NORTHERN AND RURAL SOCIAL WORK

PRACTICE: A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE

Edited by
Roger Delaney and Keith Brownlee

Lakehead University,
Centre for Northern Studies
Northern and Regional Studies Series #17
Northern Social Work Collection, Volume #6
NORTHERN AND RURAL SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE:
A CANADIAN PERSPECTIVE

ISBN 978-1-895939-31-6

© Centre for Northern Studies, Lakehead University 2009

Published by the Centre for Northern Studies

Lakehead University
Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada P7B 5E1

Printed and bound in Canada by Hignell Book Printing,

Winnipeg, MB

Other books in the Northern Studies Work Collection:

Northern Social Work Practice, 1995, Volume #1
Issues in Northern Social Work Practice, 1996, Volume #2
Strategies for Northern Social Work Practice, 1997, Volume #3
Social Work with Rural & Northern Communities, 1999, Volume #4
Social Work with Rural & Northern Organizations, 2002, Volume #5
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents....................................................................................... iii

Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... v
Preface ........................................................................................................ vi

PART I: PRACTICE LEVEL

Chapter 1: What is Northern Social Work by Glen Schmidt ......................1

Chapter 2: Deconstructing the Southern Metaphor: Moving from

Oppression to Empowerment by Sheila Arges, Raika Abdulahad, and Roger
Delaney....................................................................................................... 18

Chapter 3: Splitting, Lumping, and Northern Social Work: What Have We

Learned? by Michael Kim Zapf ..................................................................43

Chapter 4: Contextual Patterning and Metaphors: Issues for Northern

Practitioners by Margaret McKee and Roger Delaney................................57

Chapter 5: Northern Service Delivery: Strategies and Considerations by

Michael Kim Zapf ........................................................................................67

Chapter 6: Developing Our Own: Inside Versus Outside Expertise in

Northern Social Work Practice by Keith Brownlee and Roger Delaney .....80

Chapter 7: A Therapeutic Mediation Case Conference Model for Rural

and Northern Communities by Jo-Ann Vis, David Tranter, Keith Brownlee,
and Nancy Shalay ........................................................................................93

PART II: ETHICS

Chapter 8:
Understanding Ethics in Rural and Northern Practice by Roger Delaney and
Keith Brownlee ........................................................................................109

Chapter 9: Ethical Considerations for Northern and Rural Social Work

Practice by Glenn Halverson, Keith Brownlee, and Roger Delaney .........130

PART III: COMMUNITY LEVEL

Chapter 10: Respecting Community: A Centerpiece for Rural and

Northern Practice by Roger Delaney, Raika Abdulahad, Keith Brownlee,
and Margaret McKee.................................................................................149

Chapter 11: Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies: Power

Imbalances with Hinterland Services to Children by Barbara Isaac and
Jackie Stokes .............................................................................................165

iii
Chapter 12: Reflective Practice: The Key to Context-Sensitive Practice in
Northern Communities by Margaret McKee, Roger Delaney, and Keith
Brownlee ...................................................................................................192

Chapter 13: Reclaiming Community: Rethinking Practices for the Social

Work Generalist in Northern Communities by Ken Barter .......................209

Chapter 14: Strategies for Community Assessment by Keith Brownlee,

John R. Graham, and Pam Dimond...........................................................222

Chapter 15: Community Needs Assessment and Priority Funding by John

Coates........................................................................................................236

Chapter 16: Gambling on Gambling: A Rural/Northern Dilemma by Glenn

Halverson, Ray Neckoway, and Keith Brownlee .......................................250

PART IV: ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL

Chapter 17: Social Agencies in Rural and Northern Areas by Roger

Delaney, David Tranter, and Keith Brownlee ...........................................265

Chapter 18: Supervision in Remote Settings by Glen Schmidt ...............275

Chapter 19: Local Workers in Rural and Northern Agencies: Strategies for
Effective Partnerships by Juanita Lawson, Sheila Arges, and Roger Delaney
...................................................................................................................284

Chapter 20: Managing Agencies in the Northern and Rural Context by

Roger Delaney and Jane McMichael.........................................................312

Chapter 21: Creating a Reflective Community in a Northern Agency by

Margaret McKee........................................................................................322

Chapter 22: The Board of Directors in a Northern Rural Community: A

Strategy for Effective Governance by Diane Walker and Sharon Taylor
...................................................................................................................333

Chapter 23: Burnout in Northern and Rural Social Work Practice by Keith
Brownlee, Roger Delaney, David Tranter and Jodie Murphy-Oikonen ....343

iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Northern and Rural Social Work Practice: A Canadian Perspective is
the sixth book to be published in Lakehead University’s Centre for Northern
Studies’ Northern and Rural Social Work Collection. As noted in the first
book of the collection, Northern Social Work Practice, the effort to bring
this collection to fruition is essentially a collaborative partnership among
those with an understanding and interest in making Northern and Rural
Social Work Practice a viable and an appropriate approach for effective
social work and human service practice in Canada’s rural, provincial and far
north.
We are grateful to the authors of the book’s chapters for the wealth of
rural and northern practice experience and understanding that is reflected in
their work. We certainly want to acknowledge the contributions of Glen
Schmidt, M. Kim Zapf, Raika Abdulahad, Margaret McKee, Jo-Ann Vis,
David Tranter, Nancy Shalay, Glenn Halverson, Barbara Issac, Jackie
Stokes, Ken Barter, John R. Graham, Pam Dimond, John Coates, Ray
Neckoway, Juanita Lawson, Sheila Agres, Jane McMichael, Diane Walker,
Sharon Taylor and Jodie Murphy-Oikonen. We appreciate the effort made
by these authors in meeting deadlines and, when necessary, in completing
revisions of their work.
We also wish to extend a special appreciation to Roberta (Robbie)
Buffington who provided a welcomed detailed editorial review of the book
and the excellence, patience, humour and care with which she approached
her work. We are also grateful to our three external reviewers whose honest
feedback has contributed immensely to the quality of this book.
We would like to express our appreciation to the staff and faculty of
Lakehead University’s School of Social Work for their comments,
feedback, concern, and encouragement. This support was greatly
appreciated. Finally, we would like to thank our spouses, Sheila and Lee, for
their continuing support and encouragement as we worked through the long
process of bringing this edition to print.

v
PREFACE

In 1995, the first book of the Northern Social Work Series, Northern
Social Work Practice, was published. Since then, four more book
addressing northern and rural issues, strategies, communities and
organizations, were published. Northern and Rural Social Work Practice: A
Canadian Perspective is the sixth book in the series.
Since the publication of Social Work with Rural & Northern
Organizations in 2002, we have been involved with a series of consultations
with faculty, student and practitioner users of the series to gather feedback
on just what this edition should look like. Our original plan for the series
was to publish a final book that was, in effect, the best of the best. However,
our feedback recommended two books—this one and a book dedicated to
Aboriginal Issues associated with rural and northern social work practice.
The final book concerning Aboriginal issues is currently in progress and we
anticipate its publication in the fall, 2009. As a result, this book is dedicated
to rural and northern social work practice in general and the next book, to
Aboriginal issues in particular.
Moreover, our feedback from our community suggested a book that
included new material, revised older material and reprinted chapters. Again,
a further consultation on these suggestions for change identified the chapters
that needed to be new, rewritten or reprinted. The consultation suggested the
book needed to address the needs of beginning learners as well as advanced
learners and practitioners.
With this in mind, we reached out to the rural and northern social work
community and were able to secure new contributions from two established
experts, Dr. Kim Zapf and Dr. Glen Schmidt, which have greatly enhanced
the quality of the book. .
The book is divided into four sections. Section one, Practice Level,
addresses issues associated with the contextual realities of practicing in rural
and northern environments. This section includes five new chapters,
Chapter 1: What is Northern Social Work?, Chapter 2 Deconstructing the
Southern Metaphor, Chapter 3: Spitting, Lumping, and Northern Social
Work, Chapter 5: Issues in Northern Service Delivery and Chapter 7:
Therapeutic Mediation Case Conference Model for Rural and Northern
Communities. Chapters 1, 3 and 5 are essentially introductory chapters.
Chapters 4 and 6 are reprints from previous editions.
The second section, Ethics, involves two new chapters dealing with
ethical behaviour. The first chapter, Chapter 8, provides and extensive
definition of ethics and its applications and links this to northern and rural
contextual realities. Chapter 9 focuses specifically on issues associated with
northern and rural social work practice.
The third section, Community Level, contains eight chapters three of
which (Chapters 13, 14 and 15) are reprints from previous editions. Two
new chapters, Chapter 10: Respecting Community, which essentially
focuses on the core concept of community as the centrepiece of effective
northern and rural social work and Chapter16: Gambling on Gambling,
which identifies current challenges confronting small communities. Chapter
11: Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies contains a new preface

vi
updating the chapter written by Jackie Stokes and Chapter 12: Reflective
Practice was revised and updated.
The fourth section, Organizational Level. Consists of four new
chapters. The first new chapter, Chapter 18, addresses an identified lack of
material on supervision in remote settings by our community. The second
new chapter, Chapter 19 discusses how local workers can be effective
agencies use what they offer in community awareness and community local
position rather than converting them to professionals without training. The
third new chapter, Chapter 21, offers reflective practice as an essential
component of organizational life in northern and rural agencies. The fourth
new chapter, Chapter 23, re-addresses the continuing problems of burnout.
The remaining here chapters, Chapters 17, 20 and 22 are reprints from a
previous edition. In this edition, we were more concerned with how relevant
references were than with how current they were.
We would like to thank the Centre of Northern Studies for their
continuing support of our effort to promote the advancement of rural and
northern social work. We are also grateful for all of our colleagues from
Universities and agencies that have shared their ideas and suggestions on
how we can improve the series. Finally, we are very grateful to the two
external reviewers for their thoughtful and concrete review of this book.
Your ideas and revisions have been implemented and have made this a
better final product.

vii
PART I: PRACTICE LEVEL
 CHAPTER 1

WHAT IS NORTHERN SOCIAL WORK?

GLEN SCHMIDT

Introduction

Social workers have struggled long and hard to develop a sense of

professional identity. Part of the reason for the struggle can be attributed to
the breadth of social work practice. Heinonen and Spearman (2006) note
that, during the first half of the 20th century, social work organized itself
according to three methods or approaches: these included casework, group
work, and community organization. This method of dividing practice and
education was not entirely effective, and social work reorganized into
generalist practice–an approach that saw social workers operating in a
variety of settings and using a variety of techniques. Yet, even though
contemporary social work education at the baccalaureate level continues to
concentrate on generalist practice, the reality is that most graduating social
workers soon form an identity that is constructed within a specialized
practice domain. For instance, child welfare workers, community mental
health workers, transition house workers, and probation officers are just a
few of the titles applied to BSW social workers employed in various areas
of the health and social service sectors. Each of these fields of practice is
complex, and social work graduates concentrate on learning relevant
legislation, standards of practice, understanding the structural barriers, and
developing familiarity with the primary needs of their specific client group.
Given this context, the idea of physical location and various other factors
related to the geographic environment tend to receive scant attention within
the social work literature. However, it is important to consider whether the
physical location and geographic environment of practice actually influence
the nature of practice itself.
The vast majority of Canada’s social workers are employed in urban or
metropolitan centres, but there are also many social workers engaged in
small communities throughout rural and northern areas of this immense
country (Stephenson et al., 2000). The concept of northern social work
practice has not received a large amount of attention in the Canadian social
work literature, but there is an interesting and growing body of work that
examines this idea within a Canadian context. Geography is vitally
important to the idea of northern social work, just as it is to the closely
related concept of rural social work. Physical place, climate, economy, and
the resulting social context are a few of the elements that influence social

1
2 What is Northern Social Work

work practice and that require an approach to practice that is attuned to the
specific requirements of the northern environment.

Rural Social Work

In the United States, the idea of location is discussed within the
concepts of urban and rural social work. Josephine Brown’s classic text The
Rural Community and Social Case Work formally introduced the idea of
rural social work to the wider social work community (Brown, 1933).
Citing Swanson, Mackie (2007) notes that the concept of rural social work
was well established by the 1930s but, by 1940, the idea of rural social
work was subsumed by urban ideas related to more specialized treatment
and intervention. “Rural social work” became social work in rural areas,
and it no longer received a great deal of specialized attention. However,
beginning in the 1970s, some American social workers developed a
renewed interest in what was described as “rural social work” (Ginsberg,
1976; Davenport & Davenport, 1979). The first meeting of what came to be
called the “rural social work caucus” was held in Knoxville, Tennessee, in
1975 and, by 1978, an academic social work journal called Human Services
in the Rural Environment began a publication run that lasted until 1996.
The work of the caucus and publications like Human Services in the Rural
Environment drew attention to the unique qualities of rural social work in
the United States. However, by the end of the 1980s, some research
suggested that there really wasn’t any substantive difference between urban
and rural social work practice (York, Denton & Moran, 1989). Even
Mermelstein and Sundet (1995), academic social workers with a long-time
interest in rural social work, suggested that that differences between rural
and urban practice could not be supported by the research. By the mid-
1990s, interest in rural social work seemed to wane as the journal Human
Services in the Rural Environment ceased publication and discussion of
rural practice became less common–though the topic did receive some
attention in other national jurisdictions.
In the 1990s, there was some interest shown in Australia as Cheers
(1990, 1991), Lonne (1990), and other academic researchers began to
examine issues related to rural social work and rural social welfare. There
have also been periodic collaborations or cross-national comparisons that
contrast ideas related to concepts such as the rural in different national
jurisdictions (Martinez-Brawley, 1987; Bodor et al., 2004; Saltman et al.,
2004; Turbett, 2006). These studies suggest that rural practice models
emphasize a number of elements, including the importance of the rural
context, the importance of being community-based, and the importance of a
generalist approach to practice.
A consistent difficulty in the social work practice literature, however,
concerns the problem of defining what the term “rural” actually means.
Olaveson, Conway, and Shaver (2004) note that, in the United States, the
Schmidt 3

idea of “rural” can be defined by using seven different criteria, including

population density, population by political boundary, political boundary,
commuting patterns, economy, open country, and being outside Standard
Metropolitan Statistical Areas. In Canada, the definition of “rural” has also
been difficult. It is sometimes seen as a negative concept, meaning anything
which is not “urban,” but “rural” is also defined using specific
organizational criteria such as the census definition of rural, the
Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development definition of
rural, and rural postal codes to mention a few. With so many ways to define
rural, it is clear that a single definition that is exact and consistent is
somewhat elusive. To a large extent, the same difficulty in developing a
clear, common definition is apparent within the Canadian context as it
relates to the concept of north and northern social work.

The Canadian Context and the Concept of North

While some social work programs in Canada established courses on
rural social work practice, Kim Zapf (1985) argues that rural social work as
defined by American practitioners might not be a good fit for Canada,
especially with reference to practice in Canada’s north. Zapf, working out
of the University of Calgary, and others–such as Delaney, Brownlee,
Graham, and their colleagues and students working out of Lakehead
University–began to describe and write about something that came to be
referred to as “northern social work practice.” Within this framework, it is
obvious that there needs to be some understanding about what is meant by
“north.”
Like the concept of “rural,” the idea of “north” is elusive. Canada is
generally described as a “northern country,” even though two out of three
Canadians live within a short drive to the American border. The Canadian
population is also becoming increasingly urbanized (Statistics Canada,
2006). In 1871, 19.6% of Canada’s population was considered urban,
whereas, by 2006, the census data indicated that the portion of Canadians
living in urban areas had climbed to 80% (Statistics Canada, 2006).
Statistics Canada (2006) projections suggest that, by 2025, 82% of
Canada’s population will reside in urban areas. While there has been
population growth in some rural areas that are located next to major
metropolitan centres, but these are largely commuter populations that
maintain an urban focus through occupational, service, and commercial
relationships. In contrast, more distant rural population areas have seen a
small but steady decline in population (Statistics Canada, 2006). The
decline or slow growth in population of rural communities is also true of
northern communities, though recent demand for commodities–particularly
minerals–has resulted in some limited growth in selected areas.
Amanda Graham (1990) notes that geographers have used various
measures that are designed to quantify the idea of north. The work of
4 What is Northern Social Work

Hamelin (1979) and McNiven and Puderer (2000) is representative of this

approach. In Hamelin’s case, he developed the Valeurs Polaires or “Polar
Value Scale” used to measure the concept of nordicity. The scale measured
factors such as transportation, economic activity, and various aspects of
climate to determine “how north is north.”
The concept of north has also been defined in terms of the history of
economic development. James Careless (1954) described the historical
growth of the Canadian economy and the relationship between the
metropolitan centres and the frontier or hinterland. As well, overtime, the
north has gone by different names—the northwest, “les pays d’en haut,”
and “the Arctic.” With each of these terms, the exact implied geographic
location of north is somewhat different. For example, “les pays d’en haut”
was a term used by early French settlers to describe the land north and west
of the Ottawa River. Similarly, the “northwest” included the landmass of
the current provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta as well as the three
northern territories. However, these terms for north all imply a sense of the
“frontier” and something “out there” that is away from the comfortable
heartland. Indeed, the staples and commodities that are produced in the
north continue to be shipped and marketed through metropolitan centres.
And, as always, the raw wealth of the northern hinterland is used to support
populations in the urban south.
Urban residents from Canada’s south are largely responsible for the
accepted definitions and descriptions of the concept of “north.” Kassam
(2001) stated that this perceived reality results in a characterization of the
north as a frontier and not a homeland. For example, he noted that what
might be called a traditional lifestyle for northern people is seen as a source
of staples exploitation by urban southerners. Further, if the north is a
homeland, then a sustainable economy is important. When the north is seen
only as a frontier, then it is easily characterized—and dismissed—by boom
and bust cycles based on opportunistic exploitation of natural resources.
Communities and people who live in those communities are, consequently,
regarded as of very little importance.
The north has also been defined politically. Coates and Powell (1989)
suggest that the political characterization of the north has been rooted in a
colonial relationship with the urban south. The political motivation has been
based not only on the idea of maintaining an economic relationship but also
on the notion of territorial sovereignty. Marcus (1995) documented the
forced movement of Inuit in the 1950s as a political decision designed to
establish and protect Canada’s sovereignty in the high Arctic. In 2007,
monetary and military investments by the Canadian government in arctic
naval vessels represented another example of how the north gets defined
politically and strategically. In this context, the north becomes important in
relation to outside threats that concern Canadian sovereignty and/or access
to continued staples exploitation. The relative importance is thus imposed or
decided by people living in urban centres of political power. Again,
Schmidt 5

consequently, northern regions of the country generally carry little political

weight in Ottawa or in the provincial capitals.
Finally, the north has been defined from a cultural perspective, a
perspective that might be considered partly political and partly economic.
Aboriginal people have regarded the north as home, and, to them, northern
lands are endowed with a sense of importance—even a sense that is
somewhat sacred. For example, aboriginal people had an important voice in
the formation of Nunavut, and the very word itself is an Inuktitut word
meaning “our land.” In the broader history of aboriginal people in Canada,
too, there are many examples of the connection between the idea of home,
the land, and the north. For example in 1870, following the collapse of the
provisional government during the Red River Insurrection (or Red River
Resistance), some of the Métis traveled to the “northwest” where they might
live in peace and pursue a traditional lifestyle. To the, the northwest was not
understood as a hostile and wild frontier; rather, it was seen as a welcoming
home.
In these ways, then geographic, historic, economic, political, and
cultural elements are all important in defining the concept of north.
However, it must be conceded that the term remains elusive and relative in
nature. For example, a person moving to Thunder Bay from Toronto might
consider that he or she moved to “the north.” The latitudinal location of
Thunder Bay is certainly north of Toronto, and the winter climate of
Thunder Bay is harsher than that found in Toronto. However, the person
who moves from Moosonee to Thunder Bay will almost certainly believe
that he or she has arrived in the urban south. Similarly, Stewart, BC and
Wabowden, Manitoba are at the same level of latitude, yet the differences in
climate are profound. Residents in both communities consider themselves to
be “northerners,” but Stewart is located in a moderate northern coastal
climatic zone, while Wabowden is located in the northern interior of the
continent and experiences the harshness of a continental winter. Both
communities are relatively isolated and have limited services, but could one
be described as more northern than the other?
In the end, it is very difficult to define the concept of “north,” and it is
important to accept that the idea of “north” is one that is relative and
defined in different ways by different people. Ultimately, it is a definition
that derives from personal experience often based on ideas of comparison
between physical environments, locations, and the type of lifestyle
associated with place. However, despite the relative nature of definitions,
some elements are fairly constant in the definition of north, and these
include things like remoteness and isolation, relatively severe climate,
sparse populations, limited services, transportation challenges, and
economies dependent on single industries and resources.
6 What is Northern Social Work

Northern Social Work

If we accept the idea that definitions of the concept of north vary
widely and that the definitions are relative to whom is constructing the
definition, what does this mean for social work? And, is there such a thing
as northern social work practice?
There have been a number of different approaches developed that move
toward defining northern social work practice. Collier, in successive
editions of Social Work with Rural Peoples (1984, 1993, 2006), has seen
northern or remote social work practice in much the same light as rural
social work practice. His work implicitly suggests that “northern social
work” is synonymous with work with aboriginal people. Yet, while it is true
that social work in northern and remote locations may often involve
aboriginal people and communities, it is by no means the only type of social
work that occurs in the north, given the variety of communities that
developed for purposes of resource extraction.
Collier argues that social work is a concept that arose out of the
industrial revolution. As such, it was rooted in an urban environment, and
social workers were committed to mitigating the excesses of industrial
capitalism in order to preserve the status quo and the established order.
Consequently, Collier believes that ideas and practices related to
professionalism and organization through bureaucratic structures created a
discipline unsuited to deliver services to rural or northern people living in
remote communities. Collier regards concepts such as casework or clinical
work as inherently inappropriate to the northern or rural environment.
Although Collier does not specifically discuss professional boundaries and
dual relationships, in these contexts, his views of community work thus
suggest an immediate connection with community and community members
that does not conform to professional concepts of boundaries and separation
of the personal and professional roles. Further, Collier’s ideas are embedded
in a conflict approach, and in general, Collier regards urban-based social
work as alien to the needs and aspirations of rural and northern people. He
believes that, in order to be relevant, social work must ally itself with rural
people and discard the various trappings of organization and
professionalism.
Social workers affiliated with Lakehead University have taken a
somewhat different approach, one that is context-based and might be
described as ecological in nature (Delaney, 1995). This is a broader view
that, at times, includes Collier’s political and materialist analysis of northern
social work but that moves beyond this framework to examine other aspects
of northern social work practice as well. A good example of this concerns
critical analysis of personal practice issues related to concepts like
boundaries and ethics (Delaney et al., 1997). In this more comprehensive
view, the context of northern communities and the northern environment
play important roles that help to define the nature of social work practice. A
Schmidt 7

definition of “northern social work” is thus often arrived at by contrasting

northern practice with urban practice. Urban practice is seen as somewhat
impersonal in the sense that there is a fair degree of separation between the
social worker’s personal space and his or her professional space. This
separation is almost impossible to achieve in northern practice as social
workers live and work in the same small, isolated communities as their
clients. While this set of circumstances might be regarded as potentially
stressful and representative of a deficient conception of northern practice,
there are other positive aspects to this practice environment that are
revealed in the research and literature. For instance, the immediacy of the
community and the relatively small size of northern communities enable
social workers to develop a quick understanding of community social,
political, and economic organization as well as community needs. In this
way, the same context and elements that may present challenges to the
social worker may also contribute uniquely to the development of effective
practice.
Brownlee, Graham, and Dimond (1997) illustrate this in an article on
community assessment. They provide a variety of diagrammatic tools that
might be used to understand agency and community organization. This type
of approach could be used in an urban setting but—given the size, number
of agencies and organizations, as well as the organizational complexity of a
large city—the approach would be impractical or at the very least, difficult
to construct and understand. However, tools of this nature are easily applied
by northern social workers and can be of great assistance in tracking,
mapping, and understanding communities. The task of developing and
building a community profile can be achieved with relative ease in small
communities, and a thorough and comprehensive community profile
provides an effective framework for planning and delivering service.
The work of Zapf represents a third approach to northern social work.
Zapf concentrates on the lived experience within the geographic context
that he calls “north. The idea of physical space is very important in his
approach to northern social work practice. In some of his earliest work, he
argued that the American concept of “rural” was not a good fit with
northern social work (Zapf, 1985). He noted that the idea of “rural social
work” evolved in the United States, a country with a much larger
population than Canada and a country with a higher population density.
Consequently, when American social workers discuss the idea of “rural
social work,” they are really describing something that is different from the
experience of Canadian social workers that practice in northern locations.
For instance, Zapf’s personal professional background involved social work
in the Yukon, and this meant that he operated in an area of sparse
population density with great distances between communities. While there
are a few places in the United States that match these characteristics—
Alaska and Wyoming, for example—the reality is that non-metropolitan or
rural areas in most American states are densely populated compared to
Canada’s north. The sparse population and the vast distances that separate
8 What is Northern Social Work

communities in Canada thus tend to exert an influence on northern

Canadian social work that is not reflected in American rural practice.

Understanding Northern Social Work

Defining and understanding northern social work requires identifying
the elements or characteristics that serve to set it apart from other forms of
social work practice. We need to consider whether the differences are
substantial enough that they constitute a model or style of practice that is
unique and different. It may be that some of the differences are not explicit
or exceptional in their nature but, collectively, they may help to define a
unique approach to social work.
In social work, we tend to ignore the seemingly mundane aspects of
practice, but these elements must also come into consideration in
understanding northern practice as they exert a certain level of importance.
An examination of these qualities is also important from the perspective of
education as well as recruitment and retention. Failure to discuss these
mundane aspects of practice is not fair to students contemplating a social
work career in the north, nor is it fair to social workers recruited from
southern urban locations. Ultimately, a failure to educate and recruit social
workers suited to northern practice represents a failure to adequately meet
the needs of northern people and communities through the provision of
effective and consistent social work service. Social workers who are not
comfortable in the northern practice context tend not to stay, and they tend
not to contribute to the community in any meaningful way. It is, therefore,
very important that new social workers have a clear sense of what is
required to live and work successfully in the north.

Northern Travel
One example of a seemingly mundane aspect of northern social work
involves travel. Most social workers, with the possible exception of those
who operate in an office-based practice, must travel to meet with their
clients or with representatives of other agencies. Travel can take time in any
location, whether that location is urban, rural, or northern. In urban settings,
traffic congestion may be the main factor that accounts for the amount of
time taken up by travel. In the north, however, distance and weather
conditions are the critical variables. Population is sparse and communities
are separated by many kilometres. This creates certain challenges that
influence the nature of contact between social workers and clients and the
manner in which social workers and social agencies plan and budget.
Northern travel is challenging particularly during the months when
roads are covered in ice and snow. Snow or ice-covered roads are a reality
in many rural areas of southern Canada; however, the volume of traffic and
proximity to population centres in the south make highway travel a
Schmidt 9

qualitatively different experience. Running off the road or experiencing

mechanical problems in extreme conditions of cold is a challenge in any
location but, when the nearest help is 100 or 200 kilometres away, the
consequences are more severe. Given the potentially life-threatening
component associated with winter travel in the north, many social workers
who live and work in northern locations discover that part of their
orientation and training involves learning survival skills. In fact, in most
northern agencies that have social workers that travel, this is a formal
requirement for a new worker’s orientation and introduction to the
employing organization. Learning to use survival gear and learning to build
a quinzhee or some other form of temporary shelter are just as important as
skills related to community social work practice.
The method or mode of travel might also add to the differences
between northern and urban social work practice. There are remote
communities in the north that can only be reached by small planes, boats, or
snowmobiles. In these cases, it is not just the means of transportation that is
different, but it is also the effect that this has on the nature of practice. For
example, contact with clients depends to a great degree on weather.
Conditions that produce low cloud cover, freezing rain, and soft or unstable
ice determine whether people will be seen and when they will be seen.
While weather may exert some influence in an urban setting, the effect is
minimal compared to the influence it exerts in northern social work
practice. Many of us who work in the north experience the uncertainties of
roads that shift and change with the seasons. River crossings into some
communities are negotiated by ferry during part of the year and ice bridges
during the rest of the year. In between, there is a period of uncertainty and
access by motor vehicle cannot be guaranteed as long as ice is forming or
melting. Freezing rain, winter storms, low cloud ceilings, and wind also
affect small planes and may be determining factors in whether a social
worker is able to make it into a community for a critical meeting or a visit
with a client.
The weather, though, is not the only factor that affects travel and
resulting contact with clients. Many northern and remote locations are also
located at higher levels of latitude, creating noticeable variations between
the intensity and amount of light in the summer months as compared to the
winter months. This in turn also exerts an effect on travel. For instance,
teacherous roads are more easily negotiated in daylight than they are after
dark. Travel in the winter not only means ice and snow, but it also means
significantly shorter periods of daylight and so longer periods of dangerous
night travel.

Community Rhythm
The marked fluctuation in daylight also exerts an effect on the rhythm
of the community. The relative availability of people, as well as their level
10 What is Northern Social Work

of activity, will change as the days grow longer or shorter. In communities

that depend on traditional economic pursuits associated with hunting and
gathering, the annual rhythm is most apparent. Fish camps, goose camps,
and berry camps continue to be important in many small aboriginal
communities. When the fish are running or the geese are flying it is critical
for many families that they take advantage of the opportunity to gather food
for the coming months. A new social worker unfamiliar with the annual
cycle and rhythm of a community may be surprised to travel into a remote
settlement only to find that the people she or he wanted to meet are not
there. Thus, this type of “country economy” contributes to the overall
quality and standard of living. Collier (1993) notes that urban measures of
wealth, poverty, and income rarely take into account the country economy.
Harvesting fish, game, and berries represent opportunities for people to add
to their standard of living outside a wage-based economy.
Much is often made about the concept of time in aboriginal
communities, and newcomers may develop the idea that time is of no
significance to the people. However, time is important in remote aboriginal
communities; it is the manner in which time is defined that differs. For
instance, they consider “It is time to go to the fish camp. It is time to go to
the goose camp.” This is an approach to time that is not measured by a
clock but by the rhythm of the seasons, the length of the days, and the
warmth of air and water. Although this is a changing concept as remote
aboriginal communities are increasingly drawn into wage-based
employment, it is important that social workers that intend to practice in the
north develop an understanding of the unique rhythm of every community.
The notion of community rhythm is not confined to aboriginal
communities engaged in traditional activities. It is also a reality in many
single industry towns that dot the northern landscape. Lucas (1971)
described the characteristics of single-industry communities in Minetown,
Milltown, Railtown. These are communities that depend on one primary
resource or activity such as mining, forestry, or hydro-electricity. An
important element that defines many of these communities is the idea of
shift work. Shift work is not unique to northern communities, as one finds
many shift workers in urban communities. However, the difference in
northern communities is that shift work affects almost all families and, by
implication, it affects the social worker attempting to deliver service. For
example, the timing of contact must take into consideration the work shifts.
Waking up a person who has just come off night shift is not polite or
sensible. Social work activity generally occurs between 8:30 and 5:00, but
this schedule does not fit with the rhythm of a remote northern community
overwhelmingly dominated by shift work. As a result, social workers must
tune into the shifts and what shifts people work. The social worker’s
practice must reflect the work schedule in the single-industry town.
A variation on shift work is Long Distance Commuting (Shrimpton,
1994). The expense of developing town sites in remote and difficult-to-
access locations has resulted in situations where companies do not build a
Schmidt 11

town site but instead transport workers to the place where the work activity
is taking place. Fly-in mining sites are an example. The life expectancy of
the ore body may be short and the cost of developing a town site
prohibitive. Therefore, the workers remain on-site in camps for several
weeks or even several months before they return to their home community
and family. Social workers attempting to establish contact with these
workers face even greater challenges owing to the availability of a
commuting worker. The situation for workers who have families can be
complex and at times difficult as the nature of this type of arrangement
affects contact and the quality of familial relationships.
Single-industry towns are also interesting from the perspective of the
work-related divisions they create. If a person is a union member or a
member of management, hourly or salaried, it will determine to a certain
degree the place that the person occupies within the community. Certainly,
people mix and intermingle, but work status can at times be used to foster
division. This is not unique to the north but, when there is one major
employer, the sense of division may be magnified. This is challenging for
social workers and, at times, the worker may be expected to take sides.
Tension can run particularly high during periods when labour contracts are
being negotiated and during any type of job action or strike.
Job roles are one aspect of the economy in northern communities, but
northern communities are also tied into relationships that are much larger
and far-reaching in nature. Social workers who live and practice in northern
towns come to understand the rhythm of the community, which is driven in
large part by global forces. The price of a commodity like nickel or copper
may not seem like an important issue for social work, and yet it is important
in order to understand the stress and tension that affects the residents of the
town that produces the commodity. A serious and prolonged decline in
demand for the commodity can have catastrophic effects on the community
and its residents. Loss of work, loss of income, and a sharp decline in the
value of a personal asset like a house can devastate the lives of community
members. Social workers are not immune to this challenge. People don’t
enter social work to become wealthy and, for many social workers, their
primary source of economic worth may be the house that they toil to pay
off. If that house suddenly loses value because of an overall decline in the
value of property in a resource-based community, then the social worker
will experience a sense of financial loss akin to what other residents of the
community go through. The history of single-industry resource-based
communities in Canada’s north is a history marked by periods of high
productivity and prosperity as well as periods when communities
completely close and many residents are left destitute.
12 What is Northern Social Work

Role Conflict and the Community Microscope

Living and practicing social work in a small town has also been
examined from the personal perspective of lived experience. An American
social worker, Louise Fenby (1978), said that rural social work and
dwelling in a small town was like living in a fish bowl. Pugh (2006) wrote
about the phenomena in the English countryside and made an interesting
point related to the idea of visibility. He noted that social workers in small
communities are highly visible, and this lack of anonymity means that it is
difficult to keep a low profile. It also means that community members are in
a position to scrutinize and draw conclusions about the social worker’s
character and behaviour.
Pugh (2006) further said that people who receive social work service in
rural areas generally have an opportunity to appraise and assess their social
worker in ways that urban recipients of social work service cannot easily
do. Is the social worker’s behaviour acceptable? What are the personal
interests of the social worker? What group and people is the social worker
connected with? What kinds of hobbies and leisure activities does the social
worker enjoy? These are intrusive questions and certainly compromise the
degree of personal privacy, but they are common questions in small,
isolated communities where it is a simple matter to “keep tabs” on a person
or develop a dossier on his or her personal likes, dislikes, interests, and
associations. The smaller and more isolated the community, the more likely
it is that this type of assessment or investigation will occur. The small size
of many northern communities and their relative isolation simply increases
the likelihood of this happening. This element of northern practice applies
not only to the social worker but also to the social worker’s partner and
children. When you live in a community where people identify you based
on the car or truck you are driving, you are highly visible. Living under a
microscope or in a fish bowl creates demands related to congruence. For
better or worse, social workers hold positions that might be regarded as
having some amount of moral authority or integrity. As a result, community
members want to see that the social worker and members of the social
worker’s family conform to a certain imagined standard. A deviation from
this standard can have enormous effect on the social worker’s credibility,
his or her connection to the community, and his or her capacity to deliver
service.
Almost all social workers that live and work in small remote
communities will go through some variation of this role and identity
conflict. This is even the case when a social worker is born and raised in a
small, isolated community and then leaves to obtain formal education in an
urban centre before returning to work in the same small, isolated
community. Despite coming from that community, the social worker will
have to deal with community perception and expectations regarding his or
her “new” role as the professional social worker. He or she is an “insider
Schmidt 13

coming back” as opposed to an “outsider coming in,” but the pressures

around his or her personal and professional roles may not be any less and
the pressures might even be more severe as expectations can be extremely
high.
High visibility that means quick personal identification and easy access
are difficult for some people to accept. At the same time, this can work in
several ways. Social workers are highly visible, but so too are the people
they serve. A social worker employed in Toronto and working with a
person who has problems with alcohol misuse is unlikely to see this person
outside of the scheduled contact. In a large city, it may be challenging to
assess the person’s progress and his or her commitment to follow through
on plans to manage or control his or her use of alcohol. However, in a small
town, the same person is more visible and their behaviour is much easier to
follow and scrutinize. Similarly, social workers in small, isolated
communities can quickly learn how supportive an extended family network
might be based on the visibility of family members. In cases of supportive
kinship arrangements, it is much easier to make a decision with certainty
and confidence in a small community as opposed to a large urban centre
where it is not as easy to gather information to make an accurate
assessment.
Living and working in this type of situation also creates a variety of
ethical challenges. It must be noted that this is not a unique feature of
northern social work practice as it can exert some effect in rural areas as
well (Healy, 2003). However, it might be reasonably argued that the effects
are magnified given the relative size and isolation of northern communities.
It can also be argued that these same issues do not have a particularly
noticeable effect in urban areas, given the size and relative separation
between social workers and their clients.
Delaney and Brownlee (1995) described some of the key ethical
challenges or considerations that come into play in northern social work
practice. Limited collegial contact and limited supervision, requests and
demands to practice beyond a reasonable level of personal competence, dual
or multiple relationships, access to too much information, and professional
drift were some of the issues discussed by Delaney and Brownlee. These are
difficult challenges and often there is not an easy or quick solution. Some of
the ethical issues exert an immediate effect while others may have more of a
creeping kind of effect. For example, over a period of time access to too
much information can create an impression of a community that is not
positive. Social service agencies deal with difficult problems and constant
exposure to situations where life seems unsafe and people do all kinds of
awful things to other people. Not surprisingly, this can create a negative
view of the community and its residents. The circumstances and difficulties
are similar in an urban centre, but the social worker does not have to deal
with information that involves a neighbour or a parent of a child that the
social worker’s child befriends at school.
14 What is Northern Social Work

Sense of Community
One interesting aspect of living in a small community is that the
various elements, even the nooks and the crannies of the community, are
highly visible, and the social worker experiences these things on a daily
basis. For example, people that live in Vancouver will be familiar with the
downtown eastside, which is one of the poorest and most marginalized
urban neighbourhoods in the country. However, the familiarity does not
mean that the same Vancouver residents will be visibly exposed to the daily
struggle of the residents in the downtown eastside. There are television,
radio, and newspaper reports, but it is not quite the same as being there.
Vancouver residents may live their entire life without venturing into the
downtown eastside.
On the other hand, life in a small isolated northern community means
that all aspects of the community are visible. If there is a part of the
community that is poor or dangerous, people will have an awareness of this
that is lived and not gained from a television broadcast or a newspaper
article. The social worker will know people who live in that part of town,
and the social worker will be present in that part of town on a regular basis.
Unpleasant images or harsh realities cannot be confined to the media as
they are a part of daily existence and involve fellow community members,
neighbours, and perhaps family members.

The Opportunities of Northern Practice

Northern social work practice is firmly rooted in a sense of community.
The idea of community can be defined in a variety of ways but, in the north,
physical space and place exert tremendous influence on how people
understand community. While every community is different and every
community has a certain rhythm and flow, there are some common
characteristics that form a sense of what northern social work practice is
about. Isolation, limited services, challenges relating to transportation and
weather, as well as the various aspects associated with adapting to the role
of being a social worker in a small community such as dealing with multiple
relationships and having access to too much information, represent
characteristics of northern practice that are challenging and even
intimidating.
On the other hand, the relatively small size of northern communities
creates a great opportunity for the social worker to understand community
in a detailed and complete sense. There is opportunity to engage in practice
that is truly community based. The social worker actually lives in the
community and does not commute from some distant suburb or descend
from some anonymous condominium tower block to enter the community of
Schmidt 15

practice. Therefore, the effects of social work practice are more noticeable
and visible, and this can be gratifying when the results are positive. In
single-industry, resource-based communities, there is a shared sense of
social development. The links between the economy and the social fabric of
the community are clear and the social worker is part of this relationship.
The distance from centres of administrative control also frequently
enables northern social workers to become more creative and innovative in
their practice. Northern communities don’t have the range and depth of
specialized resources available in large urban centres, but this is not
necessarily a bad thing as the social worker learns to develop the necessary
supports and address gaps in service with local resources. The community
can be seen as an oasis of resources waiting to be linked and nurtured rather
than an arid desert void of support.

Summary

Northern social work is practice that is community-based in the truest

sense. Northern social work is also a form of practice where seemingly
mundane things like weather and distance become important in determining
daily practice decisions. Northern practice is closely linked to the economy
of each community. Although the economies of northern communities are
not diverse, they are subject to global forces that can be fickle and
destructive to the local fabric. Social workers engaged in northern practice
need to understand the rhythm of each community. This rhythm may be
based on traditional culture, the season, or the nature of employment in the
local wage economy. Northern social workers also need to be skilled in
developing resources, and they need to come to terms with challenges that
arise from high visibility, accessibility, access to too much information, and
negotiating the pitfalls in multiple relationships. However, northern social
work also represents an opportunity to be creative and to experience growth
and change in an immediate and real sense.

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 CHAPTER 2

DECONSTRUCTING THE SOUTHERN

METAPHOR: MOVING FROM
OPPRESSION TO EMPOWERMENT

SHEILA ARGES, RAIKA ABDULAHAD,

AND ROGER DELANEY
Social workers, regardless of the context in which they practice their
profession, work with people and people-created systems. These people-
created systems—including communities, work places, recreation centres,
natural helping systems, formal helping systems and informal helping
systems—are subject to being influenced by the dominant values and beliefs
espoused by those in leadership/power positions. This chapter explores the
impact of power on rural and northern communities (and their inhabitants)
and how it restricts or undermines ability to influence their environment in a
manner complementary to their own human and social vision and their
dreams for the future.
At the core of all power relations is the inherent belief that somehow
some aspect of human beings or social environments is superior to other
aspects of people and places. Equality, at its core, is essentially a belief that
human beings are equal simply because they are human beings (Delaney,
2009). In other words, people take “power-over” other people when a claim
is made that some aspect possessed by those taking power is superior
(ascendant) over the same attribute found in those from whom power is
being taken: for example, rich people claiming superiority over poor people;
white people over people of colour; city folk over rural/northern folk;
heterosexuals over other sexual preferences; thin people over overweight
people; young people over old people; men over women, and so on. Once
these power differences are established as normative, then the inequalities
become structured into our communities and societies and become what is
“normal.” Thus, in order to understand the impact of “normalized power-
over” public opinion and public policies, this power-over reality must be
deconstructed and reviewed. The term “southern metaphor” refers to
normalized public and policy positions that are essentially “power-over.”
Northern social work practice places emphasis on both the context for
practice and the people who live in this context (Zapf & Bodor, 2009;
Schmidt, 2000; Delaney, 1995; Nelson, McPherson & Kelley, 1987). As
such, the central element of northern social work is:
skilled intervention in transactions between the unit of attention and the
environment which acknowledges the reciprocity and interrelatedness
between various parts of the system within the context of mutuality,
empowerment and salient need fulfilment. The northern practitioner is

18
Arges, Abdulahad, & Delaney 19

often engaged in the process of consciousness rising where valid

information is juxtaposed against the constructed reality or agreement
reality present in dysfunctional relationships between and among sub-
systems (Delaney, 1995b, p. 21).
This concern for the environmental context of practice requires that the
northern social worker appreciate and understand not just the existing
contextual realities and issues, but the history surrounding this context as
well. How history impacts on the lives of the people and how the “official”
history, often written by visitors and strangers to the north, describes
historic events and impacts are important areas of exploration for northern
social workers (Zapf, 1991). Slowly, the message is “getting across” that
the northern context is the product of “exploitation, underdevelopment and
colonialism” (Zapf, 1991, p. 44) by major southern centres, “be those
centres provincial souths” (Coates & Morrison, 1992) or Canada’s federal
government in Ottawa (Zapf, 1996). For northern people, these issues are
matters that influence the basic fibre of life in the north.
For centuries, the people of northern Canada have met the constant
physical challenges of survival in their harsh environment. They may face
an even greater threat now from the ideologies of southern Canada, from
people who may not understand their world yet have the power to define
northern problems, northern opportunities, and northern future (Zapf, 1996,
p. 55). This struggle for survival has imbued rural and northern folk with an
appreciation for “commonality,” a world view that advocates the value of
maintaining the physical environment “that sustains all life forms in
balance” (Delaney, 2009, p. 16).
However, it is unlikely that southern leaders perceive themselves as
oppressors and exploiters of the north. In fact, they may well believe that
they are being generous to the northerners by “keeping the natives happy”
(Weller, 1993, p. 17) while engaging in the politics of extraction—that is,
“to extract the resources of the region at minimal cost and with minimal
fuss” (Weller, 1993, p. 17). The method used to accomplishing this
“minimal cost and fuss” is described by Weller in ‘The Politics of
Handouts.’
The politics of handouts takes three major forms. The first is the
delivery of what are seen by many local residents as bribes. The
second is the delivery of essential services as if they were gifts. The
third is the appointment of local figures to cabinet posts of relatively
little importance (Weller, 1993, p. 18).
While the politics of handouts is practised by both the federal and
provincial governments, “that played by the provincial government is of
greater significance because it is the level which has most at stake” (Weller,
1993, p. 17-18). The territories, while less powerful than the provinces, are
northern and their political will and power does focus northern issues. On
the other hand, provincial norths are faced with a situation where “power is
concentrated in the south and in the interests of urban centres dominate
provincial policies” (Wharf, 1991, p. 134). Obviously, if political and
20 Deconstructing the Southern Metaphor

economic power is in the south and if then what the south believes is the
north’s reality (the “southern metaphor for the north”) varies from the
degree of privilege the south assigns to political and economic power within
the framework of the south’s belief systems (the “southern metaphor for the
south”), then how the southern metaphor for the south differs from the
southern metaphor of the north and the power the southern metaphor of the
south has to prescribe for the north become major issues for northern social
work practice and for northerners in general.
In effect, northern communities have “lived in the shadow of overriding
concern for the prosperity, development and needs of larger centres”
(Challen & McPherson, 1994, p. 196). This chapter discusses the impact
this relationship with southern sources of power—politically, economically,
and professionally—has on the northern context of practice. The next
section of this chapter examines what is meant by a metaphor, especially as
it relates to southern metaphors regarding the north.

What is a Metaphor?
A metaphor is simply a name or descriptive term applied to an object to
which it is not literally applicable (Concise Oxford Dictionary, 1964).
Social workers use metaphors “to connote feeling and imagination as well
as objective reality” (Barker, 1991, p. 143). For example, a client may be
referred to as an “iceberg” to convey behavioural patterns. Similarly, people
who work very hard may be referred to as being “busy as a bee.” A rural
community could be referred to as ‘Hicksville.’
All models of social work practice begin “with an ideological
perspective, a world view or metaphor that can be applied to the world to
give meaning to events and to suggest desired or preferred circumstances”
(Zapf, 1996, p. 70). Germain and Gitterman (1980) suggest that social work
practice historically used the medical-disease metaphor to describe its
practice, but it is now moving towards an ecology metaphor which provides
“an adaptive, evolutionary view of human beings in constant interchange
with all elements of their environment” (Germain & Gitterman, 1980, p. 5).
The term metaphor is also consistent with other terms used to describe
ways in which people organize information and the rules that govern the
value, meaning and reality applied to this information, such as conceptual
systems (Delaney, 1979; Harvey, 1967; Newman, 1974, 1975), agreement
realities (Babbie, 1977; Delaney, 2009), and ideologies (Zapf, 1996). For
example, our observations in the real world (experiential reality) are subject
to interpretation. These interpretations result from a unique combination of
values, knowledge, and experience that constitute each human’s world view
(conceptual system) about what is true, what is good, and what are
appropriate actions (belief system). This organized framework is based on
what each person is socialized to believe is truth (agreement reality). As
such, it provides a mechanism which allows people to reduce overwhelming
and sometimes contradictory information into understandable and
Arges, Abdulahad, & Delaney 21

manageable information. This, in turn, allows for actions and decisions to be

taken with reasonable confidence (Delaney, 2009). Such metaphors can be
personal, professional and/or global and the degree of congruence among
these will determine how “rigidly” a social worker interprets the context for
practice. As well, the ability to perceive overt and/or subtle differences in
environmental contexts, such as northern communities, is severely limited
when there is a high degree of congruence among these three metaphors.
When agreement realities are shared by large numbers of people, a
common interpretation of reality becomes self-reinforcing. That is, each
member reinforces the contention that this set of agreement realities reflects
the truth about the world and its peoples. Because this collective association
of agreements defines what is truth, it also shapes and defines what the
social arrangement between people (social structure) should look like.
Because it simplifies reality by denying that other truths could co-exist, it
also serves to reduce personal and social anxiety by stabilizing the
environment and limiting the scope for change. This association of
agreement realities can be found in such entities as social values, social
mores, and political ideologies. While this association of agreement realities
is made up of shared individual agreement realities, it is itself a unique
perception of reality (gestalt) that is consistent with, but different than, any
individual member’s agreement reality (Delaney, 1995a, p. 18). Obviously,
if any group or set of groups should ever gain the ability to influence
society’s agreement realities, then that group could shape reality to
maximize its interests at the expense of everyone else’s interests (Marchak,
1981).
Zapf (1996) uses the term conceptual framework to describe “a way of
thinking that allows the worker to assess everyday situations in the real
world consistent with the ideology” (p. 70). This, as well, describes how
metaphors work and serves to caution all social workers that, regardless of
their practice model of choice, this model is still driven by metaphors. The
issue then is not to eliminate all metaphors, but to understand and recognize
the influence metaphors have on how social workers approach their
practice. Obviously, if one is to work in the north, then a practice metaphor
which is consistent with northern world views is preferable to one that is not
only inconsistent with northern world views, but is compatible with
conceptual frameworks that have historically oppressed and exploited the
north. Ironically, the southern metaphor in Canada is undergoing a
challenge by a global metaphor, and the impact of this challenge has had
powerful consequences for the south (Banting, 1993; Wiseman, 1996).

Exploring the Southern Metaphor’s Notion of the North

Tobin and Walmsley (1992) describe how the south has idealized the
north and, how, in fact, this can contribute to misunderstandings about the
north and about northerners. To many southerners, Canada’s north is
romantically seen as a last frontier. Easy wealth, economic opportunity, and
22 Deconstructing the Southern Metaphor

the “golden Eldorado” provide a lure to those who hope to “make it.” The
harsh climate and isolation become the substance of legend, but are
considered only minor obstacles on the road to success. Populated by
loggers, miners, government workers, the R.C.M.P. and Indians—all of
whom are considered colourful characters—it has become the perceived
genesis of unconventionality and eccentricity in the Canadian imagination
(p. 1).
This idealized view of rural and northern environments is historically
rooted in Canadian thinking. In 1913, James Robertson idealized such non-
urban settings as power places for wholesome child development:
Let us consider the conservation of the resources of the land; not only
to grow big crops, to increase the exports and make the balances of
trade stand out with startling figures, but to have a better boy, to have a
more beautiful girl...Farming is gathering sunshine, forging wealth out
of chaos, gathering and humanizing into wealth for the service of the
race the great unused powers of nature (Robertson, p. 18-19).
It is interesting that this view of rural life was written in a University of
Toronto publication.
However, the key distinction ascribed to the southern metaphor of the
north is that it views the north as a frontier as opposed to the northern view
of the north as home (Zapf, 1991). This hinterland/heartland (or
hinterland/homeland) dichotomy is at the source of much misunderstanding
between the north and the south—and is the centre of a great deal of
controversy (Weller, 1993). “Hinterland” is derived from a German word
meaning “behind,” especially in the sense of sparse populations and inferior
civilizations. As such, hinterlands are often perceived as areas that are
socially, culturally, politically, and economically backwards. In contrast, the
metropolis is not only the “centre of activity;” it dominates the hinterland,
even determining the way the metropolis/hinterland relationship is
represented. Consequently, people in resource hinterlands suffer the effects
of the political and economic structures in which they are enmeshed (Dunk,
1991, p. 1). From this perspective, the north is viewed by the south as
simply being a large empty space from which the south can acquire vital
necessary resources, such as oil, lumber, fur, and minerals. The acquisition
of these vital resources is always framed as “resources that benefit all
Canadians, including northerners who benefit directly from employment
and indirectly from the spin offs” derived from economic development.
What this hinterland metaphor fails to recognize, however, is that “to
the people of the North, the region is a homeland to be honoured and cared
for” (Zapf, 1991, p. 47). Congruent with Berger’s (1988) notion of a
frontier versus homeland view of the north, Zapf (1991;1996) argues that
the north does not want to become a replica of the south, nor does it want to
possess the same services, economy, or values about people, animals, and
nature. While the south may view remote communities as “a target group to
be planned for and served by professional agents” (Zapf, 1991, p. 47),
northerners view these communities as home. This is not to suggest that
Arges, Abdulahad, & Delaney 23

northerners do not value effective medical and social services. It does

suggest that southern methodologies for operationalizing these services are
often a poor fit in northern areas. It also suggests that the serious pollution
created by mines and pulp mills and the serious over-cutting of northern
forests is of great concern to those northern residents who plan to live their
lives in the north. Nevertheless, it is not a great concern for those who
simply seek to profit from cheaply produced resources or those who only
plan to live in the north while “the going is good.” Neither of these groups,
nor the economic powers behind them, has demonstrated any genuine
concern for the northern context.
Further, as a global metaphor becomes operative in North America,
concern for the ecology is being undermined. Ecological problems
stemming from coastal oil drilling, enormous hydro projects, industrial
mercury pollution of rivers and lakes, oil spills and, over-fishing are
seemingly being downplayed to the objectives of balanced budgets in a
global economy. Whether in Labrador, northern Ontario, or in northern
British Columbia, the control exerted by outsiders, the impoverishment of
the indigenous population, the emphasis on rapid, profit-oriented
development, and the inability of local residents to control their destiny are
becoming readily evident (Coates & Morrison, 1992, p. 9).
The incongruence between such southern and northern metaphors as the
basis for oppression and exploitation is of major importance for northern
social work practitioners. Tobin and Walmsley (1992) focus the issue of
control as a prescription for southern dominion over northern people.
Northern life too often also means a lack of autonomy, the absence of
freedom, and the subjugation to external control. That control may be
professional, bureaucratic, or economic but it engenders a stultifying
relationship of economic and social dependence (p. 1). Zapf (1996) also
identifies other core differences between southern and northern metaphors.
Traditional world views in northern Canada have emphasized harmony
with the environment expressed through values that involve
stewardship, sharing, co-operation and co-existence, a perspective
which is in obvious conflict with the assumption of environmental
ownership and manipulation for profit evident in the dominant ideology
of the industrial south (p. 63).
Perhaps, as Zapf (1996) suggests, these major differences can co-exist,
provided there is sufficient geographical distance between those espousing
these metaphors. Conflict arises when one group’s ideology places demands
upon the physical space where the other operates. One perspective emerged
as dominant with the power to define the other as a nuisance regardless of
who was there first (p. 61). This domination by one group over all other
groups is the seed of oppression as well as the core of the southern metaphor
of the north.
24 Deconstructing the Southern Metaphor

The Theory of Oppression

As a profession, social work has historically valued the dignity and
potential for development that is inherent in each and every human being; in
fact, the Canadian Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics
specifically acknowledges social work’s belief in
the welfare and self-realization of all people; the development and
disciplined use of scientific and professional knowledge; the
development of resources and skills to meet individual, group, national
and international changing needs and aspirations; and the achievement
of social justice for all. The profession has a particular interest in the
needs and empowerment of people who are vulnerable, oppressed,
and/or living in poverty (CASW, 2005, p. 3).
Therefore, all Canadian social workers must oppose:
social arrangements and conditions that promote the potential
development of one set of people at the expense of another set of
people (elitism); that suggest that one set of people have greater human
potential than another set of people (gender, racial inequality) or that
deny that one or more set of people have human potential (oppression,
slavery) (Delaney, 2009, p. 18).
There is little question that the southern metaphor has sought
dominance over northerners, and, by doing so, has dismissed the relevance
and meaning of the northern metaphor of the north. Those espousing the
southern metaphor of the north, directly or indirectly, are creating a
condition that promotes elitism, racial inequality, and oppression. By
gaining privilege and power—that is, the advantages gained by one group
simply because of membership in that group—southern economic and
political forces are oppressive, even if this oppression is invisible to them
(Swigonski, 1996). Certainly, cultural wounding, which occurs when the
importance or value of one’s culture is denied or minimized, is one of the
many impacts that occurs with oppression and stigmatization (Rodwell &
Blankebaker, 1992)—and is a situation that is evident in northern
communities and among the original northern peoples (Delaney &
Brownlee, 1995a; Feehan & Hannis, 1993; Tobin & Walmsley, 1992; Zapf,
1996).
While oppression can occur in many forms, a constant in oppression is
the notion of one group creating a situation of dominance over another and,
in doing so, imposing the dominant group’s consciousness onto the
oppressed group (Freire, 1970, 1985). The easiest form of oppression to
understand is oppression gained from complete military victory over an
opponent, such as Spain’s victories in South America and Mexico and the
original occupation of Europe by the Germans in 1940. However, whenever
a power-over position is brought into any relationship, oppression begins.
The notion of social location is important in helping to understand the
oppression process. Social location refers to a person’s “affiliation or
categorization within webs of oppression and privilege…(these webs
Arges, Abdulahad, & Delaney 25

include) race, age gender, sexual orientation, class, religion and so forth”
(Baines, 2007, p. 24).
Oppression can be summarized as occurring in four major stages.
While these stages are a simplification and condensation of the oppression
process, they can serve to create a framework to understand how oppression
works and what its major goals are. Time is an essential component to the
oppressive process, in which the more time one is dominated, the greater the
impact of that domination. These four major stages of oppression are: the
initial occupation, the period of assimilation, the period of domination, and
the period of normality.
In the first stage, the period of occupation, the oppressors seek to gain
military and political control of the people conquered. However, those
conquered, while filled with bitter defeat and depressive bleakness, also
have anger, a common language, and a memory bank that includes a
recollection of freedom and authenticity prior to the military defeat. The
oppressor often acts with blunt and savage force by murdering and torturing
people for political or symbolic value. The goal of the oppressor’s action is
to maintain absolute control by creating fear and doubt in the minds of the
oppressed, who are only rewarded for public docility and compliance. As
Fromm (1967) notes, human freedom has historically been restricted by “the
use of force on the part of the rulers...and, more importantly, the threat of
starvation against all who are unwilling to accept the conditions of work and
social existence that were imposed on them” (p. 183). This stage is the
beginning of the oppressor’s effort to dehumanize the oppressed. In less
severe situations, it could be the beginning of a formal relationship
(marriage or common-law), or it could be entering a new school or having
an industrial base leave a community. Crisis theory would view this as
entering a vulnerable state.
The second stage, the period of assimilation, begins with the birth of
the first generation born under the existing occupation. This group of
children will grow in an environment where the oppressor is a living part of
all memory and a figure or symbol of power. However, these children still
have access to the oral history of their parents and elders who have a living
memory of freedom and within whom may still run the fires of anger and
dissent. In this stage, the oppressors begin to dismantle the religious,
cultural, and social institutions of the oppressed. They also take complete
control over the social and economic life of the oppressed including, work,
wages, leisure, and living arrangements. This process involves political
propaganda, i.e., the use of mass media and communications to manipulate
reality to conform to the consciousness of the oppressor. However, it also
involves sociological propaganda which essentially involves in having
oppressed peoples invest in the context created by the political propaganda.
In other words, sociological propaganda goal is to “make the individual
participate actively and to adapt him (sic) as much as possible to a specific
sociological context” (Ellul, 1970, p. 118). For example, the Nazi political
propaganda came to life once people actively participated in racist activities
26 Deconstructing the Southern Metaphor

towards Jewish people. In less severe terms, once a worker becomes

involved in an oppressive agency, the worker slowly becomes a “part of the
system itself” and eventually a proponent of the agency’s political
propaganda. As Canada and the world come to grip with the economic crisis
of 2008, there is still a reluctance to challenge the political propaganda that
allowed for the invasion of a country, unbridled big business practices and
the blaming of economic and social casualties as one o the sources for the
problems.
Obviously, the sociological context the oppressors wish to create is one
in which their oppression is normalized—a situation Fromm (1955) referred
to as “The Pathology of Normalcy” (p. 13-28), where “normal behaviour”
performed by the masses is considered “sane” simply because it is mass
behaviour. This, in effect, creates a new, oppressed social milieu in which,
as Bishop (2002) suggests, the oppressors reinforce the notions of
separation (rather than human connectedness), competition (rather than
cooperation), and hierarchy (rather than equal value). Strega (2007) refers to
this process as one where “social differences and structural inequalities exist
and interact with one another…individual participation in these inequalities
and injustices is a critical factor in maintaining them” (p.73).
The third stage, the period of domination, begins when the original,
conquered generation dies and when the oppressors manage to gain political
and military domination, including either the suppression of all major
religious, cultural and social institutions or the control of these institutions.
The next generation of children have only oral history with which to
remember a time when the oppressed were free, and this oral history begins
to incorporate the consciousness of the oppressor. Freedom seems further
away and not as attainable. The oppressors appear to the oppressed as being
more intelligent, cultured, educated and visibly different from them. For
instance, from an Aboriginal perspective “the effects of Western domination
include a profound diffusion of identity, self-hate or fear of one’s culture,
unconsciously vacillating between Western and native behaviors, and the
loss of cultural vision, which is critical to the formation of one’s life”
(Colorado, 1993, p. 71).
The fourth stage, the period of normalcy, begins when the oppressed
have internalized the oppressors’ definition of who the oppressed are (e.g.
animals, savages, masses, the poor, lesser human beings) and who the
oppressors are (e.g. magical leaders, fully human beings, powerful people,
gifted, hard-working, and honest people). In this existential duality, the
oppressed become who the oppressors tell them they are and where the
oppressors firmly establish that “to be is to be like the oppressor” (Freire,
1970, p. 30). The oppressors’ ability to love is restricted to a sadistic love
simply because, in their will to dominate, they destroy the creativity,
humanity and uniqueness of the oppressedClife itself. In this stage, the
oppressors have successfully transformed the oppressed’s reality to conform
to their vision of reality, and the oppressed have an attraction towards the
oppressors. While the oppressed desire freedom, they fear it and seek
Arges, Abdulahad, & Delaney 27

comfort in securing what little they have—or what Freire (1970) refers to as
the “circle of certainty.”
Obviously, military victory is not the only means to oppress people.
Gaining political advantage for a privileged group and taking control of the
major political, economic, and religious institutions is another—and the one
closest to the south-north exploitation. Fundamental to the oppression
process is the acquisition of power (Janeway, 1981), a power that allows the
oppressors to control the means to both political and sociological
propaganda and to use this means to instil compliance and powerlessness in
northerners. For example, the threat of closing mines and paper mills and,
thus, leaving people with the threat of starvation or social assistance is one
of the two major means identified by Fromm (1967) for controlling people
and creating compliance.
Freire (1970) suggests that oppressed peoples’ road to liberation is
severely challenged by three major obstacles. The first is the direct result of
existential dualism where oppressed people desire freedom and authenticity,
but also they fear it and resist change. The second stems from the
internalization of the oppressors’ consciousness where the only
understanding the oppressed have of being “human” is to be like the
oppressor who is viewed as “a real human being.” The third obstacle, and
perhaps the gravest, is that the oppressive reality absorbs those within it and
submerges human consciousness, which creates domesticating behaviour
and eliminates critical thinking and reflection. Jacobs (1994) suggests that
all psychopathology is the result of oppression—that is, of failures in the
human environment (environmental failure oppression). Accordingly,
because the oppressed are victims of oppression, blaming the individual
solely for personally experienced problems is counter-productive to social
work practice (Fook, 1993; Mullaly, 1993) and results in nothing more than
“Blaming the Victim” (Ryan, 1976). However, the oppressors are always
quick to point out the negative behaviours of the oppressed and to ridicule
them. For example, oppressors frequently ridicule clothes, houses, and
cleanliness of the poor; they believe that alcoholism and violence are typical
native behaviour; they judge the lifestyle of the poor; and, they express
disgust at the work habits and child care practices of the poor or minority
groups. These are all examples of sociological propaganda which only
serves to highlight the apparent virtues of the oppressors and the ostensible
vices of the oppressed.

