Pascale Mallet: “Participating in research on one’s own practices brings more sense to the activity of social workers”
The director of an association providing social support and advice to people in need tells why they engaged in a research project about social workers practices, and why she wants to pursue this kind of actions Pascale Mallet is the Director of ADAC (Accompagner, Dynamiser, Agir, Créer le social autrement) in Saint-Étienne, France What is your professional activity? Pascale Mallet: I am the director and founder of ADAC (Accompagner, Dynamiser, Agir, Créer le social autrement), an association created in 1985, which provides support services for people facing social difficulty in France. We mainly employ family economic advisors (Conseillers en Économie Sociale Familiale). Our clients are diverse: public institutions, social housing services, local authorities, associations, private companies, pension funds and social security bodies. For each service, we develop an adapted methodology, with the common goal of making the person in difficulty an active participant. We have been innovating ever since the association was founded. This has led us to develop professional training to our methodology for social workers. Who are the people in difficulty that you support? P. M.: It depends on the client: people with inadequate housing; pensioners on modest incomes; students; people on integration schemes; employees with budgetary problems; etc. Often, their difficulties are linked to their family’s financial situation. And they are linked to complex situations: illness, separation, unemployment of the person or their partner, poor control of budgetary expenses. There are also a growing number of people suffering from professional burnouts, who are losing confidence in themselves in all areas of their lives. We are also subsidized by the French government to welcome the public unconditionally as part of the “Point Conseil Budget” program. One of your employees recently got a PhD with academic work she developed within the activities of the association. Why did ADAC become involved in such a project? P. M.: Ever since ADAC was founded, we have been thinking about how to improve our practices. And for a little over ten years now, we have been carrying out action research, based on issues identified by colleagues in the field. For example, what is the impact of digital technology on social practices? How to deal with interculturality in social practices? Is social support a support to change? Within this framework, we draw on relevant scientific articles, and feedback from field practices, to define benchmarks for our work, an ethical stance, or even new actions. In 2018, we were fortunate to recruit Claire Jondeau, a social and family economics advisor, who was planning to prepare a thesis on professional practices in social action. Through a variety of circumstances, the association’s management suggested that her research field should be the structure itself. This was of interest to us, as her approach involved as co-researchers social workers and supported people. Why hadn’t you undertaken any research projects before? P. M.: I knew colleagues in another geographical area who had an agreement with a university. But for us field social workers, it is difficult to get in touch with academic researchers: we did not know how to go about it. Hiring this colleague, who had dual status, was an opportunity. What kind of questions did you try to answer with this work? P. M.: We wanted to decode what happens between a person in need and a social worker during an individual support interview, by analyzing significant sequences of the interview: the opening of the interview, the announcement of “what is left to live on”, the end of the support. It is a study of the micro-knowledge developed during the exchange, often unconsciously, by habit over the years. For example, each colleague has a particular way of introducing interviews: we decode these acts with a scientific approach, to see what this way of doing produces. During co-analysis sessions, we listen to recorded interview sequences and decode them using a combination of two methods: conversational analysis and explicitation, which puts people in the position of evoking what happened to them during the interview. A co-analysis session is therefore made up of four people: a researcher specializing in conversational analysis, a fellow researcher specializing in explicitation, a social worker and the person being supported, both of whom become co-researchers on the principle that “it is the person who does who knows”. What does this method produces? P.M.: When we presented this approach at the University of Saint-Étienne, a sociologist remarked that by “merely” sending out questionnaires or recording people, he had not had access to what people were thinking during the execution of the action, what they had said or done. On the other hand, social workers are accustomed to a kind of reflexive approach: the analysis of professional practice. But this “re-listening to the action in the process of-doing” allows us to revisit seemingly innocuous actions or phrases from the interview. For example, in one interview, a social worker had remained silent because she no longer knew what to propose to the person she was accompanying. The co-analysis revealed that the latter had taken advantage of this silence to reflect on her own possible solutions. The social worker’s feeling of powerlessness had in fact empowered the person she was supporting, so that she could be in charge! Has this work already transformed the way you work? P. M.: The colleagues involved in this project have become aware of small, systematic or unconscious gestures, actions, words or positioning, and this has enabled them to develop strategies for conducting interviews. Their self-confidence increased, they doubt less about their practice, and they dare to try out new postures and new subjects. We have also conducted shared co-analysis sessions with colleagues who have not taken part in recordings: this enables others to modify their practices, or at least to be differently aware of them, thus making a contribution to the corporate culture. Are the results obtained transferable beyond ADAC? P. M.: Transferability is a tricky concept. Each person and each situation are unique, and there would be little point in identifying a