Small Town Problems
As someone who has spent the majority of their life living and working in rural Maine, Burgard's (2013) article about the ethical dilemmas surrounding small-town practice really resonated with me. I saw these issues play out in real-time during my year of service with AmeriCorps VISTA working with the Penobscot Nation on Indian Island.
Google, 2018.
The reservation occupies a very small portion of land (about 22 square miles) and there are approximately 600 tribal members who call Indian Island their home (US Census Bureau, 2010). My experiences there showed me how truly interconnected that community is.
Due to the fact that I was a volunteer in the Human Services Department, I had the opportunity to get to know many of the clinicians working on the Island. I saw many of them serving individuals that they had known all of their lives. On Indian Island, you either have a direct relationship with someone or you have a direct relationship with someone in their family - there are few (if any) strangers in that town. (Which contributed to my personal feelings of 'sticking out like a sore thumb', but I moved past that eventually). And, as Burgard (2013) notes in "Ethical Concerns About Dual Relationships in Small and Rural Communities: A Review", that dynamic appeared to have both advantages and disadvantages.
From an outsider's perspective, I saw so many people with familial bonds who defended and supported each other. They squabbled at town council meetings and danced together at summer festivals. From the client's perspective, having a dual relationship in this context probably meant that their story was being shared with another enrolled member of the tribe - their shared sense of culture, of history, of family, must have been an asset in some situations.
In other situations, I feel as though it made things incredibly complicated, both for the client and social worker. How can one even remotely be objective during an appointment with a client who watched you grow up? Or who dated one of your siblings? Someone who knows intimate details about your own personal life within the community? How likely would you be, as a practitioner in that scenario, to be capable of making the best possible decision regarding the removal of a child from a potentially abusive home? Or would that strong connection give someone a better understanding of the ecosystem of the child, and therefore a better foundation for such an important decision?
I'm not sure I have the answer to any of these questions, which is frustrating in itself, but it seems clear that additional research and training are needed in the area of ethics and small-town, community -based practice if the field of social work is to successfully avoid the unnecessary burnout of practitioners and possible negative repercussions for clients.
References:
Burgard, E.L. (2013). Ethical Concerns About Dual Relationships in Small and Rural Communities:
A Review. Journal of European Psychology Students, 4(69-77).
U.S. Census Bureau. (2010, October 5). Community Facts. Retrieved March 21, 2018 from
https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml#
Meg, you raise important question in your post and I agree that more research and trainings should be done in this area. becuase as you stated this field has a high turn over rate, coupled with the stress of dual roles as social workers, I can not even began to answer all the questions you raised. This reading also resonated with me in that I too live and work in a small close community, where privacy is hard to come by. Thanks for sharing your experince with us
ReplyDeleteDual roles is definitely a major issue I have faced working in the community I grew up in over the past several years. I was on a committee with my principal from high-school... So hard to feel like you're being taken seriously when you're sitting across from someone who worked with you as a 13 yr old!! I have a student now that is the younger sibling of a youth I had in my diversion program, I was recruiting at local high-schools for a college aspirations class with UNE and sat down at a table with kids who had come to me for an offense.... Lots of dual-roles and strange relationships. My supervisor was seeing a youth for several months and then realized it was his daughter's friend. I feel each situation was handled well based on what i've been taught but there is definitely a lot of work done in supervision on this! Thanks for sharing your experience. I definitely feel it is a balancing act with the benefits and difficulties of working in close knit communities.
ReplyDeleteThis was such a compelling story you shared in class and your blog. It is complex, and relational work takes a toll, yet is so enriching. And you well described the time it can take to build trust. In rural and small communities, there is a benefit to the the close knit and familiar; however, it can also cause tension and discomfort. Thanks for sharing your story in class last week, living in communities as part of service is a challenging but amazing experience.
ReplyDelete