Moving from Oppression to Empowerment

At the core of empowerment is the belief in human potential and
development, a belief grounded in the theory of human evolution. Teilhard
de Chardin (1955) uses the term noogenesis to refer to the evolution of
mental properties and humanization to “denote the process by which the
original proto-human stock became (and is still becoming) more truly
human, the process by which potential man [sic] realised more and more of
28 Deconstructing the Southern Metaphor

his possibilities” (Huxley, 1955, p. 13). Freire (1970) also believes that
human beings have an historical and an ontological vocation to become
more fully human—a process described as humanization (Delaney, 1995a:
Freire, 1970, 1994; Huxley, 1942, 1961, 1964). From this perspective, “the
brain alone is not responsible for mind, even though it is a necessary organ
for its manifestation” (Huxley, 1955, p. 17). All human beings, then, share
in a common characteristicCthey have a mind. This mind is capable of
growth and development, provided the necessary resources and nutrients are
available. As Fromm notes, “humanism is, in simplest terms, the belief in
the unity of the human race and man’s [sic] potential to perfect himself [sic]
by his own efforts” (Fromm, 1966, p. vii).
On the other hand, human minds can be broken and shaped to the will
of the powerful, but at a cost. That cost is the fear of authenticity and
freedom: the fear to be human, to be free, to be creative, to maximize one’s
potential. Oppression is, in fact, a murdering of the core substance of human
beings (even if invisible to the eye) and, if oppression is ever exposed for
what it is, then oppressors would be revealed as a violent and cruel group
whose only will is to possess and whose essential being is described only in
terms of what one has (“to be is to have”). From this perspective,
oppressors, when they first begin the oppression process, must create an
altered reality, a reality in which the oppressors are human beings and the
oppressed are less than human. The oppressors must maintain this altered
reality in order to sustain their own power. Therefore, the oppressors fear
truthCtruth about what world they have created and truth about who they,
the creators of this reality, really are. The oppressors, “who oppress, exploit,
and rape by virtue of their power, cannot find in this power the strength to
liberate either the oppressed or themselves” (Freire, 1970, p. 26).
In effect, the process of oppression is a process of dehumanization. It is
critical that any effort to liberate and empower an oppressed people begin
with helping the oppressed to see that their dehumanization is not their
history or their destiny, rather it is “the result of an unjust order that
engenders violence in the oppressors, which in turn dehumanizes the
oppressed” (Freire, 1970, p. 26). This is important in order to allow the
oppressed to gain freedom—not “freedom” in the image of the oppressors,
where the oppressed become oppressors, but in the image of their own
authenticity and humanity.
One of the signs of nonconformism on the part of the powerless is
rebellion against portraits created of them by the powerful (Freire, 1994, p.
153). This rebellion is referred to by Freire (1970) as praxis, where “critical
and liberating dialogue, which presupposes action, must be carried out with
the oppressed at whatever stage of their struggle for liberation” (Freire,
1970, p. 47). In this perspective, before the oppressed take an action, they
must be involved in a critical reflection of this action. On the other hand, all
critical reflection must also have action. However, critical reflection and
action cannot be separated without creating reaction to oppression rather
than response to oppression. While culturally appropriate methods for
Arges, Abdulahad, & Delaney 29

empowerment are derived from an analysis of historical and current social

problems, Makuau and Matsuoka (1995) and Evans (1992) suggest three
major processes to facilitate empowerment and social transformation: skill
building, self-efficacy, and consciousness raising. While these processes are
important, it is fundamental to the whole process that the oppressed be their
own liberators and, in fact, the liberators of the oppressors, who, because of
their inability to move beyond sadistic love, cannot liberate themselves.

Beyond the Simplistic: Exploring the Dimensions of

Oppression
There are a number of important dimensional aspects that influence
rural and northern social work practice. These dimensions include social
polices that govern the agency policies and service practices; economic
principles that continually gain dominance over social policies; theoretical
models that dominant professional knowledge and skills (competency); and
the personal belief system of the social worker. Two models in particular
struggle to gain dominance over the practice settings for social workers and
human service workers. The first model, the business model, is currently in
use in social work practice, while the second model, the ecological model or
the sustainability model, provides an alternative that reduces the potential
for exploitation and oppression.
A fundamental assumption that governs the business model suggests
that global policies should govern social work practice regardless of the
region or the community. As such, a core foundation of the business model
is based on the concept of profit as being the main drive governing all social
activities. As a consequence, companies and government agencies are
required to conform to the business model, resulting in power relationships
that are essentially power-over and vertical and can lead to oppressive
practices between employees and management, social workers and clients,
and between community and government agencies.
In contrast, the assumptions that govern the ecological model tend to be
more inclusive and respectful. These assumptions support the notion that
every region requires policies that fit the needs of each region (regional
policies) and that seek to maintain the resources of the region. The resulting
power relationships are orthogonal, allowing social workers to form multi-
level relationships that build on reciprocity and respect. Obviously, the
ecological model supports rural and northern practices that empower rather
than dominate; that include rather than exclude; that invite policy
discussions rather than impose imported policies; and that reflect
community respect rather than “storying” what communities need to look
like.
As mentioned previously, social workers often use metaphors “to
connote feeling and imagination as well as objective reality” (Barker, 1991.
p. 143), and all models of social work practice begin “with an ideological
perspective, a world view or metaphor that can be applied to the world to
30 Deconstructing the Southern Metaphor

give meaning to events to suggest desired or preferred circumstances”

(Zapf, 1996, p.70). These metaphors can be personal, professional and /or
global and are shaped by a social worker’s worldview. Current northern
social work practice has too often adopted the southern metaphor; its frame
of reference is the business model that stories the north as last frontier and
hinterland. On the other hand, and perhaps as a positive future direction for
northern social work, the ecological model perceives the north as home and
heartland and advocates for economic, environmental and community
sustainability.
Both of these models clearly influence rural and northern social work
practice at all system levels: the individual, community, region and society.
Rural and northern social workers who adopt the southern metaphor in their
practice inevitably create a practice that dehumanizes on the individual
level, excludes the voices of community and region, and minimizes the role
of society as a vehicle supporting physical and human growth and
sustainability. In short, the business model supports oppression and power-
over. On the other hand, northern and rural social workers who adopt the
ecological model in their practice, can potentially create reciprocal
relationships at the individual level, inclusion on the community and
regional levels and emphasis on bridging and linking social capital of the
community, thereby, promoting economic and ecological sustainability at
the societal level. This form of practice is based on the principles of
inclusion and power-with. Figure 1 outlines the factors that impact rural and
northern practices and delineates which lead to oppression and which lead
to inclusion. Clearly aspects of social work practice, of the business model,
and of the ecological model all affect each other in a dynamic way; two
side’s arrows between figure’s components represent unresting influences.
One side arrows represent a directive influence.

Understanding Social Capital

The concept of social capital is dealt with in some detail in Chapter 10.
In short, Canadian families and communities are not independent units, but
rather, in order to be successful, individuals require a caring and investing
family; families require caring and investing communities; communities
require caring and investing regions; regions require caring and investing
provinces; and, provinces require a caring and investing nation. In other
words, as Rice & Prince (2000) suggest social capital and social cohesion
are strongly correlated.
Three dimensions of social capital—bonding, bridging and linking—
are important features that support ecological social work practice. As
Blakely and Ivory, 2006 note, “linking social capital is norms of respect and
networks of trusting relationships between people who are interacting across
explicit, formal, or institutionalized power or authority gradients in society”
(p.1). In other words, the caring and investing aspect mentioned above
represents linking social capital, while the trust and co-operation required
Arges, Abdulahad, & Delaney 31

for caring and investing reflects bonding social capital. “Bridging social
capital comprises relations of respect and mutuality between people who are
dissimilar” (p.1).
In a similar manner, empowering social work practice supports the
bonding, bridging and linking aspects of social capital as the key factors in
achieving quality social justice and inclusion. Although relatively new to
social work practice, social capital has been embraced in other fields such as
public health. Kawachi et al., (2004) point out that there are two
fundamental views of social capital. One views social capital as an
individual attribute and the other views social capital “as a property of
collectives (for example, communities or entire societies)” (p.683). But
there is common ground between these views in that while people draw
resources through their connections with others, these connections are also
influenced by state-society relations. In other words, there is inseparable
relationship between the well-being of individuals, their community, and the
society at large. Certainly, this is a cornerstone for rural and northern social
work practice and a position clearly denied by policy-makers who base their
values primarily on the business model.

Figure 1: Dimensions Impacting Rural and Northern Practice

32 Deconstructing the Southern Metaphor

Another unique challenge facing northern and rural social work practice
is multiculturalism. While the debate over what multiculturalism is has been
extensive, the origin of multiculturalism has historical and philosophical
sources in that dominant cultures have usually attempted to assimilate their
“Others.” Multiculturalism and the demands of equality have thus
challenged the universality of social work theory and practice. Moreover,
the recent tendency to conceptualize different categories of social exclusion
has gained acceptance in social work theory and practice. Fixed identity
versus multiplicity of identity has become a subject of concern to
postmodern theorists in social work. A number of social work educators
have contributed to the ensuing debates. Dominelli (2007) suggests that
“essentializing fixed identities in professional practice” (p. 1), such as
framing the north as hinterland or its peoples as second-class, creates a
situation where social workers fail to live up to professional values and
ideals and fail to utilize the profession’s research, theoretical and practice
innovations and discoveries.
The modern social work profession has embraced the notion of a
diverse population and has developed theories and methods of practice to
meet the needs of people facing structural inequalities that are rooted in the
way that contemporary social relations have been organized to exclude
some people (and communities) while privileging others. Ungar (2004)
considers this paradigmatic shift as being synonymous with a postmodern
sensibility that has lead many practitioners to question the relevance of their
“expert outsider knowledge” when working in different areas of practice,
such as individual and family therapy or case management, community
work, rural and northern social work, social work with aboriginal peoples,
and corrections. Based on his personal experience in a number of social
work settings and a review of the clinical and community practice literature,
Ungar (2004) introduces five aspects of social work practice that reflect the
principles of an applied interpretation of postmodernism: positioning,
power, resource sharing, resistance and reflection. In a similar vein, the
suggestion of a new emancipatory project of welfare by Leonard (1997)
challenges social workers to hold their professional values and ethics. The
emancipatory project of welfare is based upon a moral critique of modernity
from within. In other words,
For human welfare to flourish, modernity must take a different path, a
form of already prefigured in a multiplicity of oppositional (and
identity) types of politics. It must be the basis for the kind of welfare
which no longer excludes the Other, nor includes it as a dominated part
of itself, but which respects diversity of the Other because it
understands that its knowledge as an agent of welfare is not absolute or
universal but based upon cultural discourses and practices which are
always open to critique. It is a form of welfare in which the subject is
seen not as potentially homogenous but as reflecting diversity and
constituted by resistance (p. 162).
In her perspective about inclusion and exclusion, Freiler considers the terms
Arges, Abdulahad, & Delaney 33

“social,” “economic,” and “political” as metaphors. Social inclusion gets at

the heart of what it means to be human: belonging, acceptance, and
recognition. Social exclusion, at the other extreme, is what is done to those
who are vulnerable, considered “disposable” or inferior—or even less than
human (e.g. through devaluation, incarceration, institutionalization, or
ghetto-ization). Social inclusion and exclusion, as both processes and
outcomes, are at opposite ends of a continuum. But, exclusion and inclusion
are also metaphors: social inclusion is a metaphor for how we are alike as
human beings, for what binds us together as persons, whereas social
exclusion is a metaphor for what divides us and the distances that separate
us, whether they be economic, social, or physical (cited in Clutterbuck &
Novick, 2003).
Certainly, those advocating for the empowerment of rural and northern
communities and their people can identify with the work of H. Steinert and
A. Pilgram (2003) who suggest that a new form of “social exclusion
knowledge” must be developed. Based on their review of European social
security, they suggest that welfare providers need to develop an
infrastructure that provides coping strategies for those in danger of being
excluded. Their analysis suggests that every exclusion is at the same time
inclusion in another part of the system, making it quite similar to the
concept of social location discussed earlier in the chapter. In this regard,
people are not passive objects in the system processes; rather, “they take
part in social life, they play into the hands of different aspects of
dominations and they defend against others. They handle norms and
resources in ways suited to their interests and skills” (p.35).

Strategies for Northern Empowerment

Perhaps the first step that must be taken is the acknowledgement that
oppression and exploitation have occurred in the north. This
acknowledgement must also include an understanding that the high rate of
suicide, alcoholism, family disputes, and violence are outcomes of
oppression and not reflections on the nature of northerners. In fact, because
of mass media coverage of these “newsworthy” events, positive efforts at
healing personal (Meawasige, 1995), community (Cassidy, 1991; Sinclair,
1991; Wharf, 1991; Zapf, 1991), and cultural (Colorado, 1993; Ferguson &
Trainer, 1995; Trainer, 1995) wounds are often overlooked.
With this agreement that oppression has occurred must come the further
agreement that it is not the south’s responsibility—nor is it even within their
ability—to liberate the north. Rather, it is the north’s responsibility to
liberate itself by first acknowledging the northern metaphor and its
liberating philosophy. This philosophy essentially supports a polycentric
perspective (McPherson & Rabb, 1994) which suggests that “radically
different world views not only reveal something about culture and language,
but about reality itself and the ways different people have come to know it”
(Delaney, 2009, p. 10). If rural and northern communities are excluded, then
34 Deconstructing the Southern Metaphor

it is incumbent on the communities themselves to discover strategies that

promote inclusion and that challenge the dominant metaphors that drive
“southern-based” social and public policies. While this perspective provides
a framework of respect for different world views, it does not diminish the
northern social worker’s responsibility to promote advocacy and social
action activities that have, as their objective, the capacity to oppose
economic and social oppression (Hardina, 1995). One valued method of
anti-oppressive practice is the use of critical consciousness-raising, which
attempts to situate personal experience as part of larger (macro) cultural,
religious, political, economic and social structures (Baines, 2007). However,
social workers must proceed with caution in such an advocate role
(Neysmith, et al., 2005).
Oppression is the imposition of one definition of reality over all other
definitions of reality resulting in the domination of the oppressed’s
consciousness by oppressors. This process essentially dehumanizes the
oppressed and glorifies the oppressor. Even social workers who have a rigid
ideological stance run the risk of being oppressors, since their own ideology
cannot sustain itself in the presence of other belief systems, even if the
ideology they espouse is one of liberation. Having a vision or belief system
is a positive and valued aspect of being human, provided the vision is not
prescriptive and does not seek domination over other visions or belief
systems. This applies to any social work ideology or metaphor, such as
Marxism, liberalism, structuralism, existentialism, or ecology. Social
workers are often eager to fight for their metaphor rather than simply accept
that each metaphor reflects some aspect of truth and no single metaphor has
all truth. The ultimate purpose must be liberation of the oppressed by the
oppressed, not for the social worker to be liberator. Models of social work
practice that represent the social worker as an expert are counter-productive
within northern settings (Brownlee, 1992). Rather, models such as narrative
therapy provide a non-expert model of therapy which “fosters respect for
the client and….accords primary importance to the client and their story
instead of the expertise of the therapist” (Ginter & Brownlee, 1995). Borg,
Brownlee and Delaney (1975) also suggest a postmodern approach to
northern practice and to practice with Aboriginal People. Their postmodern
approach “attempts to eliminate all barriers to human authenticity, whether
those barriers be structural (social class, social power, oppression) or
personal (fears, low self-esteem, powerlessness)” (p. 125). Further, Delaney
(1995b) argues that rather than following a specific practice methodology,
northern social work should focus on knowledge, performance, and
consequence competencies that are required to perform effective northern
social work practice. This eclectic approach allows social workers to
specifically adapt their practice to the northern context within the
framework of the northern metaphor, while still maintaining excellence in
practice.
Most northern social workers essentially seek to become allies with
people who have suffered oppression and exploitation. However, social
Arges, Abdulahad, & Delaney 35

workers are in both roles of privilege and roles of power-over people, as

well as being in roles where people have power-over them. As Bishop
(1994) suggests, “the majority of us, however, belong somewhere in
between; we are oppressors in some parts of our identity, and oppressed in
others” (p. 61). Learning to work in a power-with relationship requires
“openness, trust, vulnerability, creativity, risk-taking, emotional expression,
honesty, giving before receiving” (p. 46). Too frequently, for southern
social workers who move to the north, there is soon a discovery that “the
ideology and values of the profession are incompatible with the ideology
and values in northern communities” (Zapf, 1996, p. 69-70), often resulting
in high turnover. One major problem encountered by such southern social
workers is that their socialization into the southern metaphor influences
their intuitiveness. Therefore, what they view as a given reality—without
the need to reason about it—is often framed by southern value systems and
southern ideals. When their southern intuition serves them poorly in
northern environments, their practice becomes counter-intuitive, requiring
them to carefully think through events and to resist spontaneous intuitive
impulses.
Most social workers learn to deal with intuitive and counter-intuitive
response in communication skills training. There they learn that some
natural helping intuitive responses, such as taking the side of a friend in
trouble or wanting to be liked, are, in fact, counter-productive to the helping
process and that effective helping skills can be counter-intuitive to natural
helping behaviour. Because of this, Zapf (1991) believes that even a
perspective as inclusive as the ecological perspective is influenced by social
work’s penetration by the southern metaphor and, unless freed from this
penetration, is of limited use in the north.

Conclusion

Returning autonomy and control to northern communities with the

social worker as an ally is a vital step in the liberation process (Schmidt,
2000, Cassidy, 1991; Wharf, 1991; Zapf, 1991) and a step requiring social
workers to guide rather than to lead. Communities in Canada’s north are
not the same; in fact, their very differences are one of the distinguishing
features of the northern context (Delaney, 1995b)as, often separated by vast
differences, northern communities develop unique features that become a
vital part of the community’s history and the community’s story. These
different histories and stories also describe what has happened to these
communities and what has happened to the people who live in them. Some
of the stories tell how oppression and exploitation left a community of
people feeling powerless, hopeless, and culture-less. Other histories and
stories tell of how people fought adversity and intervention and maintained
community health. Still other histories and stories tell of communities
which succumbed to greed and which were left with environmental
problems and broken spirits. And other histories and stories are silently
36 Deconstructing the Southern Metaphor

spoken in the winds that drift through the abandoned towns, houses, and
huts that dot the northern landscape.
Northern social workers must listen to these stories carefully in order to
understand the northern metaphor and in order to use this metaphor as a
vital component of social work practice. However, at the core of northern
social work practice must lie the commitment to the vision that all human
beings are equal and all human beings share in the ontological calling to
become more fully human. Northern social workers must identify and work
to remove all obstacles to this human calling to become more fully human,
including those obstacles that lie inside the social worker. Northern social
workers must, therefore, advocate for the north despite the social changes
that have brought about nations of people who have become desensitized to
human suffering and who no longer value action against oppression (Ross,
1993). The first step may well be “the acknowledgement of membership in
the same larger community and a recognition that the competing ideologies
are fundamentally of equal value since each has proven useful in its own
setting and none can be proven to be true or correct” (Zapf, 1996, p. 72).
Regardless of the next step, the role of the northern social workers must
be one of empowerment, mutuality, and salient-need fulfilment within the
framework of collaborative partnerships (Delaney, 1995b), and this role
must be responsive to and respectful of the northern metaphor.

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 CHAPTER 3

SPLITTING, LUMPING, AND NORTHERN

SOCIAL WORK:
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED?

MICHAEL KIM ZAPF

Splitting and lumping. Splitting and lumping. Academic pursuits can be
described as continual cycles of splitting and lumping. We begin with a
basic concept or foundation assumption. Then, we use our analytic tools to
chip away at this core, to split off more and more components for further
analysis. At some point, when we have split off enough pieces, we are able
to perceive similarities or patterns in the various segments. These basic
truths we can then lump together for a new foundation, a new perspective, a
new paradigm. Following this synthesis, we begin splitting again. And so
on. Splitting and lumping. Splitting and lumping.

Splitting, Lumping, and Voice

This process has been described in the past using more academic
terminology. Arguing for contextual knowledge as a base for social work
practice, Rein and White (1981) offered a metaphor of a craftsperson using
the left hand, or “power grip,” to hold a mass of selected items or
experiences while the right hand, or “precision grip,” manipulated tools to
make adjustments or alterations (p. 3). I see the left hand grasping chunks of
raw material as lumping; the right hand chipping away is clearly splitting.
Eventually, it becomes necessary to grab a new handful of raw material and
continue the process. In his influential work on scientific revolutions, Kuhn
(1970) presented the lumping process as a “paradigm shift” or the necessary
adoption of a new world view when current research efforts (splitting)
identify so many “recognized anomalies” that the current model can no
longer deal with the “cumulative acquisition of novelty” (p. 96-97). The
sophisticated language used by these authors may appear more appropriate
for academic discourse, but I much prefer the simple imagery of the phrase
“splitting and lumping” which resonates well with aspects of the northern
context and lifestyle.
I am not alone in my preference for “splitting and lumping” as a
process model. The approach has been used in plant genetics for creating
genebanks of plant samples for storage and conservation (van Hintum,
Hamilton, Engels, & van Trevren, 2002) and in human genetic research on
mental retardation and birth defects (Stevenson, 2000). Acknowledging that
“disease recognition through splitting and lumping has improved prevention

43
44 Splitting, Lumping, and Northern Social Work

and prognostication,” Spranger (2001) concludes that “it is the basic

requirement for future therapeutic attempts on a pathogenetic or molecular
level” (p. 117). Splitting and lumping has also been used as a method in
anthropology to examine variability in primate faces (Ackerman, 1998). In
the field of petroleum engineering, too, petroleum fractions and
characteristics of hydrocarbons have been studied using splitting and
lumping (Department of Petroleum Engineering, 2006). Even the Bank for
International Settlements has employed “splitting and lumping various
forms of government debt” (p. 55) to examine policy choices at the level of
international banking (McCauley & Remolona, 2000). These examples
suggest that the approach has achieved recognition as a legitimate and
useful tool in diverse disciplines.
Categorizations arise from splitting. We take a concept or notion and
split off pieces according to some criteria. I argue that this is what we have
done for three decades in social work by first splitting off rural social work
and then northern practice from the mainstream. In order to affirm our
identity as northern social workers and further explore the realities of our
northern context, we continued splitting. This has been a valuable exercise
as we have learned much about contextual practice, regionalism, and worker
stresses associated with professional isolation and community
embeddedness. However, it may be time now for the pendulum to swing
back—a time for lumping. What have we learned? Are there simple
fundamental patterns or themes apparent from all our splitting work that
could give us direction for re-conceptualizing northern practice?
In this chapter, I examine our history of splitting, and then I suggest
potential areas for lumping—an exercise that I see as particularly
appropriate for this concluding volume in the Northern Social Work Series
from the Lakehead University Centre for Northern Studies. Previous books
in the series have collected conceptual arguments and practice examples to
show how northern social work is different from mainstream southern urban
practice. The end of the series is a good time to reflect on the products of
our splitting activities to see what we have learned and what we might have
to bring back to the mainstream profession.
I have deliberately chosen to write this chapter in the first person voice
as the process of selection and reflection is inherently subjective. What
follows are the patterns I see in our northern practice knowledge base and
the issues I encounter as I attempt to begin lumping. Some thirty years ago,
I began my direct practice experience as a young social worker in the
Yukon Territory. I have now spent two decades in academia, researching,
reflecting, and writing about how the northern context called for a different
sort of practice. Some of those reflections appeared in earlier volumes in
this series as we all tried to collect research results, share practice anecdotes,
and develop theoretical frameworks to explain the uniqueness of northern
social work. At this stage in my career, however, I am becoming more
aware of profound connections with colleagues in environmental design,
geography, Native studies, and other disciplines who are equally grappling
Zapf 45

with issues arising from the interactions of people and environments.

Therefore, I am ready to begin lumping, to stop splitting off experiences for
analysis of our differences, and to start seeking common ground. The first
step, however, is to look at what has been accomplished over three decades
of splitting.

The 1970s: Splitting Off Rural Practice

I can find no significant reference to rural or northern practice in the
social work literature from the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. It appears the
young profession through that period was seeking coherence and unity
through consolidation of common values and practice foundations
(lumping). Urban practice with a clinical focus seems to have been the
dominant interest. Then, in 1969, Leon Ginsberg addressed the American
Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) with a condemnation of the
ongoing neglect of rural communities as a subject for education and
research in social work. This speech opened the door for a decade of active
splitting in the 1970s as a strong case was made for distinguishing rural
social work from the mainstream urban direction of the profession. This
decade is often viewed as a golden era for rural social work in North
America with such achievements as the first entry on rural practice
appearing in the Encyclopedia of Social Work (Ginsberg, 1971); the
establishment of a CSWE Task Force on Rural Practice in the United States;
the initiation of an annual Institute on Social Work in Rural Areas; the
formation of both the American Rural Social Work Caucus and the
Canadian Rural Social Work Forum; and the publication of the first issues
of the Journal of Human Services in the Rural Environment.
The new knowledge base contained many efforts to explore rurality and
define rural areas. Frantic splitting activity occurred as the rural context was
further divided into subcategories (farmland, rural non-farm, villages,
boomtowns, metro-transitional communities, non-metropolitan regions,
recreation areas, etc.), with arbitrary population thresholds for defining rural
areas ranging from 1,500 – 50,000 (Zapf, 2001). Through beginning
research efforts and anecdotal accounts, rural social work was attempting to
define itself as a distinct specialization that could be clearly distinguished
from mainstream urban practice. Primarily American in origin, this
developing rural social work literature seemed to assume a goal of
modification or adaptation of urban programs and services for non-urban
populations. Geographic barriers and community resistance were largely
viewed as obstacles to be overcome in providing rural peoples with access
to the same level of service available in the city.

The 1980s: Splitting Off Northern Social Work

In the 1980s, another splitting process took place. Dissatisfied with
application of the new rural social work to isolated northern regions, a
46 Splitting, Lumping, and Northern Social Work

number of Canadian authors began to distinguish northern practice as a

distinct specialization. Collier (1984) was the first to distinguish in writing
between rural and remote practice in the Canadian context with others
following soon after (Wharf, 1985; Zapf, 1985; McKay, 1987; Nelson,
McPherson, & Kelly, 1987). Building on the work of Canadian geographers
who were defining northern regions as distinct from southern rural
agricultural areas, these authors observed that social workers in isolated
northern regions were reporting stresses and conflicts characteristic of their
remote settings but generally unrecognized in southern practice and social
work education. These concerns included such things as professional
isolation, role conflicts between employer and community expectations, and
complex issues related to social embeddedness, multiple roles, and high
visibility.
Although the splitting of northern practice from rural social work
during the 1980s was not evident in the United States, the process was not
limited to Canadian social work. The European Centre for Social Welfare
Training and Research proposed a new category of “remote or isolated rural
areas” to recognize their difference from rural agricultural regions within
the influence of urban centres (Maclouf & Lion, 1984, p. 8). Commonalities
of practice issues soon led Lindholm (1988) to call for a search for “a
separate identity for Nordic social work and its training” (p. 11). Ribes
(1985) also recognized northern Scandinavia as an isolated region with
similarities to northern Canada. As well, Rosenman (1980) and Cheers
(1985) made the case in Australia for context-based models of practice to
recognize local history, politics, and the environment in isolated remote
regions. Several of these international authors in the 1980s used the term
“remote practice” rather than “northern practice” because the isolation
factor, rather than the compass direction, was the defining characteristic of
the regions under study. After all, not all hinterland areas are located in the
northern regions of their countries.
Throughout much of this initial splitting work in Canada and elsewhere
during the 1980s, there were suggestions of a different world view or
metaphor in northern and remote regions, a different relationship between
people and the natural environment, but this work was left largely
undeveloped. Much of the lumping work before us today derives from the
implications of this relationship.

The 1990s: Further Splitting Within Northern Practice

Once the groundwork had been laid in the 1980s for a conceptualization
of northern social work practice, further splitting characterized the 1990’s as
various aspects and components of northern practice were split off as units
for further examination and reflection. For instance, an entire special issue
of The Northern Review was devoted to northern social work practice and
education (Wharf, 1991). Compilations of northern readings were also
assembled from northern Manitoba (Tobin & Walmsley, 1992) and northern
Zapf 47

Alberta (Feehan & Hannis, 1993). And, Lakehead University’s Centre for
Northern Studies began publishing this Northern Social Work Series with
volumes on northern practice (Delaney & Brownlee, 1995), northern issues
(Delaney, Brownlee, & Zapf, 1996), northern strategies (Brownlee,
Delaney, & Graham, 1997), northern community work (Delaney, Brownlee,
& Sellick, 1999), and northern organizations (Brownlee, Sellick, &
Delaney, 2001).
By the end of the 1990s, then, there existed a robust body of knowledge
identifying and exploring various features and aspects of northern social
work practice. Splitting had resulted in the identification of a diverse range
of regional contexts within the north (such as outport fishing villages, Inuit
settlements, mining communities, logging towns, reserves, government
centres), each with its own unique features of geography, climate, history,
culture, and economic development. Many fields of practice had been
examined for necessary modifications in the northern context (e.g. family
violence, substance abuse, corrections, HIV/AIDS, child welfare). Relevant
research practices for northern regions had also been discussed. As wll,
northern practice had been viewed in light of larger social movements such
as decolonization and empowerment. Northern agency governance issues
had been identified (including southern bureaucratic assumptions, hinterland
relationships, and community/regional boards). Articles on staffing issues
had considered Indigenous workers and natural helping systems in the
north. Discussions of appropriate northern practice models had even
considered such approaches as generalist practice, interdisciplinary work,
context-sensitive practice, community partnerships, and traditional healing
practices.

The 2000s: Beginning to Lump

So, where do we find ourselves after three decades of serious splitting?

We carved off rural practice from mainstream social work. Then, we split
off northern practice from rural social work. Finally, we continued to divide
northern practice into various component locations and processes for closer
examination and better understanding. However, while it may have been a
useful and productive activity to define our differences from mainstream
and rural practice, this work has not yet led us to any comprehensive model
of northern social work. Returning to the language of the introduction, I
wonder if it is time now to grab a new handful of raw material with our
power grip, to stop accumulating anomalies, and to start searching for a new
paradigm. Perhaps splitting has run its course, and it is now time for
lumping. Are there any fundamental patterns or relationships that we can
find in the products of our splitting to help us take the next step? Although
the decade is not yet complete, I see considerable evidence in the 2000s so
far to suggest that the task of lumping has begun. Many authors are looking
for the underlying themes, the essence of northern practice, and I find some
intriguing ideas in their work.
48 Splitting, Lumping, and Northern Social Work

In his keynote address to an international conference on rural human

services, Cheers (2004) surveyed the diversity of persons, regions, and
programs represented and suggested this commonality:
I, and you, bring to the conversation my, and your, particular place ...
Things happen in places ... I make the space I live in my place by
giving it meaning as I go about my daily living ... If my place is unique,
then so , too, is my practice. I invent it as I go along. I don’t do my
practice – I make it in places (p. 9).
A new perspective begins to arise from the centrality of this notion of
“place.” Social work is not something created elsewhere and then done or
imposed on northern areas. It is created or made in each place. Nelson and
McPherson (2004) similarly put forward a model of Contextual Fluidity that
returns social work to “its origins of person inseparable from place” (p.
206). Thus, when Schmidt and Klein (2004) summarized the characteristics
of northern social work practice, they also concluded that it is “heavily
influenced by the geography of place” (p. 242). Schmidt (2005) went on to
state this even more strongly with his assertion that northern social work is a
form of practice that “has the environment at its core” (p. 18). Place is
rooted in the physical environment, and it is central to northern practice.
I find this new approach to the physical environment in much of the
literature from the 2000s so far. Collier (2006) concludes the third edition of
his book on rural and remote practice with a call to transform our “rational-
intentional” helping processes “into better ones which can serve humankind
with equality and justice, while at the same time not damaging the
foundation of resources upon which we all perch” (p. 102). Here is a
balance between conventional social work processes and respect for the
natural environment. There is also a suggestion here that rationality may not
be sufficient for this proposed new understanding. I don’t interpret Collier’s
suggestion to mean that social work must become irrational; instead, I see
the direction as moving beyond conventional rational approaches if we are
to come to a new understanding of the relationship between people and the
natural world.
Some have gone past this notion of doing no environmental damage to
advocate for an active sense of responsibility, using language that attempts
to push past rationality to incorporate at least a sense of stewardship if not
an outright spiritual connection. Coates (2003), for instance, sees an
opportunity now for social work “to establish itself as a pillar in the
foundation of a new society in which humans rejoin the rest of nature in
supporting the unfolding of creation” (p. 159). The entry on “Remote
Practice” in the new Encyclopedia of Canadian Social Work makes similar
reference to “an underlying worldview that emphasizes stewardship rather
than exploitation” (Zapf, 2005, p. 322). From an enlightened policy
perspective, concern has been expressed that current social policies do not
yet reflect the necessary integration of social and environmental justice
(Graham, Swift, & Delaney, 2003). The proposed next step is also one of
lumping as we move towards “a new world view that equates spiritual
Zapf 49

growth and self-realization with stewardship of the earth” (p. 90). In a plea
to recognize the geographic base of Canadian social work, I have similarly
argued for understanding the person and the environment as one entity so
that “the connections between them become more than social interaction or
landscape modification; they are profound expressions of the same whole
and assume a dimension of energy or spirit” (Zapf, 2005a, p. 70).
I also find some encouraging evidence that the mainstream profession
in the 2000s is beginning to explore this centrality of the physical
environment. The recent seventh edition of a classic generalist practice text
(Compton, Galaway, & Cournoyer, 2005) asserts that “we cannot view the
environment as something separate from and distinctly outside ourselves ....
the environment is part of us and we are part of it” (p. 52). As well, the new
conclusion to the eighth edition of another mainstream social work textbook
warns that “whatever happens to the earth will surely affect everyone” and
we are all challenged to “work for the improvement of human living
conditions” (Zastrow, 2004, p. 599). The National Association of Social
Workers (2000) issued a policy statement declaring that “protecting people
and the natural environment through sustainable development is arguably
the fullest realization of the person-in-environment perspective” (p. 105).
It would appear our lumping work begins with articulation of a new
relationship between people and environments. We catch glimpses of the
necessary direction with words like stewardship, energies, sustainability,
and spirit. Yet, I get bogged down at this point. Lumping is much harder
than splitting. Why is that? I suspect there may be issues with language that
must be considered.

English, Aboriginal Languages, and Lumping

Over the years, my Aboriginal colleagues have often told me that

English is a fine language for naming and ranking people, things, and
events. (This is all splitting work.) But, apparently English is not as useful
for expressing relationships, holism, and spiritual connections. Many times,
Aboriginal teachers and colleagues have attempted to translate an
Aboriginal concept into English for me but end up frustrated and saying
something like, “This is the best I can do in English. The whole idea isn’t
there but there just aren’t the words for it.”
I am not Aboriginal, and I am limited to the English language. I lack
the experience or the authority to attempt to explain spirituality or language
from an Aboriginal worldview. That is not my place. Yet, some Aboriginal
social work authors have risked sharing key concepts from their own
languages and cultures in English so that the rest of us might begin to
understand the concepts and appreciate the limitations of our English
language. I want to look at some of these concepts in an effort to better
understand why my English language may be limiting my efforts at
lumping.
50 Splitting, Lumping, and Northern Social Work

From her Oneida heritage, Colorado (1991) introduced us to the term

Gii Lai which translates into English as “the still, quiet place” (p. 21). She
elaborated this term to me as that calm pool just over the lip at the top of a
waterfall where the salmon can rest and recharge in the oxygen and nutrient
rich deep water before continuing their journey upstream. Healing work
involves guiding people to that still, quiet place and working there with “the
energies of the earth” (p. 21).
Bastien (2004) offers the Blackfoot term Ao’tsisstapitakyo’p when she
describes how knowledge is acquired through relationships with all things
natural and spiritual, a coming to understanding profoundly connected with
the natural world (p. 2). She also speaks of Ihtsipaitapiiyo’pa which is “the
great mystery that is in everything in the universe” and “lives in each and
every form of creation” (p. 77). Battiste and Henderson (2000) suggest
similar meanings for the Algonquian term mntu, the Iroquois word orenda,
and the Lakota term nigila, which they translate roughly into English as
“that which dwells in everything” (p. 76) although they suggest that a fuller
approximation would include a combination of the English words “dignity,”
“power,” and “force” (p. 78).
From his Oglala Sioux perspective, McGaa (1990) explains how
Mother Earth is at the core of Aboriginal healing processes, healing for the
people and for the natural environment. He considers the English term
“ecology” to be much more limited than the notion of Mother Earth who
demands respect and protection in return for survival. Using a similar
argument, Battiste and Henderson (2000) show how the English term
“nature” falls short of the Mi’kmaq expression kisu’lk mlkikno’tim which
translates more as “creation place” (p. 77). In these contexts, the natural
world is thus understood as constantly transforming, a realm that must be
respected and experienced through connections and relationships rather than
detached study.
For instance, Timpson and Semple (1997) discuss a suicide prevention
initiative of the Shibogama First Nations Health Authority in northwestern
Ontario. The program was named by a local elder as Payahtakenemowin.
This term is said to mean “peace of mind” in English (p. 98), but the notion
must be broader than the conventional English language sense of internal
contentment since components of the plan involve community relationships,
family care, and wilderness experiences. Baskin (2005) similarly describes
the naming of a family violence program using the Ojibway term Mino-Yaa-
Daa. Commonly translated into English simply as “healing together,” the
term in its fullest sense includes broad and profound Aboriginal notions of
healing through relationships which involve “the gifts of the earth” and
“teaching respect for the self, family, community, and the earth” (p. 172-
173).
Hart (2002) uses the Cree term Mino-pimatisiwin which translates into
English as “the good life” (p. 44). I see a danger here of assumptions
lingering from our common English usage of the phrase “the good life” to
refer to an individual who has achieved an existence of comfort and
Zapf 51

abundant personal material goods. Hart’s concept of Mino-pimatisiwin,

however, appears to involve sharing, spirituality, connectedness, and respect
for all things because we all came from the same Mother Earth (p. 46). In
such a framework, reconnection with the land “helps people to see life in a
broader sense that incorporates both the physical and spiritual realms” (p.
49) and is essential for the journey towards Mino-pimatisiwin.
All of these Aboriginal terms from the literature are calling me towards
an appreciation of the mystery and energies present everywhere in an ever-
changing natural environment. This direction appears consistent with the
notions of stewardship and respect for the environment that are emerging in
the northern practice literature, but there is an added dimension of spiritual
connection with Mother Earth. Why is it so difficult to include this
dimension in our English language approach to understanding the
relationship between people and environment?

Lumping and Prepositions

In most of the mainstream social work literature, we have abandoned

the natural environment completely to focus only on people and their social
environments (Zapf, 1999), yet there have been occasional calls to challenge
this conventional notion of “person in environment”. One of the clearest
was Canda’s (1998) demand for social work to revisit the person-in-
environment concept “in a dramatic way” because the person is “not
separable” from the natural environment (p. 103). But, how have we in
social work responded to such calls? With our English language-based
profession and our academic preference for splitting, we have tended to
respond to the challenge by trying to learn still more about the “person” or
the “environment.” We are attracted to the nouns as our focus, continuing to
split them into further components and subcategories. Through this splitting
process, we miss the sense of connection, or relationship, conveyed by the
simple preposition “in.”
My first awareness of the power of these relational prepositions came
when the northern geographer Hamelin (1984) was reporting on a national
seminar on public administration in northern Canada. He distinguished
between managers “being in the North” and managers “being of the North”
(p. 180). Rather than presenting new categories of managers or more refined
scales of nordicity (splitting work), Hamelin totally rearranged the
relationship between manager and northern community by simply changing
the preposition.
This journey through language perspectives now brings me back to the
primary roadblock in lumping for northern social work. As long as I accept
“person in environment” as the foundation of my northern practice, I am
forced to separate the person from the natural environment and consider
them as two distinct entities. Of course they are interacting, but they are still
separate and clearly unequal. “Person” is the subject and “in environment”
is the modifier. Human activity is primary with the environment as merely
52 Splitting, Lumping, and Northern Social Work

the setting or backdrop. Yet, this perspective is not consistent with the North
as I have experienced it, or with the stewardship approach advanced in the
recent northern social work literature.
What alternatives might there be for challenging “in” as the relational
preposition upon which we have built our practice? Rejecting any division
between people and the non-human world, the deep ecologists argue that
human identity is rooted in an ecological consciousness, a “moving away
from a view of person-in-environment to one of self as part of a ‘relational
total-field’” (Besthorn, 2001, p. 31). It seems to me that this notion of
“relational total-field” is an attempt in academic English to approximate the
Aboriginal notions of Ihtsipaitapiiyo’pa (Bastien, 2004) or mntu (Battiste &
Henderson, 2000) discussed earlier—the great mystery that dwells in
everything. In addition to employing complex nouns, Besthorn (2001) also
addressed the simple matter of the relational prepositions when he went on
to explain that “rather than experiencing ourselves as separate from our
environment and existing ‘in’ it, we begin to cultivate the insight that we are
‘with’ our environment” (p. 31).
Is this our answer? Clearly, living “with” our environment is a
profoundly different perspective than living in our environment. Interaction
“with” another entity implies recognition of the identity and autonomy of
the other. The natural environment ceases to be a lifeless backdrop but
emerges as a living partner and collaborator. The relationship can be read
from either direction—[people “with” environment] or [environment “with”
people]. I am encouraged that this perspective moves the lumping process
along, but I am concerned that there is still a fundamental flaw. “People
‘with’ environment” may be more inclusive, egalitarian, and respectful of
the environment than “people ‘in’ environment,” but it still assumes two
separate and distinct entities. This concept falls far short of the spiritual
connections between people and Mother Earth expressed earlier by the
Aboriginal authors.
Aboriginal clearly identity appears to be tied directly to the land. When
many generations have inhabited a particular region, the place itself
becomes a fundamental component of the culture and identity of the people
(Zapf, 2005b). This interconnection of self and location might better be
captured with the preposition “as” – “people ‘as’ place,” inseparable, two
expressions of the same creation.

Concluding Thoughts

Person “in” environment? Person “of” environment? Person “with”

environment? Person as environment? I find this relational lumping work to
be much more difficult than the splitting activities. As a northern social
worker and academic, I am still uncomfortable with relational terms,
especially when they draw me into the realm of nature, mystery, energies,
and spiritual connections. This is not how my intentional rational mind has
been trained to work. Give me a good noun with time for deconstruction,
Zapf 53

and I will be comfortable as an academic. But, I think we are past that stage
now and are ready to move forward. The essence of northern practice may
be found in the relationship between people and the natural environment,
but with a sense of mutuality, wholeness, and creative energy that I cannot
yet express very well.
It is humbling to think that twenty years of scholarship on northern
social work may have brought me to this pinnacle of merely substituting one
preposition for another. Yet, I believe we are on the verge of something
very important here. The future and promise of northern social work will
emerge from the difficult lumping endeavor that we have initiated. I suspect
there will be very simple yet profound understandings to come out of our
work reflecting on the relationships between ourselves and our living
partner, the natural environment. I also suspect that some of these
understandings will be revealed first and most clearly in our northern
regions with their sparse population, the immediate and awe-inspiring
environmental presence, and the voices of the Aboriginal inhabitants. I am
proud of what my generation of northern practitioners and scholars has done
with all our splitting work. At the same time, I am envious of the next
generation who will build on this foundation to take on the exciting tasks of
lumping, of coming to know, of developing new paradigms for northern
practice and the profession as a whole.

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 CHAPTER 4

CONTEXTUAL PATTERNING AND

METAPHORS: ISSUES FOR
NORTHERN PRACTITIONERS

MARGARET MCKEE AND ROGER DELANEY

Northern social workers work in an environmental context that is

dynamic and organic, that is, an environment experiencing constant change
and development, even if, in appearance, the context looks to be static and
rigid. This is true not only for northern environments but for all
environments in which social workers work. The difference is that working
with the environment is an essential element in northern practice (Delaney,
1995; Zapf, 1991) and working with the environment means that one
understands and appreciates the unique nature of each environmental
context and never assumes that what is true in one context applies to
another.
Contextual patterns refer to a composite of traits and features that are
common to an environmental context and reflect a specific interpretation of
history, traditions, language, mores, values, spirituality, customs,
expectations, and other related features that are commonly held (objectively
and subjectively) by those living in this specific environmental context.
There can be one dominant or several competing interpretations in any
given context. Contextual patterning refers to the process of identifying
contextual patterns.
Contextual patterning is essentially a process designed to guide northern
social workers in their understanding of northern communities (Nelson,
McPherson & Kelley, 1987). In effect, contextual patterning attempts to
safeguard against the metaphors that all social workers bring into
assessment by advocating that the community members define their own
context. Not only does this ensure that the salient features and nuances
endemic to the environmental context are brought forward, but it also
provides community members with the opportunity to re-examine the
patterns of communication, power, relationships, privilege, roles,
expectations, and other features that make up the social, spiritual, and
economic fibre of this community.
Obviously, not all communities and environmental contexts have
homogeneous contextual patterns, and it is critical that conflicting and
contradictory patterns are understood as well as the historic relationship
between these competing patterns. In effect, contextual patterning consists
of maximizing contextual awareness and contextual sensitivity and provides

57
58 Contextual Patterning and Metaphors

the worker with the ability to appreciate both language and customs within
an historic and post-modern perspective (Borg, Brownlee & Delaney, 1995).

Understanding Contextual Patterning

The notion of contextual patterning stems from Nelson, McPherson &
Kelley’s (1987) investigation of human service effectiveness in northern
resource-dependent communities and Indian communities. They believe
that contextual patterning can provide outside professionals and human
service personnel with invaluable information that acknowledges the
“complex relationships networks involving mutuality, subjectivity, and
strong bonding” (p. 66) that characterize these communities.
These northern communities tend to view “outsiders” with suspicion:

A major difference of these northern communities is the covertness

with which people will describe how a human service is really
delivered. People are reluctant to tell an outsider how things really
occur. Community members, including the formal helpers, fear they
will be ‘squealed’ on and lose the autonomy to do what they know has
to be done in order to be effective (Nelson, McPherson & Kelley, 1987,
p. 67).

Nelson, McPherson & Kelley believe that the effective helper in these
communities must be “subjective, not objective” (p. 69). In other words,
“the immediate situation rather than standardized and established
professional practice becomes the best judge of what must be done” (p. 69).
When social workers are trained essentially as “problem solvers,” their
essential focus is directed towards objective goals and their decisions are
based on “the facts.” Obviously, such training is counterproductive to
community work with northern agencies if the problem-solving focus
becomes the only practice method of the professional. This is one of the
major differences between southern metaphors and northern metaphors for
social work practice and is often a difficult one for people who are
indoctrinated with a problem-solving approach to all life’s situations. As
Nelson & Kelley note:
To identify a problem is to partialize the context to obtain a focus for
change. The process of partialization distorts any point in the context
and thus undermines the ability to understand the holistic reality
(Nelson & Kelley, 1986, p. 5-6).
Contextual patterning provides a description of the natural systems of
interaction that make up northern communities and, as such, provides a
basis for analysis and understanding that drives an effective approach to
social work practice. The respect for diversity, mutuality, empowerment,
and self-determination must be reflected by northern practitioners both in
their practice and in their informal interactions with these communities.
Social work education for northern practice must then provide the
McKee & Delaney 59

student not only with the necessary academic background in courses such as
geography, political science, environmental studies, women’s studies,
gerontology, anthropology, and the favoured courses in psychology and
sociology, but:
Special attention must be paid to history because for many students
and instructors of this generation there will be a crucial process of
‘unlearning’ first. Many of us learned in public school about the
Europeans ‘discovery of North America, about brave explorers
surviving on their own ingenuity in a harsh and empty land, about
Indian ‘massacres’, about dedicated missionaries saving heathen
souls...These events need to be reconsidered from the perspective of
exploitation, underdevelopment, and colonialism. The underlying
ideologies of racism, sexism, and capitalism may have been rendered
invisible in our early schooling (Zapf, 1991, p. 44).
It is this very process of “unlearning” that empowers effective northern
social work practice, and it is through contextual patterning that northern
social workers can appreciate the intricacies and profundity that exists in
northern communities. However, this is only available to those who have
made the effort and choose to see; it is not available for those who need to
define all contexts through their own detached ideologies and agreement
realities.
Most human beings inject into observed reality an interpretation that
reflects their own agreement reality or metaphors. When sharing stories, the
Rashomon effect results in the same story becoming fragmented into several
different and incompatible stories (Schon, 1971, p. 210-212). In other
words, either people interpret the story within their conceptual system and
reinterpret the story to conform or people cannot absorb a complete reality
and fill in those areas that they missed when hearing the story. Therefore,
when hearing about a northern community, people can either begin to either
build in their own metaphors and recreate what they heard to conform to
this metaphor or they might not be able to understand or remember all the
story, so they fill in what is missing based on their own metaphor.
In the same manner, Buddhists viewing human suffering will see this
suffering within their agreement reality involving the meaning of suffering
and reincarnation while a Christian may interpret human suffering by
imploring charity and love. Each may do a completely different act in
regards to human suffering and yet each will feel perfectly justified in the
act. Charlotte Towle clearly identifies this phenomenon:
No matter how unusual an individual’s behaviour may seem to us it has
its rational foundation, its logic. His [sic] behavior, like ours, is serving
him some useful purpose in the maintenance of a kind of equilibrium,
that is, a state of comfort in his [sic] life (Towle, 1965, p. 18).
Contextual patterning allows the social worker to focus on the context and
to appreciate the internal logic that operates within the context, even if
appearances may be deceiving. This is a fundamental “learning” process for
northern social workers and one, as Zapf (1991) suggests, which is as much
60 Contextual Patterning and Metaphors

“unlearning” as “learning.”

Contextual Patterning and Northern Social Work Practice

Northern social work practice is guided by the principles of mutuality,
empowerment, and salient need fulfilment, and is framed within principles
supporting constructivism and collaborative partnerships (Delaney, 1995).
In effect, northern social workers are expected to share power and decisions
with the people whom they serve and to do so in a manner that respects both
the principles of social work and the principles governing the environmental
context in which people live.
Delaney (1995) recommends that, rather than relying on one model of
practice, northern social work practice must be eclectic, that is, drawn from
a large array of practice theories and models determined by which model of
practice best fits practice demands. Two important considerations emerge
from this approach: 1) northern social workers must be competent to
practice effectively; and, 2) their practice must reflect northern realities and
northern values.
Each context for practice demands that the social worker have:
1) extensive and reliable knowledge about the context as well as
appropriate and context-sensitive models of practice for that specific context
(Knowledge Competencies);

2) knowledge about the formal and informal natural helping systems,

communication patterns, behavioural and cultural patterns and other
contextual features and the skills to conduct practice in a manner that is
appropriate and congruent with these contextual features (Performance
Competencies); and,

3) sufficient understanding of the context to understand how the context

will be affected by changes and the value placed on these changes by the
context (Consequence Competencies).

While it may appear that the need to understand and uniquely work
with each and every context for practice is excessive, the process for
achieving this is not an individual effort by each social worker but a
collaborative partnership between social workers, indigenous workers,
natural helpers, and the people living in each context. Certainly, there are
strategies that can facilitate achieving this degree of understanding such as
the hiring of indigenous workers by agencies primarily to provide the
agency with information about the context and to work specifically with the
natural helping network (Weening, Arges & Delaney, 1996). However, the
core agreement must be to share information between and among natural
and professional helpers with the purpose of sharing insights and
understanding about each environmental context.
Obviously, many contexts for practice will closely resemble each other
McKee & Delaney 61

and share common characteristics. For example, company towns share

common features such as a high-value consensus, parallel company-
community power roles and privileges, and suspicions of “outsiders”
(Lucas, 1913). Similarly, Northern Ojibway reserves may house people
with common traditions and history. However, to assume that each company
town is identical to the other is as ludicrous as assuming that all northern
Ojibway reserves are the same. The northern social worker must clearly
understand not only what is common to each community, but also how each
community has understood its own history and how each has uniquely
developed its own contextual patterns.
In order to establish a collaborative partnership with northern
communities and other contexts for practice, social workers must develop
skills that are respectful to each environmental context and which will
empower people to grow and develop in a humanizing and developmental
manner, each in their own estimation. Central to this belief system is the
fundamental belief that all human beings are responsible for their own
ontological development and that given the appropriate physical, emotional,
and spiritual resources, people will strive for human growth and
development within the context of freedom and empowerment. Deprived of
the necessary resources or prescribed as being physically, morally or
spiritually inferior, or second-class, can only create situations of oppression
and twisted human development.

Skills for Contextual Patterning

Understanding contextual patterns in northern communities presents a
complex challenge. While northern communities share some common
characteristics which may help social workers situate a community within
historical/political/geographic contexts, efforts to understand a particular
community solely in terms of those common characteristics will inevitably
fail in conveying the richness, diversity, and uniqueness of that community.
Even social workers who approach the task of understanding a northern
community with a metaphor which has been well-informed by research
about the north are subject to the same problem: metaphors about the north,
regardless of how they are informed (whether through research, propaganda,
or rumour), frame and constrain what can be seen and known about that
community. Every metaphor becomes a window or template through which
one’s knowledge of that community is sifted and organized. And further,
that sifting and organizing is inescapably present in all attempts to grasp a
community’s context, because one cannot “not have a metaphor.”
Communities quite naturally then may resist outsiders’ attempts to
“know” them because that knowledge, which is partial and so often vested
with outside interests, violates their sense of who they are and limits their
imagining of who they might become. To insiders, contextual patterns may
be so transparently obvious and “given” that they may be difficult to even
identify or articulate to outsiders until they have been violated. However,
62 Contextual Patterning and Metaphors

for “outsiders,” contextual patterns may be so transparent and unspoken as

to be mystifyingly invisible. That is, until, to everyone’s discomfort, they
are transgressed. It is there, at the boundary of propriety—where one
transgresses the patterns—that both sides encounter them so clearly and
painfully and where transgression only further deepens the sense of
misunderstanding and mistrust. What social workers in northern
communities need is some way of encountering and understanding these
contextual patterns without violating them in the process. How do we get to
know a community so that we can partner with it in visioning its future and
fashion our methods and practices to fit its own metaphor? How are
contextual patterns disclosed to us? How do we learn to see them?
First of all, what is needed is not another method, or formula, or skill
set, but simply perhaps, a willingness to learn. “Contextual patterning” is a
habit of mind—an attitude or an orientation to learning—and, if it can be
learned, that learning will likely emerge through mentoring or apprenticing
relationships which model and nurture the following:
1. An attitude of humility and “not knowing,” and a willingness to ask and
to be taught (over and over again). This is the very opposite of the hubris
which so often accompanies academic training and expert status and it
demands a genuine curiosity about how other people construct reality and
make sense of their humanity. It means asking real questions, where one
does not already anticipate the answers, and having a willingness to be
surprised by the answers. It means asking questions which are intrinsically
respectful and empowering (e.g. “What is the problem, as you see it?,”
“How is that a problem for you?,” “What kind of advice have you already
gotten?,” “What have you already tried?,” “What do you think you need to
do?,” “How will you know when you are getting back on track?”). It means
giving up the notion that we live in a “universe” in favour of the notion that
we live instead, as beings immersed in language and in culture, in a
“multiverse” where differing constructions can be equally valid. It means
forfeiting status, comfort, and certainty as one who has access to the “true”
reality and the authority to dispense that truth and working instead to partner
with people to co-create a consensual reality. It means a shift in thinking
away from the comfortable idea that there are “right” methods of practice,
towards the idea that methods and practices can be improvised to fit each
community’s unique, dynamically-changing contextual demands.
2. A willingness to listen. Listening involves an effortful, intentional
openness to the other person, a willingness to make space for them to be
who they are, to speak authentically from their being, and to name the world
for themselves (Freire, 1968, 1985). Any community, like any individual,
discloses itself best in its uniqueness and wholeness when it is allowed to
speak for itself, when it is allowed to show itself by simply being itself,
when it is allowed to tell and live its own stories, and when it is allowed to
live and reveal the full complexity of its contradictions, overlapping
histories, other sides, and untold secrets. A community, like an individual,
reveals itself more fully where our own metaphors break down. It is the
McKee & Delaney 63

unique, concrete, and unrepeatable character of a community which our

metaphors, imposed from the outside, so easily miss or obliterate. We see
so easily the commonalities among northern communities, the patterns
which our “southern exposures” and education train us to see, and while
these may be useful for certain purposes, what we don’t see through them is
precisely what we need most for a community to reveal to us: its
uniqueness. And this is the catch, for this uniqueness is precisely what is
not revealed in demographics, schematic descriptions or imposed
metaphors, and what cannot be known beforehand, or taught in a classroom.
Worse, this uniqueness is intrinsically vulnerable to obliteration by the very
methods which are taught and used. We can encounter it though by
immersing ourselves in it and experiencing it first hand, by silencing our
own metaphors long enough to really listen to the subtle cadence and
rhythm of the local stories and dances. While we can never completely step
outside our own metaphors (they are who we are), we can avoid imposing
them on others if we cultivate the art of listening.
3. A willingness to be transformed, not just an eagerness to transform.
A social worker who is immersed in a northern community unavoidably
transforms that community to some extent simply by her presence as an
observer. But, to open the pathway for dialogue and real mutual
understanding is, necessarily, to risk being transformed oneself, and this is,
in fact, the touchstone of dialogue: that it liberates and transforms its
players. A northern community, like a work of art, is susceptible to many
valid interpretations, but always when it “speaks” and reveals its “truth” it
does so because it has succeeded in moving and transforming its interpreter.
One approaches a work of art, not with the intent of imposing oneself upon
it and not demanding that it conform to one’s own reality, but with the
intent of letting it “speak” for itself and hearing what it has to say, allowing
it to illuminate reality in some surprising manner and, thus, transform it.
Every act of understanding is thus always, by necessity, an act of self-
transformation.
Every metaphor of the north reveals more about its speaker and her own
constructions and interpretations than it reveals about the north. Metaphors
are not intrinsically bad or wrong, but what is revealed through them is only
the beginning of the journey towards dialogue and self-transformation. In
effect, a metaphor is only the opening step in a dance. It is useful only to
the extent that it succeeds in inviting a partner to join the dance and
transform it. It is merely a bridge to the forum of language where speakers
bring their metaphors, as they bring themselves, to be changed by the
encounters which take place there.
4. An awareness that one’s immersion in a northern community is
inescapably a political act which leaves that community unavoidably
changed. Every act of collaboration is a reality-making event which brings
into the light of language and consciousness what may never have been
illuminated before. Every act of understanding is then a political event in
which players are transformed through and through. The burden is upon
64 Contextual Patterning and Metaphors

social workers to follow their vocation in full awareness of the

consequences of their actions.

