interviews and on the use of biographical approaches in social work practice.

Theoretical–conceptual research answers the question of how a theory, model or framework that describes or explains a certain part of the real world can be derived (Järvinen &

Järvinen 2011, 15). My question is: what kind of framework describes the relevance and implementation of the biographical perspective and biographical approaches in health social work practice? In accordance with S. Gregor (2002; 2006), Pentti Järvinen and Annikki Järvinen (2011) distinguish different types of theory according to the following criteria: the questions that the theory type answers, its categories, and the research methods that can be used to create the theory type in question. In my research, I create a framework for analysis and description, which answers the question ‘What is?’. Plain descriptive frameworks name the dimensions or characteristics of a phenomenon, and slightly more complex frameworks classify the modes of and interrelations between the features or characteristics of a phenomenon. Methods suitable for creating these frameworks are the analysis of existing evidence or data, philosophic or historic research, and empirical observation. (Järvinen & Järvinen 2011, 16–17.) In conceptualising the biographical perspective for health social work practice, I analyse existing evidence, that is, the literature, and use my own empirical observations.

6 The participating universities of the EU research project, INVITE were those of Magdeburg in Germany, Łódź in Poland, Bangor in the Wales/UK and Helsinki in Finland. Practice institutions in these countries and in Austria and Italy also participated. As well as in English, the modules have been published in German, Polish and partly in Swedish.

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