Social work is a challenging activity, requiring a high skill set and a certain level of resilience. Understanding how people experience and feel during different situations, their behaviour and attitude and how they communicate about those situations are skills that are essential to the social work field. Social work calls for a working with a wide range of people coming from different race, age, class, religion, disability, sexual orientation etc., all of whom may approach different situations in different ways or want different solutions. Social work practitioners must also keep in mind that in many cases, a person may have experienced something traumatic and is facing anger, humiliation or fear toward discussing or finding a solution to the issue at hand. Throughout this process, communication is a fundamental part of the practice, primarily because it is a part of the initial foundation of the relationship between a social worker and their client. It aids in the development of trust and rapport, therefore allowing for the social worker to understand the clients wants and needs from the situation and what the next step is in the process. Understanding how to communicate effectively with a client about a highly sensitive topic is still a learning process, given how different each person is and how differently each person may cope with similar situations. Learning how to listen mindfully to what is being said and what is not being said, interpret body language and ask questions in a way that could prompt the client to be more receptive to being honest and open in response. Communication is an essential part of being human and even without always being aware of it ourselves or by others, we are communicating in some form. With communication being carried out in a variety of ways, whether it is body language, speech or eye contact, there is a process in learning how to decipher any hidden meaning behind this communication if one aspires to be a successful social worker.
Communicating effectively requires understand what a person is saying through more than just speech. It also calls for being able to recognise that there is a meaning and process behind how a person digests an experience and forms their thoughts and feelings about that experience. How a social worker responds to a client expressing their thoughts and feelings about an experience, along with explaining the experience itself, all plays an important role in the formulation of the relationship and rapport that a social worker will have with the client. One of the more difficult parts of this process is determining how important social workers are to the person that we are working with. With Kolb’s Learning Cycle being designed to help individuals identify the way they learn from experience, in the context of determining how significant a role the social worker has with each client, Kolb’s Learning Cycle aids the social worker in establishing the correct boundaries with each client they come into contact with. “If, as practitioners, we can involve ourselves in the experience of relating to another human being, what we ourselves gain from this involvement is that we too can develop and learn from the encounter, about ourselves and about other people. That is our ultimate reward. To be invited to enter another person’s world, if only for a brief time and in a limited way, can in itself be a mark of trust and hope and, from this place, so much can happen” (Trevithick, 2000). Communicating with a client as a social worker can be an enlightening experience, having a client disclose a personal dilemma or experience and showing a level of trust in you encourages a level of fulfilment for a social worker.
The practice of social work demands that communication be considered as more than simply the conversation that is had between a practitioner and client. It requires a social worker to look beyond the questions and responses from the conversation and investigate if there is more being said through non-verbal communication. This is a skill that takes learning and development, and is still being expanded upon through continuous work in the social work field. The ELT developmental model designed by Kolb “defines three stages: (1) acquisition, from birth to adolescence where basic abilities and cognitive structures develop; (2) specialisation, from formal schooling through the early work and personal experiences of adulthood where social, educational and organisational socialisation forces shape the development of a particular, specialised learning style; and (3) integration in mid-career and later life where non-dominant modes of learning are expressed in work and personal life” (Kolb and Kolb, 2013). ELT (Experiential Learning Theory) is an abstract, cycle based method of learning, motivated by solution and a combination of action/reflection and experience/abstraction. Learning is defined by Kolb as “the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Knowledge results from the combination of grasping and transforming experience” (Kolb, 1984, pg. 41). The four primary learning methods; Concrete Experience, Reflective Observation, Abstract Conceptualisation and Active Experimentation outline different approaches to learning that Kolb believes people experience through their adaptation to society and the world. Considering my personal learning style being one of a combination between ‘Concrete Experience’ (CE) and ‘Reflective Observation (RO), I find that in order for me to learn something new I need to act on what I have been learning or have the new experience, and subsequently review or reflect on the experience that I have had. Reflective Observation allows for me to consider what I have learned and modify my previous understanding of it. Kolb considers the learning combination that I prefer ‘diverging’, I learn by looking at things from several different perspectives and by reflection. Kolb also explains that people who tend toward this learning style would perform better in situations that prompt brainstorming and gathering information in a group. Putting this in the context of improving my communication skills in the social work field for the benefit of service users, my learning style would call for me to learn from actively working in the field and learn from those experiences. “The way we process the possibilities of each new emerging event determines the range of choices and decisions we see. The choices and decisions we make to some extent determine the events we live through, and these events influence our future choices. Thus, people create themselves through the choice of the actual occasions that they live through” (Kolb, 1984, pg. 63-64). There is another concept of learning that was brought had been brought attention to by Jensen, Kolb and Border that is worth considering, named deep learning. It is a combination of all four methods of the experiential learning cycle, namely experiencing, reflecting, thinking and acting, (Jensen & Kolb, 1994; Border, 2007) and this method of learning essentially lays the foundation to the Experiential Learning Theory template.