Conclusion
Northern social workers are called upon to perform their work in a
manner that is equally congruent with social work values and with
community values. In order to bridge both value-based demands, social
workers must develop the knowledge, skills, and depth of understanding
that will allow them to continually interpret both social work values and
community values within the context of northern social work practice. This
is a demanding, and often frustrating, process.
Contextual patterning is one tool that can provide the social worker with
an understanding of the life forces and life processes that are uniquely
contained in every context for practice. Social workers would never
considering treating each individual as if he or she were the same nor would
we ever assume all individuals have the same history or combination of
beliefs, experience, and knowledge. Social histories are used to help
individualize ways in which social workers and other social service
personnel can help people. Contextual patterning works in a similar vein in
that it insists that social workers truly understand the nature of their context
for practice.
As Carl Jung once mused, “If one does not understand a person, one
tends to regard him [sic] as a fool” (1953, p. 147). Unfortunately, the north
is often depicted as a place for fools, and social workers with southern
metaphors sometimes view northerners as foolish people. Such judgement is
more often a mirror than a window, and contextual patterning offers one
way in which social workers can honouring the people they serve—an
honour based on understanding, collaboration, and respect.

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Brownlee, K. (1992). Constructivist family therapy: A promising method
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Cassidy, G. (1991). Organizing for community control. The Northern
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Delaney, R. (1995b). Northern social work practice. In R. Delaney & K.
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Delaney, R. & Brownlee, K. (Ed.) (1995a). Northern social work practice.

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Delaney, R. & Weening, J. (1995). Partnerships: A cornerstone for northern
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Lucas, R. (1913). Minetown, milltown, railtown: Life in Canadian
communities of single industry. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Nelson, C. & Kelley, M. L. (1986). Innovations in northern/rural
community-based human service delivery. Canadian Association of
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Nelson, C., McPherson, D. & Kelley, M. L. (1987). Contextual patterning:
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Trainer, T. (1995). A culturally sensitive alcohol abuse treatment approach.
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 CHAPTER 5

NORTHERN SERVICE DELIVERY:

STRATEGIES AND CONSIDERATIONS
MICHAEL KIM ZAPF
The social work literature contains little discussion of effective human
service delivery strategies in northern Canada, but new accounts are being
added all the time as the knowledge base develops. While it is still not
possible to declare any particular strategy as proven effective for all
northern communities, we can identify themes from the various strategies
proposed and discussed in the literature.

Organizing Framework

A useful framework for approaching this literature was offered twenty

years ago in Nelson’s (1986) comprehensive case study of Peninsula, a mill-
town on the north shore of Lake Superior where service-delivery issues
reflect those in many northern Canadian communities. Human services in
Peninsula were offered through a number of distinct agencies with differing
mandates and delivery patterns. Some workers were based in Peninsula and
served only the town. Some workers, based in Peninsula, served other
communities along the north-shore as well as Peninsula. Some workers
were based in other north-shore communities with a catchment area that
included Peninsula. A fourth category of specialist workers was based in
Thunder Bay (3 ½ hours away) and travelled to Peninsula on regular visits
or on an as-needed-basis. In addition, some local residents travelled to
Thunder Bay to receive service. This confusing service delivery pattern
reinforced the structure of “each worker being accountable for agency-
defined client need . . . [and] the community is forced to adapt its needs to
what services are available” (p. 12), a familiar situation for many northern
communities.
Nelson (1986) also examined fourteen mental health boards and
committees that determined policy for service delivery in Peninsula, again
identifying a pattern of overlaps and gaps. Some boards were community-
base, with all local members; some were regional, with representatives from
Peninsula. Some had no representatives from Peninsula at all. Many met in
distant locations making attendance from Peninsula impossible for much of
the year. Nelson concluded that such a pattern “leads to enormous confusion
for Peninsula in terms of what say they have for policies made about
services delivered to their community” (p. 16). Based on the assumption
that the primary purpose of human service agencies is creating healthy
communities, not simply delivering individual services, Nelson proposed

67
68 Issues in Northern Service Delivery Strategies

the creation of an umbrella community-based board to promote integration

of all service delivered to the community. This strategy signalled a shift
away from a problem-solving focus toward a context focus, where “through
a contextual-focused approach, there is no need to search for the one best
way for northern rural practice. Instead, methods arise out of a specific
context” (p. 7). Effectively, he argued, bureaucrats and workers could not
determine what is best for northern clients without considering the context
in which help is sought and delivered.
Several such community management models for social service delivery
in rural and remote areas can be found in the literature. Most involve
integration of services through local boards or councils, similar to Nelson’s
proposed strategy for Peninsula. Examples include the Better Beginnings,
Better Futures project in Sudbury, Ontario (Belanger and Diallo, 1999), the
Rural Communities Program in Australia (Westcott, 2001), and the
Saskatchewan Human Services Integration Forum (Linzmayer, 2003).
More recently, the Whole Child Program (WCP) in Whitehorse, Yukon,
featured an alliance of recreation, education, policing, and social service
programs under the direction of a Steering Committee that included
representation from Yukon Education, Yukon Health & Social Services,
RCMP, City of Whitehorse, First Nations—Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition,
Whitehorse Planning Group on Homelessness, federal Advisory Council on
Rural Health, Yukon Learning Disabilities Association, and project staff
(Zapf, 2004). This program was so successful that the RCMP National
Youth Strategy funded a social development manual for other northern
communities based on the experiences of the WCP (Zapf, 2005a).
Nelson’s (1986) original analysis identified four key considerations for
such effective northern service delivery:
collaboration between local workers and outside specialists,
local helping networks,
management concerns
altered expectations for local staff.
These themes offer a useful framework for examining documented
experiences from other northern and remote settings.

Local/Outside Collaboration

Following from their survey of rural mental health consumers,

Flaskerud and Kvis (1982) suggested using professionals “in a consultation
and education role … [to] provide indirect services for mental health needs
through primary care givers in the community” (p. 116). Timpson (1984)
described a similar strategy for delivery of mental health services in the vast
Sioux Lookout Zone of northwestern Ontario, where clinical psychiatric
services had been provided by consultants from the University of Toronto
Department of Psychiatry who visited each remote community twice a year.
In the 1980s, coordination of mental health programs for the entire region
became the responsibility of a social worker based in Sioux Lookout.
Zapf 69

Bilingual Aboriginal persons were hired as the travelling field workers to

visit outlying communities; in some remote settlements, Band Councils
hired local residents (natural helpers) to offer counselling and support in
their own communities. With this new community-based strategy, the
visiting psychiatrists from Toronto became educators/consultants giving
seminars to the local indigenous counsellors on topics such as grief, suicide,
and marriage counselling (seminars which were conducted with interpreters
and heavy use of role play in an attempt to connect with the local context).
Ferguson and Trainer (1995) found the same shift to community-based
service delivery in their examination of a treatment response developed by
the Attawapiskat Solvent Abuse Prevention Committee on the west shore of
James Bay. Rather than sending local abusers to outside treatment centres
for lengthy and generally unsuccessful stays, a community response was
developed involving a culturally relevant local in-patient treatment centre
supported by a community aftercare program. Local staff received four
weeks of intensive training each year, offered on-site by outside
“professionals experienced in dealing with solvent abuse, family
counselling, and crisis and suicide prevention” (p. 156). Kamin and Beatch
(1999) described a similar inside/outside collaboration in Spence Bay,
NWT, where mental health professionals conducted a series of workshops
for local helpers who wanted to establish and operate a women’s shelter in
their community. The professionals served as “information givers and
background facilitators only” (p. 103).
Further examples of the professional as a consultant to local workers
can be found in accounts related to resource development in rural regions.
In Atikokan, Ontario, two iron ore mines closed in the early 1980s, causing
considerable disruption for a large number of employees and their families
(McKay, 1987). Direct service was provided by a known natural helper in
the community who offered a public education program about stress and
services related to unemployment, assisted in the establishment of self-help
groups, offered counselling with individuals and families, and assisted with
job searches. A professional social worker from Thunder Bay acted as
consultant and evaluator, supporting the local worker. A Comprehensive
Community Helping System advocated by Bates, Clark and Bertsche (1980)
to reduce the negative impacts of oil-related expansion on a small rural
American community was similarly “predicated on the primacy of the
informal network for service provision . . . [where] the proper role of
professionals is to augment the informal support system” (p. 203).
Exploring the nature of inside/outside collaboration in northern
communities, Brownlee and Delaney (1997) reported that settlements
tended to look to outside expertise when they doubted the value of local
knowledge and skills. Developing local expertise and community
confidence in the new resources would appear therefore to be an important
step towards reducing dependence on outside expertise (which can be
costly, difficult to access, and possibly irrelevant or damaging for local
concerns). Yet the goal may not be so much a total victory for either outside
70 Issues in Northern Service Delivery Strategies

experts or local helpers but rather a determination of how they can work
together most effectively. Cheers (1998) placed insider/outsider issues for
rural services in the context of cosmopolitan leadership (vertical ties outside
the community) and local leadership (horizontal ties within the community).
Overall, he concluded that “community leadership is more effective when
horizontal and vertical functions are divided amongst different leaders who
work together … because the background, attitudes, skills and networks
which equip leaders well for one sphere can reduce their effectiveness in the
other” (p. 146).
The notion of outside expertise in rural communities was further
examined by Gregory, Green, and McLaren (2007) who found that the
“expert-ness” of a professional social worker tends to evolve over time in a
rural or remote community. As the professional worker lives in the
community, decision-making and intervention strategies “were informed by
accumulated local knowledge … [and] became more fluid over time … the
process became less onerous and more intuitive” (p. 21). Workers relied less
on expertise of knowledge and “became ‘expert’ at managing their multiple
roles and relationships” (p. 21). It would appear that the inside/outside
collaboration in rural and northern communities becomes more effective
over time as the local workers gain knowledge and skill while the outside
professionals develop a sense of the meanings and relationships within the
community.

Local Helping Networks

Nelson’s (1986) original proposal for community-based services in

Peninsula included a direction that northern social workers must “not see
informal helping as merely a complementary strategy to professional
helping, but as the primary vehicle for providing help” (p. 27). Many
examples can be found in the literature of effective work by local helping
networks.
Fuchs (1985), for instance, described a strategy from the Health Centre
in Churchill, Manitoba, to enhance the natural and informal helping systems
already present in the community. New “event-centred support groups”
were developed for persons “known to be at risk due to their common
exposure to certain life events and transitions requiring extensive social
readjustment” (p. 210), such as new mothers and new professionals in the
community. These groups were intended to improve and expand existing
community social support networks by building new linkages for sharing
and overcoming the common separation between long-term residents and
transients.
The Jules Mattinas Healing Lodge and Treatment Centre in northern
Ontario organized such local helping networks into a community Aftercare
Program to support individuals and families returning to the community
following residential treatment; local Elders and program alumnae provided
support through a “buddy system” (Ferguson and Trainer, 1995). Rounds
Zapf 71

(1988) took a similar approach to improve services for AIDS victims and
their families in rural areas, based on “coordinating, strengthening, and
expanding existing community resources and networks rather than creating
new delivery systems” (p. 259).
Cossom (2002) defined informal helping systems as “spontaneous and
natural informal relationships and networks that occur amongst family,
friends, neighbours, and other helpers – where support, advice, compassion,
advocacy, and all manner of practical aid are given freely, outside of any
formal organizational boundaries” (p. 389). For residents in rural and
remote regions, it may be more acceptable to seek help from family, friends,
church, and other groups than from trained professional helpers (Daley and
Avant, 2004). However, this does not necessarily mean a contest for local
service delivery. Fuchs (2002), for example, wanted social workers to
support or complement local helping networks rather than to take over from
them. It is important for rural or remote social workers “to adopt a practice
mind-set that sees formal and informal support as allies, rather than as
competitive, separate social entities” (Cossom, 2002, p. 400).
In the rural social work literature, the approach of surrounding a
vulnerable person or family with local supports has been called
“wraparound” service (Davis, 2004; Zemand and Buila, 2006), an apt label
for building a community of care around someone at risk—surrounding
them with a supportive network of immediate and extended family,
neighbours, friends, and caregivers.

Management Concerns

The conventional linear management structures of bureaucratic human

service organizations can restrict the ability to respond effectively to local
issues in northern communities. Imposing urban values and service
organization on rural regions may be one reason “most existing rural
programs turn out to be scaled down urban programs” (Sun, Kosberg,
Kaufman, Leeper, and Burgin, 2007, p. 29). As concluded in a recent report
on the role of government in small Ontario communities, “the most
appropriate models of local and regional government, and their relationships
with the provincial government, will have to be different in rural and remote
regions, especially in the north” (Slack, Bourne, and Gertler, 2003, p. 37).
Reviewing the structure of child welfare services in northern Alberta
communities, for example, Gillespie (2006) promoted a model of network
governance featuring community ownership of services (through local
councils and boards) with outside government organizations connecting
through collaboration, negotiation, and alliances. Fundamental to this
position is a belief that “local officials are in a better position to respond to
local tastes and preferences than are officials of senior levels of
government” and that strong local government can be “efficient and
effective in the delivery of service, on the one hand, and accountable and
responsive to its citizens on the other” (Slack, Bourne, and Gertler, 2003, p.
72 Issues in Northern Service Delivery Strategies

20).
Management through local boards and councils in northern regions can
also bring its own unique considerations. In her discussion of northern
community-based boards, for instance, Taylor (1995) warned that local
board members are likely to have considerable prior knowledge about the
agency’s history and function. This awareness of “the agency’s myths,
stories, and sagas” (p. 222) has the potential to lead to difficult issues of
influence, exercise of authority, and overly familiar relations with staff and
clients.
Necessary co-existence of efficiency and flexibility, of accountability
and responsiveness, of predictability and spontaneity, are common in the
northern social work literature. Nelson (1985) spoke of a structural paradox
whereby “a responsive human service organization needs both a traditional
bureaucratic core to serve the ongoing and mandated functions of the
agency; and a fluid temporary structure at the interface between the agency
and its catchment environment” (p. 137). Community groups and natural
helpers require this flexibility and responsiveness at the local level in order
to flourish (Ersing and Otis, 2004; Westcott, 2001). Accordingly, Brownlee
and Delaney (1997) suggested that “northern agencies may consider a
flexible team leader model of leadership” (p. 24), whereby workers assume
leadership in their area of interest and expertise rather than submitting to
conventional formal roles and agency assigned status. Such a flexible and
responsive strategy would appear consistent with the profession’s generalist
practice model where the problem determines the solution.
Northern agencies require a bureaucratic structure to handle predictable
and steady functions plus flexibility around the edges to allow quick
adaptation and response to local problems and issues without rigid rules and
regulations. This model has been illustrated in the example of an integrated
children's services agency in Northwestern Ontario (McKay, 1987; Nelson,
1985). At the agency’s core is a recognizable bureaucratic structure
(familiar pattern of board, executive director, and unit supervisors)
responsible for tight properties such as agency values, orientation, program
implementation, and evaluation. Guided by this structure, front line workers
are able to benefit from such looser properties as worker autonomy,
innovation, interagency project teams, and evaluation based on results.
The concepts and language of simultaneous “loose-tight” properties
came to us from Peters and Waterman (1982) in their classic management
text In Search of Excellence. When
the form is clear, flexibility around the base structure is made easy …
Simultaneous loose-tight properties is in essence the coexistence of
firm central direction and maximum individual autonomy …
Organizations that live by the loose-tight principle are on the one hand
rigidly controlled, yet at the same time allow (indeed, insist on)
autonomy, entrepreneurship, and innovation from the rank and file (p.
310-311).
Such loose-tight models continue to be practiced in organizations
Zapf 73

(Fung, Fung, and Wind, 2008: Sagie, Zaidman, Amichai-Hamburger,

Te’eni, and Schwartz, 2002), extending far beyond northern settings.
Northern agencies do appear, however, to have some definite advantages
when implementing “loose-tight” structures: smaller size and scale of
operations; less rigid agency boundaries; less coordination time; and fewer
bureaucratic traditions to overcome than many of their southern
counterparts (Wharf, 1985).

Worker Role

Delaney and Weening (1995) suggested that a new social worker in a

northern community should begin to develop consultative partnerships
(advisory relationships), then move onto contributory partnerships (support
sharing), eventually progress to operational partnerships (work sharing), and
finally cultivate collaborative partnerships (shared decision-making). This
staged process appears similar to the pattern discussed earlier in this chapter
whereby a rural practitioner over time evolves from reliance on expertise of
knowledge to an expertise in managing multiple relationships in the
community (Gregory, Green, and McLaren, 2007). Northern social workers
can thus engage in a developmental process of personal and professional
adjustment over time in a new community. Some have used the language of
cross-cultural adaptation (culture shock followed by recovery in a U-curve
pattern) to describe the adjustment process for social workers in remote
communities (Gougeon, 2001; Lonne and Cheers, 2001; Zapf, 1993).
Although the labels are very different, these suggested patterns for
understanding the evolving relationship between a social worker and his or
her host northern community have parallels in the disciplines of
anthropology and geography, where work has been done on levels of
identification with place. For instance, Relph (1976) studied the meanings
that places have for people and described how one can move over time from
a position of objective outsideness (considering a place theoretically) to
levels of behavioural insideness (perceiving patterns), empathetic insideness
(appreciating meanings), and existential insideness (feeling of home or
belongingness). A social worker may enter a northern community as an
outsider trained to view the community from a professional distance as
some sort of target group to be acted upon or advised. Over time (and time
living in the community is crucial to the process), the worker moves to an
inside identification through acting and sharing experiences, resources, and
meanings. Eventually, the worker may come to identify strongly with the
community as home and encourage collaborative decision-making with
regard to service delivery (Zapf, 2002).
Describing a partnership model in northern British Columbia where the
provincial government and a local First Nation delivered child welfare
services through a community-based committee, Wharf (1985) identified
one of the prerequisites for such a strategy as “the willingness of
professional staff to risk and to share responsibility with members of the
74 Issues in Northern Service Delivery Strategies

community, and to expand their job definitions into new and uncharted
territory” (p. 15). This open mind-set, a risk on the part of northern social
workers, requires the support of a “loose-tight” organization. Otherwise,
workers will only serve as bureaucratic representatives of the state (tight)
with little, if any, creative flexibility (loose) around the interface with the
community and its concerns.
There appears to be general agreement in the social work literature that
boundaries between disciplines and between specialist worker role
categories become diffuse or blurred in rural and remote communities
(Collier, 2006; Daley and Avant, 2004; Long and Brownlee, 1995; Wharf,
1985; Zapf, 1999, 2005b). Yet, there may not be the same acceptance or
freedom when the boundaries become blurred between worker and
community. In Canada, we have a disturbing legal precedent arising from a
situation where northern social workers took the very risk advocated earlier
by Wharf. As documented by Lundy and Gauthier (1989), a district
manager and three workers “were all suspended because they refused to
implement a social assistance policy that they considered to be culturally
inappropriate and potentially harmful to the Innu people of Labrador” (p.
190). The actions of these social workers were in accord with the Canadian
Association of Social Workers’ Code of Ethics, and the workers were
supported by the Newfoundland Association of Social Workers, yet their
suspensions were upheld. An appeal was dismissed by the Newfoundland
Court of Appeal because the actions of the social workers were deemed to
be “a fundamental breach of the master-servant relationship” (p. 192)!
.Clearly, there remain crucial and unresolved issues for northern social
workers arising from the conflicting expectations of state, profession,
employer, and community.

Conclusion

The service delivery considerations discussed in this chapter are not

unique to northern Canada. A recent report from Finland (Lapland Centre of
Excellence on Social Welfare, 2008) emphasized the need for northern
services to be “organized as regional and district-bound processes” (p. 7),
allowing northern citizens to make informed and meaningful local choices.
Social workers in rural and remote regions of Australia also “see value in
creating partnerships together with communities to satisfy local concerns”
(Bodor, Green, Lonne, and Zapf, 2004, p. 54), but they are often confronted
with “a confusing context of conflicting roles” (p. 57) as they try to manage
the multiple relationships encountered when living and working in isolated
communities.
This chapter has examined some potential strategies and related issues
for social service delivery in northern regions using a framework first put
forward in a case study by Nelson (1986). Effective northern services
appear to be community-based, incorporating such features as meaningful
collaboration between inside and outside players; active support of local
Zapf 75

informal helping networks to offer “wraparound” care for vulnerable

residents; “loose-tight” management patterns, allowing for simultaneous
accountability and creative response to local needs; and social workers
willing to share responsibility with the community. Although these aspects
of northern service delivery were considered separately for the purposes of
this chapter, in practice, of course, they are interrelated.
It is curious that several authors have chosen images of flowing liquids
to express this interrelationship of previously disconnected aspects of rural
and remote service delivery. Gregory, Green, and McLaren (2007)
explained how remote service strategies become “more fluid over time” (p.
21), more intuitive, as the worker comes to rely more on community
relationships and less on the authority of knowledge. Zapf (2005c) used the
metaphor of a braided stream to show how our best efforts to divert water
into managed channels (or service into defined areas of specialization) can
be overrun as the stream follows its own path. In a keynote address to the
International Rural Human Services Conference, Cheers (2004) too used
postmodern language when he spoke of “liquid modernity” to describe how
our long-held beliefs in tight structures and expert knowledge are beginning
to melt into “not-quite-there structures in liquid, rather than solid, form” (p.
10). At the same conference, Nelson and McPherson (2004) presented a
paper on “contextual fluidity” as a practice model. (Since this chapter began
with Nelson’s case study from two decades ago, it may only be fair to give
her a final word from her more recent work.) Arising from indigenous
approaches to helping encountered in northern Canada, such contextual
“fluidity” expresses a “focus on mutuality and reciprocity of relationship”
(p. 202), where the person being helped is actually the expert on the
situation. Service recipients do not have to become clients in the
conventional sense of subordination; help comes from relationships with
people and the environment. From the experiences and language of
northern service delivery, we may be on the verge of developing new
models and understandings that hold promise for the larger profession.

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Zapf, M.K. (2005b). Remote practice. In F.J. Turner (Ed.), Encyclopedia of
Canadian social work (pp. 322-323). Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier
University Press.
Zapf, M.K. (2005c). The geographic base of Canadian social welfare. In
J.C. Turner & F.J. Tuner (Eds.), Canadian social welfare (5th ed.). (pp.
60-74). Toronto: Pearson Education Canada.
Zeman, L.D. & Buila, S. (2006). Mental health reform: An informal rural
network implements mental health reform for parent consumers. Rural
Social Work & Community Practice, 11, 30-37.
 CHAPTER 6

DEVELOPING OUR OWN: INSIDE VERSUS

OUTSIDE EXPERTISE IN NORTHERN SOCIAL
WORK PRACTICE
KEITH BROWNLEE AND ROGER DELANEY

In northern, remote or rural areas, isolation, large distances and low

staff complements within social agencies restrict opportunities for
professional development (Pippard, 1989). The costs of travel to distant
centres for continuing professional education is prohibitive and, under
conditions of fiscal restraint, even less feasible. Northern agencies
frequently respond by providing training in the form of a presentation or
workshop held at a central location and attended by staff or workers from
the region (Brownlee, 1994b). Typically, the training is provided by an
expert from a larger southern centre. Participation in this form of
information acquisition for professional development fosters the problem of
insider versus outsider dynamics and can lead to the entrenchment of a
southern metaphor for practice in the north. In this chapter, we examine the
phenomenon of inside versus outside expertise as a particular problem for
northern social work practice and discuss strategies for the development of
insider expertise.
It is probably universal that expertise or special knowledge is more
easily attributed to someone living outside the context than someone local
and known to us. However, it is a phenomenon more likely to arise under
conditions of doubt about the value of local knowledge. It was noted by
Zapf (1991, 1996) and Arges and Delaney (1996) that the north is
susceptible to domination by the south, not only economically and
politically, but also in how values are defined. One part of establishing
values pertains to how social work should be practised and what is
considered preferable practice. The domination of a southern model can
easily arise when the majority of the research and writing on social work
practice originates from larger southern centres and when material specific
to the northern experience is limited. One example of how southern or
large-centre thinking affects ideas about social work practice is revealed in a
paper by Kagle and Giebelhausen (1994) published in the National
Association of Social Work’s official and influential journal Social Work.
These authors noted that dual relationships lead to problems in the provision
of social work services and suggested that any practitioners who engages in
a dual relationship should have their licence to practice revoked. Brownlee
(1996) has discussed how this conclusion reveals an urban bias and how it is
completely unrealistic to apply such values and considerations to the social

80
Brownlee & Delaney 81

worker practicing in a small town. It could be argued that this bias extends
to the codes of ethics that directly affect practice guidelines. Brownlee and
Taylor (1995) discussed how dual relationships are a reality for the rural
practitioner and that the Canadian Association of Social Work Code of
Ethics does not address this issue or difference in practice realities. This
shows an urban domination of social work practice and an implied bias
toward accepting such practices as the model to be emulated.
The elevation of knowledge held by other people is often supported by
northern agencies. When contemplating training, northern agencies are often
governed by expediency. Under conditions of accountability and the
requirement to justify how funds are spent, one political reason for an
agency to seek outside expertise would be to facilitate the claim that the
agency has provided training from a recognized expert. The assumption is
that this procedure is the best way to train staff in the most informed and
acclaimed approaches possible. Brownlee (1994b), however, has shown that
this procedure can result in problems if the information or practice approach
represents a deviation from the epistemological position of the participants.
It can lead to increased doubts and uncertainties about existing practice
procedures. Brownlee suggested that effectiveness would be enhanced if a
local practitioner, familiar with the approach, could assist with longer-term
training and supervision. This, of course, begs the question as to why the
local expert would not provide the training in the first place.
Agency involvement in the outside expertise phenomenon also occurs at
a systems level. Systems are often conceived and formulated in southern
centres and transplanted to the north. An example of this phenomenon is
when an agency utilizes a southern-based consulting firm to review the
northern agency and its manner of operating and to make recommendations
for systemic change. Not only are these systems not always suited to the
north, but they also perpetuate the notion that what is good for the south is
the standard for the north. This is not to imply that northern services should
be limited in some way or inferior, but simply to point out that they may be
different. It is the subtle influence of these ideas on perceptions that is at
question. A worker or agency may intuitively respond from ingrained and
automatic assumptions about practice. If these assumptions reflect a
southern metaphor, it would be very difficult indeed to embrace an
alternative practice model or to resist the notion that the “real” or “best”
way to conduct practice is anything other than that prescribed by this
metaphor. To social workers who know the context intimately and who
perceive limitations to the implanted system, this experience can be
frustrating and personally undermining.
Individual and experiential reasons also lead northern social workers to
be receptive to the idea that they should look elsewhere for expert
knowledge. It is doubtful whether any social workers would honestly claim
that they have never had reservations about their work, or say that they have
never imagined the existence of alternative, superior ways to provide
services. This self-reflexive character of social workers in general,
82 Developing our Own: Inside Versus Outside

combined with the complexities of northern social work, easily erodes

confidence and fosters reservations about competence. This may be the
reason that northern social workers operating in relative isolation are
particularly susceptible or receptive to the idea that there is an “expert” that
knows. Isolation from professional colleagues can slowly erode confidence
about being up to date and knowledgeable and can readily leave social
workers with doubts and uncertainty about their knowledge. It is thus easy
for social workers to lose sight of how much they know, especially if their
major source of continuing information and professional development is
reading material. Reading is a solitary process that does not afford an
opportunity for feedback. Attending workshops, in contrast, can be an
affirming experience.
The seductiveness of outside expertise lies in its power to validate all
concerned. An experience most northern-based social workers could surely
relate to, especially seasoned social workers, is attending a locally held
workshop conducted by an outside expert and recognizing that they are
already aware of and may even be utilizing the material presented. This is
especially common when a workshop is presented by an outside expert who
is uncertain of the skill level or knowledge base of the participants. In such
instances, considerable time is usually allocated to review or to introduce
the topic. Even when it is not review material, such workshops are often
directed at staff who are not familiar with the concepts or staffs who have
had little formal training. This experience can be extremely validating of the
social worker’s knowledge. Further validation for northern-based social
workers can occur when they participate in a training workshop where the
presenter is not as familiar with the distinctness of the context and where the
social workers come to realize the extent of their own knowledge in the
area.
One example of the differences that context can make to practice was
brought home during a conversation one of the authors had with a well-
known cognitive behavioural therapist based in Toronto. This therapist
described how the unit in which he worked enforced a limit of 20 sessions
for therapy—a procedure consistent with current views that short-term
therapy is as effective as long-term therapy but more acceptable because of
lower cost. The therapist was asked whether there were clients who did not
seem to be helped effectively in the set number of sessions and what was
available to such clients. His response was that they had received at least
some positive experience, however limited, and that this would be of value
to them in the future. When pressed with the question—What if the clients
were experiencing difficulties that necessitated further assistance?—he
replied that they could be referred elsewhere in that case.
Two concerns (differences) arise from this conversation that highlights
the importance of and context to practice. First, in many northern
communities where everyone and their behaviour are highly visible
(Brownlee, 1992), the client’s behaviour and responses would be known to
many people who may have a keen awareness of the client’s plight and have
Brownlee & Delaney 83

concerns about the discontinuation of service. This is often characteristic of

child clients where other systems such as a school are integrally involved.
These same community members could and often do bring pressure to bear
upon an agency or social worker to respond to the client’s need. Again, this
can be manifested with a child who, for example, breaks the law or presents
severe behaviour problems in the school. A community can become most
critical if service is discontinued based on a short-term intervention model,
and trust in as well as acceptance of a social worker in a northern
community is essential to therapeutic effectiveness (Brownlee, 1994a). It is
not that expectations are unrealistic, although this can occur: it is the
community need to perceive that action is being taken and that the agency is
fulfilling its role of responding to the needs of community members.
Second, services are often limited in northern communities. If a client’s
need for service is serious and persistent, there would usually be no other
place to refer the client, and it would seem unreasonable to withhold efforts
to help. Thus, unquestioning adherence to a short-term therapy model would
not always make sense for northern social work practice.
A counterpoint exists to the validation arising from workshops provided
by an “urban” expert. When social workers attend training only to
appreciate that they already possessed the knowledge which they thought
would be new to them and that they could be most articulate about its
application in the northern context, it can lead to feelings of being
undervalued or a belief that their own skills and abilities are not recognized.
In the first instance, feeling undervalued often leads to discontent and
disenchantment. Social workers experiencing this situation may be tempted
to leave their place of employment and relocate to a larger centre. At the
very least, they may be likely to experience burn-out and a cynical attitude
toward their work. To have abilities not recognized can lead to a
mystification process, whereby the northern social workers come to believe
their skills and abilities would have been noted if they truly possessed them.
Given that their skills were apparently not recognized, therefore, it must
surely imply deficiency, but in a manner not clear to them. Consequently,
the outsider is always perceived to be endowed with special knowledge that
the northern social worker somehow does not understand. Mystification of
this kind fosters oppression and the tragedy is that, through it, the northern
social workers become further convinced of the need for the outside expert
to show them the way.
Canada’s north generally has also been victimized by southern
metaphors (Arges & Delaney, 1996; Zapf, 1991, 1996). The outcome of this
victimization is exploitation, oppression, and disempowerment. Obviously,
northern people have been impacted by this process of oppression over a
number of years and have incorporated oppressor myths about “who they
are” and “who the oppressors are” into their contextual patterns—myths that
make southerners, and particularly, southerners with power, seem more
educated, civilized, moral, intelligent, industrious, trustworthy, honourable,
reliable, disciplined, cultured, and deserving. As these myths penetrate the
84 Developing our Own: Inside Versus Outside

consciousness of northern people, northern people’s consciousness becomes

transformed to conform to the oppressor’s prescriptions about the nature of
the relationship between southern people and northern people, and, at an
individual and community level, about what constitutes self-worth, self-
esteem, equality, and equity. The irony is that sometimes the influence of
the southern metaphor is so encompassing that liberation requires the
intervention of an “outsider.”
Freire (1968, 1985) argues that only the oppressed who are undergoing
praxis can liberate other oppressed people by creating a liberating dialogue
which reinforces people’s quest for freedom and authenticity by revealing
and unravelling the myths and metaphors of the oppressor. Freire (1994)
presents excellent examples of how an outsider can be used to challenge
community beliefs that are, in effect, the result of oppression and
exploitation. One such account is as follows:
‘All right,’ I said, in response to the peasant’s intervention. ‘Let’s say I
know, and you don’t. Still, I’d like to try a game with you that to work
right, will require our full effort and attention. I’m going to draw a line
down the middle of this chalkboard, and I’m going to write down on
this side the goals I score against you, and on this other side the ones
you score against me. The game will consist in asking each other
questions. If the person asked doesn’t know the answer, the person who
asked the question scores a goal. I'll start the game by asking you a
question.’

At this point, precisely because I had seized the group’s ‘moment,’ the
climate was more lively than when we had begun, before the silence.
First question:
‘What is the Socratic maieutic?’
General guffawing. Score one for me.
‘Now it’s your turn to ask me a question,’ I said.
There was some whispering, and one of them tossed out the question:
‘What’s a contour curve?’
I couldn’t answer. I marked down one to one.
‘What importance does Hegel have in Marx's thought?’
Two to one.
‘What’s soil liming?’
Two to two.
‘What’s an intransitive verb?’
Three to two.
‘What’s a contour curve got to do with erosion?’
Three to three.
‘What’s epistemology?’
Four to three.
‘What’s green fertilizer?’
Four to four.
And so on, until we got to ten to ten.
Brownlee & Delaney 85

As I said goodbye, I made a suggestion. ‘Let’s think about this evening.

You had begun to have a fine discussion with me. Then you were silent
and said that only I could talk because I was the only one who knew
anything. Then we played a knowledge game and we tied ten to ten. I
knew ten things you didn’t and you knew ten things I didn’t. Let’s
think about this’ (Freire, 1994, p. 46-47).
In this example, Freire demonstrates how control of knowledge allows
the oppressors to validate their own knowledge and minimize knowledge
held by the oppressed. By doing so, the oppressor becomes the educator and
the oppressed become the learner who develops a dependency on the
oppressor for knowledge. Yet, by authenticating the oppressor’s
knowledge, Freire both challenges the internalized prescription of the
oppressed as ignorant and exposes the oppressor’s technique for
maintaining power over knowledge. Freir develops this concept in another
anecdote:
On the way back home I recalled the first experience I had had, long
before, in the Zona da Mata of Pernambuco, like the one I had just had
here.
After a few moments of good discussion with a group of peasants,
silence fell on us and enveloped us all. What one of them had said then,
in Portuguese, was the same thing as I had heard tonight in Spanish—a
literal translation of what the Chilean peasant had said this evening.
‘Fine,’ I had told them. ‘I know. You don’t. But why do I know and
you don’t?’
Accepting his statement, I prepared the ground for my intervention. A
vivacious sparkle in them all. Suddenly curiosity was kindled. The
answer was not long in coming.
‘You know because you are a doctor, sir, and we’re not.’
‘Right, I’m a doctor and you’re not. But why am I a doctor and you’re
not?’
‘Because you’ve gone to school, you’ve read things, studied things, and
we haven’t.’
‘And why have I been to school?’
‘Because your dad could send you to school. Ours couldn’t.’
‘And why couldn’t your parents send you to school?’
‘Because they were peasants like us.’
‘And what is “being a peasant ?”’
‘It’s not having an education . . . not owning anything . . . working
from sun to sun . . . having no rights . . . having no hope.’
‘And why doesn’t a peasant have any of this?’
‘The will of God.’
‘And, who is God?’
‘The Father of us all.’
‘And who is a father here this evening?’
Almost all raised their hands, and said they were.
I looked around the group without saying anything. Then I picked out
86 Developing our Own: Inside Versus Outside

one of them and asked him, ‘How many children do you have?’
‘Three.’
‘Would you be willing to sacrifice two of them, and make them suffer
so that the other one could go to school, and have a good life, in
Recife? Could you love your children that way?’
‘No!’
‘Well, if you’ I said, ‘a person of flesh and bones, could not commit an
injustice like that—how could God commit it? Could God really be the
cause of these things?’
A different kind of silence. Completely different from the first. A
silence in which something began to be shared. Then:
‘No. God isn’t the cause of all this. It’s the boss!’
Perhaps for the first time, those peasants were making an effort to get
beyond the relationship that I called, in Pedagogy of the Oppressed,
that of the ‘adherence’ of the oppressed to the oppressor, in order to
‘step back’ from the oppressor, and localize the oppressor ‘outside’
themselves, as Fanon would say.
From that point of departure, we could have gotten to an understanding
of the role of the ‘boss,’ in the context of a certain socioeconomic,
political system—gotten to an understanding of the social relations of
production, gotten to an understanding of class interests, and so on and
so on.
What would have been completely senseless would have been if, after
the silence that had so brusquely interrupted our dialogue, I had given a
traditional speech, crammed with empty, intolerant slogans (p. 47-49).
In this example, Freire exposes the myth that God is the cause of the
oppressed’s plight in life and focuses the role of the oppressor. The
oppressed were now able to understand how oppressors pervert reality and
destroy humanity in order to maintain their own greed and cruelty.
However, while Freire can begin the road to liberation, the oppressed
themselves must walk it together and, in the process of doing this, “insiders”
who are more advanced can begin the liberation process with those less
advanced. This, then, is one of the important roles of the “insider”—felt and
lived experiential understanding of the agony and pitfalls in the liberation
process. This understanding allows for informed and empathetic
engagement with others along their journey to freedom and authenticity.
The insider/outsider debate is not about creativity or the need for people
to exchange ideas. It is really about the process in which this is done and the
assumptions from which ideas are drawn. Northern social work practice
requires collaborative partnerships, and the insider/outsider relationship
based on this type of partnership is both valued and necessary. However,
this collaborative partnership is best supported by a polycentric perspective
which
argues that radically different world views not only reveal something
about culture and language, but about reality itself and the ways
different people have come to know it. Therefore each world view
Brownlee & Delaney 87

reveals something about the total picture which can never be fully
known. An accurate picture of reality is only possible by attempting
to accommodate and reconcile as many world views as possible
(Delaney, 1995, p. 13).
When outsider information is respectful to existing world views and
promotes the human growth experience, then this input is not only
invaluable to the people of the north, but it is a vital component in human
evolutionary theory (Huxley, 1942; Teilhard de Chardin, 1955).
Another valuable contribution outsiders can make is to help offset the
impact of “acute localities” where “some communities become so self-
contained that they reject the values and standards of the larger society”
(Wharf, 1991, p. 135). These “closed communities”—characterized by
poverty, poor housing and standards of behaviour (Wharf, 1991)—have
sanctioned the sexual exploitation of women and children. Obviously, an
“outsider” to this community may be required to bring what is happening to
the consciousness of the people involved—those whom, themselves, must
begin the journey to freedom and authenticity.
In summary, the outcome of agency agendas, personal issues, and
professional needs is the continued phenomenon of seeking personal or
professional development from external sources: the seeking of training
from an expert who “knows,” an expert who is from some other larger
centre, rather than looking to the issue of development from within. It is not
only the individual who suffers in this situation, but also the community.
Kretzman and McNight (1993), in a discussion of inside versus outside
community development, note that
Every single person has capacities, abilities and gifts. Living a good life
depends on whether those capacities can be used, abilities expressed
and gifts given. If they are, the person will be valued, feel powerful and
well-connected to the people around them. And the community around
the person will be more powerful because of the contribution the person
is making (p. 13).
Development from the inside, therefore, has far-reaching implications for
both personal and community growth and as a means of reversing the
domination of northern communities by a southern metaphor for social work
practice.

Strategies to Maximize Inside Development in Northern

Practice
Staff development programs can serve two major purposes. First, they
can provide staff with new information on social work practice and related
areas such as social policy issues, human rights issues and social issues.
Second, they can be used to reinforce the work being done by staff through
enhancing morale and validating current social work practices. Again, our
history in the north suggests that outsiders are often imported to serve both
functions and that the result of this can be confusion and decreased morale
88 Developing our Own: Inside Versus Outside

(Brownlee, 1994a). Obviously, new strategies need to be considered.

Northern agencies with their unique environmental context, must be
productive, adaptive, and flexible (Mott, 1972). The question then is, what
can be done to facilitate the development of local expertise and reverse the
process of dependency and reliance on outside expertise?
The design and development model of practice research is an approach
proposed by Thomas (1992) that focuses on practical issues in social work
practice and program delivery that could have applicability as a strategy for
addressing inside expertise in the north. Although the word “research” has
connotations of empiricism and statistics that may seem daunting to some,
the focus is really on the development of innovative, context-sensitive
knowledge. Thomas contrasts this model with more traditional approaches
to research by stating that
The conventional research methodologies of behavioral science and of
social work are ill-suited to the task of developing new technology.
Although behavioral science research contributes a methodology for
assisting in the evaluation of existing interventions, behavioral science
has no methodology for developing interventional innovations (1992, p.
72).
The outcome of developmental research is intended to be a “product” such
as a program, a form of assessment, or a specific policy rather than generic
statements about human behaviour. Particular attention would be paid to the
development of sound, context-sensitive responses to recurring problems.
Since relinquishing the influence of the southern metaphor requires
innovative northern practice strategies, methodologies—and programs that
are not simply imported urban models—developmental research would
seem most suited to the northern situation.
Thomas (1992) describes developmental research as following four
phases: analysis, design, development and evaluation. He notes that once
innovative programs and strategies have been developed, there is a
requirement for sharing the knowledge and follow-up to facilitate adoption
of the new approaches. Analysis includes problem identification, a review
of the literature, and a feasibility study. If the problem appears clear and
feasible for further analysis, the social worker continues to the design phase,
which include: determining an innovative objective; responding to design
problems; ensuring real world representation; selection of an information
source; and, gathering of the information. An important component of this
phase is the generation of alternative solutions as part of the innovation
process. A final component of the design phase is proceduralization. The
program that has been created needs to be developed into a format that a
northern agency can use as a regular procedure. Problems of application at
this stage are part of the ongoing evaluation process and refinement that
always continues in an effort to attain the best fit between the program and
the context. Since evaluating what makes for good intervention is integral to
this process, attention may need to be directed to a suitable methodology for
evaluating northern practice such as suggested by Brownlee (1995).
Brownlee & Delaney 89

One southern metaphor that creates problems for northern agencies is

the notion of organizational design which, in large urban centres, is based
on economy of scale and unity of command. In rural and northern agencies,
diversity of roles is a greater issue than size of organization. Northern
agencies normally have only a few social workers who must perform a large
number of social work roles. This diversity of roles contrasts with specialist
knowledge in a narrow area that is possible in an urban centre. It also can
account for the perception of expertise from the southern centre where
workers have had the opportunity to specialize and to accumulate
considerable knowledge in a circumscribed area. While this is not typical of
northern practice, there is nevertheless a tendency for northern workers to
develop interest areas and subsequently to see a higher proportion of clients
with similar problems.
Northern agencies may consider a flexible, team-leader model of
leadership with respect to knowledge development. In this model, each
member of the team becomes a leader in the area of his or her interest. As a
collaborative partnership between staff and managers, the provision of
desired and quality services becomes more important than power and
position status. Thus, the diversity of people and their knowledge, skills,
and interests become the criteria for assigning leadership, rather than any
formal position of supervisor. Agency directors and supervisors would have
to realign their roles to conform with a flexible, adaptive leadership and
service model.
An extension of this model would be the development of inter-agency
training and program development. In many instances, different agencies
share common concerns and respond to different facets of the same
problem. Small, working teams with members drawn from a variety of
agencies could assume a lead role in the development of specific knowledge
in a defined area and provide training to peers. This form of training is
economically attractive (Krause, 1977) and would affirm insider expertise.
According to Krause, a key feature responsible for the success of such
training is the participants’ ability to set the agenda and the topics for
development. This ensures self-directed learning and relevance. Similarly,
Weinbach and Kuehner (1987) caution against involving senior and most
knowledgeable employees in a primary training role as their perspectives
and biases are often well-known, and it may engender an experience of
revisiting supervision sessions with the same individuals.
In summary, there are a number of factors, including personal and
systemic, that contribute to the erosion of northern social workers’
confidence in their professional capabilities. The reasons for these
phenomena need to be recognized by the northern social worker and steps
taken to counter their influence. In this chapter, we have addressed the
potentially disempowering effect of inside-versus-outsider dynamics and
strategies to facilitate the utilization and development of insider expertise.
90 Developing our Own: Inside Versus Outside

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 CHAPTER 7

A THERAPEUTIC MEDIATION CASE

CONFERENCE MODEL FOR RURAL AND
NORTHERN COMMUNITIES

JO-ANN VIS, DAVID TRANTER,

KEITH BROWNLEE, AND NANCY SHALAY
One of the challenges of providing mental health services in northern
and rural remote communities is the lack of resources in the local area, such
as qualified mental health counsellors and crisis services. In response to this
dilemma, an individual requiring service could either travel outside of their
community; arrange to meet with a counsellor who travels to the community
on a rotation basis or receive service through the use electronic
communications technology.
While these methods of service delivery have historically been a
solution to the access issue, the impact of these options has now become
evident. The significance of the lack of therapeutic choice, the importance
of contextual sensitivity of the expert accessing the rural setting and the
continued reliance on outside expertise is now understood. In this chapter
we review some of the challenges and barriers experienced in rural and
northern social work practice and present a model titled ‘Therapeutic
Mediation Case Conferencing’ as a viable response to rural and remote
service delivery barriers that makes excellent use of local talent and
resources to assist in the therapeutic process.

Barriers to Choice, Contextual Sensitivity and Service

Capacity in Northern and Rural Communities

Barrier One: Location

The National Institute of Mental Health (1994) has stated that rural
people are as likely, or even more likely, to suffer from a mental illness than
their urban counterparts. In an effort to offer more effective and cost
efficient service to rural residents, governments enacted policies which
directed individuals in these communities to seek service from their distant
urban neighbours (Graham, Swift, & Delaney, 2003). However, accessing
mental health services can cause hardships for many northern and rural
residents. Blank, Fox, Hargrove, and Turner (1995) write that rural
populations are “less likely to make use of facility-based services, especially
when the facilities are at significant distance and providers are less
cognizant of the culture and beliefs of rural persons” p. 516. Hegney,

93
94 A Therapeutic Mediation Case Conferencing Model

Pearson, and McCarthy (1997) also recognize that the further the rural
resident is from urban centers with health services, the less frequent he/she
will utilize those services. This results in inequitable access to health
services (Hegney & McCarthy, 2000).
As well, choices available to individuals living in their respective
northern and rural communities are limited to a few options. One option
would be to attempt to access whatever type of mental heath services which
may be offered in their community. However, concerns regarding wait
times, confidentiality, and lack of specialized services are just some of the
issues that have emerged with regards to this option. These concerns often
force individuals to seek out an alternative, which invariably means
traveling outside their community. Traveling to another community or to a
large urban centre to access service also has its disadvantages. For instance,
depending on the distance between the alternative community and an
individual’s home community, this option can become cost and time
prohibitive. The final option made available is to access service through a
locum therapist or access to a therapist through technology, i.e. web-based
counselling, telemedicine, teleconference, or videoconference. While this
option can appear to address the issues of choice, confidentiality, and travel;
access to expensive teleconferencing equipment, and/or the length of time
between appointments with a “virtual” therapist creates other types of
service delivery dilemmas.

Barrier Two: Locum Service Delivery

Locum service delivery has been presented as another way to meet the
challenges faced by individuals living in northern and rural communities.
Mental health professionals have been visiting under-serviced areas since
the frontier days (Geller, Beeso, & Rodenhiser, 2000). It has been a means
to get scarce resources to rural or isolated communities. In the context of
mental health, this approach involves the professional who is external to the
area traveling to northern and rural communities to counsel those in need.
The visiting professional’s work is commonly coordinated through a local
agency or the local mental health worker/paraprofessional. Calling on such
outside “experts” to come into northern and rural communities offers one
solution to the problem of access to mental health services (Hegney &
McCarthy, 2000). However, a major challenge for any visiting mental
health professional is to be attuned or sensitive to the local environment. An
outsider may hold values, beliefs, and traditions that could be quite different
from those in the community that he/she is servicing, and a difference in
perspective of this nature can cause the client additional distress. It is
important, therefore, for all professionals to understand the people who they
serve within the context of their own environment (Delaney, Brownlee &
Zapf, 1996), for, when northern and rural residents experience a familiarity
with a social worker, they are more likely to seek services from that worker
and feel more comfortable opening up about personal issues (Zapf, 1985;
Vis, Tranter, Brownlee and Shalay 95

Pugh, 2003; 2006). A personal acquaintance can thus reflect common values
and reduce suspicion, making the clinician seem easier to talk to (Gates &
Speare, 1990).
The limited access provided by the visiting professional is clearly better
than nothing. Nevertheless, additional concerns have been raised by critics
who state that it is too costly to pay the professional for his/her time and to
pay travel costs in order for him/her to see so few clients (Geller et al.,
2000). As a result, recent recommendations have included service delivery
which calls for educating and training mental health workers who will
remain in the community (LaMendola, 2000).
Regardless of whether northern and rural service delivery is offered
through the service of a locum or professional from within the community,
it is unlikely that a sole counsellor is able to attend to all of the diverse
needs within a community. As a result, rural mental health professionals
may find themselves seeking consultation, requiring the need for additional
expertise. Requesting consultation from other professionals to lend
assistance is a progressive and respected method of solving an impasse or
offering alternative interventions (Kelleher, Taylor, & Rickert, 1992).
Indeed, clinical scenarios are full of examples where past interventions have
failed as the therapist (mental health professional) and client become
“stuck” and unable to move forward. In situations like these, collegial
support becomes essential.

Barrier Three: Telecommunication

Telecommunication involves the use of electronic communication

technology to eliminate or reduce geographic barriers to receiving metal
health services. Although the movement to use interactive communication
technology to reach under-serviced areas began over forty years ago, it was
not until the 1990s that its usage became common worldwide (Office for the
Advancement of Telehealth Report, 2002). Advancement in technology,
decreased cost of the equipment, and the common practice of internet use
and videoconferencing by the general population on desktop computers are
the main reasons for this growing demand (Brown, 1998). While some
research indicates that technology is a more efficient and effective way than
person-to-person therapy to service the mental health needs of people living
in rural areas (Aas, 2003; Monnier, Knapp, & Frueh, 2003; Ruskin et al.,
2004) there are also drawbacks.
The advantages of technological service delivery are many (Ritterband,
et al., 2003). Cost savings for travel for the professional; increased
availability to professionals through local teleconference sites; increased
attendance; and, shorter sessions are but a few examples. However, there are
also certain limitations worthy of consideration. Werner (2001) questions
the validity of the cost-savings argument. He points out that most of the
studies proclaiming cost savings have not factored in the expenses
associated with the per-use cost of equipment, transmission lines, and other
96 A Therapeutic Mediation Case Conferencing Model

infrastructure, as well as technical personnel, training of staff, and space for

equipment. He adds that, since the professional is engaged—whether in-
person or over the wire—there is no cost-saving regarding time. Moreover,
since northern and rural areas are sparsely populated, clients would still
have to travel to the site where the equipment is located and transportation
may be an issue. Additionally, videoconferencing can have drawbacks when
it comes to privacy and confidentiality (Jerome et al., 2000). Recipients of
this kind of therapy question whether the external professional can be truly
aware of the person’s life circumstances when he/she is so far removed
geographically from the client and his/her environment Shore, (Savin,
Novins, & Manson, 2006). In other words, can the professional really be
contextually sensitive enough to empathize with the client? Can the
professional formulate an effective intervention if he/she is ignorant to the
client’s unique perspective as to what that client may realistically be
prepared to do?
The limitations regarding access to mental health services through the
use of electronic communication technology highlights the need for further
development in this area as a way to offer a solution to the problems
encountered in northern and rural settings.
As discussed earlier, the use of technology might be best accessed
within the context of a consultative model. A consultative model capitalizes
on the benefits experienced through the access to local mental health
resources, while offering collegial support and clinical direction.

Barrier Four: Recruitment and Retention

When attempts are made to recruit and retain mental health

professionals in rural and northern communities, often a variety of barriers
emerge, namely the issue concerning professional isolation. Hegney and
Hobbs (1998) state that inequities to health services present problems
associated with recruitment and retention of health professionals in rural and
northern areas. The two key factors involved in recruitment and retention
include a lack of resources (such as collegial support) and a lack of skills to
meet community needs (Malko, 2001). To overcome these obstacles,
resources and expertise must be pooled and service delivery integrated
(Delaney, Brownlee, & Zapf, 1996). It is also imperative that mental health
professionals have ongoing training opportunities so they can be better
prepared for each unique situation that may present itself. They must have
the ability to consult with specialists when they are feeling overwhelmed
and to refer the client to other professionals if warranted. As well, feelings
of incompetence and low job satisfaction often results in a higher turnover
of staff. Roberts, Battaglia, and Epstein (1999) and Spoth (1997) state that a
lack of cultural knowledge of the rural community can increase the stress
that working in a rural environment can cause. Retention efforts aimed at
providing support to the newly hired professional, as part of the consultation
effort, could thus assist in reducing stress levels and so increasing retention.
Vis, Tranter, Brownlee and Shalay 97

During the process of becoming familiar with the client’s and the rural
community’s culture, consultation could be offered as a way to work
collaboratively to establish joint objectives that are agreeable to all
concerned (Brownlee, Delaney, & McKee, 2002). Finally, the therapeutic
case conferencing model offers an opportunity for professionals to receive
the clinical support they require, in concert with opportunities for
consultation regarding the adjustment process and clear direction for
incorporating contextually based service in rural or northern communities.

Therapeutic Mediation Case Consultation: A Response to

Rural Service Delivery Barriers
The Therapeutic Mediation Case Consultation model emerged from the
authors’ awareness of a need to address concerns raised in the literature
regarding mental health service delivery in northern and rural communities.
Based on the literature and research, there was a need to develop a unique
response to a unique need. This model provides an opportunity to expand
service delivery options in rural or northern areas while simultaneously
accessing and maximizing outside expertise and resources. Primarily, this
model facilitates professional community response, while promoting client
involvement and choice regarding their therapeutic direction. The lack of
therapeutic choice, the importance of contextual sensitivity, and the ability
to empower individuals to access resources within themselves and their own
community are key concepts that inform the model. While the strength of
this model is the integration of counselling interventions and mediation;
merging therapeutic direction with aspects of collaboration and mutual
agreement.

Therapeutic Choice

Thorngren (2003) recommends that therapists empower their rural

clients by involving them in mutual problem solving. She goes on to say
that therapists should ask these clients their thoughts and perceptions on
what may work best for them and utilize these suggestions. In Thorngren’s
qualitative study of rural inhabitants, it was determined that a collaborative
approach to the client’s mental health issue would be more willingly
accepted over an approach that was voiced by an outside expert alone.
Such interventions should not be practiced if there was not a joint effort
between the professional and the client. Moorehouse (2004) stresses that it
is important that the collaborative effort involve the client in a way that is
meaningful to him/her. This entails valuing the client and believing that a
client’s involvement in his/her decision-making process and outcome is
vital. Collaboration between the client and the expert is fundamental in the
therapeutic case conferencing model. It is believed that this type of
equitable and non-hierarchal partnership facilitates a process for change. In
this model, counselling is flexible, open, and is transparent for all
98 A Therapeutic Mediation Case Conferencing Model

concerned. It involves the active and ongoing sharing of different views and
subsequently offering choice regarding interventions. Every perspective is
valued. The TMCC strives to empower the client and validate the client’s
concerns. New meaning and understanding is thus ideally developed
mutually as a goal of therapy.

Contextual Sensitivity

It is suggested that an outsider can learn to appreciate the language,

values, and perceptions that are used to explain the client’s (insider’s)
behaviour through a process called collaboration.
The TMCC works towards this from the context of the client. Through
collaborative efforts, the client is encouraged to begin by offering his/her
perspective regarding the accomplishments and challenges of the presenting
problem, identifying the barriers experienced. Based on this, the
professional involved with the client may also wish to share his/her
experience in a consultative framework as a way to determine how the team
might best offer their support. In this way, the client and the supporting
professional bring with them the contexts in which the concern is
experienced and in which the solution can be found. The team (comprised
of the client and supporting professional) can then offer a range of options
to consider. Ultimately, it is the client who will best determine which option
best suits his/her context.

Professional Resource Capacity Building

The purpose and benefits of community capacity building is well

documented in the literature. Poole (1997) notes that the purpose for
community capacity building is to “strengthen the characteristics of
communities that enable them to plan, develop, implement, and maintain
community programs” (p. 163). While the TMCC was not intended to be
used as a community capacity tool in a macro sense, it certainly offers the
potential for professional resource capacity building at the micro level,
offering empowerment and support to both the client and the professional
within the community.
Schuftan (1996) utilizes the concept of empowerment as a way to
promote effective community development. The author defines
empowerment as something that is a continuous process that assists people
to “understand, upgrade and use their capacity to better control and gain
power over their own lives” (p. 260). The author argues that it is the ability
to choose and have more control over resources, as part of that choice,
which is vital to true empowerment and community development. The
therapeutic mediation case conferencing model reflects this concept of
empowerment as outlined by Schuftan by encouraging the professional, in
concert with the client, to use the process of consultation and resource
management in a way that can promote increased capacity and skill for all.
Vis, Tranter, Brownlee and Shalay 99

The Model

The concept of collaboration and empowerment are the fundamental

principles of the Therapeutic Mediation Case Conference (TMCC) model.
The model is based on the assumption that, in therapy, change will occur
when the client is included as part of the decision-making team. The client,
ultimately, is the decision maker regarding what he/she may considers to be
achievable goals and, though the support of the team, is a key decision
maker regarding the means to attain these goals. The TMCC model also
utilizes a team approach which includes the client(s), four or five multi-
discipline professionals, and the supporting mental health professional or
paraprofessional from within the client’s rural or northern community.
The TMCC borrows concepts from case conference and mediation
models. Case conferences traditionally involved professionals discussing
and coordinating the services that they provide a client in order for there to
be a seamless interdisciplinary approach to care (Harris, 2002; King &
Roberts, 2001). Recently client, family, and community involvement in case
conferencing has been acknowledged as important (Allen, Foster-Fishman,
& Salem, 2002; Family Case Conference, 2001). This belief in collaborating
with members other than the professionals involved also hold true in the
TMCC. The bringing together of a group of stakeholders to discuss a matter
important to all concerned is similar in both traditional case conferences and
the TMCC. However, the TMCC differs significantly from case conferences
in that the decision of interventions and goals is chosen by the client alone
after all members offer their various perspectives and solutions regarding
the presenting issue. With input from all parties, the client can choose a
realistic intervention from a menu of options.
Mediation models historically have been strongly influenced by
problem-solving and outcome focused approaches. The mediation concepts
employed within the TMCC model compare to the reciprocal-influence
model (Sinclair & Stuart, 2007). The reciprocal-influence model combines
the concreteness of problem-solving outcomes with a process orientation
that facilitates the transformation of the individual’s view of self and the
situation. Similar to the reciprocal-influence model, the TMCC mediation
approach is one that emphasis process, interaction, and choice making.

Preparation Phase

When a referral is made to the TMCC team, the preparation phase is

used to initiate client contact and to begin the process. Telephone contact, in
which information about the model and process is given, is made with the
client. The client is also encouraged to think about his/her priorities and
goals for the session. A preparation form is mailed to the client to confirm
consent and goals and to allow important preparation information to be
shared with the team. This form is given to the team to review prior to the
exploration phase.
100 A Therapeutic Mediation Case Conferencing Model

Exploration Phase

Once the team membership is confirmed, the second stage is initiated.

This is the exploration phase. This initial part of the therapeutic case
conference session sets the context for both client and the team, while this
part of the session can take between 20-30 minutes; the emphasis is on
obtaining information relevant to the presenting problem presented by the
client.
In this phase, one person is designated to lead and facilitate the
therapeutic case conference process. The term used for the person leading
this process is referred to as “the guide.” The rest of the team listens while
the guide conducts the exploration or information-gathering session.
Typically, the guide will begin the process by inviting the client, in
partnership with the rural mental health professional (or other relevant
helper) to describe what type of service has been offered to date,
specifically addressing the successes and challenges. Generally the client is
asked to share whatever type of information he/she feels would be important
for the team to know.

Mediation Phase

Immediately following the exploration phase, the client is invited to

participate in the mediation phase of the session. During this phase, all team
members except for the guide pose questions and state his/her perspectives
and points of view based on the information provided in the exploration
phase. Based on the fundamental principles of the model, the team members
strive to present differing perspectives of the situation in this phase. The
guide directs the overall process. In this phase, it is the guide’s
responsibility to:
Facilitate the session, ensuring that all members are heard
Advocate on the client’s behalf
Help articulate the client’s concerns
Mediate the process for mutual understanding
Record information that captures all positions, perspectives,
ideas, and strategies (using flip chart)
Seek clarification when needed
Check for understanding
Seek direction and feedback from the client to ensure the
process is meeting his/her needs
Make certain the team maintains focus
Remain neutral
Continually check in with the client to ensure that the client’s
interests remain in the forefront.
The mediation phase thus includes two main components: the first main
component primarily involves interaction between the guide and the team,
with the client involved as a spectator. Here, the goal of the guide is to elicit
Vis, Tranter, Brownlee and Shalay 101

as many options or solutions as possible, given the information provided by

the client. Once the list of options is generated, the guide then turns the
attention toward the client, with the team taking on the role of spectator.
The goal here is to assist the client in choosing the best option or options
available; however, all options are recorded for the client. While one or two
options may be selected by the client for immediate application, other
options might be beneficial for the client to reflect on at a future time.
When the mediation phase is completed, the client is invited to take the
information compiled, either through electronic or other written means.
Once the client is in possession of the information compiled in the session,
he/she uses this information to further develop or confirm a decided course
of action, which may include accessing support services within his/her
community.

Commentary on Model
Assets

The TMCC Team could include community supports such as school

counsellors, adult and child mental health workers, child welfare workers,
social workers, and any other person who offers services to the client and
family. Bringing all involved parties into the session ensures that everyone
is involved in support of the client’s change plan. In this way, the services
being used by the client and family can be coordinated for successful
implementation.
The TMCC model provides a context in which the client is understood
in a broader historical, cultural, and political context. Thus, its intervention
should reflect a contextually sensitive approach. Counsellors using a TMCC
model invite opportunities for true client collaboration (Carr, 1998). This
invitation for clients to participate is empowering for the client (Allen et al.,
2002) and supports a narrative which allows the client to relate how an
event was experienced by him/her (Carr, 1998). Client narratives allow the
team to gain insight into a client’s perception of events. What the client
presents as important, which event receives the most attention, the
descriptive language used, and the values driving the narrative can then be
used as the basis for choice generation and decision making (Nichols &
Schwarts, 2004).
In this way, the TMCC allows the client to select from a menu of
options and resources constructed from input from all present at the session.
Intervention flexibility is thus offered through the choices and alternatives
given the client. Compliance is high when clients can make the choice of
interventions and goals that are realistic for them (Rollnick & Miller, 1995).
As well, the non-judgmental and non-confrontational approach “meets
people where they are at” in terms of readiness to change. Additionally, this
model can be used to expand the informal support systems of the client
through inclusion of narratives from other family members. This can
102 A Therapeutic Mediation Case Conferencing Model

enhance or reinforce feelings of family solidarity, foster communication

among family members, bring fragmented families together, and allow for
the opportunity for full family disclosure (Diamond & Liddle, 1999; Levine,
2000).
The skilled and experienced guide will ensure that the client or family
members will be heard since one of his/her roles is to be an advocate for the
family. The guide ensures that the professionals present are not perceived as
experts to be deferred to. The guide also guarantees that the client has real
choices and not just a façade of options presented by the team for whom
outcomes may have already been predetermined by some unconsciously.
Further, having various professionals and paraprofessionals present can be
beneficial. All have information to share, access to resources, and a point of
view that may shed new light on the issue (Pennell & Burford, 2000).
Moreover, clients who have a whole team to collaborate with, often find
themselves formulating realistic goals which increase the chances of
success. Exposing the client to many different perspectives thus gives the
client more alternatives to choose from so he/she can choose the one that
best fits his/her needs.
Through this model, rural mental health workers will have an increased
opportunity to use this forum to enhance collegial support and contribute to
the learning needs of those less skilled or less experienced. They will be
given the opportunity to engage with other professionals through modeling,
utilizing their knowledge and experience as learning tools and to access
additional resources.

Challenges

When there is more than one professional attending a session, the

possibility of “group think,” “the certainty effect,” and “group polarization”
may occur (Kelly & Milner, 1996). These pitfalls can produce poor choices
and disempowerment. Group think is characterized by a lack of
disagreement; agreement with an influential group member; a belief in
unanimity; pressure on any dissenters; and a high level of confidence in the
group’s decision. This may be countered if one member is appointed as the
devil’s advocate and one member is brought in as an objective chair. The
TMCC further offsets this problem by encouraging various viewpoints as a
way to search out all possible options for interventions and goal-setting. As
well, the guide ensures that all voices are heard, mediates, deconstructs
unclear perspectives, and remains neutral.
A similar hazard to effective engagement is negative certainty effect if
options are given in such a way that they are viewed as choices between
losses—such as, for example, exaggerated certain losses relative to losses
which are greater but are less sure—the client may become risk-seeking
(Kelly & Milner, 1996). This certainty effect can be very harmful if not
discarded for more positive views of choices. Accordingly, the TMCC
should utilize the strengths-based perspective to eliminate any such
Vis, Tranter, Brownlee and Shalay 103

negativity. In family group conferences care must be taken that the number
of professionals does not intimidate clients who may defer decisions to the
“experts” (Pennell & Burford, 2000). Professional jargon and verbal
shorthand should not be used either, as their use could confuse the client.
Additionally, since the professionals are usually from outside the
community, they may impinge their professional ideologies on the family
members.
Group polarization, which as its name implies, states that members of
the group will be polarized at either extreme end of the decision continuum
(Kelly & Milner, 1996). To prevent this from occurring, the TMCC team
should clearly outline the decision options for the client but, ultimately,
leave the client as the one who makes the choice of interventions and goal-
setting.
Harris (2002) expresses some of the areas of difficulty in putting
together a consulting team. He questions if paraprofessionals should join the
professionals on the team. In contrast, the TMCC encourages all those who
are working with the family and who have a historical and cultural tie with
them to participate regardless of professional status for it is believed that
they can offer different insights and workable solutions to the issues
presented.

Conclusion

The Therapeutic Mediated Case Conference Model is uniquely

designed to benefit those people in need of counselling in rural communities
where there are often no mental health resources available. Since there are
differences in values, traditions, and beliefs in various geographic areas, the
TMCC strives to be contextually sensitive and requires the client’s
perspective to be the main focus. The team may include members from
inside the client’s community as well as the professionals from outside the
community. The TMCC also can come to the aid of those professionals who
may be living in the rural communities as a means of collegial support and
mode of learning when it is needed.

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PART II: ETHICS
 CHAPTER 8

UNDERSTANDING ETHICS IN RURAL AND

NORTHERN PRACTICE
ROGER DELANEY AND KEITH BROWNLEE
This chapter is presented in conjunction with Chapter 9. Chapter 8 is
intended to provide an overview of the theory of ethics and ethical decision-
making and will conclude by examining ethical considerations for northern
and rural social workers that are created by unique characteristics of the
northern environment. Chapter 9 will examine specific ethical issues
associated with rural and northern practice.
Simply put, ethics are about human behaviour in a professional
capacity. Professionals are expected to act ethically—that is, in accordance
with the guidelines that inform professionally ethical behaviour in each
profession. In a very real sense, professionals receive public approval
(licensing) because the public is protected from misbehaviour or misconduct
by the profession. In this regard, agencies and institutions do not have
ethical behaviour: i.e., one cannot say, “the agency is unethical.” Rather,
agencies and formal and informal organizations are governed by public and
agency policies which may be considered “immoral,” “disrespectful,”
“coercive,” “mean spirited,” “oppressive” or “bad practice,” but not
“unethical.” Ethics are about you as a professional and the rules that govern
your conduct. The following example is provided to demonstrate a situation
where ethical practice was challenged by agency (company) policy:
In 1995, Dr. Nancy Olivieri, a leading clinician and researcher, signed
an agreement with Apotex, Inc. which gained funding for her project and
gave the company all rights to sales and data involved with the drug
deferiprone. This drug was taken orally thus avoiding a long and painful
procedure for the treatment of an inherited blood disorder.
Research from liver biopsies indicated dangerous levels of iron and
potential compromise of liver functions and possibly death. In response,
Dr. Olivieri recommended to Apotex that the patient consent form
should be changed to indicate the possible negative effects; the company
refused permission. When she sent an amended consent form anyhow,
the company fired her as principal researcher and as chair of the
international steering committee. The company also threatened her with
legal action if she revealed the results. The hospital (Sick Children’s)
refused to give her any legal support. Dr. Olivieri published her findings
in the New England Journal of Medicine. Apotex plans to license and
sell the drug in Canada. Subsequent investigations have supported Dr.
Olivieri’s behaviour as ethical.
Social workers are ethically governed by Codes of Ethics, be these the
Codes of Ethics stated by the Canadian Association of Social Workers

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110 Understanding Ethics in Rural and Northern Practice

(CASW), Codes of Ethics adapted for provincial regulatory bodies (social

work colleges of registered social workers), or ethical guidelines presented
by provincial, territorial, or agency authorities. Moreover, guidelines for
ethical practice are now available from CASW and provincial ethical
regulatory bodies. However, the CASW Code of Ethics (1994 or 2005)
essentially forms the basis for the social work code of ethics.
The Canadian Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics (2005)
stipulates the core set of social work values and principles as consisting of
six core value statements. These are:

Value 1: Respect for Inherent Dignity and Worth of Persons

Value 2: Pursuit of Social Justice
Value 3: Service to Humanity
Value 4: Integrity of Professional Practice
Value 5: Confidentiality in Professional Practice
Value 6: Competence in Professional Practice (CASW Code of Ethics,
2005, 3-4).

However, the Code of Ethics (2005) does recognize that there are
diverse personal and contextual situations which can impact on the
interpretation and practice of ethical behaviour. The code states:
The CASW Code of Ethics does not provide a set of rules that
prescribe how social workers should act in all situations. Further, the
Code of Ethics does not specify which values and principles are most
important and which outweigh others in instances of conflict.
Reasonable differences of opinion exist among social workers with
respect to which values and principles should be given priority in a
particular situation. Further, a social worker’s personal values, culture,
religious beliefs, practices and/or other important distinctions, such as
age, ability, gender or sexual orientation can affect his/her ethical
choices. Thus, social workers need to be aware of any conflicts
between personal and professional values and deal with them
responsibly (CASW Code of Ethics, 2005, 2).
If asked, the vast majority of social workers would state that they do
maintain the best interests of the client as their primary professional
obligation. However, this is often an “aspirational ethical statement” which
Argyris and Schon (1975) describe as an “espoused theory,” that is, a
“theory of action to which the professional gives allegiance and which,
upon request, is used to explain how the professional would act or conduct
him/herself” (p. 6-7). In other words, our espoused theory is how we would
describe our professional practice to others based on our professional
knowledge, values and skills. It is what we believe we do. Theory-in-use,
on the other hand, is what really does guide our professional practice (p. 7).
Theory-in-use is what professionals actually do in their day-to-day practice.
There is evidence that, for many professionals, there are incompatibilities
between their espoused theory (what we say we do) and their theory-in-use
Delaney & Brownlee 111

(what we actually do). In other words, while a northern social worker may
state that he or she deeply values the best interests of his/her clients, actual
practice behaviour may work against the best interests of the client. For
example, a social worker may be more interested in “looking good” to
superiors by strictly following their directions, even if doing so is not in the
client’s best interest. If asked, this social worker would state that his/her
practice certainly respects the client’s best interest—and would believe that
this is the truth. Theory-in-use reflects those values and world views
professionals actually cherish and believe and which are imposed on clients
unbeknownst to the professional who assumes the dominance of the
espoused theory.
For this reason, it is important for social workers to be well-grounded in
making social work values a demonstrated element of their practice and thus
achieve congruence between their espoused theory and their theory-in-use.
This grounding may prevent social workers from imposing their values on
their clients. A standardized code of ethics forms the basis for such
grounding as an operational summary of a profession’s values (Hepworth &
Larsen, 1986).
Rokeach (1973) provides a definition of values that views each value
and belief as having intellectual, emotional, and behavioural elements. He
views values as enduring beliefs which promote a specific mode of conduct
or end-state of existence which is personally or socially preferable to an
opposite or contradictory conduct or end-state. Beliefs are Descriptive (what
is true or false), Evaluative (what is good or bad), and/or Prescriptive (what
action or behaviour is acceptable or unacceptable). For example, if I believe
in being nonviolent, then I likely believe nonviolent means work better than
violent means (true); nonviolence is morally superior to violence (good);
and nonviolence means behaving in ways that are not violent towards
people (acceptable). If I am congruent with my nonviolent belief, I can feel
good about what I believe, what I value, and how I act. When different
values form a view that clarifies and simplifies the world, a conceptual
system is formed and a world view emerges that states what is true, what is
good, and what is appropriate behaviour (Delaney, 2009).
Hepworth and Larsen (1986) also note that there are four major
ramifications that result from social workers imposing their values on
clients. They are as follows:

(1) imposing values is antithetical to the client’s right to self-determination;

(2) until clients have internalized new values, behaving contrary to deeply
held values may create intense feelings of guilt;
(3) many clients strongly resent and oppose attempts to impose values
upon them; and,
4) practitioners must be aware of their own values in order to assist clients
who themselves are having value conflicts (p. 45-46).
Obviously, it is difficult for social workers in all settings to ensure their
own ethical practices. The client’s messages of rejection of the social

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worker’s values, which maybe listed as threats to the respect and acceptance
of the stated values, serves to challenge the social worker’s professional
effort to gain an intimate awareness of his/her own intellectual, emotional
and behavioural understanding of social work values. When the social
workers are secure with their own values, they are better able to withstand
negative-value response by clients or others—such as peers, supervisors,
community groups or significant others. In fact, Yelaja (1982) argues that
many of social work’s unique values actually demonstrate how social work
is distinct from other professions. For northern social workers, the
uniqueness of the environmental context in which they work also presents
many similar challenges, not the least of which is interrelated relationships
(Brownlee, 1992). Accordingly, this chapter will examine northern social
work and ethical considerations in terms of 1) understanding ethics; 2)
managing ethics; and, 3) ethical considerations for northern social work
practice.

Understanding Ethics
The study of ethics stems from moral philosophy and has generated a
large number of studies examining ethics and ethical behaviour (Rachels,
2003). Strom-Gottfried (2008) identifies both utilitarianism (based on the
works of Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mills) and deontological
approaches (based on the works of Immanuel Kant) as bearing the greatest
impact on our current study of ethics. Utilitarian approaches ask questions
regarding “what is the greatest good for the greatest number?” (p. 19) in that
they are essentially concerned with the consequences of decisions—that is,
what effects these decisions have on how many people and with what
results. Deontological approaches are essentially concerned “with duty,
obligations and universal moral questions,” (p. 19) and would determine the
possibilities of an action based on the question “Is this how I would want
everyone to behave?” (p. 20).
Ethical judgements made by social workers about moral obligations are
called deontic judgements (deontological approaches), while ethical
judgements about goods and resources are referred to as aretaic judgements
(utilitarianism) (Reamer, 1993). For example, maintaining the best interest
of the client as the primary professional obligation is an example of a
deontic judgement, while the ethical obligation to pursue social justice as
stated in the CASW Code of Ethics (2005) is an example of an aretaic
judgement. Social workers are expected:

to believe in the obligation of people, individually and collectively, to

provide resources, services and opportunities for the overall benefit of
humanity and to afford them protection from harm. Social workers promote
social fairness and the equitable distribution of resources, and act to reduce
barriers and expand choice for all persons, with special regard for those who
are marginalized, disadvantaged, vulnerable, and/or have exceptional needs.
Delaney & Brownlee 113

Social workers oppose prejudice and discrimination against any person or

group of persons, on any grounds, and specifically challenge views and
actions that stereotype particular persons or groups (p. 5).
Professions, like social work, are regulated by codes of ethics which are
considered to be a distinctive feature of professions (Greenwood 1957;
Freidson, 1970; Gilbert & Specht, 1976). Codes of ethics are designed to
highlight professional duties and obligations and general prescriptions and
proscriptions (Reamer, 1987). Prescriptions describe how professionals
should act, and proscriptions describe how professionals should not act. But
what are ethics?

The term, “ethics,” is derived from the Greek root, ethos, which means
“custom, usage or habit” (Loewenber, Dolgoff & Harrington, 2000).
Reamer (1987) states that “ethics, or moral philosophy, is concerned with
the nature of what is morally right and wrong, good and bad” (p. 42).
Ethical enquiry is generally divided into metaethics and normative ethics
branches. Reamer (1987) defines these two branches in the following
manner:
Metaethics is concerned with the analysis of the meaning of moral
terms—such as right, wrong, good, bad, duty and obligation—and of
the methods used to support ethical claims and judgements. Thus,
within metaethics we explore various arguments concerning what moral
terms mean and the validity of their definition. For example, how
should we define the term duty, and how do we know whether someone
has fulfilled his or her duty?
Normative Ethics, in contrast, is concerned with the application of
moral concepts and principles to moral problems or ethical dilemmas.
Thus, within normative ethics we might discuss individuals’ rights to
privacy and the circumstances under which confidentiality should be
broken. Or we might explore the most ethical way to distribute scarce
social service resources....Normative ethics then, is more closely (p.
42).
Since this chapter is concerned with the application of ethics and the
special dilemmas this may cause the northern social worker, the primary
focus will be on normative ethics. However, it is important to remember
that the values contained in the social worker’s code of ethics—such as the
right to self-determination, humanization and egalitarianism—achieve their
definition and meaning through metaethic examination. Understanding and
clarifying what our values actually mean ensures that everyone is using the
same value to describe the same thing. For example, what exactly does self-
determination mean? If I believe it means giving people total freedom and
you believe it means ensuring people have equal opportunity to decide what
is best for them, then we both are using self-determination to describe a
different action. This not only creates confusion instead of clarity but also
has enormous implications for enforcing a code of ethics and for protecting
the public.

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114 Understanding Ethics in Rural and Northern Practice

Normative ethics thus centre around three major questions which

Reamer articulates as (1) the authoritative question - why should one be
concerned with morality and ethics, in the sense of considering one’s
obligation to other individuals, especially when these obligations conflict
with one’s own interests?; (2) the distributive question - whose interests, in
addition to one’s own, should we be concerned with, and in what manner
should goods and resources be distributed among individuals?; and, (3) the
substantive question - what actions and resources are to be considered
worthwhile, good, and desirable on their own account, and for what
reasons? (p. 46).

Codes of ethics provide several important functions, including:

1. Safeguarding the reputation of a profession by providing explicit

criteria that can be employed to regulate the behaviour of its members,

2. Furthering competent and responsible practice by its members,

3. Protecting the public from exploitation by unscrupulous or incompetent

practitioners (Hepworth & Larsen, 1986, 21).

In terms of accountability, codes of ethics formalize the accountability

of social workers to the society from whom they receive the sanction to
practise; to consumers who utilize their services; and, to the profession
which regulates their practice (Hepworth & Larsen, 1986, p. 21). As such,
the social work code of ethics “specifies rules of conduct to which members
must adhere to remain in good standing within a professional organization”
(p. 21).
Cossom (1992) suggests that not only must social workers maintain and
enforce a code of ethics, but part of their professional obligation “Is to
conduct research about how its practitioners take abstract and sometimes-
competing principles and translate them into action. This is an important
part of our knowledge base” (p. 166-67). Cossom (1992) reviewed empirical
studies relating to social workers and their ethics. The following is a
summary of findings from several research efforts:
Client advocacy was the principle least understood (34 percent of social
workers polled were not clear on this issue);
Practitioners were uncertain about their obligation to their community
(57 percent), their profession (45 percent), their agency (37 percent)
and people other than clients—i.e., colleagues, other professionals,
interested third parties, and client relatives (53 percent);
More than one third of social workers surveyed thought social work
values were too abstract to be useful in practice. Over 50 percent of
respondents rely on their own personal ethics as opposed to
professional ethics to guide their practice; only 20 percent took the
opposite stance;
Delaney & Brownlee 115

Sixty-four percent of social workers believed ethics should be a guide

to action;
Almost two-thirds believed that no principle of ethic is more
authoritative than individual judgment, since every situation is unique;
M.S.W. workers make principled judgments to a greater degree than the
general population, but not to a greater degree than other professionals
nor non-professionals holding graduate degrees;
The formal organization exerts a dominant influence on the
practitioner and presumably influences the response to ethical
conflicts, although later studies showed that only 32 percent of
surveyed social workers thought agency constraints interfered 41
percent to 100 percent of the time;
Multi-discipline, complex agencies seemed less conducive to ethical
decision-making, in contrast to social work agencies in which managers
were more supportive of dealing with ethical problems;
Females were more likely to focus on client issues; males were more
likely to stress the multiple perspectives of agency, society and client;
and,
Workers with greater experience had increased awareness of client
issues (p. 167-69).
These findings suggest that social workers are uncertain of both
metaethics and normative ethics. It is a somewhat dangerous position for
clients when the majority of sampled social workers rely on their own
judgements as superior to their profession’s statement of ethical behaviour.
Kitchener (1984) strongly recommends that ethical principles must take
precedence over individual and group values. In fact, ethical principles are
considered prima facie (Kitchener, 1985). Reamer (1993) explains that:
A prima facie duty is an action we ought to perform, other things being
equal, or independent of other ethical considerations. Thus, our
inclination to simultaneously value self-determination and client well-
being may lead to a conflict among prima facie duties if a client
announces his or her plan to engage in some form of self-destructive
behaviour. This sort of conflict would require a social worker to
identify his or her actual duty, that is, the product of an attempt to
reconcile two or more conflicting prima facie duties (p. 67–68).
One’s actual duty in instances where prima facie duties conflict should
be based on a determination of which duty is most necessary for the
performance of action and represents the least threat to the well-being of
individuals (Reamer, 2006).
Prima facie duties are “neither absolute or perfect, nor relative or the
same in every situation. Instead, they are always ethically relevant and must
be overturned when there are stronger ethical obligations” (Lehmann, 1992,
136). In response to Felkenes’ (1980) question (based on her research on
social work ethics) as to whether ethics are relevant to the practice of most
social workers, Cossom (1992) notes “A code of ethics is of critical

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116 Understanding Ethics in Rural and Northern Practice

importance in setting ideals, guidelines and standards for practitioner

conduct, and providing a basis for consumer protection” (p. 166).
The confusion as to the relevance of professional ethics to practice also
gives rise to the question of how ethics can be applied to practical and
varying situations, when these ethics are statements of abstract principles.
Social work clearly views ethics as performing three major functions, which
are normative, aspirational and prescriptive. Normative functions identify
what the expected standard for professional conduct should be. Aspirational
functions identify the principles which social workers attempt to reach.
Prescriptive functions identify behaviours to which social workers shall be
held accountable. In terms of enforcing codes of ethics, a social worker’s
behaviour is evaluated in terms of ethical duties and ethical responsibilities.
Ethical duties prescribe what is due to a client: that is, it perceives
clients as having rights and social workers as being responsible to ensure
these rights. For example, clients have a right to be safe with a social
worker. Violations of such basic ethical duties should result in disciplinary
actions. Ethical responsibilities, on the other hand, are more aspirational and
normative and a breach of responsibility most likely would not merit
disciplinary action. The lack of appropriate action is an example of a failed
ethical responsibility. However, it is important for all social workers to
recognize that public policy, in the form of legislation, supersedes all codes
of ethics. For example, confidentiality does not protect a social worker from
testifying in court nor is a social worker exempt from reporting child abuse
if required to by legislation. This leads to the question of how do we
manage ethics?

Managing Ethics
Hepworth and Larsen (1986) note that:
Social workers frequently experience quandaries in making choices as
to which ethics should take precedence in situations that involve
conflicts of duty….Conflicts involving ethics often pose difficult and
painful challenges to social workers....In some instances, the
appropriate action is relatively clear-cut; in others, however, decisions
are agonizingly difficult (p. 75).
How then can social workers to be guided when conflicts occur that require
ethical choices? Are there methods which can help to resolve ethical issues
that are difficult to resolve? Both Frederic Reamer (2006, 1993) and Karen
Kitchener (1988, 1985, 1984) do offer methods of ethical justification that
are designed to provide the social worker with general guidelines when
making difficult ethical decisions.
Reamer’s (2006, 1993) general guidelines are summarized by the
following items:
Delaney & Brownlee 117

When prima facie duties are in conflict, the duty which represents the
least threat to the well-being of individuals and which is most necessary for
the performance of action, is to be chosen;
Priorities for action must be based on a ranking of goods and resources
based on (1) their necessity for individual well-being and (2) the
implications of their absence as a threat to the opportunities and abilities of
individuals to fulfil their intentions;
Goods and services can be qualitatively ranked ranging from basic
human needs that are necessary for the performance of any and all human
action, such as life, physical health, shelter, food, water and basic mental
equilibrium, to goods and resources which may enhance people’s ability to
fulfil their goals, but which are not, in the strictest sense, necessary for
human action, such as wealth, recreational facilities, cultural facilities and,
artistic artefacts; and,
Choices that are vital to enabling relevant others (clients, colleagues
and employers) to take essential action assume precedence over choices that
are less essential (p. 175).

Reamer’s (1992a) rather straight-forward guidelines propose that, in

situations where a client’s or another’s life may be endangered (threat to
basic human well-being), the social worker’s duty to act on this takes
precedence over keeping information confidential, keeping promises, and
avoiding deception. However, these guidelines do not address the difficulty
of determining the degree of threat that might exist in cases which are life-
threatening. For example, if someone wishes to start smoking, is smoking a
sufficient threat to life to offset a person’s right to self-determination and
personal freedom.
Kitchener also employs guidelines based on higher order ideals.
Kitchener (1984) proposes that there are two levels of ethical decision-
making, the Intuitive Level and the Critical-Evaluative Level. The Intuitive
Level refers to the personal set of values and morals that social workers
have incorporated in their lifetime as well as through professional training,
practice experience, and past life experiences. This creates an immediate
pre-reflective response to most ethical situations (Lehmann, 1992)—that is,
a response that is morally subjective. The Critical-Evaluative Level consists
of three hierarchical levels, each level of which increases objectivity in
ethical decision-making. When a social worker has ethical confusion at one
level, then he/she can look to the next level to receive clarification. These
three levels, from lowest to highest, are:

Ethical Rules: These rules refer to ethical standards found in the social
work code of ethics.

Ethical Principles: Ethical principles are intended to protect the welfare

and interests of all people. Five such principles are:

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118 Understanding Ethics in Rural and Northern Practice

(1) Autonomy refers to those ethics that provide for the preferred rights of
people, such as the right to self-determination, confidentiality, and informed
consent. Autonomy does not imply unlimited freedom.

(2) Nonmaleficence refers to not doing harm to others. Harm consists of

engaging in activities that may hurt others, infringe upon the rights of
others, or intentionally inflict physical or psychological pain on others,
including the withholding of physical and/or emotional resources.

(3) Beneficence refers to benefiting and promoting the health and well-
being of others, including the promotion of the welfare and self-realization
of human beings (humanization).

(4) Justice refers to the granting of equal or unequal status to another. In

this manner, equal people are treated equally, but unequal people have a
right to be treated differently provided that that which makes them unequal
is relevant to the issue. For example, a child may not be an equal partner in
a family, but if that child is abused, then the child must be treated as a full
and equal member entitled to health and safety. Similarly, a social work
student has a right to non-harassment, regardless of his/her status in a
classroom.

(5) Fidelity refers to issues of loyalty and trust between social workers and
the client systems they serve. Questions of lying, deception, manipulation
and failing to be trustworthy are examples of lack of fidelity.

(6) Veracity refers to the commitment to truthfulness, even when that

truthfulness is painful or has unpleasant or difficult outcomes.

Ethical Theory: Ethical Theory consists of two major theories, which are:

(1) Universalizability that states that an act is ethical only if it can be

unambiguously generalized to all similar cases. In order for the decision to
be ethical there must be a “yes” answer to all levels of the question, “If I or
my family or other people were in a similar position, would I want the
social worker to make this decision?”

(2) The Balancing Principle that states that the potential for good in all of its
ramifications must be balanced against the potential for harm in all of its
ramifications. The ethical decision must do the greatest good for the greatest
number (Strom-Gottfried, 2008; Corey, Corey & Callahan, 2003; Kitchener,
1984).

The balancing principle is somewhat problematic. On the one hand, it

can be viewed as paternalistic. Kitchener (1984) refers to this as “weak
paternalism” to be used with people with reduced emotional or physical
Delaney & Brownlee 119

competence or who are self-destructive. This can lead social workers to

reinforce self-doubt and powerlessness in victims of dehumanization.
The second problem stems from the balancing principle being based on
the previously discussed utilitarian ethic. Reamer (1993) describes the
problem:
Utilitarian theories have traditionally been of two kinds: (1) those that
justify actions that tend to promote the greatest good in situations where
one of several possible actions must be performed (good-aggregative
utilitarianism)….and (2) theories….that justify actions that tend to
promote the greatest good for the greatest number, considering not only
the quantity of goods produced but also the number of people to whom
the goods are distributed…. The distinction between the two forms of
utilitarianism is important when one considers, for example, whether to
distribute a fixed amount of public assistance in a way that tends to
produce the greatest aggregate satisfaction (which might entail
dispensing relatively large sums to relatively few people) or produces
the greatest satisfaction for the greatest number (which might entail
dispensing smaller sums of money to a larger number of people).
Similar dilemmas arise whenever decisions must be made concerning
the distribution of limited resources, such as medical care, nursing
home beds, or a social worker’s time (p. 71).
Despite Reamer’s rather generalized guidelines and the previously
identified problems with Kitchener’s ethical theory, both approaches do
provide methods to assist the social worker in resolving ethical conflicts.
However, a critical issue is whether the social worker even realizes that an
ethical dilemma is present. As noted previously, social workers tend to rely
on personal, rather than professional, ethics to resolve conflicts in their
practice. Therefore, the depth to which many social workers can even
appreciate the dimensions of ethical issues is limited to their own personal
life experiences. This might, for example, make them very aware of ethical
issues related to drug abuse, but relatively unaware of issues related to
spouse or child abuse. When social workers work in settings with limited,
inconsistent, inadequate or absent supervision, the chances of not even
realizing an ethical issue increases. Finally, social workers that work more
closely with non-social work professionals may soon relate better to other
profession’ code of ethics than their social work code of ethics. These and
other issues reflect the potential of practice settings to influence social
workers and the ethical decisions they do or do not make. The final section
of this chapter will explore those circumstances that have direct influence
on northern social work practitioners and their ethical behaviour and
decisions. A second major challenge for the social work profession is the
issue associated with metaethics. Many of our cherished values are ill-
defined and subject to a broad range of interpretation. If social work ethics
are important to the profession, clarifying the values upon which these
ethics are based is the challenge that waits.

.
120 Understanding Ethics in Rural and Northern Practice

Social Work Ethics and Rural and Northern Practice

Social work in rural and northern practice settings requires not only
extensive knowledge of the context in which one is practising (Delaney &
Brownlee, 1995; Nelson, McPherson & Kelley, 1987; Zapf, 1996), but it
requires the professional social worker to adapt to the emotive realities of
practising in settings which may prove to be a cultural shock for individuals
who have never lived in rural and remote communities (Zapf, 1993). For
northerners, the context for social work practice is a homeland—a place
where they live and a place which they value (Zapf, 1993)—rather than the
hinterland so often conceptualized by those living in southern areas of
Canada (Dunk, 1991).
Rural and northern areas are often governed by economic and social
policies which are formulated in southern Canada based on understandings
of southern perceptions of northern realities (Zapf, 1993). Zapf (1996)
states that this relationship is relatively static until the south’s interest
begins to dominate the north. This results in two issues for ethical
consideration. First, agencies in the provincial norths receive their mandates
from southern-based authorities who often view the north as if it were an
extension of the south which values what the south values, both in program
mandates and program design (Delaney, 1995; Zapf, 1993, 1996). Thus,
agency directors, who are often faced with having little discretion
concerning the major elements of their programs, recognize that many of
their programs are not suitably designed for northern settings. The result is
that many northern agencies operate programs that are southern-metaphor-
dominated and of limited value.
The second issue involves social workers who are southern in their
orientation, metaphors and conceptual systems and who operate in northern
areas in a manner congruent with their metaphors (Collier, 1993; Delaney,
1995; Zapf, 1991, 1993, 1996). Essentially, these social workers perform in
a manner that is intuitive and congruent with their conceptual system
(Harvey, 1967; Newman, 1974, 1975). Therefore, it is counterintuitive for
these workers to understand and appreciate the descriptive, evaluative and
prescriptive beliefs (Rokeach, 1973) espoused by rural and northern people.
As a result, this may raise the ethical problem of practising without
sufficient preparation. This would also apply to working with First Nations
peoples, ethnic populations and, indeed, for northerners who move south.
Context relevancy is a critical aspect of social work practice (Germain &
Gitterman, 1980; Zapf, 1996).
Social work practice in northern settings is a demanding and
challenging task (Delaney, 1995; Zapf, 1993) which presents special ethical
considerations and challenges (Delaney & Brownlee, 1995; Brownlee &
Taylor, 1995; Du Bord, 1981). Delaney & Brownlee (1995, p. 47-52)
identified the following ethical issues as being directly relevant for northern
social work:
Delaney & Brownlee 121

1) Issues stemming from limited supervision and limited collegial

feedback;
2) Issues stemming from practising beyond competence;
3) Issues stemming from dual relationships;
4) Issues stemming from having access to too much information;
5) Issues stemming from professional drift; and,
6) Issues stemming from community adaptation.

This chapter continues Delaney & Brownlee’s (1995) exploration of

ethical issues associated with northern practice. First, three specific
categories of ethical dilemmas for northern practice will be explored. This
will be followed by the identification of specific ethical issues associated
with each category. Finally, a discussion of solutions of these ethical
dilemmas will be presented.

Categories of Ethical Dilemmas for Northern Practice

The first category, Dilemmas of Application, is essentially concerned
with practice performance—that is, ethical issues directly associated with
northern social work practice. In order to practice northern social work
effectively, Delaney (1995) argued that rural and northern social workers
must develop and maintain proficiency in knowledge, performance and
consequence competencies. Knowledge competence includes both (1)
content, that is, extensive knowledge about the context of practice and
social work practices that are relevant to that context, and (2) process, that
is, the dynamics of professional practice which includes being self-
motivated, self-directed, confident, flexible, patient, respectful, adaptive,
and possessing a sense of humour (Delaney, 1995, p. 14).
Northern and rural social workers must be sufficiently motivated to
continue their professional development without external prodding, as
would normally occur when southern supervisors, peers and related
professionals provide ideas, feedback, excitement and suggestions for
continued professional growth (Brownlee, 1994). Often working in isolation
with limited peer support, northern social workers can develop, with their
work group, well-defined agreement realities (Delaney, 1995a) which
actually make them resistant to change. If social workers are not exploring
and challenging their professional knowledge and if social workers are not
receiving sufficient and competent supervision (performance competency
issues), then they may begin to provide inadequate and counterproductive
services which are ethical issues for professionals.
Finally, if knowledge and performance competencies are limited and
counterproductive, the consequence competencies directly suffer. Social
workers with rigid agreement realities are not open to listen or empathise
with their client system; rather these social workers assume expert roles and
tell their client system what is in its best interest. A lack of continuing
professional training can only reinforce this expert role, a role which is

.
122 Understanding Ethics in Rural and Northern Practice

detrimental and counterproductive to effective northern social work practice

(Borg, Brownlee & Delaney, 1995; Brownlee, 1992; Delaney, 1995;
Delaney & Weening, 1995; Ginter & Brownlee, 1995).
The second category, Dilemmas of Interpretation, involves the clarity
with which we understand the value-laden terms we use in social work
practice. As Loewenberg and Dolgoff (1988) note:
Every professional social worker will agree that client participation,
self-determination, and confidentiality are among basic social work
values. However, disagreements are likely to occur when it comes to
implementing these generalized professional values. Various social
workers may differ about priorities, specific objectives, and the means
necessary to put into practice these generalized values (p. 16).
These differences may result in social workers imposing their values on
a client simply by incorrectly interpreting the meaning of the value. This
can result in four major ramifications, including 1) imposing on a client’s
right to self-determination; 2) creating intense feelings of guilt; 3) making
clients strongly resent and oppose attempts to impose values upon them;
and, 4) limiting the practitioners trying to assist clients who, themselves, are
having value conflicts (Hepworth and Larsen, 1986, p. 45-46).
Obviously, social workers must clearly understand the descriptive,
evaluative, and prescriptive meaning of a belief if they are to assess if their
actions are imposing upon a client system or not. In other words, when a
social worker refers to concepts like self-determination, empowerment,
respect, and non-judgement, then that social worker needs to clearly
understand what these concepts mean or run the risk of ethically violating a
client system, not by intent but by ignorance. Such acting in ignorance is,
nevertheless, a violation of social work’s Standard of Practice (3-3.6)
especially if that ignorance is avoidable. Therefore, spending sufficient time
and energy in understanding our social work values is a necessary
professional obligation (Abramson, 1985; Goldstein, 1987; Imre, 1984;
Rhodes, 1985; Sancier, 1984; Spicker, 1990).
However, because Canada is a multicultural society (Fleras & Elliott,
1992; Kallen, 1982) and social work highly values human diversity (Code of
Ethics, 1.2), dilemmas of interpretation become even more complex,
especially given the ethnic diversity prevalent in rural and northern areas
(Delaney, 1995; Ginsberg, 1976; Tobin & Walmsley, 1992). This range of
diversity requires rural and northern social workers to understand,
appreciate and/or respect, and acknowledge their non-expertise in relation to
such overwhelming cultural diversity. Borg, Brownlee and Delaney’s
(1995) exploration of post-modern social work practice with aboriginal
people recommends, that by emphasising “language and culture,” social
workers can allow Aboriginal People to “describe their reality along with
understanding the client’s experiences within their frames of reference” (p.
129) which, in turn, provides the social worker with “a glimpse of another
culture” (p. 129).
Delaney & Brownlee 123

This strategy of the social worker assuming a non-expert position

where the social worker “accords primary importance to the client and their
story instead of the expertise of the therapist” (Ginter & Brownlee, 1995, p.
85) provides a practice approach which can limit the impact created by
dilemmas of interpretation. This is accomplished when the northern social
worker ascribes a greater value to respect for other people’s life stories and
agreement realities than in a particular social work method of practice.
However, the social worker must also be open to listen to another’s life
story and to be able to appreciate what is being said within the language
construction of the client.
The third category, Dilemmas of Context, is concerned with issues of
environmental impact on social work practice. The role of context has been
explored as a vital link in decision-making (Woody, 1990), in understanding
social work values (Ross, 1992), in ethical climates in organizations (Victor
& Cullen, 1988), in practising rural social work (Martinez-Brawley, 1985),
in maintaining confidentiality and client privacy rights (Du Bord, 1981), and
in working with northern resource dependent and Indian communities
(Nelson, McPherson & Kelley, 1987). The main characteristics that make
up the rural/northern context describes an environment characterized by:

large distances between communities,

- distance, including the far north where about 250 small communities
are located in a land mass equal to the size of Europe,
a common history of exploitation laced with hinterland mentality and
varying degrees of oppression,
a lack of membership and societal resource systems, with high reliance
on natural helping systems,
employment centring around single or dual industries which create
situations where social roles are often forged on the basis of company
roles,
government often being run by local power structures, both formally
and informally, and which are highly influenced by southern/urban
based provincial and/or federal governments,
a rich mixture of ethnic groups or a dominant ethic group,
churches and/or elders playing a major community role,
a smaller scale of living with close family and community ties,
a demand for high value consensus, loyalty and high behaviour
conformity, and
additional distinctive features such as:
environmental stresses,
vast uninhabited areas with most of the population living in
relatively few towns and villages
problems of making an adequate livelihood,
overlapping political and administrative jurisdictions,
124 Understanding Ethics in Rural and Northern Practice

limited ability of residents to influence social, economic and

political policies because of distance and indifference by those in
power, generally in southern urban centres,
communities consisting of largely transient populations.
(Zapf, 1991, p. 35-52; Delaney & Brownlee, 1995, p. 1-23; Ginsberg,
2005, 1976, p. 1-12; Tobin & Walmsley, 1992, p. 8).

Northern social workers, in addition to context awareness, must display

high context sensitivity, that is, “the degree to which the northern social
worker understands this contextual knowledge and can empathize with the
salient and emotive features of the environment and the people who inhabit
it” (Delaney, 1995, p. 13).
As Zapf (1991) has noted, Canada’s north has a history of
“exploitation, underdevelopment and colonialism” (p. 44). Much of this
exploitation stems from the political power of the population centres in
Canada (Delaney, 1995; Zapf, 1996). These centres tend to view the north
as a hinterland awaiting development (Dunk, 1991; Zapf, 1991) and are
often under the illusion that the north really wants to be like the south, and
that northerners will be happy only when they have all the same privileges
and services as the south. Unfortunately, there are social workers who also
believe this metaphor and who come to the north as “missionaries.”
Certainly, Chapter 3 of the Canadian Association of Social Workers’
(CASW) Code of Ethics (Competence in the provision of Social Work
Services) suggests that social workers who want to practise in rural and
northern areas must prepare themselves for this practice by choosing
courses and training facilities that would maximize their competence for
rural/northern practice (Zapf, 1991).
Even worse, there are social workers who continue the cycle of
exploitation by simply using the north as a stepping stone for career
opportunities or as a source of employment. The essential problem is that
such social workers not only lack the context awareness and context
sensitivity required for successful practice, but they also tend to provide
limited or incomplete services to their client system. The ethical issues
associated with such behaviour are obvious. Unfortunately, dealing with the
problem is difficult for many northern social agencies who are starved for
trained social workers and who experience high turn-over even at the best of
times (Zapf, 1996).

Conclusion
This chapter is intended to provide an overview of social work ethics
and to locate those factors that create unique challenges for rural and
northern social workers. The chapter has focussed on understanding the
dimensions of ethics and how these dimensions affect northern and rural
social workers. The next chapter will explore these unique challenges in
detail and focus those ethical issues that need greater clarity and analysis.
Delaney & Brownlee 125

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 CHAPTER 9

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR

NORTHERN AND RURAL SOCIAL
WORK PRACTICE

GLENN HALVERSON, KEITH BROWNLEE,

AND ROGER DELANEY

The previous chapter (Chapter 8) provided an understanding of the

theory of ethics and ethical decision making. As well, it provided an
introduction to the overarching ethical considerations for rural and northern
social workers that are created by unique characteristics of the northern
environment. This chapter examines in more detail some of the specific
ethical issues associated with rural and northern practice.
As outlined earlier, ethics are rules that govern a professional’s conduct
and thereby protect the public from misbehaviour or misconduct by
members of various professional associations. The Canadian Association of
Social Workers (CASW), like most other professional agencies, articulates
its core values and principles in a Code of Ethics. This CASW Code of
Ethics (2005), as well as the CASW Guidelines for Ethical Practice (2005),
provides the broad framework for ethical social work practice federally,
provincially, territorially, and within agencies, but as the previous chapter
notes, “The CASW Code of Ethics does not provide a set of rules that
prescribe how social workers should act in all situations” (CASW Code of
Ethics, 2005, p. 2). Personal and contextual situations can, and do, impact
on the interpretation and practice of ethical behaviour. It is the situation of
practicing in a rural and northern context that creates the specific ethical
issues associated with rural and northern practice that will be discussed
here.
So, what is the rural and northern context? To summarize from Chapter
8, it is an environment characterized by:
large distances between communities including the far north where
about 250 small communities are located in a land mass equal to
the size of Europe,
a lack of membership and societal resource systems, with high
reliance on natural helping systems
a smaller scale of living with close family and community ties,
a demand for high value consensus, loyalty and high behaviour
conformity, and
government often being run by local power structures, both
formally and informally, and which are highly influenced by
southern/urban based provincial and/or federal governments (Zapf,

130
Halverson, Brownlee, & Delaney 131

1991, pp. 35-52; Delaney & Brownlee, 1995, pp. 1-23; Ginsberg,
2005, 1976, pp. 1-12; Tobin & Walmsley, 1992, p. 8).
All of these characteristics play an interrelating role in establishing the
realities of rural and northern practice—realities which present ethical
issues for social work practitioners. As discussed in the previous chapter,
they impact on the ethical realities of rural and northern social work practice
in three ways: through dilemmas of application, dilemmas of interpretation,
and dilemmas of context.

Ethical Dilemmas in Rural and Northern Practice

Categories of ethical dilemmas such as dilemmas of application,
dilemmas of interpretation, and dilemmas of context are not unique to rural
and northern social work practice; however, they do provide a framework
within which specific ethical issues for each category can be examined.
Chapter 8 identified a half-dozen major ethical issues in its introduction to
social work ethics and rural and northern practice. We will expand on that to
include several more that are also directly relevant for northern social work.
Even at that, the ethical issues associated with the categories of ethical
dilemma below are not entirely inclusive. They do, however, represent the
most significant ethical issues associated with social work practice in rural
and northern contexts. These include:

Dilemmas of Application
Issues stemming from practicing beyond competence.
Issues stemming from failure to keep up with the literature.
Issues stemming from limited opportunities for training.

Dilemmas of Interpretation
Issues stemming from limited supervision and limited collegial
feedback.
Issues stemming from professional drift.

Dilemmas of Context
Issues stemming from dual relationships.
Issues stemming from having access to too much information.
Issues stemming from community adaptation.
Issues stemming from oppression, exploitation and disadvantage.
Issues stemming from using a rural or northern position as means
of attaining work elsewhere.
Issues stemming from working in community when one knows one
is not going to stay.
132 Ethical Considerations for Northern Social Work Practice

Ethical Issues in Rural and Northern Practice

A closer look at the specific ethical issues associated with each of these
categories will illustrate the dilemma within a rural and northern context.

Issues Associated With Dilemmas of Application

In terms of issues stemming from practicing beyond competence, Value

6 of the CASW Code of Ethics (2005, p. 8) is very specific on issues of
social work competence. Principles within Value 6 of the Code essentially
prohibit social workers from practicing in areas where they are not
competent. In areas of high population densities where professionals with
highly specialized services may abound, this ethical regulation makes sense.
However, when one is the only service provider, when there are no
specialists to whom to refer a case, and when the situation requires action,
what is the northern social worker to do? For example,
when a child is being abused in a family, an adult is addicted to drugs,
youths are causing community problems, suicides are increasing,
spousal abuse is present and/or the community is economically
suffering, social workers may find themselves being pushed and drawn
into many activities they otherwise would have referred to a qualified
social worker or to a qualified professional from another discipline.
What does the social worker do in this instance as their competence to
act on some of these issues is limited, but the demand is there and the
resources are not? Could this contribute to social workers’ tendency to
follow their own ethics rather than their professional ethics? In
instances where the physical well-being of a client is at risk, a prima
facie duty, and no other professionals are available, should the social
worker who is “untrained in violence” intervene? When a family has
experienced the death of a child, should the “untrained in grieving”
social worker, who is invited by the family or community to help, do
so? (Delaney & Brownlee, 1995, p. 48)
This tension between a prima facie duty and limited competence is not easy
to resolve. Certainly an incompetent action taken by a social worker could
result in damage to a client; however, no action could also result in damage
to a client. Cossom’s (1992) findings would suggest that many social
workers would simply do their best and ignore, or be unaware of, the ethical
tension in their decision. Unfortunately, the current CASW Code of Ethics
does not provide sufficient guidance to the northern social worker.
In terms of issues stemming from failure to keep up with the literature,
social workers and employers historically do not give sufficient priority to
continuing education (Walmsley, 1992). In rural and northern areas, this
problem is compounded due to limited resources. A social worker in
Toronto may go to the Robarts Research Library or the more specialized
libraries in larger organizations and find references readily accessible.
Northern social workers do not have this ability option as a library facility
Halverson, Brownlee, & Delaney 133

can be hundreds of miles away. This leaves agencies in a situation where

they must either purchase selected literature with already under-funded
budgets or do without, thus reinforcing a disadvantage which is already felt
by many rural and northern people (Cheers, 1990). Obtaining information
through inter-library loan can also be expensive for social workers and
agencies. And while the Internet and the Web have helped to address this
issue, a noticeable disadvantage still exists today.
A second major problem with the literature is the lack of relevant
literature for northern social work practice (Delaney, 1995b; Zapf, 1991,
1996). Thus, northern social workers are often interpreting the literature for
guidance in their practice—a practice where the client is often the
community. By not keeping up with the literature, or in the absence of
relevant literature, rural and northern social workers run the risk of
becoming outdated or relying too much on practice wisdom. Eventually,
poor or inadequate services can result, leaving the northern social worker
open to criticism from colleagues from better resourced centres.
Such issues stemming from limited opportunities for professional
training relate to the previous two issues in that, despite the need for
professional development in rural and northern areas (Delaney, 1995b;
Waltman, 1986; Zapf, 1991, 1993, 1996), relevant professional training for
rural and northern social work is difficult to find (Brownlee, 1994;
DeWeaver, Smith & Hosang, 1988). While short, service-focussed
workshops are sometimes accessible, they can increase staff expectations
while placing the relevance and applicability of existing skills in question;
therefore, these short workshops can be counterproductive if they are not
followed up with additional staff training (Brownlee, 1992). Unfortunately,
too many professional training programs are urban-based (Pippard & Bates,
1983) and are heavily biased by southern interpretations of northern realities
(Delaney & Brownlee, 1995; Zapf, 1991, 1993, 1996). Often, they are
focussed on individual or group therapy rather than northern practice
(Ginter & Brownlee, 1995), or otherwise structured around training content
which does not respect the current realities of rural and northern
communities (Martinez-Brawley, 1988). As a result, the fail to train rural
and northern social workers for contextual practice and so, in effect, ask
social workers to violate Value 6 of the CASW Code of Ethics (2005, p. 8)
simply because they are not prepared or competent to service rural and
northern people.

Issues Associated With Dilemmas of Interpretation

Value 4 of the CASW Code of Ethics (2005, pp. 6-7) refers to issues of
integrity in professional practice, and Value 6 (p. 8) deals with issues of
competence: both of these have relevance to issues stemming from limited
supervision and limited collegial feedback. When living in isolated
communities, rural and northern social workers may be the only, or one of
the few, social service professionals who live in that community. New and
134 Ethical Considerations for Northern Social Work Practice

inexperienced social workers often lack the depth of experience and practice
wisdom to fully appreciate the complexities involved in operationalizing
social work values, especially when a variety of situations present
themselves that require specific ethical determination.
For example, a judge suggests that a social worker support a decision to
send a young Native female to a secure custody facility for young
offenders where she can be protected for a longer time from her abusive
father even though the offence she committed does not warrant secure
custody.
Far too often, northern social workers are left on their own to
determine what to do, especially when immediate action is required.
How they understand the rights of clients (metaethical) reflected in the
CASW Code of Ethics will influence their activities, and yet, because
they are without supervision and collegial feedback, they do not have
social workers to challenge their own definitions of social work values
or help them from repeating mistakes based on poor ethical decision-
making. Monthly, quarterly or semi-annual supervision by distant
supervisors does not overcome this problem (Delaney & Brownlee,
1995, pp. 47-48).
In terms of issues stemming from professional drift, rural and northern
social workers are often relatively isolated from other social workers unless
they live in larger communities. Even there, the number of social workers
and professionals is limited. Over time, a social worker can begin to reflect
an ethical position that is closer to another, more dominant, profession’s
values than social work values (Ross, 1992). For example, a social worker
who works extensively with RCMP officers and few other professionals
may, over time and unwittingly, begin to reflect law enforcement values
over social work practice values. The same pattern can emerge in regards to
medical personnel, psychologists, business professionals, and other
professionals and semi-professionals whom the social worker may regard as
being “more professional” than social workers (Etzioni, 1969; Freidson,
1970). Examples of professional drift include:
For example, when a northern area imported psychiatrists from the
south to do northern community psychiatry, several of the psychiatrists
began to send “mentally ill” patients to a large urban centre. While
many of the original social workers complained about this practice and
the problems it was causing families and communities, the practice
continued and most of these social workers took other jobs. The new
social workers were recruited based on their agreement with this
practice and over time it became a normal procedure. Another example
of professional drift occurred when a northern community was
approached with the prospect of having an open custody facility for
young offenders located in their community. Both the police and town
officials reacted negatively and essentially took the position that they
wanted these youth out of their community, not in it, nor did they want
young offenders from any other community. All of the social workers
Halverson, Brownlee, & Delaney 135

in the community agreed with the police and town officials, despite
their professed commitment to the families of these youth (Delaney &
Brownlee, 1995, p. 51).
Unfortunately, without appropriate supervision and collegial support,
Delaney & Brownlee (1995) state that there is often insufficient feedback to
create the self-awareness necessary to combat professional drift. Rather,
isolation and the general feeling of being disadvantaged can sponsor and
support professional drift. Note that the drift is not always from social work
to another profession; it can be a drift to social work values, which also has
implications regarding other professionals practicing as social workers.
Obviously, the greater clarity a social worker has related to the meaning
of social work values, the better the social worker can understand the ethical
issues associated with social work practice. The greater the understanding of
how these values are operationalized into ethics, and what these values look
like in social work practice, the greater the resistance the social worker may
have to professional drift. The metaethical work that needs to be done in
northern and rural social work thus increases as the social worker is exposed
to other value systems.

Issues Associated With Dilemmas of Context

The first ethical dilemma associated with context is related to Section 2

of the CASW Guidelines for Ethical Practice (2005, pp. 11-13), issues
stemming from dual and multiple relationships. Section 2 explicitly states
that social workers are not to have sexual dual relationships (Subsection 2.6,
p. 12), and must carefully evaluate any potential non-sexual dual
relationships with clients (Subsection 2.4, p. 12). The profession’s concern
with protecting the client is reflected in the following two statements:
1) Social workers do not exploit professional relationships for
personal benefit, gain or gratification (Subsection 2.2.1, p. 11) and,
2) Social workers do not take unfair advantage of any professional
relationship to exploit others to further their personal, religious, political or
business interests (Subsection 2.2.2, p. 11).
Obviously, these guidelines for practice are intended to protect the
client from exploitation by social workers, especially when social workers
assume positions of power, as can occur in such activities as traditional
therapy and student supervision. But, as Galaway (1996) suggests:
Dual relationships only present potential ethical problems because the
profession has allowed itself to be dominated by the “social worker as
therapist” paradigm almost to the exclusion of any other professional
service roles. Social workers doing work such as community
organizing, community development, assisting in rebuilding viable
neighbourhoods, and working at developing and mobilizing informal
systems of social support are unlikely to see any ethical problems at all
in dual or multiple relationships (p. 14).
136 Ethical Considerations for Northern Social Work Practice

Rural and northern social workers often work with the community
rather than the individual as their client system (Cassidy, 1991; Delaney,
1995b; Wharf, 1991, 1992). The context of their practice setting is often in
isolated and remote communities, where the social worker’s interactions are
often “natural, causal and informal” (Nelson, McPherson & Kelley, 1987, p.
69). In terms of sexual dual relationships, the social work profession must
establish an ethical position that deals with situations where the social
worker is sexually involved with a member of a community as opposed to
an individual receiving therapy. In such situations, the social worker may be
taking advantage of a position of power and influence, and the social worker
may be compromising her or his ability to work freely and honestly within
her or his community.
In terms of non-sexual dual relationships, the current CASW
Guidelines for Ethical Practice (2005) simply fails to discriminate context
of practice and indeed, may manifest a southern metaphor of the “social
worker as therapist” model of social work practice (Drechsler, 1996;
Galaway, 1996). Brownlee (1992) clearly illustrates that the rural context,
by nature, consists of multiple levels of relationship. Brownlee and Taylor
(1995) examine non-sexual dual relationships in northern settings and
conclude that avoiding non-sexual relationships is simply unrealistic.
Rather, teaching rural and northern social workers ethical decision-making
models can provide social workers with decision-making tools that allow for
clearer standards of ethical behaviour (Delaney & Brownlee, 1995;
Drechsler, 1996). Drechsler (1996) reports that his exploration of dual or
multiple relationships brought forward recommendations from Dr. Shankar
Yelaja for four basic principles to guide dual relationships in northern
settings:
1. Personal gain (Social Workers should not exploit their professional
relationship for gain, including gain for family members);
2. Objectivity (Social Workers should not let outside interests
jeopardize their professional judgement, independence or competence);
3. The appearance of no personal gain and objectivity (1 and 2
above);
4. Disclosure (Social workers should advise their supervisors in cases
of potential conflicts of interest) (p. 3).
While these guidelines can assist in decision-making regarding dual
relationships, the code of ethics must address the northern context to avoid
becoming irrelevant to northern social workers. For example, if a social
worker chooses to marry a resident of a small community in which he/she
works, this marriage could place the social worker in a dual relationship
with all family members, relatives, and friends, as well as those who may be
in conflict with the family.
In terms of issues stemming from having access to too much
information, Delaney and Brownlee (1995) suggest that, because
confidentiality and privacy are difficult to achieve in rural and northern
areas (Du Bord, 1981), remaining unbiased and objective and protecting
Halverson, Brownlee, & Delaney 137

clients from disclosure, are constant challenges for northern social workers.
Remaining objective (Subsection 1.2 of the CASW Guidelines for Ethical
Practice, 2005, p. 4) presents special problems simply because so much is
known or believed to be known about individuals and their families that the
social worker can easily be preconditioned to service a client or client group
in a manner more consistent with public opinion than professional
assessment. In northern and rural communities, people generally know their
neighbours. Important happenings in the lives of people, such as family
histories, drug addictions, violent episodes, tests of emotional strength,
marital affairs marital disharmony and past performances in schools, social
and civic events, etc. are often well-known by community members. Of
importance is the accuracy of these recounted events when they are the
result of rumour, bias, and/or gossip. When an individual or family is the
social worker’s unit of attention, the social worker might already be
predisposed towards this unit of attention because of pre-existing
knowledge. This is not as great a problem in large urban settings where
people are generally anonymous and little is known of their past. For a
person in small communities and towns, being from the “wrong side of the
tracks” or from a “known (positive or negative) family” could predispose
services and resources in a way that is detrimental to this person.
Disclosure as a CASW Guidelines for Ethical Practice requirement
(2005, Subsection 1.5, p. 6) is equally as difficult a problem for northern
social workers. A person simply walking into a social service agency, or
merely being seen talking to a social worker, can be the source of instant
rumours and questions, many of which could be directed at the social
workers in an attempt to extract information.
In terms of issues stemming from community adaptation, Delaney and
Brownlee (1995) would likely suggest that Section 8 of the current CASW
Guidelines for Ethical Practice (2005, pp. 24-25) can create special
problems for northern social workers. Many rural and northern communities
exhibit a high-agreement reality, and acceptance by a community can
depend on one’s congruence with this agreement reality (Cassidy, 1991;
Ginsberg, 1976; Lucas, 1913; Tobin & Walmsley, 1992). While
understanding contextual patterns can allow the social worker to work in
harmony and in respect with a community seeking self-empowerment
(Nelson, McPherson & Kelley, 1987), contextual patterns may also reflect
negative social work values, resulting in situations where advocacy can
work to hamper democracy and create situations where social workers are at
odds with the majority of the community (Favero, 1987). For example,
social workers have supported gun control as a professional group.
However, in northern communities, this advocation can place the social
worker, who may be working with a minority group to support gun control,
at odds with a community which does not value gun control and, in fact, is
strongly against it. How do social workers ethically work with such
communities and be respectful of community values? Trapping has also
created a similar emotional debate regarding cruelty to animals, and yet
138 Ethical Considerations for Northern Social Work Practice

trapping is a way of life for many northern communities. Conflict between

such personal and community values, and issues of adaptation to the
community, are not easily resolved and require further exploration.
In terms of issues stemming from oppression, exploitation and
disadvantage, the problem is that many social workers are part of the
urban/southern prescription or metaphor for rural and northern areas (Zapf,
1993, 1996). As Zapf notes, the problem of survival has historically been a
major theme for northern communities and is still critical today.
For centuries, the people of northern Canada have met the constant
physical challenges of survival in their harsh environment. They may
face an even greater threat now from the ideologies of southern Canada,
from people who may not understand their world yet have the power to
define northern problems, northern opportunities, and northern futures
(Zapf, 1996, p. 55).
Many social workers who come to the north from the south are dominated
by southern metaphors which view the north as hinterland and so internalize
a social work practice or political ideology that is southern-metaphor
dominated. In effect, these social workers bring prescription which
represents the imposition of one individual’s choice upon another,
transforming the consciousness of the person prescribed to into one that
conforms with the prescriber’s consciousness (Freire, 1970, p. 29).
Unintentionally, these social workers may become advocates of oppression
and other exploiters of rural and northern areas. Freire (1970) cautions that
oppressors cannot liberate the oppressed and—given the long history of
oppression, exploitation and colonialism the south has exerted over the
north (Delaney, 1995b; Galaway, 1996; Zapf, 1991, 1996)—social workers
must be ethically responsible not to perpetuate these forms of oppression.
For example, while espousing one’s ideas and/or knowledge is a positive
and welcomed behaviour in many northern communities, imposing or
giving privilege to these ideas and/or knowledge is unethical and
prescriptive regardless of the value the social worker gives it. Knowing that
oppression, exploitation, and disadvantage are realities in the northern
context, the social worker is therefore ethically responsible to develop the
competence to work with people who are victims of these dehumanizing
activities. Rural and northern social workers must learn the context in which
they work as well as the values, traditions, and history of these communities
(Nelson, McPherson & Kelley, 1987; Collier, 1993).
The next two dilemmas are extensions of exploitation and colonialism
but are common enough in rural and northern areas to receive special
attention. Issues stemming from using rural or northern positions as a means
of attaining work elsewhere refer to social workers who are only working in
a rural or northern area until they can get a job elsewhere, particularly in an
urban centre. In effect, these individuals “drop” into the north simply
because this experience will advance their careers. Often occupying
administrative or policy-making positions, these individuals are more
interested in being politically correct and “favourably visible” to senior
Halverson, Brownlee, & Delaney 139

bureaucrats than in providing services that support the salient needs of the
northern context; thus, these individuals enhance their own careers at the
expense of the north (Carlson, 1975; Coates & Morrison, 1992). These
individuals perpetuate the oppression, exploitation, and colonialism of the
north by the south. What is more distressing to those who live and work in
the north is that these individuals, because they have rural or northern
experience, are often consulted on northern issues or believe they do not
need to consult with the north because of their “personal experiences.”
Finally, issues stemming from working in a rural or northern
community when fully intending to leave at the first opportunity refer to
social workers who deceive their employers and the community when
applying for work in rural and northern areas. Social workers choosing to
work in rural and northern areas must commit to learning about, and being
sensitive to, the life history of the communities in which they work
(Delaney, 1995b; Delaney & Brownlee, 1995; Nelson, McPherson &
Kelley, 1987; Zapf, 1991, 1993, 1996). However, when a social worker
takes the first opportunity to leave a rural or northern job, there is often little
or no investment in understanding the context in which they work, or in
“tuning” their own professional use of self to complement the rural or
northern context. Even worse, the social worker may well be using a
southern, urban-based practice methodology which is furthering the
exploitation and oppression of northern peoples. Working in the north is
extremely difficult for southern raised and trained social workers at the best
of times. Too often,
These accounts indicate a conflict between the world views (ideologies)
of the southern urban based profession and the northern hinterland
communities. Not merely an abstract intellectual challenge, this conflict
is experienced intensely at the level of daily life in the northern
community ... A recent study of Yukon social workers recruited from
southern Canada revealed a cultural shock similar to that anticipated
when workers go overseas (Zapf, 1996, p. 70).
To initiate social work services with no plans for continuance could
result in client systems receiving limited or incomplete services or, even
worse, services that are counterproductive to the well-being of these people
(Subsection 1.8.5 of the CASW Guidelines for Ethical Practice, 2005, p.
10). Repetitive situations of this nature may limit agencies’ willingness to
hire professional social workers, and these agencies may simply choose to
hire “locals” who are going to stay (Drechsler, 1996; Wharf, 1991). As well,
it might serve to limit agency investment in the training of social workers.
All of these ethical dilemmas speak to issues associated with rural and
northern practice. The need for social work’s code of ethics to reflect these
realities and provide guidance to social workers emerges from these
discussions. As well, other strategies can be introduced.