As with many situations in personal or work life, there can be situations of conflict. In the field of social work, the prime area that this can arise in is in communication between the social worker and service user. The conflict is usually a barrier between the two, in some cases it can be authority, language, age or sometimes class. Overcoming this particular conflict means learning how to identify the barriers, acknowledge that they are preventing a productive relationship with the service user and remove them. Additionally, a crucial part of social work practice is how a social worker communicates non-verbally while a client is speaking. Should a client be disclosing details of a traumatic experience or a topic that is sensitive to them, the way that the practitioner responds with body language, eye contact, posture or facial expressions is extremely important. An example of this may be a client telling a social worker that they are managing fine after an incident, when it is clear from their body language, facial expressions or lack of eye contact that they could be struggling. “Positive experiences engender hope and trust, and convey a comforting sense of being understood and accepted. As human beings we have a deep-seated wish to be understood, to be accepted for who we are, and for our lives to have meaning and purpose” (Howe 1996 pg. 94). When listening to a client disclose personal experiences, active listening is essential and is a skill that requires learning and practice. It involves not just being physically present with the client, but socially, psychologically and emotionally. This non-verbally communicates to the client that the social worker is showing full interest and care to their experience and feelings. Congruence has an important role in social work, and particularly during interviews. It involves using appropriate language to ensure that the client feels that they are being listened to and understood and prevents putting the client in what they may feel is a vulnerable position. In other words, the aim of congruence is to remove any sense of power imbalance and to create a safe space for the service user to speak in. It is important to maintain good rapport with the client and prevent asking questions that could potentially create barriers and tarnish the rapport or relationship previously established.
Kolb outlines another important aspect of learning style that he refers to as learning flexibility. He describes this as “the extent to which an individual adapts his or her learning style to the demands of the learning situation” (Kolb, 2013). When applying this concept to communication skills in the social work field and building upon those skills, we can consider using this learning method to adapt our communication skills to each client we work with in the field. People respond differently to different situations and no one person processes experiences the same way, therefore, it is important to adapt our methods of communication as we meet different clients. Learning styles can almost be seen as habitual, in the sense that through continuous experience, our knowledge broadens and can be consciously modified. “The stability of learning style arises from consistent patterns of transaction between individuals and learning situations in their life. This process is called accentuation- the way we learn about a new situation determines the range of choices and decisions we see, the choices and decisions we make influence the next situation we live through and this situation further influences future choices” (Kolb, 1984). Communication in social work requires an awareness of what is being conveyed verbally and non-verbally, this skill is modified depending on the client.
Both verbal and non-verbal communication is an essential part of social work practice, as it allows us to develop relationships with the clients we work with. Without these relationships, there cannot be a level of trust thus preventing us from being able to both fully understand what has happened to the client and the depth of their feelings towards the situation. Given my learning style, I recognise that I am best suited to learning by experience and reflecting on what I have learnt, therefore enabling me to modify my understanding. Communication is a skill that will require constant modification and improvement, as society changes along with the different clients you meet as a practising social worker. It is worth noting that self-awareness is also crucial to communication and the dynamic between the social worker and client. Social workers use self-awareness to prevent themselves from imposing their own personal beliefs, values or opinions onto the client, allowing the client to feel safe in their vulnerability while discussing their experience or situation. All these aspects of communication are essential to providing the client with a safe space to speak in and maintaining a good rapport or relationship with the client, in order to help them in the best way possible. If a social worker does not fully understand the importance of communication in social work, or is not skilled in the practice of verbal versus non-verbal communication, barriers may be put up by the client and result in the social worker not grasping the full extent of the situation and the trauma that the client is facing. Communication does lie at the heart of social work and enables a social worker to establish the foundation of the process to help the client.