Remedies for Rural and Northern Practice

140 Ethical Considerations for Northern Social Work Practice

All of the ethical issues above only highlight the ethical challenges
presented in working in northern environments. Some remedies to these
dilemmas are easily found. For example, more than a decade ago, Delaney
and Brownlee (1995) proposed several remedies to ethical dilemmas
associated with rural and northern social work practice:
Audio-visual techniques, such as those used in distance education,
could be used to improve supervision, especially if it allows supervision
to be conducted more frequently.
A help line could be established by the agency, the local
professional social work associations, or schools of social work, to
handle particularly difficult ethical decisions. As well, ethics
committees could be established to review ethical dilemmas and
provide guidance for northern practitioners.
Northern social workers could be better prepared in schools of
social work (especially those schools with a northern perspective) for
the realities of northern practice by such devices as employing more
northern field placements, using realistic simulation exercises, and
using guest speakers with northern experience.
Northern schools of social work could rigorously train students in
ethical decision-making models, such as those proposed by Reamer and
Kitchener. Moreover, northern social workers should be encouraged to
bring forward ethical issues at northern conferences and workshops.
Indeed, conference organizers could also invite ethical debates and
presentations.
The profession of social work must resolve the metaethical issues
associated with social work’s espoused values.
Social work educators must work towards inculcating social work
values in social work students in order to prevent professional drift and
to ensure the primacy of social work’s code of ethics in all social work
practice (Delaney & Brownlee, 1995, p. 52-53).
Since these remedies were proposed, sweeping technological changes
may well have impacted on some of the ethical issues identified above. This
is especially true in dilemmas of application and dilemmas of interpretation.
The Internet and the World Wide Web have, to some extent, levelled the
playing field between urban social work practice and rural and northern
practice in relation to issues stemming from practicing beyond competence,
failure to keep up with the literature, limited opportunities for training,
limited supervision, and limited collegial feedback. Technological advances
have also assisted in addressing scarcity of resources, multiplicity of roles
and responsibilities for workers, and professional isolation. In terms of
professional networking, the Internet has broken down geographical
distances by allowing workers and supervisors to communicate via chat,
messaging, and email.
It should be noted, however, that not all ethical challenges of rural
practice have been remedied or even impacted by the Internet or the Web.
Advances in technology do not seem to have addressed many of the
Halverson, Brownlee, & Delaney 141

dilemmas of context outlined above. Issues stemming from dual

relationships, access to too much information, oppression, exploitation, and
disadvantage, and various issues of workers using rural and northern
positions only as “stepping stones” continue to exist today in spite of
technology. Ultimately, remedies for many ethical dilemmas, whether issues
stemming from application, interpretation, or context, must come about
through an individual worker’s ability to consider a variety of social work’s
ethical principles and then to apply them to a situation using ethical
decision-making skills.
The CASW Code of Ethics (2005) and CASW Guidelines for Ethical
Practice (2005) provide social workers with the principles to allow ethical
decision-making. However, ethical decision-making itself is a skill that
must be made part of social work education. The core issue is whether or
not the social worker realizes that an ethical issue is even present. While
education in ethical decision-making would greatly benefit the northern
social worker, this training must specifically relate to the ethical dilemmas
associated with working in northern environments. This certainly poses a
challenge to social work educators to provide such training and to local
professional bodies associated with continuing professional education.
While continuing education for rural and northern social workers in
ethical decision-making offers some opportunities for ethical decision-
making training (Berteau, 1992), the actual delivery of relevant, continuing
education to rural and northern areas is problematic and challenging
(Brownlee, 1994; Condliffe, 1991; Pippard & Bates, 1983; Rosen &
Meddin, 1884). One promising approach emphasizes the use of modern
technology and communication networks (Delaney & Brownlee, 1995;
Waltman, 1986) to allow for ongoing dialogues between rural and northern
social workers, and social workers with an expertise in ethical decision-
making, preferably in the form of ethical decision-making committees, as
mentioned above.

Conclusion

In the end, the key to any discussion of northern social work and social
work ethics is knowledge and recognition. The north requires a
knowledgeable understanding of its context, its people and their history, and
a respect that this knowledge is valuable and instrumental to social work
practice (Collier, 1993). There must also be recognition of the differences
not just of the difference between north and south, but of the differences
between the far north and the provincial norths. For that matter, there must
also be recognition of the differences between the provincial norths
themselves. Recognizing and respecting these differences allow social
workers to enter the context of their practice with both context awareness
and context sensitivity. However, to guide this awareness and sensitivity,
northern social workers require their code of ethics to reflect the northern
realities of practice. A significant step in this process will continue to be the
142 Ethical Considerations for Northern Social Work Practice

gathering of information. Social work educational institutions and the

Canadian Association of Social Workers must continue to identify specific
ethical dilemmas associated with northern practice and to use this
information to modify the code of ethics to enhance its relevancy for all
contexts of social work practice.

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PART III: COMMUNITY LEVEL
 CHAPTER 10

RESPECTING COMMUNITY: A
CENTERPIECE FOR RURAL
AND NORTHERN PRACTICE
ROGER DELANEY, RAIKA ABDULAHAD, KEITH
BROWNLEE, AND MARGARET McKEE
Banks and Mangan (1999) capture the notion of community as being a
“narrative community” that views community as a living, organic, and vital
human structure where,
Community life is influenced by the stories that are told about the
community and by the way in which parties to the narration become
conscious, not only of material facts about communal life, but the
feelings and attitudes towards the ideas that are shared (p. 26).
For rural and northern social workers, this definition provides a lens
through which community can not only be analysed but also understood.
Zapf (2009) suggests that social workers need to demonstrate “courtesy,
respect, and ceremony, to place and our relationship to place” (p. 68). Thus,
living well in place reflects the notion of “building sustainable communities
and living in tune with the rhythms of nature” (p. 68).
For the most part, human beings live in communities and like human
beings themselves, our communities are diverse and established on
principles and values understood best by those living in the communities
simply because the inhabitants of a community directly experience the
community. Our narratives about communities simply allow others to
experience our experience of the community. Thus, narratives themselves
can be quite diverse in any one community, depending on how individuals
are experiencing the community—and often their social status within the
community. However, simply assuming that communities meet human
needs is a bit simplistic. Plant (1974) suggests that the notion of human
needs varies among different populations and cultures and therefore needs
must be understood within a particular socio-cultural context. In other
words,
The content of needs can only be identified within a particular social
group or community. Far from deriving society or community from
some neutral definition of needs the reverse is the case: what counts as
a need, or any other human attribute, capacity or power depends upon
the kind of social and ideological context involved (p. 79).
In a similar manner, Biddle and Biddle (1965), in their seminal work on
the community development process, argue that structural definitions of
community (neighbourhood, town, rural setting, or city) only become
“alive” when the definition also includes a functional concept that is

149
150 Respecting Community: A Centrepiece

“realistically based upon the citizens’ awareness of community” (p. 77).

For these authors, community “is whatever sense of the local common good
citizens can be helped to achieve” (p.77). Such community is personal and,
therefore, relative. Certainly one can attempt to understand community on
the basis of impressions gained from personal accounts of the meaning
community has for people. Unfortunately, this process fails on two
accounts. First, community is a gestalt rather than a number of parts, such
as each person’s relative understanding of the meaning of community.
Moreover, the best the social worker can do in this process is to experience
each person’s experience of communityCas individuals or as aggregates
(Lang, 1967). For example, if a social worker were to ask people in a small
northern community what the community means to them, the worker would
experience each person’s account of community and would, in the process,
begin to assign meaning to these accounts. To make this clearer, assume
that one female person describes the community as a nightmare where male
domination has shattered the dreams of self-fulfilment and regulated this
person to a life of misery. Still another female person describes the
community as a bedrock of traditional values where men are men and
women are women. Another female person describes the community as a
cesspool of corruption and double standards and a place she hopes to get
away from as soon as possible. Finally, another female describes the
community as divided, where those with power are doing very well and
those who without power are doing very poorly. As one hears these varied
accounts of each individual’s lived experience of the same community, one
begins to form an impression of the community, based on how one
interprets and pieces these accounts together. One’s own second-hand
experience of this community is informed then by whichever story, or story-
teller, commanded the greatest authority. In all communities, some stories
are dominant; others are silenced or buried. Stories that achieve dominance
in local discourse are always only partial-narratives, and yet they leave the
person to shape and define that community’s identity. But of most
importance is that one has yet to really experience that community oneself.
Very often, there are stories that become public gossip about
communities in the north. Stories begin to emerge about violence in the
community, inappropriate sexual behaviours, misuse of power and
privilege, misuse of funds, and other related and demeaning topics. The
listener begins to experience these stories and, on the basis of this aural
experience, can become judgmental and prescriptive. Soon, counter-stories
emerge which suggest that the community needs to “clean up its act” if it
wants government funding, that the community is being investigated for
political or sexual or fiscal abuse, or that this is a terrible place to live. Soon
members from other communities, both physical and communities of
associations (such as professional social workers) begin to understand this
community based on these stories and counter-stories. Even members of
the community itself may very well have their understanding of their
community reframed by the pressure and power generated by these
Delaney, Abdulahad, Brownlee, & McKee 151

narratives which can affect external communities.

This chapter seeks to examine community from a northern social work
practice perspective. After examining how communities are in crisis, the
chapter will explore ways in which communities can regain their role in
people’s lives and how social workers can best enter and work with
communities using an hermeneutic approach (Van Manen, 1990).

Communities in Crisis
Northern social work is about community and community
empowerment (Delaney, Brownlee & Zapf, 1996; Delaney & Brownlee,
1995; Wharf, 1991; Cassidy, 1991; Zapf, 1985b). Those who seek to
institute the community vision believe that beyond therapy and advocacy is
the constellation of community associations. They see a society where
those who were once labelled, exiled, treated, counselled, advised, and
protected are, instead, incorporated into community, where their
contributions, capacities, gifts, and fallibilities will allow a network of
relationships involving work, recreation, friendship, support, and the
political power of being a citizen (McKnight, 1995, p. 169). This is the
vision that drives northern and rural social work, and this is a vision that
allows for the common good to emerge as a community objective.
Unfortunately, Canada since the 1990s experienced changes that, for
the most part, worked against the notion of community. Perhaps the most
significant change is globalization. The political right has gained the upper
hand in Canada’s social and economic policy-making process. Armed with
ideological slogans that praise multi-national trade agreements and
corporations, the political right believes that business transcends
localities—that is, business exists outside of and independent of
community. Certainly, the efforts to bring in free trade agreements,
Multilateral Agreement on Investment and “virtual reality” banking creates
institutions that are not responsive to or concerned with community. How
does a community or its members organize against banks that are no longer
in their community, or businesses whose head office is in the United States
or another foreign country? Moreover, Durst (1992) reports that when
corporations enter remote communities, the company’s ideology tends to
dominate and replace the community’s values—a process of not only
disempowerment, but also of conflict, especially when the corporation
moves out of the community. What remains? Very often, a community in
crisis.
An associated consequence of globalization is the business mentality
that has overtaken not only governments but human services as well. With
bottom lines determining service availability and quality, Canada has
witnessed a massive assault to its social programs. If this were not bad
enough, this assault has been accompanied with a manipulated construction
of realityCa construction which makes civil servants and public officials
appear to be “the bad guys” (Saul, 1995). If public officials and civil
152 Respecting Community: A Centrepiece

servants are not to be trusted, then with whom do communities work? For
example, the Government of Ontario recently announced that the Ontario
Trillium Foundation was expanding from a ten million-dollar budget to a
hundred million dollar budget. As stated by the Chair of the Board of
Directors of the Trillium Foundation, Robert Power (1999), in a “Letter to
the Editor” in The Toronto Star, titled “Trillium Foundation’s community-
based funding expected to be more equitable,” the Trillium foundation is to
become community-based, thus “empowering local people to make local
community-based decisions, which reflect local charitable and voluntary
needs” (p. 14). In the same “Letters to the Editor” section of The Toronto
Star, Ross McGregor (1999), Chairman and CEO of Ketchum Canada Inc,
in his letter titled “Stacking Trillium board is cynical election move,”
argued that the conservative government had stacked the Trillium board
with “Tory appointees and the establishment of a $100 million slush fund
for partisan distribution across the province” (p. 14). The communities are
left to wonder which one it is and which strategy will garner the most funds.
This, of course, begs the question as to whether a Tory-dominated board
would be sensitive to the social and “people” needs of communities, or just
the economic and political needs.
Historically, communities were places where people had their social
needs met. However, advances in technology and transportation have
created alternatives to investing in the community. For example, the
Internet, while providing people with new information horizons, also
provides mechanisms, such as chat groups, for people to have their social
needs met in a “virtual world” which neither demands nor allows for the
tangible, embodied forms of caring upon which real human communities
depend. The issue here is not whether the Internet is bad, but that it
provides people, many of them young people, with opportunities for self-
investment. Will this investment take away from the investment needed to
make community viable and alive? Moreover, people who live in major
centres in Canada’s provincial and far north have access to jet plane service
that can, in only a matter of hours, bring them to new or exotic locations
with warm weather or vast consumer resources. Is it possible that, for
wealthier families, it is easier to invest in these trips than in their own
community?
With some irony, Zapf (1999) poses the question, “To what extent has
Canadian social work identified and attempted to incorporate our northern
reality?” (p. 344) and concludes, “It may simply have been easier for us to
accept the developing American specialization of rural social work than to
grapple with our own distinctive northern context” (p. 346). When
northerners turn on their televisions and receive not only the latest news
from CNN, or Detroit, or Atlanta, or San Francisco, but also a plethora of
American programs centred on life in the city and the virtues of capitalism,
it is little wonder that some dissonance can develop between northerners
and the importance they ascribed to their own community. So, how then
can we as social workers help northern and rural communities recapture
Delaney, Abdulahad, Brownlee, & McKee 153

their place in the social life of its inhabitants?

Reframing Community
Earlier in the chapter, the notion of stories about communities being
problematic was discussed. Perhaps this is the first line of attack—that is,
to help communities re-story themselves. However, this must be done with
caution and quality research and honesty. Consider the following example.
At a community-building conference, one speaker talked about the power of
reframing a community’s attitude. He talked about the community of
Tracadie in New Brunswick. Tracadie, at the time of the conference, had a
higher proportion of its population on social assistance than any other
community. The speaker spoke of how the community was “down on
itself” and lacked self-esteem and a history. So, the speaker did some
research and found out that Tracadie had been a leper colony many years
ago. He stated that lepers were sent to a dismal and undesirable geographic
location and confined to a colony. Tracadie, he stated, began when family,
friends and caring people arrived to look after the lepers. After the
epidemic had ceased and the lepers had died, these people were not wanted
by the rest of the province and were given assistance to stay in Tracadie.
He informed the conference that upon learning the story, many people in
Tracadie developed a new pride and self-esteem.
The problem is that he was not correct. With further research of his
claims about Tracadie, the following story evolved. In 1828, a young
person, 12-year-old Ursula Landry, developed leprosy in Caraquet. As more
people developed leprosy, a Father La France suggested that a hospital
could be built in Tracadie to help with the lepers. In 1868, twelve Sisters of
St. Joseph came from Montreal to help with the lepers under the direction of
a Dr. Gordon from Bathurst. The hospital was clean and comfortable,
though it had a high fence around it. This is still a beautiful story of a
community opening its doors to help lepers, who were both feared and
loathed by many people. It is a true story that could begin the re-storying
process for a communityCthe catalyst to begin reframing a community’s
history and remembering its past. Such narratives are powerful means that
help people define who they are. Yet, as seen by the first account, the story
does not have to be literally or historically “true” to be powerful. Narrative
“truth” lies in a story’s ability to resonate with our lived experience and
awaken us to new possibilities.
All communities have stories from their pastCsome funny, some sad,
some heroic, some tragic—reminding communities of their past and helping
them to understand their history, not from external “gossip” about the
community, but from the perspective of those who lived at the time. For
instance, in a graduate social policy class, a native student gave a seminar
on her childhood community. She spoke proudly of the roles that people in
the community played, from elders to children. She talked about social
relations, spiritual quests and understandings, communal decision-making,
154 Respecting Community: A Centrepiece

oral traditions, healing, community self-regulation, community events, and

celebrations and about a people with a common pride and love. This was
the community of her youth. Then, the road came, and all of this changed.
Now, her community has problems with physical, emotional, and sexual
violence, despotism, alcohol and drug abuse, broken families and broken
people. But, she remembered the same people and the same community
before the road. In this example, it is so important that those who
remember when the community was supportive, independent and caring be
allowed to speak from their own lived experience about the community as
they have come to know it. These people are the cornerstone of a
community reframing process because what they describe is true, even
though it may have been forgotten or unstoried.
As in the Tracadie example, a community narrative that incorporates
many voices and meanings, including those which are discordant or
unpleasant, can awaken people to an alternative and more hopeful view of
their community. Key here for the social worker who is trying to understand
the community’s ways of making meaning of its history is her ability to
hear multiple layers of stories, even conflicting stories of the same event,
without silencing or suppressing discordant voices. Understanding the full
meaning of an event as simple as a road being built is only possible when
the social worker takes the time to really listen to the forgotten stories and
the marginalised voices. The dominant view of the community as ravaged
by abuse and addiction is at best only a partial view eclipsing a rich history
of community pride and solidarity. Really listening and understanding
narratives is a fundamental component of a hermeneutic phenomenological
approach.
While helping communities to appreciate the “story of their existence”
provides an opportunity to reconstruct the forces that contributed to that
story, communities must also prepare themselves for current realities that
confront modern communities. McKnight (1995) suggests that in order to
survive the impacts of globalization, communities must move towards a
“production” as well as “consumption” orientation. Arguing that the tactics
suggested by radicals such as Saul Alinsky are no longer relevant because
business has essentially removed itself from communities, McKnight argues
that we must move from “confrontations over service distribution issues to
organizing confrontation over production and the resources necessary to
produce” (p.157). McKnight proposes that organizers must focus on three
aspects: the local neighbourhood or community, the public sector, and the
private sector. In terms of the community, he suggests that all existing local
development projects and enterprises must be fully supported. Moreover,
efforts to develop cooperative, community-owned and joint ventures that
support the community’s economic and social health, must also be pursued
with vigour. This would include creating local ownership of cable TV and
other media resources. In terms of the public sector, he suggests that
neighbourhood-based governance with local authority be established and
mandated to work to support the maximum use of existing transfer dollars
Delaney, Abdulahad, Brownlee, & McKee 155

coming into the community as well as devising strategies to gain more

money and to gain control of these additional funds. Finally, he suggests
that communities need to find ways to “reroot business, to insert locality
into the equations by which business makes decisions” (p. 159). McNight’s
vision is to create communities of association which are governed by
consent rather than control and which appreciate the unique contributions
that members bring to the life of the community. A community of
association as defined by McKnight may very well be the mechanism to
prevent the ideological and social assault that companies can create in
communities. McKnight’s approach probably appears idealistic because it
is. But is being an idealist and a social worker a bad thing? Homan (1994)
certainly does not think so:
Most real progress occurs when individuals take hold of the idea that
there is a better, more humane, or just way. They assert that our
capacity for excellence, in ourselves and in our affairs with one
another, matters and that acting on that capacity is as much a matter of
choice as is rejecting it. They are not willing to settle for mediocrity or
meanness. These people are idealists . . . Somebody may say to you,
“you are an idealist.” Take it as a compliment (p. 32).
Reframing community is an idealistic pursuit and one very similar to
Biddle and Biddle’s (1965) account of community development as “a social
process by which human beings can become more competent to live with
and gain some control over local aspects of a frustrating and changing
world” (p. 78). Linking people to their own community’s real story and
allowing them the opportunity to participate in their own welfare is the
fundamental element in community reframing. “Resurrecting” old stories
which have been silenced, jargonised and suppressed, can—if resurfaced
and retold—undermine the dominant narrative. Moreover, these stories can
recruit people into alternative ways of being as individuals and as a
community—and might remind people of unused resources and potentials
and forgotten achievements. There is always much in a community’s history
which remains unstoried—sometimes because forces of oppression render
it invisible by silencing those who would speak; sometimes because cultural
and linguistic practice provides no readily available forms of expression;
sometimes because the experiences themselves are simply too painful, too
unspeakable. These “unspoken” stories which remain hidden in the silences
between stories, are—just as much as the prevailing narratives circulating
via rumour, gossip and local legend—formative of the community’s
identity. History is always richer and more complex than the discourse
about it. Every community has a reservoir of alternative choices. Perhaps
part of the social worker’s role is to listen for these alternative voices and
make room for the local ways of knowing which may not have been storied.
There are a number of excellent texts that promote such community
development (Carniol, 1995; Collier, 1993; Wharf, 1993, 1992, 1991, 1990)
as an essential component of social work practice and these accounts
provide some of the hows of community works. However, ensuring that the
156 Respecting Community: A Centrepiece

community is prepared and willing to take its own future in its hands is
another matter altogether.

Social Capital as an Empowerment

A concept that is drawing more and more attention in the community
development (and especially the community economic development) world
is social capital. Social capital attempts to deal with not only those process
issues that influence the quality of people’s net work, trust and social
cohesion, but also with outcomes such as economic growth, health, crime,
educational performance, and effectiveness of social policy. This makes
social policy an important concept for rural and northern social and human
service workers and managers who so often must work with community
rather than simply for community. However, just what exactly is social
capital?
Social capital is described as features of social organization, such as
trust, norms and networks that can improve the efficiency of society by
facilitating coordinated actions. Harpham et al., (2002) refer to social
capital as the degree of connectedness and the quality of social relations in a
given population. It has structural and cognitive components. The structural
component includes extent and intensity of associational links or activity,
and the cognitive component covers perceptions of support, reciprocity,
sharing and trust. They perceive these components as what people “do” and
what people “feel.” Lochner et al. (1999) suggest that social capital is a
feature of the social structure, not of the individual actors within the social
structure; it is an ecological characteristic. Putnam (1993) contends that the
main notion of social capital is that social networks have value as they
essentially offer reciprocity. Reciprocity encompasses the tendencies to do
things for each other that arise from these collective social networks.
Putnam further argues that social capital is a powerful asset that affects
various economic outcomes throughout the entire life of an individual and
of the community. Putnam (2000, p. 22-23) also stresses that social capital
has two core dimensions: bridging (or inclusive) and bonding (or
exclusive).
Bridging networks serve as linkages to external assets and for
information diffusion. As such, bridging social capital can generate
broader identities and reciprocity that include networks that are
outward looking and encompass people across diverse social barriers.
Examples of bridging social capital include the civil rights movement,
many youth services groups, and ecumenical religious organizations.
Bonding social capital, on the other hand, tends to bolsters our
narrower selves. Some forms of social capital are, by choice or
necessity, inward looking and tend to reinforce exclusive identities and
homogenous groups. Examples of bonding social capital include ethnic
fraternal organizations, and church-based, women’s reading groups.
Bonding social capital is good for gaining specific reciprocity and
Delaney, Abdulahad, Brownlee, & McKee 157

mobilizing solidarity.
Another important dimension of social capital addresses linking social
capital (Blakely and Ivory, 2006; Halpern, 2005; Kavanagh et al., 2006;
Szreter, 2002; Woolcock, 2001). Blakely and Ivory (2006) suggest that
Linking social capital is norms of respect and networks of trusting
relationships between people who are interacting across explicit,
formal, or institutionalized power or authority gradients in society. For
example, citizens’ interactions with local government and health
planning authorities are representative of linking social capital while
bonding social capital refers to trusting and co-operative relations
between members of a network who are similar in a socio-demographic
sense, and bridging social capital comprises relations of respect and
mutuality between people who are dissimilar (p. 1).
The dissimilarity could be class, ethnicity, etc.
Kavanagh et al. (2006) views social capital links as reflecting the
norms guiding networks involving trusting relationships between people
interacting exclusively in a formal and institutionalized manner. This
relationships is characterised by power or authority and can be described as
vertical (power-over) ties that exist between individuals and groups who are
explicitly recognized as unequal (such as between local governments and
citizenry, southern communities and rural and northern communities, off-
reserve communities and reserve communities, agencies and their clients).
Further, Kavanagh et al. stress, “If communities are rich in bonding and
bridging capital but weak in linking capital this may enable individuals and
groups to access some resources (such as emotional support) but may
exclude them from resources that flow from vertical ties such as
information about jobs” (p. 608).
The terms “social inclusion” and “social exclusion” have attracted the
attention of academic and social policy makers and analysts (Day, 2000;
Folson, 2004; Graham et al., 2003; Haque, 2004; Hebert, 2002; Leonard,
1997; Putnam, 1993 & 2000; Rice & Prince, 2000; Salde, 2004;
Steinert&Pilgram, 2003; Vobruba, 2003; Wessels et al, 2003). Of particular
importance to rural and northern social workers and policy-makers is that
“social exclusion” focuses on the operation of social networks and its
capacity to exclude non-members in societies or its power of a social
group’s solidarity. The strongest social bonds are found where is a clear
separation between “insider” and “outsider”; this separation can be policed
effectively to restrict entrance between groups. “Insiders are bounded
together in no small part by their shared identity based on the clear
understanding of what sets them apart from outsiders” (Crow, 2004, p. 7).
As noted in previous discussion, social workers often “outsiders” especially
in far north and remote rural communities and as such, as essentially
socially excluded. Very often, the reluctance to share a silent community
narrative is influenced by the community’s (imposed) solidarity—that is,
the agreed dominant narrative.
Graham et al. (2003) perceive that the terms “social inclusion” and
158 Respecting Community: A Centrepiece

“exclusion” have become common as a result of current changes in the way

of defining social citizenship. They connect the new way of defining
citizenship to T.H. Marshall, who emphasizes that acknowledging their civil
rights, political rights, and social rights develops the welfare of citizens.
The welfare of citizens is also related to issues of belonging, active citizen
participation, and social cohesion. The language of inclusion and exclusion
has many advantages, such as the inclusion of power relation analysis and
the integration of many levels of experience, such as quality of life, health
and rights.
The concept and meaning of citizenship is in transformation.
Citizenship has moved from being closed “exclusion” to being open
“inclusion.” Previously, it had a unitary stable meaning; citizenship today is
diffuse, multiple and ever-shifting. Once geographical borders and a
common history defined it. No more. This change has accrued as a result of
massive social changes, including international trade agreements,
globalization, and migration (global and local). In pluralist and democratic
societies such as Canada, this transformation is occurring, and we are
preoccupied by its importance (Hebert & Wilkinson, 2002). The new
concept of citizenship is thus connected to relations between individuals,
their network, trust and social cohesion (bonding and bridging social
capital) and the formal relations between individuals within the state and
institutions (linking social capital). For northern communities, the process
of accumulation of social capital is similarly attached to issues of
belonging, exclusion and inclusion, crises and violence, security and
economic development.
A conceptual understanding of social capital in three First Nations
Communities in Manitoba by Mignone and O’Neil (2005) has been
developed. These communities have different particulars of size, geographic
regions, economic development and cultural representations. Community A
is an Ojibway/Dakota community, located close to a small city. This
community was a signatory of Treaty 1 in 1871, together with several other
Ojibway and Cree bands of south central Manitoba. The current on-reserve
population is 1,602 with an estimated 1,163 band members living off
reserve. Community B is a Cree community located towards the centre of
the province of Manitoba and was a signatory of Treaty 5 in 1875. The
current on-reserve population is 4,065, with an off-reserve population of
1,455. It is considered a semi-isolated community, is connected via highway
with major cities, and has a public-use airport. Community C is a Cree
community located approximately 500 kilometres from the closest city,
which is accessible overland by rail that passes at some distance from the
community. It has a public-use airport. After freeze-up, a winter road is
ploughed across lake surfaces and over land portages leading to a small city.
This community is considered an isolated community. In 1908, it adhered to
Treaty 5. Its on-reserve population is 1,891, and off-reserve 761. The study
illustrates the significance of community features which could be
considered as descriptors of higher or lower stocks of social capital
Delaney, Abdulahad, Brownlee, & McKee 159

(bonding, bridging and linking) and how these are related to the well-being
of communities. The study concludes that communities which enjoy
flexible, inclusive, and diverse networks are likely to have social
environment that is more positive to their well-being. The same can be said
of relations with other communities (bridging) and with institutions
(linkage). On one hand, a community that has a series of good quality
networks with institutions will have better chance of obtaining resources or
opportunities that increase its well-being. On the other hand, decreased
social capital may cause or indicate unjust, exclusive social policies or
unequal pattern of participation and reduce trust. It could also weaken
informal support systems and lead to social policies that do not emphasize
preventive services, community development, and educational or
occupational opportunities for economic development. Policy decisions,
therefore, need to take into account how they impact communities’ social
capital.
Clearly then, hile the literature tends to emphasize the positive aspects
of social capital, the negative side of social capital can have harmful
consequences. For example, Putnam (2000) suggests that “too much
fraternity is bad for liberty and equality” (p. 351), and can lead to an
increase in organized crime. Regardless, social capital does serve as an
important analytical tool for rural and northern social workers. The previous
discussion on social capital is intended to provide rural and northern social
workers with both an understanding of social capital and an appreciation of
how to employ it in their community practice.

The Social Work Role

In 1969, Alex Sim wrote a seminal article on how social workers
should enter communities. The first step, Sim suggested, is to become fully
prepared. The social worker must make every effort to learn about the
community, including culture and community structure. Gaining
information from others who have known the community is of great help as
well. This step is extremely important because first impressions are
sometimes lasting and a social worker who does the wrong things when first
arriving can create problems for the future.
When a social worker first arrives, Sim suggests that the social worker
take a long, hard look at the community. First visits are also the ones where
the senses are most alert, and the worker has the opportunity to fully
experience the colours, the smells, the sounds, the building structures, and
the people. By dressing appropriately and respectfully for the community,
the social worker can blend in better, but will still be noticed. From here
on, every move is monitored and most likely talked about by community
members. Understanding the community’s contextual patterns at this phase
can serve to guide the worker to act respectfully in terms of community
expectations (Sellick & Delaney, 1996; Nelson, McPherson & Kelley,
1987). Finally, the social worker will most likely require housing of some
160 Respecting Community: A Centrepiece

sort and having previously determined how to proceed is very helpful.

Without question, the social worker, once known to the community, will be
observed and discussed by community members who must determine if this
social worker is appropriate for their community.
A hermeneutic phenomenological approach—listening to the stories of
the community—would allow, instead, the social worker to better sensitise
him or herself to the community because this approach seeks to understand
the lived experience of people within the context in which they live (Van
Manen, 1990). By doing so, it validates the social worker’s personal
experience of the community while enabling the social worker to also
understand that experience within the shared consciousness of the
community. This, in turn, helps an outsider to appreciate the language,
values, and perceptions that are used by insiders to explain behaviour or
discuss phenomena.
The hermeneutic phenomenological approach supports using narratives
or stories because it is respectful of the individual within the social context.
By allowing an individual to relate how an event was experienced, one is
able to gain insight into the individual based on such factors as what the
person viewed as being important about the event, the aspects of the event
which received most attention, the language used to describe the event and
the words used to describe any people involved in the event, and the value-
orientation driving the person’s narrative. Moreover, as other people
describe the event or hear this person’s “storying” of the event, insight can
be gained into the congruence or lack of congruence among the various
descriptions of the event, leading to a better understanding of the
community’s “storying” of the event. Van Manen (1990) suggests that
narratives have the following powers:
To compel: a story recruits our willing attention;
To lead us to reflect: a story tends to invite us to reflectively search
for significance;
To involve us personally: one tends to search actively for the story
teller’s meaning via one’s own;
To transform: we may be touched, shaken, moved by the story as it
touches us; and,
To measure one’s interpretive sense: one’s response to a story is a
measure of one’s deepened ability make interpretive sense (p. 121).
By being offered a story, an outsider is being invited into the consciousness
of the insider and the insider’s context. The careful listener will not only
increase contextual awareness through this process, but will also enhance
contextual-sensitivity, which, in turn, will promote emotional empathy with
the narrator and the narrator’s reality. As Sellick and Delaney (1996) and
Sim (1969) note, once a person enters a community or any system for that
matter, both the community and the worker are changed even if this change
is not noticeable. Therefore, the caring social worker will do everything
possible to ensure that these changes are positive ones and ones which will
serve to enhance respect and mutuality.
Delaney, Abdulahad, Brownlee, & McKee 161

Conclusion
Northern and rural social workers often work in small, remote
communities and, therefore, have the opportunity to work not only with
some people in the community, but also with the community as a whole.
However, such communities are struggling under the assault of
globalization and the political-right domination of Canada’s social policy
and social programs. The result has been the loss of social programs under
the espoused virtue of responsibility for self. Communities are also
experiencing the domination by corporations who superimpose their own
ideological frameworks over the community. This chapter suggests that
social workers must renew their efforts to help communities to survive these
threats and, in doing so, re-establish themselves as viable communities.
Helping communities to reframe themselves by using a hermeneutic
phenomenological approach that serves to validate the community’s story
and to “restory” the community by deconstructing negative and erroneous
beliefs about the community is a core practice obligation. By being
respectful and appropriate, social workers can merge with communities and,
it is hoped, support the community in its effort to reclaim itself. Helping
communities to take more control over production of goods is one method
of assisting communities to become economically viable while at the same
time, ensuring that a community of association drives a respectful approach
to the roles played by all community members.
While this approach may seem idealistic, it is that very idealism that
allows for a vision of a just and respectful society to exist. In an age of
cynicism, it is easy to seek to protect self first and worry about others later.
However, if we, as northern and rural social workers, are to make a
difference, then we must be prepared to listen carefully and attentively to
the stories we hear from people about themselves and their community.

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 CHAPTER 11

NORTHERN COMMUNITIES/SOUTHERN
BUREAUCRACIES: POWER IMBALANCES
WITHIN HINTERLAND SERVICES TO
CHILDREN
BARBARA ISAAC AND JACKIE STOKES

Preface (by Jackie Stokes)

Since the original publication of this article, B.C.’s child protection system
has continued to experience public scrutiny and media visibility; and northern
practice has been viewed particularly harshly in this process. The levels of
examination the north has experienced, along with the circumstances that led to
the reviews, are troubling for those of us who work tirelessly in the north. The
continual focus on the limitations, and even failings, of northern child
protection practice takes a personal and professional toll on all of the social
workers and managers involved; and, yet, they seem to do little to ameliorate
the conditions that have led to the child tragedies or to minimize the potential
for yet more reviews in the future. Almost ten years have passed since the
printing of Northern Communities-Southern Bureaucracies, so this is an
appropriate time to revisit the original thinking and analysis in the context of
more contemporary reports.
The B.C. Children and Youth Review (2006), conducted by Ted Hughes,
and Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond’s (2008) report Amanda, Savannah, Rowen and
Serena: From Loss to Learning are the two most recent reviews. In 2004,
against a backdrop of restructuring and budget cuts, children’s advocates were
raising concerns about the impacts on children and youth services. At the same
time, the internal review into the death of 19-month-old Sherry Charlie was
released. Subsequently, Ted Hughes was appointed to examine the case and to
make recommendations as to how to improve the protection and provision of
services to children as well as to examine how child deaths were reviewed.
Among his 62 recommendations (which included the usual suggestions for
more resources, decentralized management structures, case review
mechanisms, complaint resolution processes, multidisciplinary teams,
recruitment and training of social workers, and the involvement of aboriginal
people at all levels of decision-making), he recommended that an independent
representative for Children and Youth be appointed. This resulted in the
appointment of Dr. Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond in November 2006. Mary Ellen
is a well-respected advocate for children’s rights and a member of the Muskeg
Lake Cree Nation who has a doctorate of law and who was a former judge of
the Provincial Court of Saskatchewan. By all accounts, she was a good choice

165
166 Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies

for the position. Among her primary roles was to investigate critical
incidences and deaths of children and youth. In April 2008, she released her
report: Amanda, Savannah, Rowen and Serena: From Loss to Learning.
Amanda, Savannah, Rowen and Serena were four northern B.C. children who
were between the ages of seven months and four years when they died between
1999–2005. Three of these children were aboriginal. The public, through
media exposure, once again heard that the “B.C. child protection system failed
children” (Fowlie, 2008) and that the “system’s poor safety standards, [and]
bad communication were factors in deaths” (Meissner, 2008). These headlines
reminded northerners of similar headlines following the release of the Gove
report (1995) which had reviewed the death of a five-year-old, Fort St. John
boy—Matthew Vaudreuil. Yet, despite major overhauls since Gove—including
the decentralization, integration and regionalization of the (now named)
Ministry of Children and Family Development; the implementation of the B.C.
Risk Assessment model and new practice standards, the initiation of quality
assurance standards and complaint mechanisms, and various models of social
workers recruitment and training—Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond’s (2008) report
concluded that again the system failed due to “inexperienced social workers,
staff turnover, high caseloads, insufficient supervision, ineffective training and
over-reliance on personal intuition when careful fact-finding was required” (p.
101). These are not dissimilar findings from those that Gove had registered
thirteen years earlier.
In light of this fifteen year history of external reviews regarding the deaths
of children in northern British Columbia, it is important to notice of the
patterns and themes that are repeating despite government and social workers’
best efforts at change management. The article “Northern Communities-
Southern Bureaucracies” highlighted the power dissonance between the
relationship dynamics of small communities compared to the instrumental
bureaucracy of the urban decision-making centre.
The recent reviews, while highlighting the major concern of the
vulnerability of children in the north, continue to ignore the contextual realities
of those children and impose more of the same urban bureaucracy which has
historically not shown to be effective. If northern social workers want to avoid
yet another report in the next decade about the poor compliance of northern
practice, then the north has to be viewed through more than a southern,
bureaucratic lens. The contextual realities of the north have to be included in
the analysis of systemic change. The north has traditionally had problems of
recruitment and training (which results in high caseloads and insufficient
supervision); and, even, when positions are filled, they are traditionally filled
by people with minimal experience. Unfortunately, one of the presumably
unintended effects of these rigorous, microscopic reviews is that the difficulties
of recruitment and retention become even more difficult. Experienced social
workers leave the Ministry as pressure mounts, and new social workers
become fearful of getting entangled in subsequent reviews. The recruitment
and retention problem is going to continue and even be exacerbated by other
socio-economic realities such as the devastation of the forestry industry and the
Isaac & Stokes 167

baby-boomer retirement patterns. Clearly then, recruitment and retention,

mentoring and supporting of social workers (and managers) cannot occur in the
same way as it does in urban models.
Just as service providers are qualitatively different in the north from their
southern colleagues, so too is the population of children and families served.
One-sixth of the northern population is aboriginal, and one-quarter of all
children (0-19) in the north are aboriginal (Turpel-Lalonde, 2008). This
compares to only 4.5% of B.C.’s overall population being aboriginal and 7.5%
of B.C. residents aged 0 – 19 being aboriginal. Not surprisingly there are more
aboriginal children-in-care in the north (77%) compared to the provincial
aboriginal child in care population (51%). The social work literature is full of
documentation about the inability of the dominant child welfare systems to
address the issues which have resulted in this overrepresentation of aboriginal
children in the child welfare system. Given the high ratio of aboriginal children
in northern B.C. and the inability of the dominant system to ameliorate the
conditions of vulnerable aboriginal children, unless there is a structural change,
the north will continue to be labeled as providing poor child welfare practices.
However, it is not that northern practice is so poor but rather that the dominant
child welfare practice for aboriginal children is so ineffective. The effects are
just more visible in the north.
No northern social worker, or child welfare manager, wants to be the next
media representative for poor child protection practice—or even worse, to hear
that a child on their caseload has died. The individualistic accountability of
completed case plans, risk assessment tools and other monitoring devices has
done little to protect aboriginal children. To move beyond the check-box
monitoring systems of child protection, the significance of “community” to the
fulfillment of children’s needs and to their identity formation needs to be
considered (Walmsley, 2005). The existing Ministry of Child and Family
Development legislation, policy and practices, and both Hughes (2006) and
Turpel-Lafonde (2008), acknowledge the importance of finding better ways to
respond to aboriginal needs. Hughes (2006) stated in his report that, in order to
reduce the number of aboriginal children at risk, ways to building “strong
economically viable and culturally robust communities” had to be found (p.
52).
However, the changes that are occurring are relying heavily on top-down
governance priorities rather than grassroots development of horizontal,
community structures and the recognition of other cultural and socio-economic
realities. Walmsley (2003) identifies this tension between the “universal rules
and standards of a provincial child welfare system and the needs of a cultural
community to develop policies and practices that ensure the well-being of its
children in culturally appropriate ways” (p. 138). Child protection in the north
is complex and the needs of the aboriginal community for “child protection are
different than the needs of the dominant society” (Walmsley, 2005, p.138).
These reports and reviews increase the dissonance between community
and bureaucracy alienate the social care models of northern community
practice from the social control models of government centres, and further
168 Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies

separate aboriginal children and their families from dominant society. The
power analysis in Northern Communities-Southern Bureaucracies continues to
be relevant to contemporary child protection practice. A shift away from urban
systemic models of policy and practice to models that incorporate the
community-realities of the north is essential in order for vulnerable children in
the north to receive better child welfare services.

Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies

The practice of child welfare is conducted through a complex series of
continuously changing political and social forces. Ideally, the well-being of
children occurs within a family and community context. However, when
children are not afforded the protection and care that societal values dictate, the
state uses its powers to attempt to modify the child-caregiver relationship. This
authority is enshrined in legislation and conducted through organizations that
empower social workers with the legal responsibility to protect children from
harm. Increasingly, child protection has occurred amidst media debates and
public condemnation of both the system and individual social workers. In
British Columbia, this public highlighting of the deficiencies within child
protection has set the stage for the recent introduction of new legislation as
well as a restructuring of the government ministry that delivers child
protection. However, for the social workers providing child protection in
British Columbia’s smaller, more northern communities, the changes still
reflect an old paradigm of centralization and bureaucratization. Despite input
from regional representatives, front-line workers and consumers, the changes
reflect urban-based models and have a distinctly urban flavour. Providing
context-sensitive child protection services in the north is possible. However,
this paper suggests that it cannot occur simply through legislation and
organizational change. Changes have to incorporate the professional value
stance of social work. Currently, professional social caring takes a secondary
position to that of bureaucratic social control. Further, the community context
must be taken into consideration. Context-sensitive services can only be
provided if the unique life experiences of the children, families, and women in
these communities are understood.
Despite the rhetoric regarding community involvement, small northern
communities continue to experience marginalisation in legislative and
organizational processes. In British Columbia, the legislative mandate
emanates from the southern governmental centre of Victoria. Similarly, the
bureaucracy that interprets the Act and develops policies and procedures to
carry out the child protection functions of the Act, operates from a power base
in the provincial south. In 1991, in part to counter criticism of the system’s
inability to be responsive to local needs, a series of community consultations
was undertaken. This led to two publications: Making Changes: A Place to
Start (Community Panel, Family and Children’s Services, 1992a) and
Liberating Our Children: Liberating Our Nation (Community Panel, Family
and Children’s Services, 1992b). The resulting new legislation, The Child,
Isaac & Stokes 169

Family and Community Service Act, was introduced and subsequently

proclaimed in January 1996. As one of its guiding principles, this new act
specifically includes community involvement in the planning and delivery of
services. During the time this legislative process was underway, Matthew
Vaudreuil died on July 9, 1992 at only five and a half years old. Matthew was
born in the northern British Columbia community of Fort St. John and spent
most of his life as a client of the Ministry of Social Services. Following the
guilty plea of his mother to a manslaughter charge, a provincial inquiry was
launched. This led to the Report of the Gove Inquiry into Child Protection
(Gove Inquiry into Child Protection, 1995). Gove’s report made 118
recommendations, many of which focused on the lack of coordination and the
poor information transmitted among the plethora of services Matthew and his
family received. In response to Gove’s proposal for a new child welfare
system ,the programs previously under the old ministries of Social Services,
Health, Attorney General, Education and Women’s Equality were integrated.
Programs servicing children, youth and families are now all under the auspices
of the new Ministry for Children and Families.
These legislative and organizational authorities are fundamental to child
welfare, though they should not be the sole consideration in developing a
system aimed at ensuring the well-being and safety of children. Any
discussion of child welfare should consider the perspective of social workers
who are the primary professionals responsible for supporting the protection of
children as well as the rights of the family. Social work is founded on
principles of social “care” which emphasize self-determination, the inherent
worth of all human beings, and access to social justice for all (British Columbia
Association of Social Workers, 1984). However, it is the contradictory social
“control” role of child protection, with its emphasis on investigation and
litigation, paperwork and accountability, which is focused on in the legislative
and organizational restructuring (Callahan, 1993).
While the rhetoric of the new legislation recognizes the importance of both
the family and the community in planning supportive programs to meet the
child’s needs, these values get obscured in practice when the agenda for
change is dominated by mechanisms aimed at ensuring management
accountability. The focus on economic efficiencies and administrative
effectiveness leads to prescriptive and bureaucratic policies that ignore the
context of practice and create a power imbalance. Without an integration of
the professional values, the child protection social worker is placed between
the workplace from which she derives a living and the profession to which she
belongs. A bifurcation occurs between the implementation of policy and the
provision of ethical and value based practice.
As the policies and procedures are transposed onto northern, small
communities, the social workers that are expected to implement the legislation
in the community experience severe dissonance. The social worker is placed in
an untenable position between the community and government with the
bureaucracy holding the power “over” the community. Concomitant with the
social worker experiencing loss of professional integrity within her
170 Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies

bureaucracy, the community is marginalized vis-à-vis the urban centre. While

the separation of professional values and bureaucratic demands is not a new
tension in social work, the lack of harmony between the “community” and the
“government” is more evident in small communities. This discord relates to
the lack of synthesis between the day-to-day practice experiences and the
policies and procedures within which social workers are expected to work.
When the “front-line” social worker is employed in a hierarchy that devalues
her professional and community objectives, she is unable to provide effective
community practice. Consequentially there is a high turnover rate and a
seemingly endless procession of newly trained, relatively inexperienced
workers in the small northern communities. This ultimately affects the
competency of child welfare services in these areas of the province.
The power analysis essential to progressive social work practice (Mullaly,
1993) provides a framework for examining the interrelationship between
northern communities and southern bureaucracies. This chapter examines the
inequitable distribution of power between the urban decision-making centres
and the hinterland practice areas, and the effect on social workers and child
welfare services. An analysis of the power discrepancies will evolve through
exploring the relationship dynamics in small communities as well as the ways
in which families, women, and social workers experience the context of
northern, small communities. In this way, a model of providing context-
sensitive, empowering services will emerge.

Northern Small Communities

It is customary to initiate an analysis of this kind by defining the area being
referred to. However this is not easy because “The North” is not a single
region and does not form a homogenous entity. Traditionally “north” has been
defined by geographic variables such as those chosen by Hamelin1 (1989).
Coates and Morrison (1992) propose a politically based definition that views
Canada as having two “Norths:” one is the “far north” and the other, the
“provincial north.” This paper focuses on the communities in British Columbia
that would be considered “the provincial north.” Another way of looking at the
communities we are discussing is according to an urban-rural dichotomy.
Social work educators have long recognized that not all practice occurs in an
urban setting, but it was not until the 1970s that universities developed rural
specialities. Much of the early rural social work literature was drawn from the
United States, where Ginsberg (1974) and Levin (1974) initiated the discourse.
While this dichotomy is useful, it does not entirely reflect the economic and
functional realities of the communities of which we speak. The urban-
hinterland explanation forwarded by Tobin and Walmsley (1992) provides a
more useful framework for this analysis similar to Zapf’s (1991) notion of
“remote practice.” The latter concept provides an additional category to
describe these communities that differentiate them from both the predominantly
southern, urban cities and the rural, farming environments. Even though Zapf’s
work is primarily conducted in the “far north,” it provides a helpful framework
Isaac & Stokes 171

for this discussion of the “provincial north.” In British Columbia, this

“provincial north” is functionally separate from the urban centres of Vancouver
and Victoria and the urban sprawl of the Lower Mainland. The communities
that we refer to in this chapter vary in terms of economic infrastructure and
religious and cultural homogeneity but share common features such as long,
cold winters, low population base, geographic isolation and limited
accessibility to the resources of the larger urban centres.
However, in this discussion of child welfare practice in these communities,
the prevailing indicator of whether a community is considered northern—or for
that matter, small or remote—is not drawn from geographic or economic
perspectives but rather from a social work perspective. This view considers
how the ecological environment is perceived and experienced by the people
living there. Martinez-Brawley (1990) in her studies on small communities in
the United States, suggests that members’ self-perception of the community is
the essential ingredient to defining it. Further, she argues, this self-definition
supersedes the observer’s perception. Hamelin (1989) refers to this self-
defining characteristic when he describes the north as “a state of mind,” “a
passion” where people express different views from “southerners.” In our
work, northern human service providers describe their perceptions in the
following ways:
Small communities are intimate, you get to know what agency does what.
In a city you don’t necessarily get to know the people or their philosophies
but when you’re in a small community you do (cited in Stokes, 1996, p.
71).
I prefer small communities, rather than the large cities. I was born
and raised in a small community, and in an atmosphere where everybody
knows everybody, or knows someone who knows somebody. I like the
quietness outside of the community, I find people in a smaller community
to be much more helpful, and they tend to pull together more (cited in
Stokes, 1996, p. 86).
Socially and psychologically, people self-define their daily life experience
as being northern, small community, or rural. It is this experience that
differentiates the inhabitants of these communities from the majority of
Canadians living in larger, urban, often (but not necessarily) southern cities.
Although it is a minority of CanadiansC23 percent of the population according
to Statistics Canada2 (1993)Cwho live in these communities, there are two
million children who experience growing up differently because of their
residence. Nonetheless, as has already been pointed out these communities are
each unique and the generalizations made in this chapter need to be qualified
when considering a particular community.

Relationships in the Smaller Communities

For social workers providing child welfare services, developing knowledge
of the particular community dynamics within the small community is an
essential first task. Delaney (1995) refers to this knowledge of community
172 Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies

interactional patterns as context awareness and suggests that social workers

who are planning to work in these communities should ensure that their critical
knowledge includes both social work theory and context sensitivity. Of
particular relevance are the relationship patterns. The concepts of
gemeinschaft and geselleschaft are helpful as a way of understanding how the
social relationships in these smaller communities differ in comparison to those
in urban centres (Martinez-Brawley, 1990). Gemeinschaft refers to the
familiarity individuals have with each other that inevitably occurs when
everyone knows everybody else’s business. This social intimacy results in a
personalization of community issues and events. This effect is easily seen
when a tragedy occurs in a small community because a very high percentage of
residents will be affected. For example, the recent tragedy in Kitimat, British
Columbia, in which three teenagers were shot to death in a campground held
national attention, partially because of the nature of the events, but partially
because it threw the entire community into grief. Media reports consistently
mentioned that everyone either were relatives and/or knew the young men. On
the other hand, geselleschaft relations occur in highly populated centres. Here
relationships are impersonal and individualistic. It is these rational
relationships that result in the equally public incidents where people stand by
as women get stabbed to death or thrown off bridges. Being context-aware and
sensitive ensures that each community or region is viewed as being unique with
its own set of problems and solutions while providing a framework for social
workers to become aware of the community norms.
In social work, the community practice approach acknowledges the
gemeinschaft and much has been written about using the existing relationships
within the community as a way of developing natural helping networks. For
children, this social closeness and the heightened awareness of neighbour’s
activities can provide a sense of security and positive self-identity that is
supportive and beneficial (Stokes & Ternowetsky, 1997). However, the
relationship patterns in these small communities should not be idealized or
romanticized. Labonte (1990a) observes that “communities are not always
healthy or empowering in their organization or interaction” (p. 66-67). At their
worst, the close-knit and enduring loyalties cover up and obscure social
problems. Kuptana (1992) describes the difficulty people have in disclosing
incidents of sexual abuse in the small, isolated communities of Canada’s
Arctic: “there is much concern about embarrassment, shame, guilt and
repercussions from family members, friends, and the community ... the victim
may fear ostracism” (p. 50). Whittington (1985) also noted the reluctance to
label families with problems as being paramount in rural settings due to a
desire to maintain one’s image and “face” in the community. Ironically, while
there is much made of the interdependence of small community relationships
,there co-exists a fierce individualism. The “pioneer” ideology that drew people
to small communities in the first place promotes an ethic of self-reliance and an
ethos of solving one’s own problems. The principles that one takes care of
one’s own, minds one’s own business, and lets one’s neighbour do the same
continues to be widespread. It is this thinking that leads members of small
Isaac & Stokes 173

communities to be depicted as more conservative in outlook compared to the

liberality of members of larger centres.

The Family in the Small Community

A family, however it is constructed, has primary responsibility for the care
of children. While the structure of families is changing, urban families are
affected more rapidly as they experience the modernizing forces of
industrialization, urbanization, and technology (Eichler, 1997; McCannell &
Herringer, 1991). Factors that distinguish families in the communities we are
describing include the dependence on the ecological3 setting and the
importance of socio-cultural identity as a foundation for community identity.
When communities are isolated from mainstream forces and families are
insulated from the external environment, individuals are strongly influenced by
religious ideology, traditional sex-based role differentiation, authoritarian
parental control and male dominance (Ishwaran, 1983; Sternweiss & Wells,
1992). The pervasive ethic of “family values,” coupled with the pioneer stance
of self-reliance, and the “me and mine” ideology serves to keep individual
family members isolated and to obscure the troubles within. Martinez-Brawley
and Blundell (1989) note this reliance on self-help is particularly apparent
where wife assault and alcohol problems are present. This is especially
troubling when these are also the two areas identified as the top pressing social
problems in non-metropolitan areas of British Columbia (Flavelle, 1989). The
extent of these social problems coupled with the prohibition against help-
seeking behaviour outside the family highlights the need for well-coordinated
and context-sensitive approaches to service delivery.
In the same way that “community” can be romanticized and deified, so too
has the inward focus on family furthered a right wing agenda in which there is
less state, and supposedly more “freedom.” The current social construction of
family, and the contemporary emphasis on family values may deflect us from
looking at the larger issues of power centred in global economic policies
(Labonte, 1990a). In this regard, families in marginalised communities, who
have not had the same benefits and services as those in larger centres, may
come to adopt conservative attitudes in a sort of “we’ve always made do with
less, so should everyone else” philosophy. This is not to deny the power and
empowerment inherent in having family and roots in a particular locality, but to
illustrate that marginalisation does not necessarily lead to sophisticated
political analysis, but often to defensive barriers.

Women’s Experiences in Smaller Communities

Women are particularly vulnerable to family isolation in these male-
dominated environments. Roles are divided along gender lines. Women, on
the whole, are there because they, or their mothers, followed husbands seeking
employment and are viewed in the traditional sense as providers of support,
nurture, and care to their families (Wall, 1993). For example, in the northern
174 Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies

Métis communities of Saskatchewan women accept and expect that “women’s

work” consists of housekeeping and childcare, while men’s consists of
“outside” work (Poelzer & Poelzer, 1986). In the male-environment of
resource towns, the needs of women and children are frequently overlooked, as
the economic, capitalist organization of society prevails (Luxton, 1980).
Independent, professional women are often an anomaly, yet women represent
the majority of front-line social work practitioners. Social workers educated in
structural, anti-racist and feminist theory quickly experience resistance and
outright disdain to their practice approaches and ideologies. In order to
develop the necessary trust and acceptance within the community, many
workers are silenced in order not to be branded as a “feminist,” or “city-
slicker.” Ignoring the pervasiveness of gender and power relations affects the
delivery of services for women and children. One human service worker
described the difficulty:
I’ve joked that the women’s centre should really be called the ladies
centre, because if you take the connotations that the word “woman” brings
up, and the connotations that the word “lady” brings up, they go in two
different directions. You can’t come in [to these small communities] and
say feminism is power, even though it is; and you can’t just come in and
say “you’re a feminist if you want to be just as equal as your husband”,
although that’s true, because a lot of women would run screaming. The
message would not get heard and so it is not useful. It’s the “F” word
(personal communication, 1996).
Recognizing the barriers to the acceptance of empowerment models, led
this feminist counsellor to provide an opinion about the difficulties that
women’s centres have experienced in northern communities:
The empowerment of women is a very, very big deal to me, however you
cannot take an urban model of a woman’s collective which is very
feminist in nature, and some would say, especially the bubbas in town
would say, anti-men and plunk it down in the middle of the land of
‘bubba’ and put women in charge who may not be very empowered in
their own lives, who might not have experienced any empowerment, and
who may have really, really serious issues when it comes to trying to
become more independent. Then they bring all their issues into it and you
get all the bad things of a collective. I think women’s centres are a
wonderful thing and I think women need a safe space, and they need a
place to be able to be. But I don’t think you can just take the model out of
L.A., or New York, or San Francisco, or Vancouver and plunk it down in
Chetwynd, or Fort Nelson, or Mackenzie, or Hazelton (personal
communication, 1996).
Yet, women are vulnerable in these communities perhaps partly due to
their lack of exposure to feminist, empowering thinking. They, too, along with
the men, have internalized their inferior position in relationship to men
(Poelzer & Poelzer, 1986). However, it is the structural impediments unique to
small communities that greatly affect the position of women in these
communities.
Isaac & Stokes 175

Economically, paid work is centred around male employment, particularly

in the communities reliant on resource-based industries such as logging, pulp
and paper, and fishing. This creates financial inequities between the genders.
For example, in Quesnel, a smaller community just south of Prince George, the
median income for males in 1994 was $34,700. This is compared to females,
for whom the median income was substantially lower at $11,900. When this is
compared to provincial averages, males earned 25 percent more than their
contemporaries throughout the province, but women earned 27 percent less
than their urban sisters (Statistics Canada, 1997). Women are clearly
economically disadvantaged in a resource-based community such as this, and it
is this economic marginalisation that propagates female dependence on male
employment in the north. In farming communities, women are similarly tied to
their male partners, but have an additional tie with the physical land. As
Struthers (1994) observes, “farmwomen who are victims of violence face the
triple challenge of leaving their homes, their businesses, and their children’s
future equity. Leaving, even for a brief time to seek refuge, can jeopardize the
farming operation, because her labour is essential. If she does leave,
untangling the legal knot of entitlement in an inter-generational business often
leaves a farm woman with little of either her cash or her sweat equity” (p. 15).
Socially, living in these small, northern communities means having others
know your “business” and vice-versa, being visible, experiencing lack of
privacy, and being geographically isolated (Schmidt, Isaac & Herringer 1997;
Isaac & Herringer, 1996; Peterson, 1996; Stokes, 1996; Delaney, 1995;
Ginsberg, 1974). Accessing services is difficult for community members when
their every move is known throughout the community. As one consumer of a
service told us:
When I first started into counselling, I was afraid because you know
everybody, you’re afraid of the confidentiality, you know. I’ve been to
services in Vancouver before, and I didn’t have any concerns about
walking in to the place, because I knew nobody would know me. It was
safe. Nobody was going to think I was crazy—and if they did, I didn’t
really care because they didn’t know me. It’s a concern in a small
community: everybody’s going to know I’ve been to counselling, and
they’re going to think I’m crazy (personal communication, 1996).
This client continued that “back doors are good in small communities.”
This lack of privacy is a component of psychological accessibility to services.
In an analysis of quality in human services, Wilding (1994) suggests
psychological accessibility is just as relevant and necessary as physical and
geographic accessibility. In smaller communities, clients are recognizable and
visible, and even their parked cars outside of an agency alerts other community
members to their whereabouts. Within this context, the importance of where
services are located and how they are organized takes on a new meaning. Of
paramount importance is whether agencies are developed to enhance
anonymity and safeguard appearances. In this way, northerners experience
alienation from the services, simply because of the nature of service delivery.
This lack of privacy also occurs when a highly visible child protection worker
176 Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies

knocks on a front door to respond to a complaint.

The conservative nature of rural communities often reinforces the power
imbalance between men and women, between mainstream dominant culture
and minorities, and between parents and children, social workers and their
clients, and so on. Such power imbalances can serve to exacerbate social
problems such as family violence. In fact, isolation is a major factor in the
incidence and severity of forms of family violence. The added component of
geographical isolation intensifies the problem, as do the harsh weather
conditions in British Columbia’s north that affect mobility, especially in
mountainous terrain. Lack of public transportation, distance, and poverty
combine to exacerbate situations in families—all of which could be alleviated
by relevant, accessible services. Geographically, “a woman without a car, or
money for gas, virtually requires the permission of her partner, or the active
intervention of a neighbour, to seek help” (Struthers, 1994, p. 15).

Social Worker as Community Member

When a female social worker is transplanted from the south to these
communities, her experiences come from both a woman’s perspective as well
as a professional one. Despite attempts in Schools of Social Work to prepare
students for the realities of practice in northern, rural and remote settings,
education in large urban universities understandably tends toward an urban
focus and bias. When these graduates move to these smaller communities, they
experience a form of culture shock (Zapf, 1993). They quickly experience the
high visibility and lack of anonymity they were forewarned about, but little
prepares them for the insidious nature of these experiences—and the impact on
their work. As one human service worker said:
There are lots of things that make [living in small communities] unique.
There is the aspect that the service provider is in a fishbowl, she can’t
leave her job at work, and there is no anonymity. You can’t be a
counsellor eight hours a day and go home. You have people approaching
you in the mall; you’ve got people approaching you at the supermarket,
with your kids in the park. You keep running into clients (cited in Stokes,
1996, p. 89).
Social work students are indoctrinated with ethics delineating the
boundaries of appropriate professional relationships. Introductory texts purport
the necessity of maintaining clear and unambiguous boundaries in relationships
with clients, and social workers are warned that confused boundaries in clinical
relationships can be very destructive. While there are clear prohibitions on
sexual contact with clients, Ramsdell and Ramsdell (1993) suggest that social
and business relationships between client and counsellor are also under
scrutiny. In small communities, this is not so easily separated. There are
interrelationships between client and client, between client and counsellor, and
an inextricable interweaving between the public-counsellor and the private-
person. The high visibility of social workers and human service providers
ensures that their identity is intertwined with their role. This fishbowl lifestyle
Isaac & Stokes 177

of being seen primarily in the role of the counsellor or social worker is a source
of stress and distress to social workers. Transsituational4 demands in the
helping professions are common. However, the usual strategies of separating
the role as a “helper” from that of a citizen are not as easy in a small
community. Similarly other strategies to counter these transsituational
demands such as role concealment are impossible, and relying on selectivity in
friendship developments ensures a social worker in a small community has a
very small social network. Once again, the structural features of small
communities affect the practice and self-care of small community social
workers.
On the other hand, the visibility provides an easy avenue to get to know
community members, other service providers, formal and informal power
structures and the influential leaders. The emerging mutuality and support and
the familiarity with the community decision-making structures enhances their
ability to function effectively (Stokes & Ternowetsky, 1997). Moreover, in
comparison to other community members, social workers find themselves in a
situation of relative power. Communities are usually presented in a neutral
manner that hides the notions of class, race, and gender bias (Dominelli, 1990).
However, small northern communities have a preponderance of poor and
working class people, and the social workers—being educated, usually white
and middle class—experience privilege. In this way, social workers find
themselves as a part of the community elite and even through relatively
undramatic community interventions, in a leadership role (Martinez-Brawley,
1990). This heightened ability to exert influence provides social workers with
an opportunity to actively promote and energize the community in human
service projects. The benefit of this is that local decision-making becomes
speedy and unencumbered (Trute, Adkins & MacDonald, 1994). This is in
marked contrast to the cumbersome processes within the geselleschaft at the
provincial and national levels. As the social worker becomes integrated into
the decision making structure of the community, her goal of developing
community awareness and sensitivity, and becoming an “inside” community
member becomes a reality. This process of building positive relationships with
community members is mutually beneficial. The social worker is able to carry
out her mandate while empowering and strengthening the community in its
resolution of social problems. This is consistent with Littrell’s (n.d.) view of
community that is a setting where people become active, meaningful
participants and where they have considerable control.
However, as we cautioned earlier this development of the social worker as
an effective change agent should not be idealized. When a social worker is
constrained by bureaucratic policy and is unsupported in her personal and
professional integration into the community, she experiences tremendous
distress. In order to avoid role conflict, the social worker may resist entering
the community in a meaningful, normal and social way (Stokes, 1996). This
results in a distancing from the community and insularity. Dealing with the
continual visibility and lack of anonymity through personal withdrawal leads to
a problem with professional credibility. As Ginsberg (1974) notes, being
178 Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies

perceived as sincere and trustworthy by the community is an essential part of

effective practice in small communities. When social service organizations fail
to assist a new worker in negotiating the fine balance of personal and
professional relationships in small communities, the ability for that worker to
provide effective services is severely impacted, and in some cases, becomes
impossible.
Social workers in child protection are particularly susceptible to distress
and burn-out, and in the new Ministry for Children and Families, the rate of
stress leave seems to be ever-increasing (personal communication, Ministry
social worker, 1997). The previous reorganization in 1988 left vacancies in
ministry offices of close to 50 percent as workers opted for vacancies in
southern centres. While the literature on burn-out in social work is by no
means conclusive, Soderfeldt, Soderfeldt and Warg (1995) indicate that high
demands in work, combined with low work control and little social support are
associated with stress and health problems. They refer to this as the “demand-
control-support” model. The newly graduated social worker moving to a small
town to begin her career is clearly vulnerable to burnout. She works in a
highly complex, risky, fast-paced and demanding area of social work where
she is expected to make crucial decisions that may have a profound impact on
children and families (Callahan, 1993). At the bottom of the hierarchical
ladder, such social workers within the Ministry experience lack of control and
a sense of powerlessness (Carniol, 1990). This is exacerbated by the emphasis
on deskilling social work tasks and fragmenting the professional assessment
into small bits and pieces. Within the workforce her support is limited, and
personally her “outsider” status within the community ensures, at least initially,
few community supports. However, the work remains absolutely essential in
small communities.

Human Services in Small Communities

Child protection services, along with federal employment program and the
police have been the “core trinity” of public services consistently provided in
northern British Columbia (Lockhart, 1986). This is unchanged in 1997. Other
services, such as supportive family services, or preventive programs that fall
under the broad bailiwick of child welfare but are not mandated have
developed at an uneven pace. They remain fragmented and dispersed in some
cases, centralized in others, and lacking altogether in some instances. In many
small communities, the only experience of social work and child protection has
been through legislative, social control functions. This organizational model of
service delivery is reliant on strong vertical linkages that connect services
inside the community with organizations and institutions outside of the
community (Williams, 1983). The justification for this method of delivering
services is that it offers all citizens equitable treatment and provides a
guarantee of common standards. However, as these vertical linkages are made,
it is essential to consider the effect on the small community. Firstly, it
contradicts the typical organization of small communities that links
Isaac & Stokes 179

organizations and social units horizontally to local residents within the

community. Secondly, it obscures the power inequities. Northerners
experience alienation from the services when control is held elsewhere. This
degree of control affects every component of program delivery, including the
working conditions of the social workers. A child protection supervisor in the
hinterland of Prince George explained the loss of community autonomy:
They [referring to Vancouver and Victoria] are still planning programming
for up in this area based on their experience down there, and they are very
controlling. I mean very concrete stuff, like our building. You know it is
totally controlled from Prince George. We don’t control our heating, or
nothing; everything is done by computer from Prince George. So if it’s 30
below there, then the assumption is that it’s 30 below here too - and it’s
not necessarily the case .... They can tell us if there’s a window open and
how much its open by, and in which office. They can tell us if the door is
open a crack (cited in Stokes, 1996, p. 105).
In today’s fast-moving, technologically expanding, global economy it is
rare that a community can sustain itself in isolation. When centralized,
bureaucratic models of service delivery are imposed on small northern
communities, they neglect the community culture. This results in less than
optimum service for northern communities, and feelings of powerlessness,
frustration and alienation for northern practitioners.5
These highly centralized services have been under attack since the 1970s.
They have been criticized for failing to address the diverse needs and interests
of individuals and groups, for undermining people’s self determination, and for
their inability to allow people to have input into decisions affecting their own
lives (Roeher Institute, 1993). Additionally, they are condemned as ill-
equipped to respond to the unique needs of smaller communities, ethnic
minorities, or aboriginal people (Stokes, 1996; McKenzie, 1991). Criticized as
being ineffective and inefficient, they have distanced the consumer from the
service system. When service decisions are made at senior political and
managerial levels in the urban centre, the resulting services are unresponsive to
local needs, inaccessible, inflexible, unresponsive to diversity, alienating to
users, and ultimately unrewarding places for community social workers to
work (Wharf, 1993; McKenzie, 1991). The logical antidote to centralized
systems is decentralization. Devolving authority to localities where the service
providers and consumers lived would enable more community responsibility
and higher local involvement. Decentralization was supported by both liberals
and social democrats as a means to encourage local democracy, to extend
service responsiveness, and to be more flexible in response to the unique and
diverse needs of individual groups and communities. This transferring of
responsibility for the delivery of human services to community panels, boards
and advisory committees was aimed at having smaller, horizontally organized
units within the community. British Columbia has been at the forefront in
decentralization since the 1970s with the implementation of the Community
Resources Board Act in 1972. Today, many of the non-statutory child welfare
services that do exist continue to be delivered at the community level although
180 Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies

they are funded through government.

However, just like community practice, the concept should not be
idealized. These services have been geographically decentralized. Many more
small communities have human services located in their own communities than
they did ten years ago. However, they are neither politically nor
administratively decentralized. The policy-making and the bulk of the decision-
making are still controlled through the contracting-out process by the
centralized authority (Rekart, 1995; Rekart, 1993; Wharf, 1985). The existing
model of geographic decentralization provides for the public sector to furnish
the financing while the services are delivered in the community to meet the
local needs. But a paradox occurs as community-based organizations bid on
government funding. Under the guise of accountability, policies and guidelines
are attached to the funding. As it becomes clear that funding will only
continue if the agency’s activities match the government priorities, the
organization shifts away from the grassroots community-based services
(Rekart, 1995). This reliance on centralized policy making also ensures that
administrative decentralization rarely occurs. As the norms of the organization
shift to government priorities, local citizens—except for the local elite—are
left out of the decision-making (Rekart, 1995; Smith & Lipsky, 1993). The
horizontal priorities begin to be overshadowed by the vertical demands, and the
community organizations look more like quasi-governmental departments than
community-based agencies.
In terms of the gemeinschaft there is also a shift in relationship patterns.
The elected officials need to connect with their counterparts in other
communities. This has the unintended consequence of community leaders
identifying more with the vertical hierarchy than their community members.
Inevitably, this leads to more time spent away from the community and
unavailability for support and coordination to the people of the community
(Minore et al., 1991).
On the other hand, there are demonstrable benefits to decentralized
services that are governed by locally elected citizens. Clague et al. (1984), in
an overview of the British Columbia experience with the Community Resource
Boards Act, commented that “it is indisputable that they were an unqualified
success in arousing energy and generating excitement about the human services
where little had existed before and little remains today” (p. 188). Similarly, in
an assessment of the effects of decentralizing child welfare services in
Winnipeg, McKenzie (1991) found that both staff and consumers preferred the
small, informal agencies in which they felt more welcome and able to exercise
some influence over day-to-day operations. This user-friendly approach to
service delivery quickly showed evidence of increased accessibility and
beneficial client outcomes (Wharf, 1993). However, McKenzie (1991) also
points out that there were increasing agency-government conflicts and sharp
divisions in role expectations because of restricted funding. He indicates the
continuing tension between knowledge of community needs and centralized
funding and decision-making: “while board members indicated they had been
reasonably successful in identifying community needs and developing specific
Isaac & Stokes 181

agency policies, they had been least successful in securing the required
financial resources to meet program needs” (p. 63). This tension is repeated in
our communications with northern practitioners in BC who indicate that, while
they know what is needed, the resources are controlled elsewhere.
These descriptions of decentralization indicate, once again, the tension
between the social “care” and the “social” control function of child protection.
Providing services that are acceptable to the community and reflective of its
needs, as well as accessible to the consumer and user-friendly for both staff
and consumers is consistent with definitions of quality human services from a
social work perspective. However, they are not necessarily the primary goals
of government that is to provide cost-efficient services to those people deemed
“worthy” according to government policy. But the north has the distinction of
having fewer health and social services than other areas of the province (Gove,
1995; Northern & Rural Health Task Force Report, 1995). And, it is this
deficiency in accessibility and the limited alternatives that necessitate the need
for redistributing the power and providing context-sensitive services in the
north.

Reprioritizing Power in Community Child Welfare

As Canada’s social policies assume a distinctive neo-conservative ideology
with government restraint and downsizing taking precedence, all the services
that fall under the rubric of child welfare are being restructured. As this
transformation occurs, attention must be paid to power distribution. We must
question who controls the resources and where are the decisions made. At this
time, the power remains in the hands of centralized government, in the top
levels of the bureaucracy, and is utilized to control people whose actions
contravene societal norms. For child welfare services to be more community
sensitive these differences in power must be neutralized. Power between the
hierarchy and the community, between the social worker and her manager, and
between the social control and social care functions of social work must be
redistributed.
The community is viewed as the social space where citizens and their
associations solve problems (McKnight, 1989). However, as global forces
impact on even the smallest community, “the human service professional and
system [becomes] an alternative method of problem solving” (McKnight, 1989,
p. 7). The community is becoming widely recognized as the most appropriate
and most effective place to be the connector—or when necessary the
intervener—between the state and the family. However, there is considerable
concern that the current restructuring is focused more on downloading or
offloading of services, and that the changes are more related to financial
restraint than on providing an alternative service model (Neysmith, 1991). The
resource issue cannot be completely explored within the context of this
chapter. Adequate resources are essential to providing good quality services to
children and their families (Wilding, 1994). However, given a fixed level of
resources, services can be delivered in context-sensitive ways in which power
182 Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies

differentials are neutralized and professional and community objectives are

considered; or, alternatively, the same resources can be utilized in
disempowering ways. Unfortunately, if resources are clearly inadequate, then
redistributing power is used to conceal the agenda of offloading. The resulting
residualist model of service delivery, concomitant with victim-blaming, is the
antithesis of the proposal in this discussion, which is to enhance community
care and community empowerment as a model of service delivery.
The existing legislation provides opportunities for the delivery and practice
of context-sensitive community services. In the new Child, Family and
Community Services Act, there is greater provision for the development of
supportive and preventive services than in the old Family and Child Services
Act. These changes could allow for a more equitable distribution of power
between the community and the government. But, in order to accomplish this,
governments must recognize the community’s horizontal structures. Many
small communities have become accustomed to, willingly or not, the influence
and sometimes overpowering control of the vertical organizational linkages. It
is now up to the rational relations prevalent within the bureaucracy to adapt
and merge with the horizontal and closer-knit connections predominant in these
communities. And, it bears repeating that there have been examples of this,
albeit fleeting. For example, during the community resource board era in
British Columbia history, people in Dawson Creek, voiced that, “if we said
something, it was listened to” (Clague et al., 1984, p. 67). For community
empowerment to occur, focus must be placed on the voice and experience of
the social worker at the front-line. Feminist social workers experience their
work from the standpoint of women and feminists. As such, they understand,
“the position that professionals occupy in the management of people’s lives”
(Walker, 1990, p.4). Similarly, feminist social workers understand that they
derive their power from the network of institutions and activities that
administer the child protection mandate. Female social workers find
themselves in conflict within a profession that has taken on a male ethos of
objectivity, competitiveness, individualism, and predictability (Baines, 1991).
This definition of success scorns the nurturing, expressive and familial styles
of personal interaction, which are more consistent with the social care-focus of
social work.
In the community setting, these contradictions get played out. Through
child protection legislation, a control mechanism is provided to prevent child
abuse and maltreatment. The social worker, as an agent of government, is
issued with a “letter of authority” from the provincial, centralized government
to ostensibly prevent or control the abuse. Thus, the social worker is set up as
the authority over the community. The power “over” usurps the power “with”
described earlier. On the one hand, this provides the community with an
opportunity to distance itself from the responsibility of its youngest and most
vulnerable citizens, by handing the authority over to workers who are
themselves relatively powerless in the larger systems. But, on the other hand,
co-existing with the social worker’s role as a front-line “protector” of children
is her professional desire, and her community expectation, that she provide
Isaac & Stokes 183

services in a caring way. This means that she is respectful of the existing
community interrelationships, the formal and informal power structures, and
works in a collaborative manner with the community encouraging mutuality
not separation.
This placement of social workers between “community” and government is
often experienced as an untenable setting. As one social worker commented,
“we’re neither fish nor fowl ... not really one of the community, yet having
little power or authority to determine either how they are perceived, nor the
parameters of our work” (personal communication, Ministry social worker,
1997). Social work in small communities is demanding. Workers report
unmanageably high caseloads, with more and more “accountability”
mechanisms in place, which take extra time from their day—for example, new
and lengthy risk assessment forms. In a recent project designed to help social
workers change approaches to their work guided by the expressed needs of
single parent women, Isaac and Herringer (1996) note that it became clear that
an important first step is the need to allow time for social workers themselves
to feel heard, valued, respected, and supported. Most felt they received little
recognition for their difficult work, and ongoing negative media reports meant
there was much public misunderstanding and even animosity in their
communities. Social workers also referred to feelings of powerlessness within
the systemCoften the “system” was their particular office. Rather than moving
in the direction of services which are relevant to the north, the Ministry tends
to deliver services which also reflect the rugged individualist concept pervasive
in small communities where something as simple as allowing time to debrief
troubling cases with a supportive colleague may be perceived as weak, or
“slacking off.” In some ways, these male-centred values are consistent with
community culture of gender stereotyping. However, the result is that the
female social worker between the community and her (often) male manager is
further isolated and separated from her own support networks. Additionally,
the structures within the community—which we referred to earlier such as
economics, freedom, and accessibility to choice are reinforced, which creates,
at times, insurmountable barriers for the women to overcome. In this way,
women experiencing spousal abuse, substance abuse, co-dependency or other
stresses that may exacerbate child maltreatment are further discouraged from
seeking help outside the family, firstly, through the patriarchy within the
family that is reinforced through the community norms, and, secondly, by a
system that reinforces a hierarchical division of labour.
It has become clear through meetings with child protection workers that
the climate in the various offices perpetuates conflicting ideas about what child
welfare work should look like. Yet, in this era of restructuring of social
services, supervisors report that they can no longer support their workers.
Indeed, many feel undervalued and perhaps even discarded in the current
shifting of job titles and responsibilities. Child protection organizations need
to reprioritize the role of caring within social work. Caring for clients and
communities—as well as for social workers—must be acknowledged as
worthwhile and made visible, not simply as a feminine characteristic of a front-
184 Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies

line worker but rather as an absolutely necessary and worthwhile component of

work throughout the organization. In this way, caring staff could be promoted
for their ability to develop interpersonal relationships between their staff,
among their staff and their clients, between the bureaucracy and their
community, and among themselves and those below and above them in the
hierarchy.
Quality social work is related to “how” things are done, not the pursuit of
tighter regulations and irrational standards that result in over-bureaucratization
and the loss of professional flexibility (Pruger & Miller, 1991). In small
communities it is related to the understanding of the gemeinschaft, rather than
the adherence to the geselleschaft. Ultimately, professional social work is
concerned with relationship patternsCbetween clients and social workers,
between the client and her environment, between policy and practice. And, for
the social worker in the small community, these relationship patterns can be
overwhelming. One of the positive aspects about being located far from the
political centre is that “when I drive past those hills over there, my cell phone
doesn’t work...they still cannot control my practice” (personal communication,
1996). Being out of contact should not be the only way to regain control.
Social work is demanding and, in small communities, there are not the
same opportunities for the worker to leave work at the office and go home for
the evening feeling safe in her own anonymity. On her way home she will
queue to buy milk next to a mom she earlier interviewed, later on, she may take
her daughter to Brownies and leave her child with other children in care; she
may be asked to interview her partner’s colleagues in relation to an
investigation and end up sitting beside ex-clients at the local concert. The lack
of social privacy means that the social worker entering the community may
have few, if any, community supports. She will belong to a minority group of
educated professionals and, while experiencing privilege, will also experience
isolation. A community-sensitive organization would recognize these
limitations and augment community supports with professional and
organizational supports. This includes the organization recognizing good
supervision as an essential part of the job. It also necessitates front-line social
workers having contact with other front-line social workers. Frequently,
beginning workers are isolated from each other. It is the managers who travel
for meetings, training, and workshops. During that time, they revel in
anonymity and refresh themselves before returning to the fishbowl. Front-line
social workers need similar occasions to network with their colleagues and to
obtain energy and encouragement from the vertical linkages. Another way for
the hierarchy to support the front-line workers to is listen to their experiences.
All too often, when front-line workers suggest innovative practices, they are
dissuaded from implementing them because they do not fit with the urban
image of appropriate delivery models. The geselleschaft needs to find ways to
be flexible in the approach taken to controlling and ameliorating child
maltreatment in small communities.
Isaac & Stokes 185

Conclusion
The chapter has discussed the power dynamics of small, northern
communities, and the delivery of services mandated by governing bodies
located in the south and focused on the complexity of child-welfare services
within the particular social context of small, northern communities. Despite
government initiatives to sharing the responsibility of child welfare, and the
rhetoric of community consultation, the community still has little actual say in
what determines child welfare practice or in the role of social workers within
the child protection network. Church (1989) notes that “it is not unreasonable
to equate power with resources” (p. 24). Indeed, for those community
members or the mandated child welfare workers, “the state...come[s] to shape
the deployment of resources and to reshape agendas” (p. 222). In short, state
support is crucial to successful community or social work efforts, and if the
state lacks the knowledge of the contextual factors of northern communities,
“successful” outcomes will be difficult to achieve. Rappaport (1987) notes in
his definition of empowerment that “empowerment is a process, a mechanism
by which people, organizations and communities gain mastery over their
affairs....A concern with empowerment leads us to look for solutions to
problems in living in a diversity of local settings, rather than in the centralized
single solutions of a monolithic ‘helping’ structure” (p. 122).
When reorganization occurs age-old debates are renewedCthe “best
interests of the child” versus “family preservation,” the role of social work to
provide social “control” in the maltreatment of children versus the
preventative, or social “care” role which provides for a whole range of
preventative and supportive services. The community and cultural context of
child welfare services has also gained increasing significance. While these
considerations remain theoretical and bureaucratic, we have demonstrated how
they affect daily practice in the community. Social workers experience divided
loyalties between the community they serve and the bureaucracy from which
they derive a living. They experience a division between the demands of the
local community to provide a leadership role in grassroots service development
and the demands of the bureaucracy to provide accountable, social work tasks
consistent across the province.
The appropriate use of power and authority is central to structural, anti-
racist and feminist social work analysis. It imbues much of our work and, yet
in so many ways, is the antithesis of professional values. Social workers have
a professional role to develop empowering, caring relationships with clients
and communities, and yet have significant authority as child protection workers
to control child abuse through investigation of family situations. In a large
bureaucracy such as a child protection ministry, there are significant
differences in decision-making. Front-line social workers, predominantly
female, are experiencing “lack of voice” as their professional discretion
continues to be curtailed. For each new child death that embarrasses the
government, there are calls for increased accountability. Interestingly this
almost always translates into additional paper flow for the “front-line” social
186 Northern Communities/Southern Bureaucracies

worker, rather than any structural considerations of the social conditions that
create parenting stresses in the first place. The management solutions create
more policies and procedures that result in social work becoming routinized
and fragmented eventually creating a sense of helplessness, and
disempowerment for professionals within the bureaucracy. Davies,
Mastronardi and Shragge (1991) note that “the status and role of professionals
has been greatly diminished by the predominance of managerial authority and
the extensive division of labour which leaves those engaged in direct service
delivery with little say in the planning and coordination of services” (p. 44).
This particularly affects female social workers that are disproportionately
represented on the front lines.
We have noted that, in small communities, female social workers
experience a double consciousness as women and professionals (Daly, 1995).
As professional social workers they aim to develop empowering relationships
within the community; these efforts often oppose the cost effectiveness and
efficiency-management model the state supports. As women, they face barriers
in moving beyond the front lines into a bureaucracy that is imbued with
traditional male benchmarks and criteria. Further, in small communities, they
may experience gender differences as they confront traditional male and female
stereotypes, yet they also experience privilege in small communities due to
education and class. While she is a community representative of a powerful
bureaucracy with inherent “legislative” authority, when she returns to her
office she again finds herself devalued in a patriarchal system which all too
often minimizes her opinions and reflections as too nurturing and emotional for
the rationality expected within the bureaucracy. Social workers in small
northern communities are well aware of their community needs and can
provide insight into problem solving. However, as long as the bureaucracy is
locked into urban assessments and solutions the front-line community, workers
will experience frustration.

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Endnotes

1. Hamelin’s ten variables for calculating nordicity include Latitude, Summer

Heat, Annual Cold, Types of Ice, Annual Precipitation, Natural Vegetation
Cover, Accessibility by Land and Sea, Accessibility by Air, Population
and Degree of Economic Activity (Delaney, 1995).

2. Statistics Canada defines areas with a population density of four hundred

or less per square kilometre as non-metropolitan or rural.

3. This could be related to economic factors such as resource based or

farming dependence, to weather conditions including the harsh climate, or
to distance factors such as isolation from urban centres.

4. Transsituational demands refer to the expectations that professionals

behave in situations where they are not functioning as professionals in a
Isaac & Stokes 191

manner which is nevertheless congruent with their claims to that title (i.e.
their identity as a professional is transferred from one situation to another)
(Barbour, 1985).

5. Exceptions occur in communities with strict religious boundaries such as

the Mennonite or Hutterite communities.
 CHAPTER 12

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE: THE KEY TO

CONTEXT-SENSITIVE PRACTICE IN
NORTHERN COMMUNITIES
MARGARET MCKEE, ROGER DELANEY,
AND KEITH BROWNLEE
One of the recurring themes in the Northern Social Work Collection is that
social work policies and interventions which have been imported from the
urbanized south are not only incompatible with the ideology and values in
northern communities (Zapf, 1996), but are also contributing to the further
disempowerment and oppression of the very people they claim to serve (Arges
& Delaney, 1995). There is a clear need for social workers who have the skill
to adapt their knowledge and practice to the unique, particular and local
community context (Collier, 1993; Delaney & Weening, 1995; Zapf, 1991).
While this admonition has repeatedly emerged in the Northern Social Work
Collection, we see a need to articulate more clearly how this kind of context-
sensitive knowledge might actually be derived. We would like to use the
present chapter to make a fuller argument for a model of reflective knowledge-
making (Schon, 1983), which we believe will support the context-sensitive
practice which is so urgently needed in the North.
We hope to show in this chapter, first of all, that a social work education
which explicitly values context-free, technical-scientific knowledge as the only
proper knowledge-base for professional practice can easily socialize students
into a set of non-reflective attitudes and skills for practice which are costly and
even harmful, especially to northern communities. Secondly, we want to show
that such a view of practice is disabling to social workers who are trying to
construct a context-sensitive knowledge for northern communities. Finally, we
would like to propose that a critically and intentionally reflective approach to
practice (Mezirow, 1990; Schon, 1983) is necessary if we are to undo the
colonizing effects of imported knowledge on northern communities, and if we
are to partner more respectfully with them in the construction of a more
contextually-sensitive knowledge for practice.

The Use of Social Work Knowledge to Oppress

Our first point is not new. It is, simply, that the claim to privileged
knowledge is also a claim to power over others (Foucault, 1980) because to
claim “This is so” is to claim authority to name the world for others (Freire,
1986). Our professional knowledge is infused with southern, urban-centric
bias: through it, we become purveyors of a technical, rational, scientific way of
knowing which can suppress and marginalise local wisdom, while claiming
objectivity and freedom from bias for its own truths.

192
McKee, Delaney, & Brownlee 193

By resting the claim to the validity of our knowledge on our strict

adherence to rules and methods which systematically exclude the subjectivity
of the knower, we believe we can produce a context-free, transcendent
knowledge which is stripped of the personal and political interests of the
knower, and worse, which denies its debt to them. What we have then is a
knowledge for which there is no longer any knower to claim: “This is how I see
it,” and “how I came to see it this way.” Instead, we have objective,
disembodied claims of: “This is how it is.” Under the banner of scientific and
professional objectivity, we can shield this knowledge from conversation which
might help to surface its underlying assumptions and biases and make them
more available to inspection, challenge, and dialogue with the people who are
the beneficiaries of that knowledge. Rather than negotiate validity for our
claim to knowledge, we can simply ordain it.
It matters very much when we package our knowledge as “the way it is,”
particularly in northern and remote communities, because we end up dispensing
our knowledge without first submitting it to the test of local wisdom, custom,
and experience. The authoritative use of our professional knowledge to build
barriers to dialogue and mutual understanding can have especially costly
consequences in these communities. When the communities where we work
grant special status to the knowledge which informs the practice of our
profession, our social work voice may be privileged, and our opinions may be
granted a special legitimacy not granted to local, indigenous ways of knowing.
This privilege infuses our naming of the world (Freire, 1986) with authority
over others, and it grants us the power to shape, constrain and change people’s
lives through the exercise of that privilege. It is not a neutral act to speak of
“what we know” when that knowledge is supported by institutionalized
authority and has the power to change a community’s ways of being and doing.
It is not a neutral act when the professional discourse to which we have been
socialized colonizes local, indigenous ways of knowing and assimilates voices
of diversity and otherness.
Our insistence on a guiding metaphor of objectivity and neutrality in our
pursuit of a knowledge-base for social work may have yielded us the objective,
abstract, context-free knowledge which we desired, but it has not yielded the
very kind of knowledge which social work most demands: the in-depth, rich
understanding of the local, unique person, situation or community. In de-
legitimizing the creative, intuitive, and value-driven way we actually construct
our knowledge for practice, it also becomes an impediment to the non-
oppressive, culturally-sensitive practice we must achieve. It is not a neutral,
objective stance towards our knowledge-making which will help us
contextualize our practice in northern communities, but a more systematic
commitment to surfacing, for inquiry and critique, the unarticulated
assumptions, biases and political interests which infuse our work, and about
which professional discourse would prefer to remain silent. Such a
commitment would go a long way towards making the sources of our
knowledge for practice more transparent, our values more clear, and the moral
and ethical dimensions of our work more obvious to the communities we serve.
If, as the constructivists claim, there can be no pristine knowledge of the
world “out there” as it might really be prior to our acts of perception,
194 Reflective Practice: The Key to Context-Sensitive

interpretation and discourse about it, and if there is no such thing as knowledge
which is dis-embodied from a community of observers, then our claims to
objectivity in our knowledge-making need to be radically re-thought. Some
have argued, persuasively in our view, that an explicitly constructivist view of
our knowledge-making is very much needed in social work, and that such an
epistemological framework would allow us to work more respectfully and more
collaboratively with those people and communities who need our help
(Brownlee, 1992; Carpenter, 1996). Ironically, perhaps, this would also be
better science. The idea that we can leap outside ourselves to some prejudice-
less vantage point from which we might make objective observations of the
world as it really is has itself been subverted by science. Strangely, science
itself discloses a world where we are reflected back in our own observations,
where what we see is determined as much by “how we look” as by what might
really be out there, and where how we look is constrained both by our biology
and by the discursive practices of our community. In this scientific story we
find a remarkable infolding of the world upon our selves: it is “our world” we
explore, not “the world,” and, in exploring it, we construct it. The whole point
of scientific investigation, it was once thought, was to wrestle ourselves out of
the picture. The idea that we belong in the picture, that in some strange, self-
referential sense, we actually “are” the picture, would have been unthinkable
less than a century ago, but today it is simply good science (Bruner, 1990;
Goodman, 1984; Heisenberg, 1958; Maturana, 1980; Von Foerster, 1984).

The Role of Social Work Education in the Construction of

Knowledge for Practice
The challenge of social work education is to prepare social workers with
the knowledge, skills, and values orientation which they will need to make a
difference in the communities where they work. However, it has been a matter
of enormous controversy in our social work literature just what kind of
“knowledge for practice” is actually required to accomplish this preparation
(Barbour, 1984; Goldstein, 1986, 1990; Hartman, 1990; Imre, 1984, 1985;
Pray, 1991; Pilalis, 1986; Rein & White, 1981; Saleeby, 1993). Traditionally,
our professional schools have operated on the assumption that practice
knowledge should be derived from the formal, substantive knowledge of the
profession: knowledge which is generated by researchers and taught by
academics. The empirical clinical practice approach (Witkin, 1990, 1991) is a
good example of this orientation towards practice knowledge, and the basic
idea is simple: effective and ethical practice is based upon empirically
verifiable, “context-free knowledge,” not upon personal pet ideas or whims.
The idea that the formal knowledge of the profession should somehow be
integrated in professional practice is also a central and powerful theme in our
schools of social work (Pilalis, 1986). Unfortunately, the exalted goal of
integration too often conceals another agenda, which is to drive out the more
personal and subjective sources of our practice knowledge. Further, our
tendency to regard theory as something one learns apart from practice and
before acting (Pemberton, 1981) makes integration after the fact an elusive
ideal for practitioners. After systematically separating theory and practice both
McKee, Delaney, & Brownlee 195

in our curriculum (theory courses versus practice courses and field work) and
in our geographic arrangements (theory is learned in class, practice in the
field), we then expect students to demonstrate, in position papers and in
practicum, that they can forge that link between theory and practice which we
regard as so crucial to their professional competence. We even evaluate
students on their ability to prove that their actions are guided by real
knowledge, rather than by intuition or practice wisdom, thereby granting the
former a legitimacy not granted the latter.
While we exalt the importance of integrating theory and practice in our
schools of social work, studies show that social work students have trouble
making these links (Barbour, 1984). Social workers are generally not very good
at articulating the knowledge-base, theories, and assumptions which guide their
practice, and, when asked to describe what they are doing, the theories which
they espouse are often not the ones they can be seen to be using (Argyris,
Putnam, & McLain Smith, 1985; Irving & Williams, 1995; Kolezvon &
Maykrantz, 1982). Several studies of even experienced social workers find that
in spite of their academic indoctrinations, they continue to find the application
of theoretical knowledge to their work problematic (Barbour, 1984; Carew,
1979; DeMartini & Whitbeck, 1987; Duehn, 1981). Instead, they tend to rely
upon personal experience and formal and informal consultation with colleagues
to cobble together an idiosyncratic and eclectic “contextual knowledge,” or
knowledge which they think will work for a particular case in a particular
setting. Further, a significant portion of this cobbled together knowledge for
practice is determined by the humanitarian values they espouse (Imre, 1984)
and by the institutional settings, mandates, and policies which circumscribe
their work (Rein & White, 1981)—not by formal, substantive knowledge or the
results of empirical research. Some very interesting research by Fook et al.
(1996), based upon intensive interviews with both experienced and
inexperienced social workers, even suggests, perhaps not surprisingly, that it is
only inexperienced workers and students who base their practice decisions on
the detached, abstract, formal, analytic knowledge of the profession. More
mature and experienced workers, in contrast, move increasingly towards
intuitive, situationally, and “contextually-based” knowledge accrued from
personal experience.
It would seem then that social workers do not typically theorize first and
then act, and that their actions, if theory-guided, are not guided in a way that
they find easy to explicitly articulate. Granted, some portion of what social
workers do in their day-to-day work is done simply by unreflective habit, or by
rote adherence to agency policy, and so requires no explicit theorizing.
However, a substantial portion of the work does require more intentional
thinking and planning. How is it possible that social workers find their
academic preparation so inconsequential to their practice? Where does the
problem lie? What is missing in our academic preparation?
Given the traditional, empirical practice philosophy of our academic
institutions, it should not be surprising that this gap between research and
practice should generate so much worry and attention in our professional
literature. Some researchers have addressed the gap by calling for modified
research methodologies, more single-case study research, and more innovative
196 Reflective Practice: The Key to Context-Sensitive

and intensive qualitative research to combat the reductionism of more

traditional empirical methods and to generate more practice-relevant findings
(Heineman, 1981; Imre, 1985; Ivanoff et al., 1987; Saleeby, 1993). Others call
for a more committed return to the rigorous objectivity of the empirical practice
approach, hoping that the remedy for social workers’ reliance on practice
wisdom might lie in the profession becoming more scientific (Barth, 1981;
Bloom, 1978; Bloom & Fischer, 1982; Gambrill, 1990; Gambrill & Barth,
1980; Thyer & Curtis, 1983). The debate goes on.

Another Look at Making Knowledge Work in Practice

Inductive versus deductive reasoning in generating knowledge

The tension between theory and practice which we have highlighted is

fueled by the assumption that social work knowledge should come in the form
of propositional or technical knowledge (as “knowing that knowledge” [Ryle,
1949]), and that social work’s claim to professional status should depend on it
being able to generate, like other professions which it may wish to emulate, this
kind of textbook knowledge. But, this is the kind of de-contextualized
knowledge which is so disabling for context-sensitive practice. We would like
to show next how inadequately this approach to knowledge-making prepares
social workers for the challenge of “generating knowledge” that is contextually
relevant and grounded in local and particular communities.
Socialized by their professional training to believe that they possess some
technical knowledge with which to solve society’s problems, novice social
workers are launched instead into real communities where the problems they
encounter are inherently complex and ambiguous, and do not come neatly pre-
packaged like text book cases. The certainty of textbook knowledge gives way
to uncertainty, to not knowing what to do. They learn quickly that good
practice is more than simply applying knowledge and standard solutions to
ready-made problems, that the essential task in real practice, and perhaps the
most difficult, is to construct from that complex, messy situation where the
problem is not clear, a problem worth solving. They soon learn that even the
construction or framing of the problem is itself not a technical task, but rather a
creative act to which they bring their values, their knowledge-base, and their
entire (not just professional) being. What this requires in terms of skill is
something that many social workers are simply not taught during their
professional education. In fact, the very creative, inductive reasoning
processes which are most needed in real practice are the skills often least
valued and least exercised in their academic education.
What is required is a kind of on-the-spot practical reasoning (Schon, 1983)
through which the situation is probed for its uniqueness and its particularity,
and is engaged into a kind of dialogical experiment to see how it can respond.
The social worker will draw upon her entire repertoire of experiences to do
this, looking for ways to frame a problem she can solve. She has to reason her
way by trying out various “ways of looking.” First, she wonders, for example,
whether this situation might be like another she knows, and she tries looking at
it as if this were true. If that yields no useful insight, she will try another way
McKee, Delaney, & Brownlee 197

of looking, and so on, until she begins to construct the problem she will solve.
As she acts in the situation, she simultaneously constructs a framing of the
problem and a workable theory of the unique situation or case. Her textbook
knowledge and her training may be useful to her in this process, but not in the
linear, prescriptive way that empirical-practitioners might propose. She will
use her professional knowledge, but more improvisationally, as she looks for a
tentative framework for experimenting with the situation in front of her, or as a
possible “way of looking” for something interesting or useful. She will subvert
or discard that way of looking if it fails to generate a workable hypothesis for
her.
It is notable in this model of practice that a theory of the unique case is
built inductively, from the ground up (Strauss & Corbin, 1990), and negotiated
improvisationally through conversation with the particular case or situation at
hand rather than imposed ready-made from the start. It is important also to
notice that a kind of “practical knowledge” is actually embodied within the
actions of the social worker who practices this way, even though she may find
it difficult to bring it to conscious awareness where it can be explicitly
articulated. Her knowledge is not in the form that a technical-rational approach
to practice knowledge might consider legitimate. She does not, for example, do
some explicit theorizing, out of which she then consciously chooses a course of
action. Her knowledge is of the unique situation at hand. It is local and
particular, not abstract and generalizable. Her knowledge begins from a
position of uncertainty and not knowing, which she does not try to preempt
with a quick “technological fix.” Theory and empirically-derived knowledge
may offer her some guidance, but more important is her ability to orient to what
is new and unusual about the situation (Pray, 1991).
The rule that “Science makes knowledge; practitioners apply it” is difficult
then for practicing social workers to reconcile with their own experience of
knowing by simply “doing.” In fact, this “tacit” dimension of real practice,
which academics tend to sweep aside as the art of social work, and which
practitioners call practice wisdom, is precisely what we want to have a look at
next. We think social workers’ practice wisdom is a rich store of what Schon
(1983) calls “knowing in action.” However, it is a form of knowledge for
practice that suffers from lack of careful reflection and critical inquiry with
others. Social workers can be just as doctrinaire about their personal practice
wisdom as about their hard, objective, scientific “facts.” Both forms of
knowing can be the vehicle of outrageous bias and oppression.

The Role of Tacit Knowledge in Context-Sensitive Practice

The “tacit dimension” of practice knowledge (Imre, 1984; Polanyi, 1966)
refers to all those elements of our practice which normally operate outside of
conscious awareness, but which, nevertheless, still exert a powerful influence
on our work. An example offered by Polanyi (1966) and frequently cited by
those interested in the applications of his ideas in the human sciences, is that of
learning to ride a bicycle or of learning to play a musical instrument. One
learns how to play by actually playing. Any attempt to explain how to do it in
terms of some set of ad hoc rules of performance is usually not useful to
198 Reflective Practice: The Key to Context-Sensitive

someone wanting to learn. One learns best by simply doing, by discovering the
rules of performance as they come to be embodied within one’s own actions,
not by learning the abstract rules first. Of course, once the basics have been
mastered, there are ways in which the addition of verbal coaching can help to
draw the student’s attention to certain features of her performance which she
can correct or improve, and careful reflection upon the coach’s instructions will
help her become more skilled. So, while one can only learn how to play an
instrument by actually playing, conscious critical reflection upon one’s actions
can fine-tune one’s skill.
So it is with the practice of social work. Much of our practice knowledge
derives from the cumulative wisdom of personal experience. The personal
assumptions, values and habits of thinking which make meaning of our
experience, the repertoire of past experiences, cases and interventions–all that
we commonly refer to as “practice wisdom”–will inform what we consider to
be the “facts” of the case, how we construe them, and how we frame a problem
worth solving from them. All of this typically operates outside our conscious
awareness, however, and much of it remains, unfortunately, unsurfaced for
reflection, critique and debate (Dean, 1989; Irving & Williams, 1995; Kondrat,
1992; Schon, 1983).
Sometimes, we learn what to do simply by imitating others: supervisors,
therapy gurus, for example. We do not, in that process, learn by conscious
attention to theory. We learn by embodying within our own actions, through
imitation, the knowledge embodied in the others’ actions (Pemberton, 1981).
But this embodied action, or tacit knowledge, remains hidden and opaque, and
resistant to conscious critical reflection at least in part because of the uncritical
way it was acquired in the first place, and in part because we as a professional
community have given insufficient attention to making this knowledge-making
more transparent and accessible to each other. Interestingly, we often
experience a sense of disequilibrium when we do try to bring our tacit
knowledge into conscious awareness, as if the act of focusing on what has
become automatic and subliminal to us suddenly calls it out of automatic pilot.
Novice counsellors, for example, often complain about the awkwardness they
feel in practicing in a more deliberate and conscious way the natural listening
skills which they have always simply taken for granted. They may even resist
a teacher’s urging to try something different, because it feels all wrong. But
practice they must, because what feels all too natural is not always what is most
effective, and bad habits often feel right. Every amateur and professional
musician knows this all too well.
In spite of these difficulties, and because of them, it is essential that we
become more skilled at reflecting upon our tacit knowledge. It is highly
unlikely that all practice wisdom is truly “wise.” Sometimes our personal
experience is skewed or biased, and the tried and true interventions we have
collected in our practice repertoire become resistant to change, even when
change is clearly needed. Sometimes, our tacit knowledge is fused to
emotional experiences needing careful scrutiny. Both practice wisdom and
empirical knowledge tend to become, over time, self-validating and impervious
to dissent. The only safeguard is a conscious, deliberately-cultivated reflexive
orientation to our practice.
McKee, Delaney, & Brownlee 199

Critical Reflection and Context-Sensitive Practice

The strength of a “reflective approach to social work practice (Papell &
Skolnick, 1992; Pray, 1991; Schon, 1983) is that it legitimizes the intuitive and
creative dimensions that allow us to construct theory for the unique, particular
case. We believe”, however, that an epistemological stance which embraces
both inductively-generated theory of the unique case, and more abstract,
empirically-derived knowledge as valid sources of knowledge is needed in
social work. Further, we believe that a proper integration of knowledge and
practice in social work is possible only if we make explicit the values and
assumptions within which each is grounded, and commit ourselves to the
difficult task of critically and self-reflectively evaluating the role that each
plays in the framing of our practice decisions.

The Use of Critical Reflection to Open Our Knowledge to

Dialogue
We believe that it is bad science and bad faith in a post-modern world to
make knowledge claims without attempting also to situate that knowledge
within the frame of reference of a knower. We would like to show, next, how a
systematic commitment to a reflective consciousness might help social workers
with the practical and ethical challenge of taking their knowledge to the
communities of the north, of making the foundations of their knowledge more
transparent and open to dialogue with the people they serve, and of
constructing a practice knowledge which is uniquely suited to a remote context.
The essence of a reflective consciousness is a commitment to surfacing and
making available for dialogue, the assumptions, values, and habits of belief
(Mezirow, 1990 & 1991; Schon, 1983) that constitute our understanding of the
world, and equally, a commitment to inquiring with genuine openness and
curiosity into the understanding of others. We are committing ourselves to a
thoroughly constructivist view (Carpenter, 1996; Wazlawick, 1984) of our own
knowledge-making, to reflection not just upon what we think, but also upon
how we came to think that way, not just upon what we know to be so, but also
upon how we know it to be so, not just upon our knowledge, but also upon the
foundations and origins of that knowledge. What a reflective consciousness
requires of us in actual practice is that we commit ourselves when we speak of
“what we know” to adding. “This is how we came to see it this way.” Our
knowledge is presented not as a finished product (“This is the way it is”),
disembodied from our way of being in the world, but as a possible expression
of the place we occupy in our world. In fact, rather than speaking of what we
know, we could speak of our “knowing” or our “coming to know,” for the verb
form itself helps to preserve some sense of the inseparability of the knower and
the known, as well as some sense of the ongoing, unfinished activity of coming
to know. This does not preclude the possibility of being able to say with clarity
or commitment what we know: the difference is that, rather than maintaining an
authoritative position of false neutrality (“These are the facts”), we attempt to
locate our knowledge as our own and seek to make visible the process of
coming to know which traditional scientific discourse would render invisible.
200 Reflective Practice: The Key to Context-Sensitive

Further, and equally important, we invite others to join us in our efforts to

make our knowledge less authoritative, less mystifying, and more transparent.
We invite dialogue about our understandings, so that we can move together
toward mutual understanding.
This is a tall order for practitioners schooled in empirical methods of
knowledge-making because we have been taught to justify the validity of our
knowledge by invoking the purity of our methods (which we believe remove us
and our contaminating subjectivity from the picture), not by situating our
knowledge within our own subjective, historical, cultural, and gendered selves.
We have not been taught to include ourselves in the picture when we speak of
“what we know.” Instead, our “coming to know” is rendered invisible to
ourselves and to others. This ability to separate our knowledge from our
“selves,” to de-personalize or objectivize our knowing, is too often taken as the
signature of real knowledge. But, by failing to reflect on how I came to know,
what I know I miss valuable opportunities for articulating for others the
personal landscape upon which my actions are built.

Challenges to a Reflective Orientation to Practice

Because reflective practice is not the legitimate form of professional
knowing which many agencies and organizations have come to expect of their
professionals, we may need to challenge the professional roles and the
bureaucracies within which we work which collude to keep us from developing
a more intentionally reflective practice (Scott, 1989). Reflective practice,
which aims to deconstruct and demystify professional, objective knowledge
claims and open them to dialogue, may be a threat to the stability and certainty
of agencies which have been organized around carefully mandated professional
expertise and the technology of change which it represents. Agencies (and
professions) are subcultures that socialize their members into certain ways of
knowing that are sustained by agency norms, roles, and structures of power. In
such organizations all that may be required of a social worker is a kind of rote
adherence to agency policy in the delivery of stock-in-trade services. The
individual worker is not encouraged to deconstruct her role and submit it to
reflective inquiry, nor to question the way the agency has framed the problems
she is expected to solve. She is not expected to generate knowledge for
practice, but simply to follow the procedures and policies the agency has
authorized.
The boundaries of disciplinary knowledge and expertise are often so tightly
defended (and maintained by institutionalized hierarchies of power) that the
underlying assumptions that guide the framing of problems are rarely
themselves ever the subject of conversation (Scott, 1989; Schon, 1987; 1983).
The assumptions, guiding metaphors, and driving values behind our discipline-
bound constructions of our work may themselves never become the object of
reflective inquiry precisely because they so often have this tacit, taken-for-
granted, transparently objective quality to them. They are invisible to us
because we take them as the “givens,” the premises that we hold to be self-
evidently true. Worse, they may remain invisible to us when they are deeply
embedded in institutionalized ways of knowing that we cannot question
McKee, Delaney, & Brownlee 201

without rocking the boat.

Perhaps the most serious challenge to this model of reflective practice is
that it is not easy to gain access to one’s own “theories in use,” to surface one’s
tacit knowing (Argyris & Schon, 1974) or to reflect on the knowing which is
contained implicitly in one’s actions (Schon, 1983). A worker may know how
to do something, and her performance may be seen to be effective, but she may
nevertheless find it a challenge to articulate how she is doing it. When she
reflects, she may find it easier to articulate her “espoused theories,” but much
more challenging to reflect on the wisdom embodied in her actions. How do
we reflect on tacit or implicit knowledge when, by definition, it is hidden from
awareness? All the habits of thinking, all the cognitive heuristics and schemas
which, behind our awareness, sort, process and make sense of all our
experience, and all the personal quirks and preferences which are our
personality, form the infrastructure upon which all our knowledge is built, but
are not themselves readily available to our conscious awareness. What we are
aware of is their “products,” which we all too easily accept as reality, as “the
way things are.” We forget that it was our constructing that made it so.
We may find it difficult for example, to say how we actually “came to
know” certain things. We may “simply know” that harsh physical discipline of
children is counterproductive if one wants to raise happy, self-directed citizens,
but we may not be able to easily articulate “how” we came to know this. We
may insist that this knowledge is just self-evidently true, that it is factual
knowledge to which every sensible person would assent. We may believe that
we learned it from reading the literature on child-rearing, and that this reading
is authoritative. In actual fact, we may have learned this also from personal
experience, from being physically abused ourselves, and our knowledge—
which is more sheerly visceral than cerebral—is accordingly more impervious
to conscious reflection. We may find ourselves strangely overcome by a sense
of personal threat when someone disagrees with our position and unable to
surface the source of the outrage we feel. We may retreat instead to the use of
authority to defend our position (“Of course it’s a fact....Haven’t you read so
and so...?”).
As another example, we may conduct marriage therapy as if reconciliation
is its only goal, unaware of the role of our parents’ divorce in the desperation
we feel to save other marriages. The point is, the sources of our knowing are
often deeply personal, having to do with who we are, how we were raised, our
gender, our social location, our professional indoctrinations, our time in
history, and so on. De-constructing what we know to be true, and locating the
sources of that knowledge which we too easily take to be self-evident, is
necessary if we are committed to the task of opening our knowledge to inquiry
with others.
Sometimes, this task is rendered even more difficult by the power of
professional discourse to make some aspects of our experience unstory-able
and inaccessible to collective inquiry. In spite of our rhetoric to the contrary, it
is very difficult, for example, to be taken seriously in professional circles if we
try to speak about spiritual experience. This is an entire realm of experience
that remains, for most of us, difficult to access and reflect upon, because there
is no community of listeners who can help to render that experience intelligible.
202 Reflective Practice: The Key to Context-Sensitive

Its influence upon our work may nevertheless be substantial, even though we
leave it unarticulated.
It may be easy to imagine that others might see the world differently from
us, but it is another matter altogether to imagine how we ourselves might see it
differently. How can we learn to see what we can’t see? If many of our habits
of thinking are assimilated culturally and tacitly rather than intentionally, how
do we transform them? If past experience inescapably provides the backdrop
against which present experience is construed, how do we ever learn in any
truly transformative way? How do we turn the backdrop of our learning into
the foreground so we can inspect it closely? This somewhat dizzying idea is
rather like the idea of taking off our own eye glasses in order to look “at them”
rather than “through them.”

Cultivating a Reflective Orientation to Practice

Part of the solution is unavoidably an individual and personal one. We
each need a consistent determination to bring conscious critical reflection to
our practice. This requires more from us than what in social work we typically
call critical thinking, or good habits of scholarly, logical reasoning. It also
requires more than idle navel-gazing. The task is a much more subversive one,
and involves tracing the cognitive, emotional, bodily, cultural and gendered
pathways that circumscribe our knowing. Particularly vital in this task is
recognition of the moments in our work when uncertainty and not knowing
intrude. These are paradigmatic moments for knowledge transformation when,
in resisting the urge to find a quick technological fix for our uncertainty and in
squarely facing what is new and unusual about the situation, we stand to learn
something new. In such situations, a persistent attitude of curiosity about our
own helplessness and a willingness to think and act creatively can help to
surface alternative ways of thinking about the situation. We can ask ourselves:

1. What knowledge am I attempting to bring to this situation? Where

did I learn this? How is this way of construing it getting in my way?

2. Why is this way of making sense of this situation so automatic to me?

Why is this pet theory so dear to me? Why am I having trouble
giving it up so that I can approach this situation differently?

3. Whose voice is being heard in this knowledge I take to be so real? Is

it my own, based upon my own authentic experience, or someone
else’s? What aspects of my own experience are being misrepresented
or silenced by this knowledge I take so much for granted?

4. What about this situation am I failing to see? What are the anomalies?
Are there elements in this situation which escape my notice because
of my automatic habits of looking? Is there a way for me to look
differently?

5. What emotional response am I having to this situation which may be

McKee, Delaney, & Brownlee 203

hindering my attempt to see differently? Where did I learn this

particular response? How has it been helpful to me in the past? Can I
quiet this response so that I can think differently about the current
situation?

When an intervention or a policy or a planned activity fails, we can ask:

1. Why did I do it this way? What was I hoping to achieve with this
intervention?

2. What assumptions was I making? What values do these assumptions

suggest? What standpoint is reflected in my intervention? Can I
imagine this situation from an alternative standpoint?

3. What was it about the expected outcome of intervention that I value?

What alternative interventions might have been possible and why
didn’t I choose one of them?

4. What does the situation’s response to me tell me about its own range
of behaviour? Can I re-frame this response as a positive clue to a
more creative understanding of the possibilities inherent in this
situation?

In situations of conflict, when our way of seeing brings us into collision

with the community where we are working, we can open our perspective to
public inquiry and dialogue by trying to surface our tacit assumptions and areas
of uncertainty. We can engage others with us in this task:

1. What is the source and nature of this dilemma, as I experience it?

What aspects of my knowing do I construct as authoritative,
disciplinary knowledge? How am I using the claim to knowledge to
hide the personal nature of my own knowing?

2. What am I not completely certain about? Where are the areas of not
knowing which might help me start de-constructing my knowledge?

3. How am I feeling about this dilemma? Can I clearly express my

sense of threat, anxiety, defensiveness, and my intent to be more
personally transparent?

4. What are the assumptions I make which present my world to me as

given, as just “the way it is”? How did I acquire these assumptions?
What is my personal and emotional investment in these assumptions?
Can I imagine a world where these assumptions do not hold?

5. How can I express these assumptions clearly to someone who

disagrees with me? Can I show them how my way of world-making
makes sense to me from within my own framework of assumptions?
204 Reflective Practice: The Key to Context-Sensitive

6. Can I ask with genuine curiosity and respect how the other person
makes sense of this situation? Can I remain open to the possibility
that his/her world-making is as valid as my own? What about the
other person’s position can I find interesting, perhaps even desirable?
Can we reach some mutual understanding?

In situations where we find ourselves at rock bottom in our framework of

assumptions—when we reach the point of saying to ourselves. “This is just the
way it is, the way the world is, the way people are”—this is the point where
critical reflection is most desperately needed. It is the world we take so
stubbornly for granted which we most need to de-construct.
In summary then, we can commit ourselves to the task of submitting our
work to the kind of critical reflection which will surface not just our espoused
theories, but all of the sources of our knowledge-for-practice, including the
tacit elements, the cumulative wisdoms given by experience, the values we
hold dear, our emotional investments, and the organizational and bureaucratic
contexts which constrain our actions.
Finally, the second part of the solution is not individual but collective. We
need the help of others (a supervisor, a colleague, a trusted friend, our clients
and communities) who are willing to engage with us in reciprocal reflection to
help us surface and reflect on the tacit elements of our knowledge. We need to
work in organizations that welcome the deconstruction of entrenched roles and
disciplinary boundaries, that submit policies and structures of power to
reflection and debate, and that do not panic when reflective practice rocks the
boat. We need a community that is unafraid of seeing our authority unmasked
and our confusions and uncertainties exposed. We need a community that is
willing to partner in the task of reciprocal reflection. Finally, we need a
willingness to understand the roots of other people’s knowing, and a curiosity
about how they make sense of their experience.

Conclusion
A commitment to reflective practice in social work is a commitment to the
demystification of our own expertise and a re-vesting of power in the client or
community we serve. Nowhere is this more urgently needed than in the north,
where we have a responsibility to our communities to make our knowledge
more transparent and accessible, and to negotiate with them the frames of
reference we bring to the construction of our work. This necessarily entails
that we reveal our uncertainties and forfeit our unquestioned authority. The
pay-offs should make this worth the effort, though. In return, we can expect to
enlist our communities as partners in their own care and to find out what our
knowledge and expertise really mean to them, how our framings differ from
theirs, how their framings might inform ours. This should give us the
opportunity to correct our errors and to earn the trust and collaboration of our
communities. It should also give them the opportunity to translate our
knowledge into their own wisdom, testing as they do this, the limits of our
meanings and constructions for their experience. Best of all, by practising
reflectively, we model for our clients the very process of reflection on
McKee, Delaney, & Brownlee 205

unspoken, intuitive understandings that they can use to reflect on their own
dilemmas of understanding.
Reflective practice is, we believe, urgently needed in the communities of
the north. The deconstruction of our professional knowledge through reflection
on its foundations is simultaneously a sharing of power with those whom we
serve. The invitation to reciprocal reflection loosens traditional disciplinary
boundaries, strengthens dialogue with our communities, and makes possible a
true partnership towards a shared future.

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 CHAPTER 13

RECLAIMING COMMUNITY: RETHINKING

PRACTICES FOR THE SOCIAL WORK
GENERALIST IN NORTHERN COMMUNITIES

KEN BARTER

Although the concept of community has always been acknowledged in

social work practices in northern remote and rural communities, it often
appears as an afterthought. Community is not necessarily integrated into
services, programs, or in human service organizations. As a result, it is not
recognized for its strengths and capacities, and there is a tendency for
community to abdicate responsibility to service organizations and
professionals. Community power is often lost or compromised. Without this
power, communities are vulnerable to oppression and can become devalued and
distanced from significant processes that affect them.
Northern remote and rural communities are only too familiar with feelings
of vulnerability and being overlooked in processes that impact on their health,
well-being, and future. This chapter examines the concept of reclaiming
community as a necessary approach for the generalist practitioner in these
communities. A number of considerations are put forth to support interventions
that assume a reclaiming focus whereby these communities can be valued for
their strengths and capacities. A reclaiming focus suggests the significance of
support and encouragement for communities to assume responsibility for
addressing social issues without being overly reliant on inflexible
bureaucracies. Equally important in the reclaiming process is the necessity for
communities to be actively involved in determining their own future, and,
above all, the need to be empowered in order to strive for social justice and to
challenge current practices within professions and public social service
organizations. The chapter explores the importance of rethinking generalist
social work practice in order to facilitate this empowerment.

Considerations for Reclaiming Community

In writing about youth at risk, Brendtro, Brokenleg, & Van Bockern (1990)
explain the concept of reclaiming as follows:
The reclaiming environment is one that creates changes that meet the
needs of both the young person and the society. To reclaim is to recover
and redeem, to restore value to something that has been devalued. Among
the features of powerful “reclaiming” environments are these:
1. Experiencing belonging in a supportive community, rather than being
lost in a depersonalized bureaucracy.
2. Meeting one’s needs for mastery, rather than enduring inflexible
systems designed for the convenience of adults.

209
210 Reclaiming Community: Rethinking Practices

3. Involving youth in determining his/her own future, while

recognizing society’s need to control harmful behaviour.
4. Expecting youth to be caregivers, not just helpless recipients
overly dependent on the care of adults (p. 2-3).
The reclaiming concept as identified by these authors fits northern remote
and rural communities. These communities have a history of experiences
associated with underdevelopment, exploitation, oppression, isolation,
economic declines, diversity, and the dominance of southern and urban-based
policies and procedures (Delaney et al., 1996; Delaney & Brownlee, 1995;
Tobin & Walmsley, 1992; Zapf, 1991). These experiences placed many of
these communities in positions of powerlessness, hopelessness, and
dependency on others for answers and resolutions to their social problems.
These others comprise professionals, government programs, public social
services, and human service organizations that tend to be bureaucratized, rigid,
complex, and controlled by outside southern-based policies and procedures.
Citizens in these communities see these outside influences entering their
communities and creating programs and structures to seek out and manage
solutions. Interventions stemming from these developments have a tendency to
focus on deficits and problem-solving in the short-term rather than exploring
opportunities with a primary-prevention and early-intervention focus that will
have long-term implications. These interventions are driven by professionals
who are in positions of power and authority and who are limited within the
boundaries of their organizations. A “fix it” mentality is inadvertently
promoted. The message being given to the community is that the community is
deficient and has problems and that the professionals and organizations have
the answers to the community’s problems.
These practices overlook the strengths, resources, and capacities of
community. Very similar to the youth at risk in Brendtro’s et al. (1990)
reclaiming perspective, these communities are being overlooked and devalued.
They have become lost in the world of professionals, bureaucracy, and
southern urban-based thinking. They are communities that can be deemed at
risk. In order to combat this risk, it is important for them to be recovered and
redeemed, to have their value restored. For the generalist social work
practitioner in these communities, this means orchestrating interventions that
support the reclaiming concept. Instrumental in this support is the willingness
to challenge and rethink practices.

Rethinking Practices to Reclaim Community

A reclaiming-community approach is quite appropriate for northern remote
and rural communities by virtue of their many unique characteristics associated
with isolation, limited access to specialized services, limited services and
programs compared to urban centres, use of informal support networks, and
human service organizations that are heavily influenced by southern policies
and procedures. These are the realities of life and the challenges these
communities present to the social worker. Addressing these realities and
challenges, given that generalist practice is the preferred practice framework
for these communities (Delaney et al., 1996: Delaney & Brownlee, 1995;
Barter 211

Collier, 1993), suggests challenging and rethinking practices in relation to the

following: the significance of empowerment; organizational crises; the
importance of dialogue; connecting the personal and the political; and,
revisiting beliefs.

The Significance of Empowerment

In terms of reclaiming community, it is important for the generalist
practitioner to understand that empowerment of persons in northern remote and
rural communities includes all citizens, clients as well as non-clients,
professionals and their organizations, and social workers and other helping
professionals. Key to this understanding is the realization that social workers
and client systems alike are victims of injustices that stem from the domination
and control of resources and opportunities that disenfranchise individuals,
families, organizations, and communities. The current concentration of
economic power and control and the critical decisions flowing from this
concentration have created a sense of powerlessness that is shared by all
citizens. Reclaiming community to address this sense of powerlessness would
fit with Lee’s (1994) view of empowerment in that it “seeks to create
community with clients in order to challenge with them the contradictions
faced as vulnerable, hurt, or oppressed persons in the midst of an affluent and
powerful society” (p. 13).
The key words in this view of empowerment are those of “creating
community with clients” and “challenging with clients.” Empowerment is
based on the assumption that the capacity of people to improve their lives is
determined by their ability to control their environment, namely, by having
power (Hansenfeld, 1987). Creating community is suggesting to the generalist
practitioner that he/she make client empowerment the centre of practice. To do
so means engaging in a process with clients and all citizens whereby they are
enabled to gain greater control over their environment and build the necessary
bridges to fulfil their aspirations. According to Hansenfeld (1987), four
principles serve as key building blocks by which clients can gain power over
the social services environment: (a) by reducing their need for specific
resources and services; (b) by increasing the range of alternatives through
which they can meet their needs; (c) by increasing their value to those elements
in the environment whose services and resources they need; and, (d) by
reducing the alternatives available to the elements in the environment whose
resources and services they need. Working with communities for purposes of
realizing these building blocks fits with what Hoffman and Sallee (1994) see as
being fundamental in generalist practice—that of empowerment of persons who
do not share equitably in the distribution of goods and services and enabling
them to build bridges to the resources they want and need.

Organizational Crises
It is important for the generalist practitioner to understand the
organizational context if empowerment is to be the centre of practice.
Contemporary public social service organizations are generally viewed as
212 Reclaiming Community: Rethinking Practices

being in a state of crisis (Adams & Nelson, 1995). These organizations are
employers of the majority of social workers and are the predominant employers
in northern remote and rural communities. As governments at all levels struggle
to control public spending as well as to redefine their role in the provision of
services related to health, education, and welfare, concomitant with the ever
growing emphasis on efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability, these
organizations are faced with dramatic changes in the delivery and funding of
social service programs and services. Implications flowing from these changes,
according to Hansenfeld (1996), centre around three issues: the reduction of
government funding and an increase in funding that is contingent on the whims
of donors; greater pressure on agencies to differentiate between deserving and
undeserving clients and to deny services to the latter; and, services that will
become more segmented between the haves and the have-nots. As a
consequence, “Clients who depend on these systems are losing their already
tenuous sense of rights to services and resources” (Cox & Joseph, 1998, p.
171).
Citizens, public social service organizations, and professionals in northern
remote and rural communities—by virtue of the challenges and characteristics
associated with these communities—feel these consequences more dramatically
than larger urban centres. Decisions for these communities can mean not only a
reduction in services, supports, and programs, but a total withdrawal of
resources. The impact of the Canadian welfare state crisis (Blake et al., 1997)
and the mounting evidence of poverty, discrimination, power imbalances, and
social injustices (Carniol, 1995; Mullaly, 1993; Ross et al., 1994) are creating
circumstances whereby those who are disenfranchised are being forced to bear
the burden of their oppression and poverty. Public policies supporting
workfare, reduction in welfare assistance payments, and initiatives to reform
health, education, and social service systems are occurring at a rapid pace with
little or no opportunity to involve citizens, service providers, and communities.
There is controversy in practically every area of social programs and services.
Yet, despite this controversy, social spending continues to be reduced and is, in
fact, promoting a less equal society (McQuaig, 1993). The gap between the
haves and the have-nots continues to become more profound. As pointed out by
Theobald (1997), the current distribution of resources needs to be abandoned
since it is unacceptable to have extremes of wealth and poverty. “The tension
between the rich and the poor, as well as current levels of unemployment, are
leading to high levels of anger” (p. 41). It is apparent, states Theobald (1997),
that:
A great many people in government do not seem to make the connection
between the budget cuts they administer and the consequences “on the
ground.” The reduced services, which seem separate in accounting terms,
actually affect individuals, families, and whole communities in ways
which compound exponentially (p. 11).
Northern remote and rural communities feel the consequences “on the
ground.” As public social service agencies in these communities struggle to
survive and compete for limited resources and funding, they are faced with
having to revisit their mission statements, programs, organizational structures,
and to make the necessary adjustments in order to be responsive to reduced
Barter 213

funding and, at the same time, attend to the rights and needs of the citizens they
serve. In so doing, many of these public agencies face larger caseloads, more
internal control mechanisms, fewer training opportunities, and increasing
hostility in worker-client relationships. For professionals and clients alike,
there is a sense of powerlessness and hopelessness. As a result:
Some workers have been seduced by victim-blaming arguments, which
allow them to justify system failure and their own powerlessness in terms
of clients’ behaviours and weaknesses. On the other hand, clients
experience social workers as representatives of oppressive systems, unable
or unwilling to provide assistance. Too often, the conflict and tensions
stemming from the worsening conditions of both social workers and
clients shift onto the worker-client relationship (Cox & Joseph, 1998, p.
172-173).
It is important for the generalist practitioner to understand these conflicts
and tensions. In reality, public social service organizations end up oppressing
both professionals and workers (Cox & Joseph, 1998). As pointed out by
Homan (1994), the people being served have problems and those in positions
of serving them also have problems. Of significance for the generalist
practitioner is an open acknowledgement of these realities. As pointed out by
Smale et al. (1988), “social workers’ power over resources is actually very
limited indeed, and social workers do themselves and their clients no favour by
pretending that it is more or less than it actually is” (p. 131). Failure to make
this acknowledgement would only further perpetuate the belief within clients
and the community that the professional and the public system do in fact have
the necessary power and resources to make a difference. It becomes necessary
for professionals, organizations, clients, and citizens to understand that they
share common barriers that impact upon them as a community. All experience
a sense of powerlessness based on economic insecurity, learned helplessness,
physical and emotional stress, absence of access to information, and
inexperience in the political arena. When it is suggested that social work can
assist people who are oppressed by empowering themselves personally,
interpersonally, and politically (Robbins et al., 1998; Gutiérrez et al., 1998;
Miley et al., 1998; Lee, 1994), it equally applies to the generalist practitioner in
the context of reclaiming community.

The Importance of Dialogue

The situation of risk for northern remote and rural communities in light of
contemporary social, political, and economic climates and the crises associated
with public social service organizations, combined with the common barriers
that the generalist social worker shares with the community and client groups,
leads to a another important acknowledgement in terms of rethinking practices,
that of dialogue for purposes of challenging the status quo. Dialogue creates the
opportunity to question, challenge, educate, and rethink practices. Dialogue is a
critical dimension in terms of empowerment and consciousness-raising
(Gutiérrez et al., 1998; Lee, 1994). It is acknowledged as the first phase in the
empowering approach to generalist practice (Miley et al., 1998). As well,
dialogue is an equally important process in establishing a collaborative
214 Reclaiming Community: Rethinking Practices

approach to practice in northern remote and rural communities (Barter, 1996)

and in becoming culturally competent (Leigh, 1998).
Through dialogue, relationships are formed and consciousness-raising
takes place. Those involved are able to discuss what makes sense to them and
what does not, based on what they see are the issues for them. For the
generalist, one of the many important issues to bring forward for public
discussion is the values and ethical obligations associated with social work as a
profession. Fulfillment of human needs, promotion of social justice, more equal
distribution of resources, concern for environmental protection, elimination of
racism, ageism, and heterosexism, self-determination, and self-actualization
comprise the value base of empowerment practices (Gutiérrez, et al., 1998).
The social work code of ethics reflects these values. Of significance for the
generalist practitioner in terms of dialogue for purposes of reclaiming
community is that one cannot be politically neutral (Dworkin, 1990; Gil, 1998).
Political neutrality would require that practitioners neither support or challenge
the status-quo. Practices to reclaim community, based on the realities facing
northern remote and rural communities and social work practitioners in these
communities, suggest that the status-quo must be challenged. Social work
values must be affirmed in terms of social work’s commitment to social justice,
a more equitable distribution of power and resources, and a society founded on
humanitarian and egalitarian ideals.
Affirming the value base of empowerment practices and the social work
profession sets the stage for the generalist practitioner, in dialogue with all
community stakeholders, to raise and address critical questions. Questions of
relevance in terms of reclaiming community would be along the lines of those
raised by Adams and Nelson (1995). For example:
What would it be like if services were designed to strengthen rather
than substitute for the caring capacity of families and communities?
What if services were shaped by and available to all citizens in their
communities, so people could get a little help when they needed it,
without always having to fit into a narrow category or be formally
processed as “clients”?
What if services were geared to recognizing strengths and resources of
families and communities, rather than focusing on their deficits?
What if workers were encouraged to use their professional judgment
and creativity to get results and effect change rather than simply to
follow the rules and get their paper work done?
Similar to these questions and equally as challenging are the questions
posed by Smale (1995) in discussing a practice theory for integrating
community and individual practice.
How should we develop partnerships between citizens who engage in
community care through family or similar ties, professionals, and
people who feel no immediate responsibility, but whose families, jobs,
or social life bring them into contact with those “in need”?
How should we communicate across class and cultural boundaries;
how should we tackle the inequalities that persist in social services
delivery and in most forms of organized social control?
How should we approach citizens as partners to carry out social control
Barter 215

functions on behalf of other citizens?

How should we integrate social work with other services such as
education, health, or juvenile justice and alternative interventions such
as community development?
How, as citizens with different responsibilities and roles, should we
engage with service users and each other in the planning of social work
and other professional services to get optimum value and to maximize
the efforts of all who contribute to care in any community?
How should we integrate theories of individual pathology with
structural approaches to understanding social problems?
How should we use quantitative and qualitative research to understand
the different dimensions of social problems? Do theory and research
have to be revised when decision making includes empowered
citizens?
Answers to these questions would imply fundamental challenges to current
practices within public service agencies. To shift services in this direction is
congruent with the empowering framework, and if acted upon, would transform
the relationships between professionals and organizations as well as with the
individuals, families, and communities they serve. Significant in this
transformation is the important reminder to the social work practitioner not to
“become merely a tool of social control to enforce conformity to norms that
may not be relevant or empowering to those who are in most need of liberation
and justice” (Robins et al., 1998, p. 114). Relationships based on partnerships
with family members, their social networks, schools, churches, and formal and
informal organizations of many kinds would suggest shared responsibility in
addressing these and other questions.
Dialogue “involves people working in a process of understanding,
acquiring skills and knowledge, and learning how to use new information that
can change the circumstances of their lives” (Pantoja & Perry, 1995, p. 234).
Meaningful results stemming from this process, according to these authors,
include:
a process of education that allows people to analyse and understand
forces that create and sustain the integrity and conditions of exclusion
for persons such as themselves.
a process of education by which people come to know they possess
strength, knowledge, and skills that they can value and utilize in
bringing about innovation.
a process of education in which people are learning how their
activities, values, fears, and behaviours allow them to be victimized.
a process by which community members learn to defend themselves
against forces, inside and outside their community, that would deny
them rights, resources, and privileges.

Connecting the Personal and the Political

The results associated with the process of dialogue for purposes of
reclaiming community suggest yet another important acknowledgement for the
generalist practitioner, that of connecting the personal and the political.
216 Reclaiming Community: Rethinking Practices

According to Cox and Joseph (1998): “No agency can be truly empowerment-
oriented if it does not see its task as connecting the personal aspects of
problems of its clients to the political aspects of these problems. To do so, you
have to find ways to create a movement involving self-help and social action”
(p. 176). The personal is political, and self-help and social action are
fundamental to engaging in a process of reclaiming community. Social work,
perhaps more than any other profession, has grappled with the connection
between the personal and the political (Wharf, 1990). However, the emphasis
for the most part has been on personal change and adjustment as opposed to
change and adjustments in social structures and organizations for purposes of
challenging economic power and control. Empowerment practice “adds
political sophistication to the personal and environment perspective,
recognizing that personal well-being cannot and should not be separate from
collective well-being” (Robbins et al., 1998, p. 114).
“The personal is political” is a concept which promotes analysis that
facilitates rethinking practices to reclaim community. The analysis is
particularly important in dialogue between social workers, client systems, and
all community members. Through dialogue, as discussed above, relationships
are established and consciousness-raising takes place. The personal dimension
of consciousness-raising, according to Cox and Joseph (1998) involves
identifying one’s own perceptions, needs, and experiences. In so doing, there is
an awareness of the barriers, sources of powerlessness, and struggles that
people experience. For clients, this awareness comes in the form of
appreciation for isolation, being without resources, feeling powerless against
the system, not being blamed or blaming themselves, and being stigmatized.
For the social worker, this awareness comes in the form of limitations in terms
of role, bureaucratic rigidity, inflexible policies, lack of resources, and the
changing context of social work practice. For community members in northern
remote and rural communities, this awareness comes in the form of lack of
resources, transportation issues, the value of informal networks, the power of
working in groups, and being imposed upon by outside influences. All benefit
and are partners in mutual consciousness-raising.
The political dimension of consciousness-raising involves linking and
identifying with each other in order to collaborate and bring about necessary
changes to address feelings of powerlessness, hopelessness, frustration, and
isolation around issues that impact on the lives of all community members—
professionals, clients, citizens. Consciousness-raising, suggests Lee (1994), “is
a process of developing a heightened awareness and knowledge-base about
situations of oppression” (p. 34). Consciousness-raising speaks for the personal
dimension in “the-personal-is-political” approach to analysis. The political
dimension, on the other hand, is associated with what Lee (1994) describes as
critical consciousness, “a way of thinking and seeing reality by the oppressed
acquired through learning about the nature of oppression and the oppressor
which leads to new ways of thinking and seeing social order” (p. 34).
An important implication stemming from the “personal-is-political”
approach to analysis is that of social action. It is important for the generalist
practitioner to acknowledge that social action is significant to empowerment-
oriented practice (Robbins et al., 1998) and fits for reclaiming community. It is
Barter 217

one model of promoting social change (Homan, 1994) and is perhaps more
relevant to a reclaiming-community approach than the models of social
planning and locality development. Albeit these other two models can
encourage change, social action is more concerned with fundamental changes
in relation to “a redistribution of power, the reallocation of resources, or
changes in community decision-making” (Homan, 1994, p. 29). These changes
are congruent with empowerment practices and focus on the issues as to why
communities need to be reclaimed. Social action fits more with what Smale
(1992) refers to as “second order change” (p. 44). “Second-order” change
applies to innovation. Innovation suggests introducing new practices, designing
new methods of service delivery, approaching social problems differently and
developing models of best practice. Change on the other hand, “first order
change” (p. 44), refers to changes within current rules, current organizational
climates, and within existing patterns of working relationships. Innovation
implies changing the rules, changing the system, and changing the nature of the
relationship.
What is being proposed for reclaiming community suggests innovation. It
means a different way of working. Barter (1996) likewise acknowledges the
importance of innovation in discussing the collaborative model of working in
northern remote and rural communities. Social action for purposes of
innovation and community change is not only focused on coming together to
solve a particular problem. It is important to do this, to use collective power to
resolve issues. However, the coming together in reclaiming community and
building on community capacities and strengths for purposes of innovation
suggests coming together for purposes of developing and asserting power and
capacities. This explains the importance of empowerment, dialogue for
consciousness-raising and critical consciousness, the personal and political
connection, and social action. Reclaiming community has to be both problem
focused and power focused (Homan, 1994).

Revisiting Beliefs
A final consideration for the generalist practitioner in rethinking practices
and assuming a reclaiming-community approach is that of revisiting beliefs. It
is important for the practitioner to understand that he or she cannot empower
others. Of significance is acting in the capacity of a mutual partner with client
systems, displaying an understanding of the issues as discussed above, and
engaging in dialogue so as to create opportunities for them to engage in an
empowering process. Power is not something to be given but something to be
discovered. It is important for the practitioner to believe in people’s abilities to
engage in change and in their interest and capacity for good. It is equally
important to believe in the capability of communities to change and take
responsibility for their actions or inactions. As pointed out by Smale (1995),
“People are, and always will be, the experts in themselves, their situation, their
relationships, and what they want and need” (p. 75). It is because of this
expertise and strength that clients must be essential collaborative partners in all
activities associated with reclaiming community.
Finally, it is important to understand the limitations of social work practice
218 Reclaiming Community: Rethinking Practices

in a society that continues to tolerate extremes of injustice, discrimination, and

concentration of economic power and control. Interventions directed toward
reclaiming community must challenge beliefs that prop up these injustices.
These beliefs, according to Bishop (1994), include the following:
the myth of scarcity—the belief that there is not enough to go around,
frequently disguise the fact that a large proportion of the world’s resources
benefit very few people;
the myth of objective information—the belief that it is possible for
one group, particularly straight white males in this part of the world, to
stand back and observe humanity without their own biases influencing
what they see;
stereotyping—the belief that all members of a group are the same;
blaming the victim—the belief that people are responsible for their own
oppression;
might is right, or “majority rules” in situations where the majority can
be manipulated or bought;
our “old friends” separation, competition, and hierarchy—the belief
that human beings are isolated individuals in competition with one another
for positions on a ladder of status (p. 37-38).
It is equally important to challenge the issues that Bishop refers to as being
instrumental in maintaining these beliefs: tokenism, assimilation, private
ownership of information, private ownership of political and economic power,
and violence or the threat of violence. Challenging these beliefs and issues as
an integral part of reclaiming community is a fundamental shift from what
Abdullah (1995) states happened in the past when, he suggests, “In the past we
have attempted to change political and economic systems without first
changing the underlying consciousness supporting these systems” (p. 14). It is
the significance of changing underlying consciousness that makes revisiting
beliefs a critical dimension for the generalist practitioner in assuming a
reclaiming community approach to practice in northern remote and rural
communities. Reclaiming community is about a revolution in consciousness. It
is about the profound gap between the haves and the have-nots, equality,
affirmation of community, and about freedom from domination and
exploitation. Reclaiming community is about responding to what is considered
one of the most important and significant challenges facing society as the
twenty-first century approaches, that is, rediscovering community.
A further consideration in terms of revisiting beliefs and of significance for
the generalist practitioner in assuming a reclaiming community approach, refers
to challenges for the social work profession. Support for reclaiming community
requires that the profession endeavour to seriously consider the following:
to ensure that the definition and purpose of social work does not
render poverty and oppression invisible;
to uphold the ethical obligations of the profession in terms of its
commitment to promote social justice and social change;
to alter the existing power relations between users of services and
workers;
to recognize community and its citizens as invaluable resources with
many strengths and capacities; and,
Barter 219

to fully understand the complexities associated with working in

northern remote and rural communities and the challenges they present for
social work in general and the generalist practitioner in particular.

Conclusion
Reclaiming community and rethinking practices discussed in this chapter
pose many challenges for the generalist practitioner in northern remote and
rural communities. It can be said that the issues involved are too overwhelming
and too complex to address and confront. It is easy in the current environment
to become cynical, to blame others, and to avoid the hassles of confrontation
and innovation. The sense of powerlessness, frustration, and hopelessness that
exists within communities, in organizations, and with many helping
professionals working in these organizations are indicative of a hesitancy to
challenge.
Often, when the values and the purpose of social work are articulated,
particularly the alleviation of poverty and oppression, and the promotion of
social justice, the response often contains statements of “being idealistic,”
“naïve,” and “radical.” As pointed out by Specht and Courtney (1994), “Social
workers have been society’s unwelcomed messengers. They have brought
unpleasant news about distasteful needs and problems, and society has treated
them accordingly—with ambivalence” (p. 5). This ambivalence and these
statements can be challenged if there is a genuine belief that change is possible
and there is a commitment to the beliefs that have been articulated in relation to
the empowerment framework for reclaiming community. As pointed out by
Bishop (1994), “Commitment to social justice means beginning a completely
unknown journey—a journey that can unfold one step at a time, with confusion
and danger along the way, where the end is a mystery” (p. 124). Essential to
embarking upon this journey is a knowledge-base and an in-depth
understanding of what is involved in introducing innovation. Although risky
for the generalist practitioner in terms of working in and against the system, as
suggested by Mullaly (1993), most systems do purport to support goals such as
equality, democracy, social justice, human need, and optimal service. These
goals provide a base upon which innovation can be introduced. Current
practices that are incongruent with these goals can likewise be challenged.
Idealism is a purposeful, powerful belief. Like values, idealism is the belief
that things should be better, how the world “ought to be.” Reclaiming
community is presented in this chapter as a most important and worthwhile
challenge for the generalist social work practitioner in northern remote and
rural communities. It is a challenge in which there is no room for cynicism.
Instead, it presents as an opportunity to be creative, innovative, and
collaborative by tapping into the strengths and capacities of all members of the
community. Empowerment serves as a conceptual framework in which to
create and take advantage of this opportunity. As pointed out by McKnight
(1995), shifts in thinking occur when people who are defined as problems
achieve the power to redefine the problem. A reclaiming community focus can
assist communities in achieving this power.
220 Reclaiming Community: Rethinking Practices

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 CHAPTER 14

STRATEGIES FOR COMMUNITY

ASSESSMENT

KEITH BROWNLEE, JOHN R. GRAHAM,

AND PAM DIMOND

Recent economic conditions in Canada have forced many individuals to

pursue employment opportunities they may not otherwise have sought. For
a number of social workers, this has meant relocating to new and sometimes
remote communities. Moving to a new community, especially an isolated
one, can be personally stressful and professionally challenging. Graduates
of southern schools who accept what appears to be a familiar job in an
unfamiliar remote northern setting may encounter the transition stress of
culture shock (Zapf, 1991). Social workers who are familiar with the
realities of small or isolated communities usually recognize the importance
for effective practice of identifying the formal and informal power
structures within the community and of achieving acceptance into the
community. Understanding the key players, the informal and formal
networks, the community values and cultures, unwritten codes, historical
relationships, and family ties are all essential to facilitating the transition
and adjustment to a new job and home. An early assessment of the
community and how it operates is recommended as a means of placing the
new position in context, reducing stress and avoiding unintended conflicts
that may adversely affect future practice. In this chapter, we will explore
some of the strategies that have been advocated in the literature for
community assessment.
This chapter is not concerned with “community needs assessment”
which is the most common form of community assessment discussed in the
literature. A community needs assessment typically refers to “… an attempt
to enumerate the needs of a population living in a community” or an activity
that aims to “…facilitate community input into human service delivery”
(Humm-Delgado & Delgado, 1986, p. 80). Needs assessments usually
define service requirements and form the basis for developing appropriate
programs. Even a needs assessment, however, is most effective when
“…supplemented by an assessment of the agency’s goals, activities, and
client characteristics and a working knowledge of the community socio-
demographic characteristics and organizational structures” (Humm-Delgado
& Delgado, 1986, p. 81). It is this knowledge, of community characteristics
and organizational structures that is the concern of the present chapter.
Understanding the power and decision-making structures within the
community—the individuals who exert personal influence and leadership
and the organizations that play key roles—provides knowledge of what
Nelson, McPherson, and Kelley (1987) have described as contextual
patterning. Understanding contextual patterns, they assert, implies a
“thorough knowledge of people and structures that promote or interfere with

222
Brownlee, Graham, & Dimond 223

community decision making” (p. 81). Such knowledge, or its absence, can
dramatically affect a social worker’s effectiveness within a northern
community. Although context awareness is fundamental to social work
practice in any setting, urban or rural, in small isolated communities,
knowing the contextual patterns could be critical. For instance, a social
worker, new to a northern community of approximately 4,000 people, first
attended religious services at the local Anglican church. After two weeks,
the social worker decided to continue attending services at the United
church instead. The social worker, in a casual and apparently innocent
discussion with a colleague, criticized the way the local Anglican services
were held and how they differed from what the social worker was used to. It
transpired that the Anglican church was an important power within the
community and very involved in the local social services. Furthermore, the
person with whom the social worker held the discussion was related through
marriage to the minister. This relationship and the extent of the church’s
involvement with the community’s social services were unknown to the
social worker. From that time on, a strained relationship developed between
the social worker and the minister of the Anglican church. This had
implications for their future working relationship and cooperation in the
implementation of service provision. Since no overt problem had occurred
in any exchange between the social worker and the minister, an
awkwardness existed that prevented an easy resolution. Perhaps with
sensitivity to the contextual patterns within the community, this indiscretion
would not have occurred.
This chapter will focus on assessment strategies that can be utilized by
social workers entering a new community to determine the patterns of
power, influence, and interconnectedness within the community. Although
the discussion has revolved around remote communities the approaches
presented may also be beneficial and useful for workers moving to any
community.

Approaches to Community Assessment

An assessment of a community is time consuming. It is not something
that necessarily requires undue completion and is probably an ongoing
process in which modifications and additions continue indefinitely. Several
approaches to community assessment are presented below, each with unique
strengths and limitations. These include eco-mapping; a social network
map; a community-wide organizational map; leadership analysis; key
informant approach; and, the concept of horizontal/vertical ties. To facilitate
understanding and comparison of the different assessment techniques, the
following case example will be used throughout in any diagrams. You are a
social work graduate from Lakehead University. You have recently moved
from your hometown of Thunder Bay to Kenora where you have been
employed as a child welfare worker with the Children’s Aid Society. You
want to know what the pattern of relationships in the community is between
the Children’s Aid Society and the other programs and agencies in the
224 Strategies for Community Assessment

community. Thus, the Children’s Aid Society will be given the central place
in diagrams.

Eco-mapping
Eco-mapping is an assessment technique commonly used by social
workers. According to Lauffer (1982), “the use of eco-mapping tools
provides you with a visual framework for assessing the balance between an
organism and its environment” (p. 20). Although an eco-map is used mostly
to illustrate relationships between an individual and others in their
environment, it can also be used to explore relationships between
organizations or groups in a community. The relationships between groups
or organizations in communities are often complex and achieve clearer
representation by being mapped them on paper. In this way, the worker can
determine key relationships, areas of conflict, or tenuous links or strained
relationships between agencies. Thus, eco-mapping is an effective way of
assessing what is currently occurring in a community and a way to organize
thinking about an organization and its links within the community. The eco-
map can also be used to examine how organizations may respond to a
specific issue such as solvent abuse. In such an instance, the relationships
would be examined between the organizations that would be directly
involved in the issue of solvent abuse and forces that may impact their
responses.
Completing the eco-map (Figure 1):
! Place your agency in a circle in the centre of the page (more than one
organization at a time may be included as the focus of concern, although
this would complicate the visual framework).
! Place other agencies with which you are involved in other circles on the
page.
! Connect the outer circles to the “agency” circle in the centre of the
page. Use the following types of lines to indicate the nature of the
connections: a solid line for strong, a dashed line for weak/tenuous, a
solid line with slashes through it for stressful.
Lauffer (1982) describes two other eco-mapping techniques: the task
environment map and the inter-organizational linkages map. The task
environment map looks at relations between an organization’s operations
with various elements in its environment. The task environment is “made up
of all those elements in the general environment that directly impact on the
agency’s ability to perform its tasks or achieve its objectives” (Lauffer,
1982, p. 33). This might include specific organizations, groups, or
populations which are integral to the existence of the organization such as
auspice providers, suppliers of resources, collaborators and/or competitors,
and actual or potential consumers (Lauffer, 1982).
Brownlee, Graham, & Dimond 225

Figure 1: Eco-map

Source: Adapted from Lauffer (1982).

Draw arrows along the lines to signify the flow of energy, resources etc.
Make sure to note if energy flows both ways or only one way.

Fill in connections where they exist:

Indicate the nature of the connection between the agencies using different
kinds of lines: dark lines for strong, dotted lines for weak and dark dotted
for stressful. Arrows could be used along the lines to show the flow of
resources, and people’s names could be included to signify important
individuals who influence the relationship or make decisions.

Completing the task environment map (Figure 2):

Place your agency in the centre circle.
List the elements in the agency’s task environment in the boxes on the
periphery of the square. You do not have to use all of the boxes, the
number of boxes can be modified to fit the situation.
226 Strategies for Community Assessment

auspice providers - the organizational and legislative body that mandates

the agency (e.g. rules, board of directors, United Way organization)
suppliers of resources - tangible resources (e.g. money, equipment,
supplies) or intangible resources (e.g. expertise, prestige, political influence)
collaborators and/or competitors - collaborators enhance the availability,
accountability, effectiveness and efficiency of agency; competitors may
include groups who compete for funds, public support, or use of facilities
actual or potential consumers - those who are the recipients of the
agency’s services

Outside the boxes, score each element in the task environment in terms
of importance (in the diagram the symbol I is used to signify
importance) to your organization’s survival and amenability to
influence (given as an A in the diagram). Use a scale from -2 to +2,
with -2 being “no importance” or “little likelihood that it can be
influenced” to +2 being “very important” or “highly amenable,” and 0
being a neutral stance. Thus, a combination of symbol and numeric
value is used such as: I-2, I-1, I=0, I+1, I+2; and A-2, A-1, A=0, A+1,
A+2.
Now, in a different colour, add organizations that are not currently in
the task environment but ones you think will be in the near future—or
that you think should be. Cross out those organizations you feel will or
should be irrelevant. Check those you wish to mark for changed
relationships. Rate the elements you have added for importance or
amenability.

Figure 2: Task Environment Map

Source: Adapted from Lauffer (1982).

Brownlee, Graham, & Dimond 227

You now have a map of what is, what is likely to be, and/or what you
feel ought to be. This provides a clearer picture of where your agency fits
into the community.
You may wish to go beyond the confines of the task environment map
to more closely examine the linkages with actual or potential collaborators
in the community. With the inter-organizational linkage map, it is possible
to study the exchanges between the agency you work for and collaborating
organizations (Lauffer, 1982). This procedure will provide the worker with
an extensive assessment of the community and more specifically the various
links between community organizations, and groups.

Completing the inter-organizational linkage map (Figure 3):

Place your agency in the centre circle.
In the outer circle, write in the names of those organizations with which
your agency is currently or may be involved. Use different colours to
identify the organizations your agency is currently involved with, those
organizations it will probably be involved with at a future date, and
those organizations you feel it should be involved with.
In the pie spaces between the inner and outer circles, indicate linking
mechanisms currently in effect, links that are likely to be, and links that
should exist. Circle or star those linking mechanisms which you feel
could be improved. Examples of linkage mechanisms include: case
conferences, case consultations, case management, cross-referrals,
inter-organizational consultation, joint budgeting, joint data gathering,
joint fundraising, sharing facilities, etc.
Take some time to examine the completed map with the following
questions in mind:
Which linking mechanisms appear most often? Why?
With which collaborators are there the largest number or widest array of
linking mechanisms? With which are the fewest?
What resources would be needed to modify or expand these linkages?

Social Network Map

Another assessment technique identified by Tracy and Whittaker
(1990) is the social network map. It is similar to the eco-map as it displays
the network visually through the use of a circle mapping technique.
However, Tracy and Whittaker note that “Social network mapping
techniques are fully compatible with eco-map procedures but provide more
detailed, anchored responses regarding the quality and functioning of social
connections” (1990, p. 463). A chart is used in conjunction with the social
network map as the map “reveals little information in itself about the
functioning of network relationships” (Tracy & Whittaker, 1990, p. 464).
The chart records information regarding the various links between
community organizations. In this way the social network map provides a
comprehensive and specific look at relationships between organizations
within a community.
228 Strategies for Community Assessment

Figure 3: Inter-agency Linkage Map

Legend:
1. Agency
2. Organizations with which agency 1 is currently or potentially involved
in exchange relationships.
3. Current or likely linking mechanisms.
Source: Adapted from Lauffer (1982).

Completing the social network map (Figure 4 and 5):

Place your agency at the centre of the circle.
Write in other agency names in the proper spaces: informal agency,
small agencies, government agencies, and formal services.
Complete the grid to identify the direction of help; collaborative
ventures; and, strength of links. Place the name of the agency down the
side of the grid and work your way across, completing each section by
filling in the appropriate number.
The completed grid will indicate the extent to which various agencies in the
community are related to your agency.
Brownlee, Graham, & Dimond 229

Figure 4: Social Network Map

Figure 5: Social Network Chart

Agency Agency Type: Direction of Collaborative Strength of

Name 1. Informal Help: ventures: Relationship:
2. Small 1. Both ways 1. Yes 1. Strong
3. Formal 2. You to them 2. No 2. Weak
4. Large 3. Them to you 3. Future plans 3. Non-existent

Children’s 4 1 1 1
Mental
Health

Crisis 3 3 1 2
Centre

Hospital 3 3 3 2

Church 1 1 2 1
Source: Adapted from Tracy and Whittaker (1990).
230 Strategies for Community Assessment

Community-Wide Organizational Map

Another technique similar to the eco-map is the community-wide
organizational map proposed by Nettekoven and Sundberg (1985).
According to Nettekoven and Sundberg (1985), the map conceptualizes the
community as a web of interconnecting social relationships. Connections
between individuals and groups are explored and these connections are
mapped.
In constructing an “organizational map,” each organization is
represented as a circle or dot connected by a line or lines representing a
relationship between that group and others (Nettekoven & Sundberg, 1985).
In this way, different types of lines can be used to indicate the strength of
the connections between agencies. An organizational map can examine the
relationships a single organization has with other groups and agencies in the
community, or “it can be used to present an overview of the relationships
among the major organizations, or a sub group of organizations (i.e. those
focusing on solvent abuse issues) in the community” (Nettekoven &
Sundberg, 1985, p. 29). The first approach mentioned is most similar to the
eco-map technique of assessment. It is felt that, if social workers can
become familiar with the links between organizations in the community, it
will provide them with a greater understanding of the community.

To complete the community-wide organizational map (Figure 6):

Draw circles on the page, and write the names of major organizations in
the community in the circles, including your agency (or just use a sub-
group of organizations if you wish).
Draw lines to show the linkages between the organizations. A solid line
represents a strong link, a dashed line a weak link. If there are no links,
a line is not necessary.
Other relationships can also be described, such as a conflictual
relationship, which is often signified by the use of a line with short
cross lines.
Use an arrow to reflect the flow of resources from one agency to
another and the direction of that relationship.
An alternate way to complete the exercise proposed by Nettekoven and
Sundberg (1985) is for a solid line to represent a business relationship and a
dashed line to represent a social relationship between organizations.
Clearly, any combination of lines can be used to show linkages and
relationships between agencies. The guiding principle in this instance
should be simplicity, as a community-wide organization map can become
complex and difficult to read.
Brownlee, Graham, & Dimond 231

Figure 6: Community-wide Organizational Map

Fill in connections where they exist:

Indicate the nature of the connection between the agencies using different
kinds of lines: dark lines for strong, dotted lines for weak and dark dotted
for stressful. Arrows could be used along the lines to show the flow of
resources, and people’s names could be included to signify important
individuals who influence the relationship or make decisions.

Source: Adapted from Nettekoven and Sundberg (1985).

Leadership Analysis
Nettekoven and Sundberg (1985) propose a leadership analysis as an
effective approach for assessing a community. In a leadership analysis the
goal is to identify the links between various groups and to gain an
understanding of the formal as well as the informal power structures within
the community. This assists the social worker in identifying major decision-
makers within the community.
The social worker attempts to diagram or list the key leadership
232 Strategies for Community Assessment

positions in the community and can then select possible informants (this
refers to the key informant approach which follows). There are three
methods for determining community leadership patterns which are worth
mentioning (Nettekoven & Sundberg, 1985): positional, reputational, and
decisional. Positional refers to those leaders who are presumed to exercise
control or influence by virtue of a formal position in the community.
Reputational are those leaders who have a reputation for power and
dominance in community affairs. Decisional refers to individuals who have
a leadership role through playing important roles in local decisions.
The authors suggest relying on the first and second methods during
community assessment. It is important to identify the key people in main
areas of influence. Areas of influence that are usually represented in
leadership diagram include business, labor, education, government, religion,
social welfare, voluntary and civic groups, and independent professions
(Nettekoven & Sundberg, 1985). To complete the leadership analysis
(Figure 7):

On a blank piece of paper, write down headings for the main areas of
influence.
List people/titles/positions under the appropriate headings.

This exercise provides the worker who is new to a community with a

visual listing of influential people from different areas in the community.

Key Informant Approach/Tree

The key informant approach is a community assessment technique
suggested by Humm-Delgado and Delgado (1986), Williams, Snider, Ryan
and The Cleveland COPC Group (1994), and Nettekoven and Sundberg
(1985). Nettekoven and Sundberg suggest that a key informant tree is the
next logical step after completing a leadership analysis.
Williams et al. (1994) describe a key informant as “a person residing in
the community who is considered by community members to be
knowledgeable . . . and who will share this information” (p. 275). According
to Humm-Delgado and Delgado (1986), this approach elicits opinions and
information from persons believed to be in a position to have substantial
knowledge about the needs of the population or community. Key informants
can include public officials, clergy, law enforcement officers, and
physicians to name just a few. The goal of this is to learn how key
informants view their community and to understand the particular meaning
they attach to events occurring within the community (Nettekoven &
Sundberg, 1985).
A key informant tree can be built by identifying and interviewing a
number of these key informants. Each key informant can then be asked for
names of additional persons who might be key informants, and these
secondary key informants are then interviewed. Sometimes, in more formal
assessment situations, a questionnaire is administered to key informants in
person, by telephone, or by mail, and usually followed by a meeting to
Brownlee, Graham, & Dimond 233

discuss the results. The informants’ view of how change occurs within the
community and how community members view and work with outsiders is
valuable information. Possibly each informant could be asked to describe
the strengths and weaknesses of the community as a way to begin to identify
local problems as well as the possible resources available to solve them.

Figure 7: Leadership Diagram

Mental Health Health
Children’s Aid Society: Joe Doe - Home Care: Jane Doe - Director
Supervisor District Health Nurse
Children’s Mental Health Local General Practitioners
Adult Mental Health
Women’s Shelter
Education Justice
Public School Probation and Parole
Junior High Ontario Provincial Police
High School Local Lawyers
Separate School
Volunteer Groups Political
Parents for a Drug Free Kenora Local Politician
City Council
Business Religion
Local Pharmacist Local Ministers
Source: Adapted from Nettekoven and Sundberg (1985).

Clearly, there are various ways to use the key informant approach in
community assessments. The technique is amenable to a formal process
such as a survey or an informal process, such as through conversations with
key people over lunch. Therefore, there is not a set way of completing this
type of assessment. We suggest the following.

Completing a key informant tree:

Identify key informants in the community (the leadership analysis may
be useful).
Prepare a list of questions you would like comments on such as general
questions about the informant’s views of the community or more
specific questions about agency relationships.
Make an initial phone call to the informant and suggest an
informational interview, providing the informant with a list of questions
at this time, if you wish.
Ask the individual for suggestions of other people in the community
you might benefit in speaking to.
Document information you receive for future reference.
234 Strategies for Community Assessment

Horizontal and Vertical Ties

Martinez-Brawley (1990) suggests an approach to community
assessment which utilizes horizontal and vertical ties. Horizontal ties are the
relationship between local organizations, groups etc. at the local,
community level while the relationship between local groups and the larger
society outside of the community constitutes the community’s vertical ties.
For practitioners in small communities, it is essential to consider the vertical
as well as horizontal ties to develop an understanding of how to proceed in
certain circumstances. For example, knowledge of vertical and horizontal
ties is vital in deciding when and if to reach for support from sources
outside the community. It is very possible that strong vertical ties may
weaken horizontal ties within the community.
According to Martinez-Brawley (1990), practitioners need to look at
their small towns and villages from at least six perspectives. The following
questions assist in determining the ingredients for assessment.
Does the city/town have a sense of community? Or is it just a location?
“Community-ness” cannot be imposed on localities because it develops
through the exercise of relationships through time.
How strong are the horizontal or local ties in the political, economic,
educational, service, and other fields? How affected is the community
by external forces (vertical ties)?
How does the community rate in terms of cohesiveness, engagement,
and interdependence among its members? What does the sense of
belonging do for individuals in the community?
How holistic are the communal relationships? Are the communal
activities encompassing a view of the community as microcosm? If so,
what kind of picture can be painted of this microcosm?
How has the particular community developed through the centuries or
decades? How evident is the local or regional mark in its development?
What are the power relationships like in the community. Are there
salient patterns of social class interaction? In most local communities,
power and class relationships can be strong.
Martinez-Brawley’s concept of horizontal and vertical ties can be
modified to analyze relationships “within” a community rather than the
relationships between “internal” and “external” community organizations.
The two dimensions of vertical and horizontal ties are useful in providing a
more complete understanding of organizations and individuals within a
community. Horizontal ties within the community would refer to agencies at
the same “power” level as your agency, and vertical ties would refer to the
hierarchical structure among agencies within the community.
Take, for example, the case of the new child welfare worker in Kenora.
In the community there will be other agencies on the same horizontal level
as the Children’s Aid Society. There will also be agencies which are, for
various reasons, above or below the CAS in terms of the power or influence
they have in the community. Horizontal and vertical lines extend to
individuals in the community as well as agencies. It is important to be aware
of these power structures (both individual and community wide) and to
Brownlee, Graham, & Dimond 235

proceed with some caution. Offending others in the community by not

respecting their “place” in the community structure can make adjustment to
the community difficult.

Summary
This chapter has presented the view that a community assessment is a
valuable exercise, especially for a social worker who is not familiar with
small town practice. Hopefully, the information gained from an assessment
would provide for a smooth adjustment and successful integration into the
community. A variety of assessment techniques have been presented. Some
of these techniques, such as the eco-map, are probably familiar to most
readers, and extending their use to a wider application will be
straightforward. Some of the other techniques may need to be approached in
the spirit of experimentation with their value to be judged over time.
Naturally, a combination of techniques may prove to be most useful and
ultimately provide a more comprehensive understanding of a community.
No effort has been made here to evaluate the relative effectiveness of the
different techniques. Such an endeavour may be the subject of future
research.

References
Humm-Delgado, D. & Delgado, M. (1986). Gaining community entree to
assess service needs of Hispanics. Social Casework: The Journal of
Contemporary Social Work, 67(2), 80-89.
Lauffer, A. (1982). Assessment tools: For practitioners, managers, and
trainers. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
Martinez-Brawley, E. E. (1990). Perspectives on the small community:
Humanistic views for practitioners. Silver Spring, MD: NASW Press.
Nelson, C. H., McPherson, D. H., & Kelley, M. L. (1987). Contextual
patterning: A key to human service effectiveness in the north.
Canada’s Subarctic Universities, Lakehead University, 66-83.
Nettekoven, L. & Sundberg, N. (1985). Community assessment methods in
rural mental health promotion. Journal of Rural Community
Psychology, 6(2), 21-43.
Tracy, E. M. & Whittaker, J. K. (1990). The social network map: Assessing
social support in clinical practice. Families in Society: The Journal of
Contemporary Human Services, 461-470.
Williams, R. L., Snider, R., Ryan, M. J., & The Cleveland COPC Group.
(1994). A key informant “tree” as a tool for community oriented
primary care. Family Practice Research Journal, 14(3), 273-280.
Zapf, M. K. (Summer 1991). Educating social work practitioners for the
north: A challenge for conventional models and structures. The
Northern Review, 7, 33-52.
 CHAPTER 15

COMMUNITY NEEDS ASSESSMENT

AND PRIORITY FUNDING

JOHN COATES
Over the past several years charitable organizations in almost all
jurisdictions have struggled to respond to and keep up with the rapidly
changing environments in which they function. The steady and significant
cutback in government services combined with the erosion of government
support for nonprofit organizations over the past few years has created a
very hostile and competitive market for charitable dollars. This
competitiveness has been exacerbated by high levels of unemployment,
contributing to an increased demand for services (such as food banks,
emergency shelters and transition houses), new services arriving on the
scene (such as immigrant services and self-help groups), and by the increase
in the number of charitable and nonprofit organizations actively competing
for charitable donations (such as Hospital Foundations). As well, charitable
and nonprofit organizations are pushed to discover novel and creative ways
to raise funds (Wilcox, 1997).
Within this competitive marketplace, citizens are demanding more
accountability regarding their charitable contributions and greater efficiency
from the organizations which administer their donations. Further,
traditional funding organizations, such as the United Way and Community
Foundations, are faced with increased financial demands from new and
established agencies, and are forced to work hard to meet expectations and
maintain legitimacy in the eyes of their communities. Fundraising
campaigns have become more sensitive to their public profile and, related to
this, to their need to assure the community that donations are spent wisely.
In the midst of this competition and changing expectations, organizations
such as United Way have had to enhance their public image so that they are
perceived as much more than “just another fundraiser.”
United Way agencies across Canada have responded to these pressures
by introducing many administrative and structural changes in efforts to
maintain support from their respective communities. Many of these
changes have reflected the transition from member-accountability to funder-
accountability. An example has been the establishment of “donor option,”
wherein donors may designate the agency or the service area to which all or
some of their donation will be directed (Brilliant, 1990). Within donor
option donations can be made to any registered charitable organization;
membership is not required. Another development has been the shift from
core funding (wherein an agency receives an amount of money and then

236
Coates 237

allocates it wherever the agency sees appropriate) to program funding

(funding a specific program which an agency offers). A third innovation,
and one that has proven particularly useful in many smaller communities,
has been the Priority Funding Procedure (Coates, 1995a).
Priority Funding utilizes a community needs assessment to provide a
community funding organization with first-hand information from citizens
themselves about the needs/problems which they experience and the
services which they receive. Priority Funding was developed by members
of the community in an effort to keep pace with the changing
needs/problems of different segments of the community, to establish
priorities based on the identified needs/problems, and to enable the
allocation of financial resources toward areas where there is the greatest
need. This paper provides an overview of the Priority Funding Procedure
and, based on the experience in Fredericton, NB, discusses the usefulness of
this procedure for small, urban/rural areas.

Priority Funding Procedure

Priority Funding incorporates a community needs assessment,
information from community agencies, and the collective understanding of
the fund allocation committee to develop both an awareness of areas where
new or improved services are needed, and a list wherein all programs which
apply for funding are ranked in order of priority based on the needs which
they address and an evaluation of the service delivered. This information
enables the funding organization to determine the highest priorities for
funding allocation decisions. Priority Funding was developed by the United
Way/Centraide (Central N.B./Region du Centre N.-B.) Inc. and first used in
1989 (Coates, 1995b).
Priority Funding has enabled the United Way/Centraide (Central
N.B./Region du Centre N.-B.) to deal more effectively with difficult
decisions regarding the allocation of funds toward needs/problems for
which adequate services are not yet available and toward existing programs
which have been previously funded to address specific needs/problems.
Priority Funding results in programs which are considered to be most
needed receiving funds. It also allows for the “most-needed services” to
receive a larger proportion of funds requested.
Priority Funding operates on a three-year cycle, in which the needs of
different population groups are assessed each year and funding
commitments made for a three year period. This cycle provides
accountability to funders but also provides agencies with the assurance of
longer term funding, which creates the opportunity for program planning for
a three-year period. The population sectors for which services have been
traditionally funded are children’s services (year one), seniors and families
238 Community Needs Assessment and Priority Funding

(year two), and young adults and achievers (people with challenges) in year
three. As a result of the first two research and funding cycles (1989-1991
and 1993-1995), refinements were made to the instruments and
methodology. The third funding cycle began in 1996 and, during the past
few years, the procedure has been adapted for use in several communities in
Canada.1
Table 1 presents an overview of different aspects of the Priority
Funding Procedure and the percentage weight or value assigned to the
different parts. The entire process, which takes place over a number of
months, begins with the completion of the community needs assessment and
includes providing agencies with the results of the assessment in the form of
a priority ranking of needs/problems and the review and evaluation of
applications for funding of specific programs. It ends with a decision on
resource allocation based on the success of the fund raising campaign. The
application form and procedure are standardized, and every application for
program funding is reviewed and evaluated according to specific criteria.
As Table 1 indicates, the overall score out of 100 provides the basis for the
rank-ordering of the programs. A guideline for completing the application
form is available for the agencies, as are the evaluation criteria used by the
review committee to complete the evaluation of all applications. Usually,
teams of two committee members are assigned to review each application,
and each team reviews a small number of applications.2

Community Questionnaire
The Community Questionnaire is a needs assessment carried out in the
form of a telephone survey of households selected using a proportionate,
stratified, random sampling format (Grinnell, 1997).3 Needs assessments
seek to evaluate an existing service or the need for a service by identifying
the extent of the need for that service (Mark, 1996). While there are many
methods available to carry out needs assessment (Rubin & Babbie, 1989),
the impact of rumour, personal and professional bias, and the most recent
media attention should be minimized so an accurate assessment of needs is
made available. A survey format was selected so that citizens could directly
provide information about their needs and the assessment would more
accurately reflect the reality in a particular community. The Community
Needs Assessment is the basis for the priority ranking.
The survey utilizes a telephone interview format in which participants
are asked a series of questions over a 15 minute period. The questionnaire
includes specific questions and lists of needs/problems. Different lists of
needs/problems have been developed to accommodate the different needs of
various populations (for example, health and mobility issues for seniors and
child care needs for families).
Coates 239

Table 1: Priority Funding Procedure

PROGRAM EVALUATION SUMMARY

FREDERICTON UNITED WAY/CENTRAIDE

AGENCY:____________________________________________________

PROGRAM:______________________________________________

COMMUNITY AGENCY REPORTS PROGRAM ALLOCATION

QUESTIONNAIRE APPLICATION S
COMMITTEE

Public Priority ____/10% Numbers ____/5% Evaluation____/12% Community

User Record Keeping ____/5% Prevention ___/ 9% Support____/15%
Satisfaction____/10% Program Necessity____/15%
Unmet Needs____/10% Admin ____/ 9%
For Information Only:
For Information Only: Information Only:
Waiting List
Barriers Eligibility Requirements Program Description

____/30% ____/10% ____/30% ____/30%

COMMENTS:

PROGRAM TOTAL SCORE: _______

Date of Evaluation: _______________

Reviewed By: ___________________

The Community Questionnaire assesses three factors—public priority,

user satisfaction, and unmet need—and provides, for each, a ranking out of
10. Public Priority is based on respondents identifying, from a set list, the
needs/problems which they consider to be the most serious based on their
experience and the experience of people they know. User Satisfaction is
based on respondents indicating whether or not they are satisfied with the
service they received for a need/problem. Unmet Need is based on
respondents indicating that they have a need/problem for which a service is
not being received. All data collected from the survey were analysed using
a statistical analysis package.
Table 2 provides a brief example of the needs/problems listed in the
family survey.
240 Community Needs Assessment and Priority Funding

Table 2: Needs and Problems

Housing:
Maintenance of Home
Size of home for size of family
Finding a decent and affordable place to live
Other family home concerns, please specify
Employment:
Finding or maintaining a job
Job advancement
Other employment concerns, please specify
Health:
Adequate baby care (pre-natal, post-natal)
Routine medical concerns
Family planning / sex education
Relief care for sick/disabled family member
(chronic problem experienced by child, spouse, senior, etc.)
Physical fitness
Other health care concerns, please specify

Built into the needs assessment is a question (Table 3) which seeks to

identify barriers which limit access to services. Barriers can result in
services being underutilized or needs not being addressed. For example, the
lack of information or awareness about a service may contribute to a lack of
attention to problems for which service is thought to be unavailable. This
can appear as an unmet need when, in fact, a service may be underutilized.
Such a problem can best be addressed via an information line or
advertising/marketing strategies rather than funds for direct services.
Barriers can also indicate problems in service delivery, such as difficulty
with access due to hours of service and perceived prejudice.

Agency Questionnaire
The next two sections (see Table 1) concern information about the
agencies which seek funding for specific programs or services. The Agency
Questionnaire is a quarterly report submitted by each funded program. The
information obtained under numbers and record keeping is indicative of the
agency’s promptness and thoroughness in providing the required reports on
their services.

Agency Application
The information obtained from the agency’s application for funding to
Coates 241

provide a particular program reflects the quality of the program’s evaluation

procedures, whether the service will make a significant change in the people
or the community, and how effective and efficient are the supervision and
financial management of the program. For example, Tables 4 and 5
present, respectively, the application guidelines provided for Prevention and
Maintenance, and the relevant criteria and scoring method followed to
arrive at a score for the agency’s evaluation of this section of the
application for funding.
Table 3: Factors Influencing Family Decisions
From the following list, please put a check beside factors which prevent
the members of your family from seeking or receiving help. Check as
many factors as are applicable.

FACTOR

1. Family does not want help ( )

2. Do not think a problem is that bad yet ( )
3. Do not know what is available ( )
4. Do not know where to go for help to find ( )
the right service
5. Do not know where agencies are located ( )
6. Discrimination ( )
7. Service is not satisfactory ( )
8. No transportation to agency ( )
9. Language ( )
10.Access for family members with disabilities ( )
11.Fear of what others might think ( )
12.A social agency could not help ( )
13.Agency usually not open when help is needed ( )
14.Agency eligibility restrictions ( )
15.Cost of services ( )
16.Length of agency waiting list ( )
17.Other (Please specify) ( )

Allocations Committee
The information in the last section is provided by the Allocations
Committee, which is the group responsible for evaluating the application
and making a recommendation regarding funding. This is a most important
step as this committee is usually composed of people from different walks
of life whose knowledge and judgements are based on their familiarity with
the community. The committee evaluates each of the applications in terms
of community support (i.e. if people in our community knew what we
know, how much would they support this program?) and necessity (i.e.
what would happen in the community if this program was not funded?).
242 Community Needs Assessment and Priority Funding

The Allocations Committee’s recommendations incorporate knowledge

gained from the barriers section of the questionnaire (such as information
concerning awareness and access), as well as the knowledge that some more
sensitive needs/problems (such as needs/problems concerning sexuality and
abuse) are most frequently under-reported in surveys. Due to this under-
reporting, recommendations regarding funding for programs which address
these more sensitive issues must be supported by other sources of
information.

Table 4: Application Guidelines

3.4 Identify the root cause of the program addresses. Be
specific, and give your analysis of the problem.
3.5 Does the program focus on maintenance or on
prevention? If prevention is one of the goals, how do
the objectives help towards reducing the occurrence? If
maintenance is the focus, what is being done to improve
or maintain the level of services offered? Indicate how
the process of evaluation you have in place, whether formal
or informal, permits you to measure the impact the program
is having on the community and its needs.
3.6 What activities does the program have in place that
would enhance the probability of making a real and
lasting change towards eliminating or reducing the
community need being addressed? Give specific
examples. Explain how the program is more than a “band-
aid” solution.

Table 5: Relevant Scoring Criteria

2. Prevention or Maintenance Points Application
Form Reference

Attempts to address the root cause 3 3.4

of the problem

Reduction of occurrences/suffering 3 3.5

for prevention/maintenance

Probability of activities making 3 3.6

a change in the situation

Total 9 10.5
Coates 243

Advantages and Limitations

Priority Funding has developed five lists of needs/problems, one for
each of the different population groups surveyed (Children, Families,
Seniors, Young Adults, and Achievers). With the needs listed being
specific to different populations, the survey provides a solid assessment of
needs experienced by the distinct population groups. The format provides
the opportunity for respondents to identify needs/problems not listed. As
well, since the survey can be adapted to meet the needs and unique demands
of different communities or populations by changing the phrasing or by
adding or removing different needs/problems, the Priority Funding
Procedure has been utilized in different communities.
Experience with the Priority Funding Procedure has resulted in several
advantages and, while some limitations must be addressed, the procedure
has been beneficial in directing resources toward the needs/problems which
are considered the highest priority.

Advantages

1. Feedback from previous surveys allows the questionnaires to be

updated, and, as the survey is completed over a number of years,
persistent needs and changes over time can be identified. For example,
Table 6 presents a portion of the priority ranking report for 1997.
Table 6 reveals that eight of the top ten needs/problems reported by
families are income related—a substantial increase from three of the
top ten being income related in 1993. Consistent with this finding, the
interviewers reported that a sense of financial concern and desperation
was expressed by many of the parents who were interviewed. Such
results can quickly be seen to reveal needs/problems arising from the
current economic climate and which local communities are
increasingly being called upon to address. Each community may
respond to this information as it sees fit. However, while such
information can provide valuable assistance in funding local services, it
is also of great benefit in longer-term social planning and social policy
initiatives.

2. The community needs assessment provides information which

distinguishes services which adequately meet a particular need,
services which may be underutilized (and possibly over-funded), and
services which may be insufficient to meet a need. The survey also
provides valuable information which may indicate the need for new
services. For example, in Fredericton, one of the family surveys
244 Community Needs Assessment and Priority Funding

indicated a need for a budget counselling service for low/middle

income people. As a result, the United Way was able to encourage and
support a local agency to provide this service.
When needs/problems, which are not seen to be within the
jurisdiction of the United Way, are identified the organization can
assume an advocacy or planning role by informing and lobbying
relevant organizations to meet certain needs. For example, in the
family survey, a particular geographic region with a large number of
young children identified the need for local playgrounds as the highest
priority. This information was presented to the municipality for its
attention.

Table 6: 1997 Community Needs Assessment Report—Families

Need/Problem 1993 Public User Unmet Total
Results Priority Satisfaction Need

1. Finding/maintaining a 1 9.4 6.5 8.1 24.0

job

2. Security (Financial) 10 9.1 5.6 8.9 23.6

3. Income for basic needs 5 9.2 5.4 5.9 20.5

4. Job advancement 32 8.2 5.4 6.3 19.9

5. Income for other needs 49 8.2 5.3 6.1 19.6

6. Budgeting 24 8.1 5.4 5.9 19.4

7. Finding a decent place to 4 8.6 5.2 5.6 19.4

live

8. Need of 28 8.1 5.2 5.7 19.0

support/ information

9. Behaviour at school 15 8.1 5.3 5.4 18.8

10. Decent clothing 48 8.0 5.3 5.4 18.7

3. When sufficient resources are not available to meet all needs, a tension
exists between supporting programs which are adequately meeting a
need (“met need”) and directing funds toward new programs in efforts
to address an “unmet need.” However, as undesirable as it may appear
to fund unmet needs at the risk of providing insufficient funds toward
met need, priority ranking informs such difficult situations and enables
a community to fund the services it considers highest priority rather
than automatically continuing to provide funding to established
programs.
Coates 245

Priority Funding also provides information which assists

communities to identify needs which are adequately met (for example,
high score on user satisfaction and low score on unmet need), and
distinguish met needs from needs/problems for which no services are
available (for example, low score on user satisfaction and high score on
unmet need). This information informs the decisions made by the
Allocations Committee.

4. As a result of feedback from agencies, the results of the community

needs assessments are made available to the community agencies at the
same time as application forms are provided. Now, agencies applying
for program funding have the opportunity to take the results into
consideration when preparing program proposals. As a result, both
established and new programs take these results into consideration, and
funded programs now more clearly target higher priority
needs/problems.

Limitations
1. Many established programs may exist in a community with each
providing valuable services. However, the United Way faces the
reality of receiving requests for financial assistance which far exceed
its capacity to support. As a result, some worthwhile programs may
not receive funding because other programs are ranked higher on the
priority list. While the funding cycle enables agencies to plan for three
years, there is no assurance of funding beyond this. At the time
applications are reviewed, every proposed program is evaluated and
may or may not receive funds. As a result, while Priority Funding can
be seen to be beneficial to the community as a whole, some established
agencies who had been long-term recipients of funds have reacted
negatively to this potential—and at times actually lost funds.

2. The Priority Funding Procedure has developed protocols and training

procedures, and utilizes “scantron” recording sheets to speed data
analysis. As a result, staff/volunteers have been trained and have
developed expertise in conducting interviews. However, there is a
significant annual cost factor which can be reduced but not avoided.
The cost for training and/or employment of the volunteers/staff who
will be required will depend on their experience, the sample size, and
the time available. Further, while the Priority Funding Procedure has
been developed with a view to keeping administrative costs to a
minimum (for example, all aspects of the procedure have been
standardized so that the data analysis required for funding decisions
246 Community Needs Assessment and Priority Funding

can be minimized), access to expertise in data analysis is required.5

3. After attempting a variety of data collection methods, and despite the

additional cost of interviewers, the most effective format has been the
telephone interview. Respondents are asked to complete the interview
at the time they are called, and there is an offer to call back if the
person was not able to complete the interview at that time.

4. While seniors generally respond well to interview requests, female

interviewers achieve much higher participation rates. This may be due
to the fact that the majority of seniors are women and they feel more at
ease speaking with another woman. However, overall, for all
populations, a high number of telephone calls must be made for each
completed interview.6 Many factors are at work here, including the
increased use of answering machines, calls to respondents who are not
a member of the particular population group, and refusals. For
example, many families are so busy, especially in the evenings, that
they are “on their way out” or “are too busy” and decline to participate.
In terms of ease of securing respondents, the children’s survey is the
easiest, and this is followed by the seniors’ survey and then the
families’ survey. The response rate could be increased by the use of
sampling frames constructed from lists purchased from a list broker so
that the sampling frame consists only of members of a specific
population. However, the costs of lists can be quite expensive.
While efforts to publicize the survey via radio announcements and
advertisements have been helpful in regards to response rates, the
response rate has proven to be more of a difficulty with some
populations and, in particular, to be a significant obstacle with the
needs assessments regarding young adults and achievers. Young adults
have been quite reluctant to participate and frequently become bored
before completing the survey. The more “at risk” the young adults the
greater the difficulty in identifying them and securing their
participation. Achievers are frequently reluctant to self-identify. Due
to these difficulties in securing participation of young adults and
achievers, other methods of carrying out a needs assessment are being
planned for young adults and achievers. At this time, a combination of
focus groups and key informant interviews are being planned and
developed as an alternative to the telephone survey.

Conclusion
This chapter has described and evaluated the Priority Funding
Procedure. This procedure has proven itself worthwhile in identifying
Coates 247

needs/problems, evaluating programs which seek to address these

needs/problems, and in directing resources toward those services which are
considered to be the highest priority. As a result of Priority Funding, new
programs have an equal opportunity of securing funds as membership no
longer guarantees funding. Both new and established programs are
evaluated by the same criteria. Criticisms stemming from a history of
“member-only funding” are removed, and accountability is present both to
donors (through donor option) and to the community (through community
needs assessment). As well, the procedure for arriving at funding decisions
is well-defined and provides assurance to the community in terms of the
disbursement of contributions.
As a result of the needs assessment, Priority Funding has challenged
the United Way to move away from an exclusive focus on fundraising into
areas such as social planning and advocacy, especially in areas where a
need for new or modified services is required. Priority Funding has enabled
resources to be directed toward the most needed programs, and the next
challenge is to incorporate a sense of community strengths (Kretzman &
McKnight, 1993) in an effort to build community rather than focussing
attention primarily on needs. Community building will assume greater
attention in the future to fill the gap created by the withdrawal of
government services and leadership.

Endnotes
1. Approximately eight United Way Agencies in Canada have adapted
Priority Funding for use in their community (personal communication,
Mr. Clair Smith, Executive Director, United Way/Centraide (Central
N.B./Region du Centre N.-B.)), Fredericton, NB, E3B 6E9. August 18,
1997).

2. The number of applications an Allocations Committee member handles

depends on the number of committee members, their experience, and
the number of applications. In Fredericton, the community needs
assessment is completed in the winter and spring months, and the
results are provided to all member agencies in September when
application forms are sent out. The funding applications are received
in December and reviewed between January and early March, after
which the funding recommendations are submitted to the United Way
Board. In March, agencies are provided with funds which are
designated for them through donor option. They are informed of
program allocations prior to the commencement of the April 1 fiscal
year. The amount allocated to each program will depend on the
approved request (minus the amount provided via donor option) and
248 Community Needs Assessment and Priority Funding

the amount of money raised. The committee uses discretion to allocate

funds, and several alternatives are possible. Alternatives include
funding the highest ranking programs at 100 percent until all funds are
committed; or funding the top 10 programs at 100 percent, the next ten
at 90 percent, etc.; or, starting from the highest priority, funding each
program in proportion to its total score until all funds are allocated (i.e.,
a program which received an overall score of 85 would be funded at 85
percent of its approved request). Many alternatives are possible and
the alternative most appropriate to local needs can be followed.

3. While the sample can often be selected from a list purchased from a
“list broker,” there is frequently a minimum charge (for example, $500)
which may not be affordable. In Fredericton, it has been more
advantageous to create a sampling frame using the Polk Fredericton
City Directory (1994). This format enabled the survey to consider
specific social or political areas of the community which are considered
to be important and relevant for the population under review. Needs
specific to an area could be more effectively targeted, and demographic
data from the survey could be compared to the census or municipal
data to establish the degree of representativeness.

4. Applications from agencies which do not currently receive funds have

the points for Agency Questionnaire prorated based on the other parts
of the program funding application.

5. Over the past few years at the United Way/Centraide, (Central

N.B./Region du Centre N.-B.), volunteers from the university or
statisticians have provided this service under contract. When a fee for
service has been employed, the maximum cost has been $500.
6. For some surveys, as many as 25 telephone calls have been made for
each completed interview.

References
Brilliant, E. (1990). The United Way: Dilemmas of organized charity. New
York: Columbia University Press.
Coates, J. (1995a). Priority funding procedure. A diskette prepared by and
available from the United Way/Centraide (Central N.B./Region du
Centre N.-B.), Fredericton, NB.
Coates, J. (1995b). Needs assessment research project report. Fredericton,
NB. United Way/Centraide (Central N.B./Region du Centre N.-B.),
Fredericton, NB.
Coates 249

Grinnell, R. (1997). Social work research and evaluation. Itasca, Ilinois:

F.E. Peacock Publishers, Inc.
Mark, R. (1996). Research made simple: A handbook for social workers.
London: Sage Publications.
Kretzman, J. & McKnight, J. (1993). Building communities from the inside
out: A path toward finding and mobilizing community assets.
Chicago.: ACTA Publications.
Polk Canada, Ltd. (1994). Polk 1994 Fredericton city directory.
Vancouver: Polk Canada Ltd.
Rubin, A. & Babbie, E. (1989). Research methods for social workers.
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company.
Wilcox, J. (1997). United Way in the new millennium. Keynote Address,
United Way of Canada 1997 Annual Conference. Montreal, Quebec.
March 3.
 CHAPTER 16

GAMBLING ON GAMBLING:
A RURAL/NORTHERN DILEMMA

GLENN HALVERSON, RAY NECKOWAY,

AND KEITH BROWNLEE

Introduction
Provincial governments across Canada suggest it is possible to sustain
social program delivery and reduce taxes at the same time. They have found
what they promote as a win-win solution to maintaining funding levels for
social programs, education, health, and First Nation community
development in a period of federal and provincial tax cuts. They can do it,
they say, through legalized gambling. While gambling was, for the most
part, illegal in Canada until the provinces gained exclusive control of it in
1985, today it has become an increasing popular method of accruing
revenue to provincial government coffers without politically risky tax hikes.
And, because gambling activity is legal now, promoted by government, and
because a portion of gambling revenue is used for the public good,
Canadians seem to have embraced the idea. But, what are the hidden costs
of using gambling revenue to fund provincial and First Nation social policy
initiatives, and is this solution sustainable over time? Is this a well thought
out social policy or a roll of the dice?
Scattered throughout each provincial north, rural and remote
communities generally rely on a primary resource, like timber or mining.
These communities experience global market effects of their commodity
which follows a boom or bust cycle (Schmidt, 2000). At the best of times
resource-based communities cannot totally fund the social services they
require (Wharf, 1999). These conditions make it appealing to rural, northern
communities to participate in some form of gambling, usually a casino or
video lottery terminals. The money from these gambling venues goes into
provincial coffers with a percentage returning to the community. One
northern Ontario community receives five percent of total revenues from the
local, provincially-owned casino. This raises the issue of whether rural,
northern communities who draw their gambling revenues from the local
population can sustain this practice over the long term.
This chapter will look at the relationship between gambling revenue
and the various risks provincial governments are willing to undertake. It will
look at the history of this relationship, where we are today, and where we
may be heading tomorrow. Because it is likely that provincial governments
will continue to look to gambling as a source of revenue in the future, some
suggestions, garnered from the literature, are provided for managing the
social, moral, and economic implications of this relationship.

250
Halverson, Neckoway, & Brownlee 251

A Brief History of Gambling and Government in Canada

To understand the relationship between gambling and government in

Canada today, and to perhaps predict how this relationship may evolve in
the future, we need first to look at the past. Gambling is regulated through
the Criminal Code of Canada. When the Criminal Code was adopted in
1892, gambling was categorized as an illegal activity in Canada, ironically
under a section titled “Offenses against Religion, Morals and Public
Convenience” (Smith & Hinch, 1996, p. 40). But, over the past century,
there have been incremental changes in legislation that have allowed the
evolution of the gambling/government relationship we see today (Campbell
& Smith, 1998, p. 23).
While all gambling activity in Canada was illegal in 1892, in 1900 an
amendment was made that permitted small raffles (not exceeding fifty
dollars) to be conducted at religious or charitable bazaars for the purpose of
fundraising. This amendment, as minor as it was, may well have established
the relationship between gambling revenue and social program funding that
exists today. The Criminal Code was amended again in 1906 to allow
provision for a “lottery scheme.” In 1910, some limited on-track betting was
allowed through the Criminal Code, and, in 1925, agricultural fairs were
permitted to offer games of chance at fairs and exhibitions. The Criminal
Code was amended once again in 1969 so that provincial governments
could regulate “lottery schemes.” This amendment allowed the provinces to
license the use of these to religious and charitable groups. Finally, in 1985,
provinces gained exclusive control over gambling under the Criminal Code,
and slot machines and VLTs were legalized, paving the way for the
government casinos we see today. The significant effect of the 1985
amendment, especially for the purposes of this chapter, was that, “Along
with the expansion of electronic gambling, the amendment further solidified
the provinces’ grip on gambling as charitable groups and First Nations’
bands were required to operate under their authority” (MacLaurin &
MacLaurin, 2003, p. 328). An interesting observation made by Campbell
and Smith (1998) is that most of these Criminal Code amendments,
including the major ones in 1969 and 1985 that shifted responsibility to the
provinces, were made “with an absence of public debate” (p. 23). The last
public review of gambling legislation, at least at the federal level, was in
1955. But public debate or not, these were “the changes during the last three
decades which have brought gambling from the periphery of the daily life of
Canadians into the centre of the national agenda, particularly social policy”
(Seelig & Seelig, 1998, p. 92).

Gambling and Government in Canada Today

So what does the gambling/government relationship look like today?
Gambling in Canada is, for the most part, a public ownership model (Korn,
2000, p. 62). As was outlined above, provincial governments regulate all
gaming activity in Canada. They are also owner-operators of most gambling
infrastructure, and beneficiaries of most gambling revenue. In terms of
252 Gambling on Gambling: A Rural/Northern Dilemma

gambling infrastructure, in 2000 there were “over 50 permanent casinos,

21,000 slot machines, 38,000 video lottery terminals, 20,000 annual bingo
events, and 44 permanent horse race tracks in Canada” (Azmier & Roach,
2000, p. 3). In terms of revenue, this infrastructure generated about $5.4
billion dollars to the provinces in 1999-2000, nearly equal to the $5.8 billion
that provinces raised from alcohol and tobacco taxes combined (Azmier &
Roach, p. 4).
While we can see that provincial governments are major stakeholders in
legalized gambling, there are several others as well, and each is impacted
differently by changes in the gambling/government relationship. One of
these stakeholders is charitable organizations. Charitable groups receive a
portion of government gambling revenue to support their various programs
and worthwhile causes. This relationship is a complicated one, which will
be discussed in some detail below. Another stakeholder is First Nations
communities, who negotiate within their province to establish a Casino and
the terms and conditions of keeping gambling revenue. While many First
Nations believe that, as distinct and sovereign nations, they should not be
affected by provincial legislation, to date they are forced to comply with
provincial gaming regulations through a Supreme Court ruling (Kelley,
2001, p. 4). The First Nation relationship to gambling revenue is complex
and unique and, like charities, will be discussed at some length below. Yet
another stakeholder group is Canadian taxpayers and citizens. Gambling
revenue appears to be able to keep taxes down, at least for now, and is what
Smith and Hinch (1996) refer to as a “voluntary tax” (p. 42)—one that is
likely more acceptable to taxpayers and citizens than an involuntary one.
Taxpayers are also stakeholders in two other ways. First, they use the social
services, facilities, and programs that are funded by gambling revenue, and
second, in many cases they gamble themselves. How much they gamble,
however, brings us to the social, moral, and economic implications of using
gambling revenue to fund social policy initiatives.

Risk and Reward: What the Literature Tells Us

One thing that we know from looking at the history of gambling and
government is that, “gambling has become an increasingly prevalent,
accepted, and lucrative enterprise across Canada” (Govoni et al, 1998, p.
348). The literature also tells us that gambling as a government revenue
source comes with its fair share of social, moral, and economic implications.
The most vocal opposition to government legislated gambling, and the
use of gambling revenue to fund social policy, is related to its social
implications. Quite simply, the argument is that gambling is addictive and
that increased exposure to gambling availability, over time, will lead to an
increase in the number of problem and pathological gamblers (Cox et al.,
2005, p. 216). Opponents of government legislated gambling argue that, in
terms of social costs, the risks outweigh the rewards. While quantifying that
argument is difficult, some researchers have tried, and one suggests “that
raising revenue through gambling results in $1.50 in social costs for every
tax dollar raised” (Grinols, 1994, as cited in Henriksson & Lipsey, 1999, p.
265). To understand where these significant social costs might be incurred,
Halverson, Neckoway, & Brownlee 253

we need to look more closely at the concept of problem and pathological

gambling. Henriksson citing Volberg (1993) describes “problem gambling”
as referring to “all of the patterns of gambling behaviour that compromise,
disrupt or damage personal, family or vocational pursuits” (1996, p. 119).
He goes on to cite Murray’s (1993) description of “pathological gambling”
as “the repeated failure to resist the urge to gamble, resulting in disruptive
patterns that impair the ability to function in personal, family, and
occupational roles” (p. 119). Another tool used to identify types of gamblers
is the Canadian Problem Gambling Index (CPGI), which categorizes
gamblers along a continuum of non-gamblers to problem gamblers
(Anielski, & Braaten, 2008). As to the social cost of creating one problem
gambler, according to Robert Goodman (1994) in his study of the U.S.
gaming industry, “estimated the annual cost to the public per problem
gambler is $13,200 U.S.” (Seelig & Seelig, 1998, p. 96). This cost includes
income lost through job loss as well as the cost of prosecuting and
imprisoning those problem gamblers convicted of theft and other crimes. It
doesn’t include the non-monetary social costs of marriage break-up, family
violence, and mental anguish that often accompany addictive behaviour
(Anielski, 2008).
Based on a Harvard Medical School meta-analysis of studies done over
a 25 year period prior to 1997, research suggests a lifetime prevalence rate
of problem or pathological gambling among the overall adult population in
Canada and the United States of about 5.5% (Korn, 2000, p. 62). In some
provinces, prevalence rates are significantly higher than 5.5%, and these
gamblers contribute far more to government coffers than non-problem
gamblers do:
A disproportionate amount of British Columbia gambling dollars come
from the 7.8 percent of the population who are problem gamblers, since
they gamble far greater amounts than non-problem gamblers. Average
monthly expenditures by problem and pathological gamblers in British
Columbia totaled $273; non-problem gamblers spent, on average,
$82.25 (Gemini Research, 1994, as cited in Seelig & Seelig, 1998, p.
102).
Another social implication of legalized gambling is that it attracts
“financially vulnerable and marginalized populations” (Korn, 2000, p. 63).
According to recent Statistics Canada reports, households with at least one
gambler, and with yearly incomes totaling less than $20,000, spent an
average of 2.2% of total household income on gambling. Households with
total incomes greater than $80,000 spent only 0.5% of total income (Korn,
p. 63). These types of statistics have given gambling its label as not only a
voluntary tax, but a voluntary regressive tax.
Within this context of social implications, it is easier to understand the
moral implications of funding provincial and First Nation social policy
initiatives through gambling. Peter Adams (2007), in his research on the
relationship between social service agencies and revenue from “dangerous
consumption industries” (including gambling), put it quite succinctly:
Accordingly, it is becoming less easy for public good organizations to
maintain positions of ethical integrity regarding acceptance of money
from all such sources. Increasingly, they encounter the dilemma of
254 Gambling on Gambling: A Rural/Northern Dilemma

whether to accept some of this funding or to face reduced operations

and perhaps discontinuation (p. 1027).
Charitable organizations and social service agencies in Canada have
also become increasingly reliant on government funding tied to gambling
revenue. In 1998, charitable organizations alone received nearly $1 billion
dollars in gambling grants and charitable gambling revenue from the
provinces (Azmier & Roach, 2000, p. 5). Adams (2007) suggests that
agencies and organizations that come to depend on these gambling revenues
face a variety of moral issues that include several types of risks, such as,
ethical risks, reputational risks, governance risks, and relationship risks. He
defines “ethical risks” as emerging when “a person or an organization
receives money for public good purposes from a source that achieves the
opposite” (2007, p. 1028). Based on the research on the social costs of
gambling, ethical risk could easily be a concern. “Reputational risk” is the
negative perception that potential consumers of services might have
regarding agencies that accept gambling revenue. The issue of “governance
risk” is of special significance in considering the relationship between First
Nations and gambling revenue, and will be discussed in more detail below,
but it applies to charitable organizations and agencies as well. It is the issue
of whether accepting gambling revenues from governments “could impact
on the capacity of services or organizations to make choices about their
future” (Adams, p. 1028). Finally, “relationship risks” address whether
accepting funding from gambling might impact negatively on attitudes
and/or participation of staff, volunteers, and/or partner agencies and
organizations with moral concerns about this type of funding.
While Adams suggests it is tempting for organizations to take a “binary
approach” when addressing these moral risks, either willingly accepting or
flatly rejecting gambling revenues as funding, he recommends what he calls
a “continuum of moral jeopardy” (2007, p. 1029). He recommends this
approach as a more effective way to assess risk and provides a framework
(PERIL) for agencies and organizations to do their own self-assessment. A
detailed description of the PERIL process is beyond the scope of this
chapter; however, Adams’ work does bring up an important point. As
suggested at the outset of this chapter, it is likely that governments will
continue to look to gambling as a source of revenue in the future, so it is
important to look beyond the all-or-nothing ideologies that are found in
much of the literature on gambling, and try to determine where charitable
agencies place themselves on the continuum of accepting revenues
generated by gambling.
One area where more informed decisions are essential is in the area of
“economic implications” of using gambling revenue to fund social policy.
The economic implications can be divided into effectiveness and
sustainability. The literature tells us that gambling is generally not an
effective revenue generating activity, but is instead a form of income
redistribution. This is easiest to understand by looking at government
casinos. For a casino to generate “new” revenue for a community, a region,
or a province, it needs to bring people in from outside that community,
region, or province. Seelig and Seelig (1998) write:
The source of gambling dollars is a significant factor in revenue
Halverson, Neckoway, & Brownlee 255

generation. In cases where tourists are the source of gambling dollars,

the gambling jurisdiction is in the fortunate position of gaining revenue
while incurring minimal expenditures. However, if the locals get
hooked, the social costs stay in the community and the gambling dollars
become very expensive since they are offset by expenditures on social
services and lost productivity in the workplace. When local people
spend their money on gambling, no new wealth is generated. What is
spent on gambling is simply not spent elsewhere (p. 100).
The literature suggests that most often it’s the locals who get hooked. A
1996 study authored for the government of Ontario “stressed that most
charity casino gamblers were expected to come from within a 50-km radius
of the facility” (Coopers & Lybrand, 1996, as cited in Henriksson, 2001, p.
116). This brings us to the issue of sustainability. Service agencies,
charitable organizations, and many First Nation communities are become
increasingly more reliant on gambling revenue. For this to be a long term
social policy strategy, gambling as a revenue source needs to be sustainable
over time, while not increasing social and moral risks in the process.
There are several issues around sustainability. One relates to the fact
that, as was discussed above, most gambling revenue is generated through
money lost by locals. For most people, the novelty of gambling will
eventually wear off; therefore, “gambling interests must continually expand,
provide greater thrills, or otherwise get harder forms of gambling to keep
attracting players” (Kindt, 1994, as cited in Smith & Hinch, 1996, p. 44). To
sustain revenues, many casinos have extended their hours, increased betting
limits, and put more emphasis on slot machines. While these efforts will
likely sustain revenues, at least for the short-term, each of them creates
greater social risk. Increased hours means increased exposure, which means
higher risk of problem gambling; and increased betting limits speak for
themselves. Finally, an emphasis on slot machines is an emphasis on
“harder” gambling. Slot machines (VLTs in some provinces) are considered
a “hard” form of gambling in that these machines are highly addictive and
are “strongly associated with the likelihood of disordered gambling” (Cox et
al., 2005, p. 214).
Another issue around sustainability is competition. Competition can
come in the form of external competition, competition that the provinces
can’t regulate, such as Internet gambling or tourist destinations like Las
Vegas. Competition can also come in the form of internal competition. And,
once again, this is easiest to understand by looking at government casinos.
As it stands now, most provincial governments are in the fortunate position
of being able to regulate the distribution of casinos so that they create a
monopoly or quasi-monopoly in a community or in a region. Seelig and
Seelig (1998) cite Robert Goodman on the competitive advantage of this:
“Casinos have a restrictive licence: Goodman comments that any business
which enjoyed such a monopoly status—even bowling—would be
enormously successful” (p. 99). While this monopoly status exists for
government casinos today it may not in the future. As we will look at next,
First Nations have a unique relationship to gambling revenue, and
depending on how things unfold over the next several years, they may
provide some significant competition.
256 Gambling on Gambling: A Rural/Northern Dilemma

First Nations and Gambling

On-reserve gambling activities, including First Nation casinos, are
commonplace in almost every province in Canada, and, up until now, all
First Nations’ gambling activity has been conducted under the authority of
the provinces. This relationship, however, may change in the very near
future:
“Many First Nation leaders oppose the requirement that they seek
provincial approval to conduct gambling on reserve land. They claim
that as a distinct and sovereign nation whose lands are not under
provincial jurisdiction they have the right to conduct on-reserve
gambling activities and should not be obliged to comply with provincial
gaming regulations” (Skea, 1997, as cited in Kelley, 2001, p. 4).
What this will likely mean in the future is a First Nation gambling
policy that recognizes a unique relationship between First Nations and
gambling revenue. Although some First Nation communities look south to
the United States’ Indian Gambling Regulatory Act as a model, in Canada it
is more likely that we will see a collaborative effort between First Nation,
federal, and provincial governments. One case in point, “The Province of
Saskatchewan and the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations (FSIN)
have held discussions about working together to persuade the federal
government to amend the Criminal Code to grant First Nations greater
autonomy in regulating gambling on their reserves” (Kelley, 2001, p. 5).
While a significantly expanded role for First Nations in gambling is
likely imminent it will come with all of the social, moral, and economic
implications that were discussed earlier. The “social” implications are at
least as real for First Nation communities as any other. In fact, if low
income and high rates of unemployment are associated with higher levels of
problem gambling, as the literature suggests, then many First Nation
communities may experience very high social costs (Moore, 2000, as cited
in Kelley, 2001, p. 6). The social costs created by the First Nations casinos
may exceed the revenue they are able to generate. The “moral” implications
for First Nations casinos will be particularly high because of the close-knit
nature of the community and the high visibility of adverse consequences of
problem gambling. First Nation leaders’ family or friends will be personally
impacted, directly or indirectly, by the effects of problem or pathological
gamblers. Also, First Nations face significant governance risk, in that
collaboration with federal and provincial governments to generate gambling
revenue for community development and social programs might appear to
complicate or co-opt their efforts toward self-government.
As was the case with provincial gambling policies above, the
“economic” implications for First Nations gambling can also be divided into
issues of effectiveness and sustainability, and again this can most easily be
done by looking at casinos. To consider whether First Nation gambling
could be effective for generating revenue, it might be valuable to look at
whether the objective is to generate revenue for a single community (as is
the case with Manitoba) or whether the objective is to generate revenue for
all of the First Nations in a province (as is the case in Ontario). If the
objective is the former, then many communities would be at a disadvantage
Halverson, Neckoway, & Brownlee 257

in that they wouldn’t be able to draw from a large enough “tourist”

population. And, as Seelig and Seelig (1998) pointed out above, “When
[only] local people spend their money on gambling no new wealth is
generated. What is spent on gambling is simply not spent elsewhere” (p.
100). On top of that, if only local people spend their money on gambling,
and governments and operators take a cut, dollars will actually be leaving
these communities. If the latter is the objective, then the issue becomes one
of sustainability as much as effectiveness. These two features have been
addressed with the Ontario First Nations Limited Partnership (OFNLP)
signing a new agreement with the Province of Ontario in 2006. OFNLP
represents 134 First Nations in Ontario and distributes 65% of the funds
raised from the Casino Rama Revenue Agreement of 2000. In 2011, the new
agreement changes from the single source Casino Rama to the Ontario
Lottery & Gaming Corporation (OLG). OFNLP will receive 1.6% of OLG’s
revenue to distribute to Ontario’s First Nations. This agreement solidifies
the Province as the sole source of legalized gambling and offers a stable
income for First Nations in Ontario. The agreement between the Province
and the OFNLP allows Ontario First Nations to use the monies distributed
to them for capital and/or operating expenditures in respect to (a)
community development; (b) health; (c) education; (d) economic
development; (e) cultural development. First Nations must submit an
audited financial statement detailing the use of the funds received from the
province as a condition to receiving the following year’s disbursement.

What the Literature Doesn’t Tell Us (or Can’t Forecast)

There are a few things that the literature doesn’t tell us about funding
provincial and First Nation social policy initiatives through gambling
revenue. Although there is a good deal of research on the social costs of
problem and pathological gambling, it is very difficult to estimate the non-
monetary costs—i.e. the costs beyond lost wages, prosecution, and
imprisonment. These are the social costs of marriage break-up, family
violence, and mental anguish that were mentioned above. In addition,
research is suggesting that problem and pathological gambling has an
“incubation period” that may be as long as ten years (Miller, 1996, as cited
in Henriksson & Lipsey, 1999, p. 265). What this means is that we may be
just beginning to see the true social implications of legalized gambling in
Canada. To put some numbers to this, in terms of pathological gamblers,
Volberg’s 1994 study of gambling in five U.S. states (as cited in Seelig &
Seelig, 1998, p. 96) found that:
…in states where gambling had been available for less than 10 years,
fewer than 0.5 percent of adults were probable pathological gamblers,
while in states where gambling has been legalized for more than 20
years, 1.5 percent of adults were classified as probable pathological
gamblers.
Another thing that the literature doesn’t, and in fact can’t, tell us is the
future impact of competition on the effectiveness and sustainability of
gambling as a long-term revenue source. As was mentioned above,
258 Gambling on Gambling: A Rural/Northern Dilemma

competition can come in many forms. Internet gambling is a multi-billion

dollar industry with some major players in Canada: “Roughly 60 per cent of
the world’s online gambling traffic now flows through the servers of MIT, a
company wholly owned and overseen by the Mohawk Council of
Kahnawake” (Patriquin, 2007, p. 38). Competition can also come from a
new, more autonomous, First Nation gambling policy where provincial
charity casinos and First Nation casinos compete for the same dollar, or it
may come from more aggressive marketing of U.S. casinos—either large
destination casinos like Las Vegas or the smaller on-reserve casinos in close
proximity to large Canadian populations.
One final concern with the literature is not with what it doesn’t tell us,
or can’t tell us, but rather what it won’t tell us. This concern is that the
literature is largely based on, and supported by, two opposing ideologies.
Proponents of gambling, in this case not only the gaming industry but
governments themselves, paint a rosy picture of new jobs, new revenue, and
new opportunities for self sufficiency, while opponents of gambling paint a
bleak picture of addiction, broken homes, and broken dreams. In 1994
Robert Goodman (as cited in Henriksson, 1996, p. 121) reviewed 14 studies
on the economic impact of casinos. Of those, he found only four that he
considered “mostly balanced” or “balanced.” This makes trying to evaluate
the social, moral and economic implications of using gambling revenue for
social policy initiatives a “roll of the dice” in itself.

Some Suggestions

Even with the social, moral, and economic implications, provincial

governments are likely to continue to look to gambling revenue to support
charitable organizations, social services, and First Nation community
development in the future. Quite simply put, “Canadian governments are
addicted to gambling” (Thompson, as cited in Campbell & Smith, 1998, p.
34). But, that doesn’t mean that they can’t be influenced, or encouraged, to
take a more thoughtful approach, and there are a number of
recommendations in the literature that might help. One suggestion, as was
mentioned above, is to conduct independently funded research on the risks
and rewards of legalized gambling so that whatever decisions are made in
the future are informed decisions. It is important to remember that
governments are not entirely neutral on the issue of legalized gambling, so
research generated by, and for, governments must be cautiously evaluated.
In fact, another suggestion is that the dual relationship that provincial
governments have with gambling, as both regulator and benefactor, should
itself be regularly evaluated. The Ontario Ombudsman identified the
Ontario government as hopelessly conflicted over the desire for profits and
its core values of integrity, respect, and accountability. Recommendations
were made to restore public confidence and reduce the opportunities of
fraud (Ombudsman Report, 2007).
Another recommendation (Seelig & Seelig, 1998) is to have direct
public input into gambling policy through provincial referendums that
would let citizens decide the extent that gambling should be used to
Halverson, Neckoway, & Brownlee 259

generate provincial revenue (1998, p. 104). They could be offered a slate of

choices that could include “accepting the social costs of gambling, raising
taxes, or reducing spending.” Other authors’ recommend that governments’
weigh the difference between raising taxes and/or reducing spending versus
raising money through gambling. Henriksson and Lipsey (1999) provide
some numbers to support the effectiveness of either raising taxes or
lowering expenditures to reduce government reliance on gambling revenues.
In their calculations, they look at incremental revenues from gambling in
British Columbia; “new net revenue” calculated by taking gross revenue and
subtracting both the estimated revenue merely diverted from other gambling
activity; and also the estimated taxes from other forms of spending that
those gambling losses were diverted from. They suggest that even a massive
increase in incremental gambling revenue could be offset by either raising
the PST from 7 to 7.14 percent and the PIT from 50 to 51 percent, or by a
modest spending reduction of between 0.3 percent and 1 percent of total
program expenditures (p. 270). These suggestions would involve some
movement on the part of the provincial governments. Others such as
reducing or eliminating advertising, as has been done with other addictive
but legal activities such as drinking and smoking, might involve less.
Whatever the suggestion, the reoccurring theme is for provinces to make
sure they end up “with revenue-raising mechanisms that do not generate
more problems than they solve” (Henriksson, 1996, p. 124).
The provinces find themselves in an ethical dilemma by controlling the
amount of gambling revenue used to address the social and economic
impacts attributable to gambling. The provincial government also controls
the number of social work positions it creates and finances to address
problematic or pathological gambling. Social workers come into contact
with the social and economic costs of gambling through existing provincial
services like child welfare, youth services, women’s shelters, counseling, or
welfare programs. Social workers are in a unique position to provide
information on the social and economic costs of gambling because of their
involvement with people who are affected. National and provincial
associations of social workers have not mounted a sustained voice on the
use of gambling as a funding scheme for provincial governments.

Conclusions

As was stated in the introduction, “because gambling activity is legal

now, promoted by government, and because a portion of gambling revenue
is used for the public good, Canadians seem to have embraced the idea.”
But, judging from the literature, we are incurring significant social costs
through increased reliance on gambling revenue to fund provincial and First
Nation social policy initiatives. There are also emerging questions about the
sustainability of this strategy over time, and public opinion seems to be
shifting. Citizens are demanding plebiscites on gambling activity as they
realize its true cost to society (Azmier & Roach, 2000, p. 7). This has
happened before. If governments continue to roll the dice, upping the ante
each time they open a casino, extend hours, raise betting limits, or promote
260 Gambling on Gambling: A Rural/Northern Dilemma

harder forms of gambling, they increase the social, moral, and economic
risk. If they aren’t careful and thoughtful in developing future gambling
policy, eventually the whole thing could come “crashing down in scandal
and ruin” (Rose, 1991, as cited in Smith & Hinch, 1996, p. 44). It has
happened twice before in the U.S. in what Rose calls the first and second
wave. If all levels of government in Canada, including First Nations, don’t
cautiously assess the role, place, and size of gambling as a revenue source
for social policy and community development initiatives, and work to
mitigate some of the social, moral, and economic risks, we may get caught
in the third wave:
A casino acts like a black hole sucking money out of the local
economy. No one cares if you suck money out of tourists, but large-
scale casinos that do not bring in more tourist dollars than they take
away from local players and local businesses soon find themselves
outlawed (Rose, as cited in Smith & Hinch, p. 44).

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PART IV: ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL
 CHAPTER 17

SOCIAL AGENCIES IN RURAL AND

NORTHERN AREAS
ROGER DELANEY, DAVID TRANTER,
AND KEITH BROWNLEE

Social agencies do not exist, nor have they ever existed, in a vacuum.
Indeed, social agencies “reflect and react to the general political and social
climate that surrounds them” (Jaco, 1986, p. 257). The positive gains achieved
by the Canadian social welfare system in the 1960s and 1970s have been
slowly eroded during the 1980s and the first half of the 1990s. The second half
of the 1990s appears to have been even more negative for Canada’s social
agencies and, in particular, for northern social agencies. A major factor in this
decline of Canada’s social programs, with its accompanying decrease in
physical and emotional resources for its citizens, is the “globalization”
movement. Driven by multi-national companies and neo-conservative and
right-wing liberal governments, free trade agreements are slowly beginning to
erode the ability of governments to govern and to control the economic forces
within their own territories (Clarke, 1997). In more vulnerable and dependent
contexts such as Canada=s northern regions, these economic forces and the
corporate attitudes aligned with them can be an even greater presence. What is
at stake for social agencies is that the attitudes, responses, and anxieties that
have accompanied the economic vulnerabilities have set the stage for
corporatist ideas to permeate, infuse, and shape the thinking and decision-
making of social agencies.
The free trade agreements sanctioned by neo-conservative and right-wing
liberal governments have sinister implications for the Canadian social welfare
system.
Their [neo-conservative and market-force arguments] remarkably
successful demonization of the public sector has turned much of the
citizenry against their own mechanisms. Many of us have been enrolled in
the cause of interests that have no particular concern for the citizen’s
welfare. Our welfare. Instead, the citizen is reduced to the status of a
subject at the foot of the throne of the marketplace (Saul, 1995, p. 80).
This new thrust, known as “corporatism,” is entering into the life blood of
social agencies and is being driven by a desire to alter the organizational
culture of social agencies.
The ultimate source of an organization’s culture is its founders. It is
sustained by the organization’s selection and socialization processes and
the actions of top management. It is transmitted through stories, rituals,
material symbols, and language (Robbins, 1990, p. 462).
Because social agencies are dependent on the government or the public for

265
266 Social Agencies in Rural and Northern Areas

funding, government policy, in essence, is the founder of the agency and, as

such, has the power to determine not only the nature of the organization’s
services, but, equally important, how these services will be delivered:
... corporatismCwith its market and technology-led delusionsCis
profoundly tied to a mechanistic view of the human race. This is not an
ideology with any interest in or commitment to the shape of society or the
individual as citizen. It is fixed upon a rush to use machineryCinanimate
or humanCwhile these are still at full value; before they suffer any
depreciation (Saul, 1995, p. 162).
With a powerful rhetoric (language), propaganda (self-serving information),
and dialect (use of corporate language) (Saul, 1995), corporatism is attempting
to gain global control of the economy and ascendency of the economy over
social policy.
With Canada’s provincial norths essentially dependent on the powerful
provincial south and with Canada=s northern territories essentially depending on
Ottawa, corporatism has control of the instrumental mechanisms to bring its
dominion over northern agencies. With a strong belief in community control
(Cassidy, 1991; Wharf, 1992, 1991; Zapf, 1996b, 1991), northern communities
may soon experience increased tensions and general sense of alienation. Yet,
with the influence of multi-national companies and other economic interest
groups, it is very difficult to find the “enemy” to be angry with. How does a
community or citizen confront what is global?

Centralized Decision-Making and Power

Provincial norths and many rural areas are often characterized by the
existence of one larger community, such as Thunder Bay or Edmonton,
surrounded by a series of much smaller communities. In northwestern Ontario,
for example, Thunder Bay has a population of approximately 120,000 people.
The next largest communities—Kenora, Dryden and Fort Frances—have
populations of 10,000 or less. In turn, scores of other communities in the area
have even smaller populations. Perhaps the most evident problem for social
agencies in northern and rural areas is the requirement to adapt to decisions
made by a central authority located in the larger community while sensitizing
that authority to the unique contexts of the smaller community.
Because government is organized into bureaucratic units called ministries
or departments, the work of government is assigned into these units. The result
is a number of discrete units in control of a particular government functions,
such as revenues, social services, health services, northern services, economic
development, and labour. By using such mechanisms as cabinet, privy councils
and policy committees, politicians are able to designate funds and resources to
these departments based on the government’s priorities. However, these
priorities are often politically biased and since most votes are in the provincial
souths, so too are the priorities. As Zapf (1999, 1997, 1996a, 1991) also notes,
when the north does receive attention, it is accompanied with a southern belief
that sees the north as a deprived south: that is, the north is viewed in terms of
the southern metaphors for the north.
Delaney, Tranter, & Brownlee 267

However, when government decentralizes its functions to agencies, these

agencies are restricted to the functions of the ministry or department.
Moreover, when the ministries or departments contract out services to private
agencies, these contracted services are limited to the mandate of the licencing
or granting ministry or department. As a result, the integrative function of
government is highly centralized and subject to political direction by the
governing party. In addition, many ministries and departments are also highly
centralized and the decision-making power is highly controlled by senior
bureaucrats.
Not only does this tendency to centralize rest with government, but also
many local agencies have adopted decision-making mechanisms with the
establishment of boards of directors who make policy and fiscal decisions for
the agency and to whom all agency managers report. In effect, highly
centralized models perpetuate highly centralized “copy-cat” organizational
structures, sometimes because it “just looks right=” to those with the power to
establish agencies.
Even worse is the development of multi-service agencies that give the
external appearance of being integrated, community-based agencies. However,
many of these agencies are simply nothing more than one building housing
autonomous and independent units. While there are cost savings in
management and some service areas, linkages to the community are often a
function of worker/manager interest and not a matter of agency protocol. For
example, in one multi-service agency in Prince Edward Island, each service
unit demanded that its file folders be a different colour than those of any other
unit and that only staff from that unit could access file folders of this colour. In
other words, child mental health would have blue folders; adult mental health,
red folders; agricultural services, white folders; financial assistance services,
pink folders; or child welfare services, orange folders. All staff were eventually
assigned identification cards in the colour of their unit, and only when
presenting the correctly coloured identification card could, the staff member
access a file of the same colour. In a short time, there was even an effort to
attempt to establish colour as “status,” that is, a white card had greater status
than a pink card.
John Eldon Green (1981), who was Deputy Minister when this attempt
was made to integrate and coordinate government programs in Prince Edward
Island, stated that the following lessons were learned from this experience:
We have learned three important lessons from our efforts to achieve
service coordination. The first lesson was that if coordination is to be
achieved in a consistent and reliable fashion, it must be based on formal
inter-agency agreements and not on the chance goodwill of staff at
various levels of the bureaucracy. This we consider to be a most important
area of management oversight.
The second lesson was that it is not important that all directly related
services be integrated within any one management system, nor indeed that
the same mix of services be subject to integration in every jurisdiction.
Attempts to achieve full integration can be very threatening to established
and legitimate service interests, and can result in long-term resistance to
268 Social Agencies in Rural and Northern Areas

real service cooperation and team work. On the other hand, if there is any
doubt whatever as to whether or not certain services should be integrated
there can certainly be no doubt about the need to coordinate those
particular services.
The third lesson was that no system with multiple authorities can
function without a great deal of voluntary inter-service cooperation, and
that this cooperation can neither be imposed or enforced but must be
earned by those who seek it. The threat to established interests which is
implied by the terms “integration” and “coordination” must first be
removed before progress can be made in either direction (emphasis in
original, p. 68).
Relying on the goodwill of people and on what is in the best interest of the
community is not sufficient to ensure integration of services and community
involvement. As an example of structural changes that support rural and
northern contexts, Walker and Taylor (1997) suggest that the Policy
Governance Model as described by Carver (1990) is a community controlled
structure which allows the board to be context sensitive and contextually
focussed—two aspects that are critical to northern social work practice
(Delaney, 1995). In this model,
Through establishing explicit governing policies, the board sets the
direction of the organization (Ends), ensures prudent and ethical conduct
of its members (Executive Limitations), delegates power to staff (Board-
Executive Relationship) and specifies its job contributions to the
organization (Board Process). The board assures the executive
performance by monitoring whether the executive director has complied
adequately with the board policies towards “accomplished (Ends) and
what must not occur for reasons of ethics or prudence (Executive
Limitations)” (Walker & Taylor, 1997, p. 106).
This example of one possible structural change that would allow agencies to
serve better northern and rural communities suggests that the issues of power
and “southern metaphoric” models of agency structure can be addressed if the
goal of empowerment is kept as a clear objective.

Empowering Northern and Rural Agencies

Lerner (1997) suggests that empowering people is not about making work
easier, but about making work meaningful. “The test of non-alienating work is
not that it is always easy or always fun, but that it makes sense to us. It makes
us feel connected to others, and to a larger ethical or spiritual purpose” (p.
249).
Wharf (1995), using child welfare as an example, provides suggestions of
how to move service delivery away from a “power-over” approach to a
“power-with” approach. He suggests a power-sharing approach which respects
the realities of the client’s context, both personal and social; allows the client to
participate as a partner with the agency; and, by rejecting both the investigative
approach and the corporate approach to management, allows for the sharing of
power between staff and management characterized by:
Delaney, Tranter, & Brownlee 269

1. An emphasis on people. People are challenged and developed; they are

given power to act and to use their judgment.
2. Participative leadership. Leadership is not authoritarian but participative
wherever possible.
3. Innovative work styles. Staff reflect on their performance. They seek to
solve problems creatively.
4. Strong client orientation. These organizations focus strongly on their
clients, deriving satisfaction from serving the clients rather than the
bureaucracy.
5. A mind set that seeks optimum performance. People hold values that drive
them to seek improvements in their organization=s performance (Brodtrick,
1981, p. 18-19, cited in Wharf, 1995, p. 9).
Power-sharing models essentially reflect a “power-with” orientation where
people experience
their sense of connection with other people, all other people; their grasp of
the concept of collectivity and collective responsibility; their lack of an
individualistic stance and ego, as opposed to a sense of self; their sense of
process and change; their understanding of their own process of learning;
their realistic sense of their own power...; their grasp of “power-with” as
an alternative to “power-over”... (Bishop, 1994, p. 95).
In short, it is an approach congruent with the value base of social work.
Moreover, it supports Gil=s (1998) notion that the work of social work must
incorporate a dedication to the ethical obligation of social justice (Gil, 1998),
regardless of practice setting or agency roles.
To achieve empowerment, social agencies in rural and northern areas must
be allowed to structure and organize themselves in a way that is contextually
sensitive and respectful. The simplicity of these words obscures the challenges
of a process that requires sagacity. It requires both awareness of and sensitivity
to the patterns, traditions, stories, and lived experiences that are the very spirit
of the community. How is a social worker to be sensitive, respectful, and
contextually appropriate if the ebb, flow and social contours of the community
are sensed incompletely? Empowerment will not come from an organization
that is in constant movement against of local custom or local reality. It requires
managers and staff to depart from the habitual, the familiar and to begin new
ways of doing their work, and it is the community that must be the central
informant in this emerging and developing process.
Collier (1993) brings forward consideration of the importance and
difficulty workers experience when attempting to adapt and work effectively
with rural and remote communities. Understanding a community takes time. It
can not be hurried; it should not be rushed and never reduced to a simple
questionnaire. A community deserves to determine its own wishes, its own
destiny. Effective, respectful work involves talking to people, listening to
people, and respecting all ideas and learning. Much may prove difficult to
understand. Ensuring time is the first and perhaps greatest challenge facing
those who would design and develop local social agencies. Yet, in a
production-based, corporate-driven world of government, there is little
appreciation for both time and the necessity for sincere, collaborative
270 Social Agencies in Rural and Northern Areas

involvement when dealing with small communities. As one senior government

official from Thunder Bay responded to the issue of time and community-
driven design models, “we know how to organize for maximum efficiency. We
have to stop re-inventing the wheel and simply do better work. We hire people
who know what to do. That’s why we pay them.” That is also why so many of
our rural and northern communities may not feel connected to agencies in their
own communities.
If government could decentralize power to localities, then a single agency
with multi-functions and multi-ministry funding could be located in small
communities. Such an agency, based on power-sharing and power-with
organizing principles, would not only invite the community to participate in
agency policy and service decisions, but also would essentially work with the
community in both social and economic development capacities.
One of the critical components of designing such an agency is community
fit, making it impossible to state specifically how these agencies should be
structured. While it may be tempting to suggest modelling local agencies on
what seems to be working best in small communities now, this would only
serve to defeat the process of sensitization to the community=s contextual
patterns and history. What is important is that the agency makes sense to both
the community and to the agency’s professional and indigenous staff. This is
not as easy as it may seem, since many communities are in different stages of
colonization, oppression, or economic health. Each community does have a
history; a story by which the inhabitants understand their community. This
history could result in the community being defensive or reactive to social
change and social justice issues. In many devastated communities, groups of
people or families have taken power and do not want to give it up. Rampant
nepotism, financial mishandlings, and manipulation are sometimes the
unfortunate result.
However, these attributes are often the outcome of pre-existing events and
one of the major roles of a community social agency is to help the community
deconstruct the existing “reality” which creates power and social imbalances
and to help reconstruct a “renewed reality” based both on the community’s
history and the community’s values. Nevertheless, there will be communities
that will resist change to the extent that the social agency may well have to
“rub raw the sores of discontent” among those who are being injured or being
oppressed by the current community structure. Social action is a real possibility
and, for many agencies, their first priority.
Other important issues for community social agencies include Cassidy’s
(1991) notion of organizing for community control; Durst, Cates and
Sanderson’s (1997) notion of community justice; Weening, Arges and
Delaney’s (1997) suggestion that indigenous workers should be used as
community liaisons to sensitize professional staff to community patterns;
Delaney and Weening’s (1995) suggestion that collaborative partnerships must
drive northern social work practice; Sellick and Delaney’s (1996) notion that
social workers must be sensitive to the contextual patterns that inform
community expectations and behaviour; and, Green’s (1981) suggestion that
good will is not enough and agencies must make certain staff are tuned into the
Delaney, Tranter, & Brownlee 271

agency’s philosophy and values.

Moreover, the agency must act as a buffer between the community and the
forces of globalization and corporatism; this sounds a bit like David versus
Goliath. However, McKnight’s (1995) vision views an association of
communities where consent rather than control governs a community. This, in
turn, recognizes the unique contributions that all of its members bring to the
life and story of the community and is a practical and realistic beginning to
creating the ability to resist globalization and corporatism.
What the agency can focus on is ensuring that staff are trained in a manner
that will maximize their ability to work effectively in small communities. Rural
and northern social workers can use the very tools developed in countering
southern metaphors and move into a leadership position as advocates for
humanizing and context-sensitive social services. It is critical to use existing
organizations, such as professional organizations and political parties, as a
platform from which to launch action. In this manner, the individual is not
identified and the issues can not be reduced to personal ones. Becoming
involved in “radical social work” is one method of honouring Gil’s (1998)
conclusion that all social workers must be living advocates for social justice if
they are to conform to the ethical guidelines for social work practice.
Certainly, one crucial skill required by staff is team building and team
maintenance. Team work allows for effective management of tasks and also
invites the members (agency and community) to share ideas which not only
raise consciousness and increase information, but also transform the team
members themselves.
Another essential skill is crisis intervention, especially non-violent crisis
management techniques that allow for violence or potential violence to be
diffused. In times of personal or community crisis, deeper and richer
relationships can emerge and can solidify links between the agency’s staff and
the community. For example, people in the north are sometimes forced to
evacuate their communities during forest fire season. During these stressful
times, staff can play a lead role in both helping community members adjust to a
new living environment and in sensitizing the host community to the
community’s needs.
Community and economic development skills are also a must for staff in
local agencies in small communities. Economic well-being is an issue in rural
and northern areas. Contrary to some opinions, most people do not want to live
in poverty. Some people choose poverty, but most do not. Helping
communities to become economically viable is a core skill set required.
Finally, situations will arise in small communities which require specialist
help. Staff must have a good array of diagnostic skills to identify these
situations. However, care must be taken to avoid simply labelling difficult
people or situations as requiring specialists. It is important for the community,
regardless of the pain, to work with the agency in handling difficult situations.
This process not only enriches relationships and instills a sense of
accomplishment, but it also becomes a new community storyCa story about
mutuality and empowerment. When a specialist is needed, the agency can assist
the specialist by ensuring that the community or person involved is not violated
272 Social Agencies in Rural and Northern Areas

or treated in a disrespectful manner. The specialist should be reminded that

when his or her services are finished, the agency will still be involved. This
should guide the working relationship between the agency, the specialist and
the community.

Conclusion
The unique nature of Canada’s rural and northern areas requires an equally
unique approach to the delivery of social welfare programs. Because of the
relatively small size of most rural and northern communities, true integration of
services is possible in the form of community social agencies. These social
agencies would work in harmony with their community based on collaborative
partnership and mutual respect. As members of a community social agency,
staff members will be challenged to enhance their contextual knowledge,
sensitivity and awareness. Indeed, the very entry of any staff into the
community will immediately impact that community, even if not visible to the
staff member or the community.
These strategies for countering the impacts of corporatism can help to
offset the negative consequences for rural and northern services to people, but
more is needed. In short, social workers must play a vital role in countering
corporatist propaganda, and they must do this without becoming identified and
victimized by that very propaganda. For example, by simply identifying an
individual as a “liberal,” “left-wing,” or “a bleeding heart,” corporatist
propaganda has successfully managed to marginalize both the person and the
message. Moreover, staff members must believe in the community and the
people of the community. This is essential. Staff members are allies (Bishop,
1994) and, as such, must allow the community to set the pace of change.
However, by keeping social justice and community of association as guiding
principles to inform practice, staff will become a vital and positive new entry in
the community’s story.

References
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Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.
Carver, J. (1990). Boards that make a difference. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Cassidy, G. (1991). Organizing for community control. The Northern Review,
7, 17-34.
Clarke, T. (1997). Silent coup. Toronto: CCPA & James Lorimer.
Collier, K. (1993). Social work with rural people (2nd ed.). Vancouver: New
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Delaney, R. (1995). Northern social work practice: An ecological approach. In
R. Delaney & K. Brownlee (Eds.), Northern social work practice, (pp. 1-
34). Thunder Bay, ON: Lakehead University Centre for Northern Studies.
Delaney, R. & Weening, J. (1995). Partnerships: A cornerstone for northern
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Lerner, M. (1997). The politics of meaning: Restoring hope and possibility in
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McKnight, J. (1995). The careless society. New York: Basic Books.
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Saul, J. (1995). The unconscious civilization. Concord, ON: Anansi.
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(Eds.), Issues in northern social work practice (pp. 23-35). Thunder Bay,
ON: Lakehead University Centre for Northern Studies.
Walker, D. & Taylor, S. (1997). The board of directors in a northern rural
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Delaney & J. Graham (Eds.), Strategies for northern social work practice
(pp. 102-112). Thunder Bay, ON: Lakehead University Centre for
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Weening, J., Arges, S. & Delaney, R. (1997). Indigenous workers in northern
agencies: Strategies for effective utilization. In K. Brownlee, R. Delaney,
& J. Graham (Eds.), Strategies for northern social work practice (pp. 60-
88). Thunder Bay, ON: Lakehead University Centre for Northern Studies.
Wharf, B. (1995). Organizing and delivering child welfare services: The
contributions of research. In J. Hudson. & B. Galaway (Eds.), Child
welfare in Canada: Research and policy implications (pp. 2-12). Toronto:
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Wharf, B. (1992). Community and social policy in Canada. Toronto:
McClelland and Stewart.
Wharf, B. (1991). Community, culture and control: Themes for the social
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Zapf, M. K. (1996a). Southern metaphors in the media: A comparison of two
representations of northern justice issues. In R. Delaney, K. Brownlee, &
M. K. Zapf (Eds.), Issues in northern social work practice (pp. 23-35).
Thunder Bay, ON: Lakehead University Centre for Northern Studies.
Zapf, M. K. (1996b). Ideology and context: Development and social welfare in
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35 -52.
 CHAPTER 18

SUPERVISION IN REMOTE SETTINGS

GLEN SCHMIDT

Structural issues as well as personal and environmental concerns

influence the quality of social work and the general well-being of social
workers. Factors such as burnout, erosion of the welfare state,
deinstitutionalization, and violence are but a few of the concerns affecting
today’s practitioners. While it goes without saying that social work practice
is influenced by public policy, economic factors, and various social
components, the nature of social work is also shaped and formed by the
geography of the work location.
A number of writers have examined and explored the influence of
geography as it relates to social work practice in northern Canada (Delaney
& Brownlee, 1995; Zapf, 1993, 2000). The professional and personal
challenges associated with working and living in a small, isolated
community are clearly influenced by the nature of the geographic
environment. The same factors that affect front-line social workers also
have an impact on their supervisors. The purpose of this chapter is to
explore some of the unique challenges faced by social work supervisors in
northern and remote locations with a view toward identifying knowledge
and skills that are necessary for good supervision in a northern practice
context.

Social Work Supervision

The Social Work Dictionary defines social work supervision as, “an
administrative and educational process used to help social workers further
develop and refine their skills, enhance staff morale, and provide quality
assurance for the clients” (Barker, 2003, p. 424). Effective supervision is an
important part of social work practice. There is an abundance of literature
on social work supervision that examines what it means to be a supervisor
within the field of social work. Kadushin and Harkness (2002) developed
what might be called a generalist approach to supervision. Supervision has
also been explored within specific fields of social work practice such as
public welfare (Erera, 1991), elderly services (Greene, 1991), justice
(Kemshall, 1995), and child welfare (Waters, 1992). Knowledge and skills
specific to the specialized field of practice are identified and described.
There is also a fairly extensive body of literature pertaining to clinical
supervision (Ganzer & Ornstein, 2004; Greene, 2002). Some of the material
on clinical supervision is specific to social work, but it can be applied to
other disciplines as well. Finally, there is literature that examines student
supervision within the environment of social work field education (Bogo &
Vayda, 1998; Kenyon & Power, 2000; Ward & Sakeena Mama, 2006).

275
276 Supervision in Remote Settings

Educational and supportive aspects of supervision are emphasized within

this context.
Although the literature pertaining to social work supervision is
substantial, one aspect that is not considered is the idea of geography. A
large part of social work theory is based upon a person in the environment
model but, as Zapf (2001) noted, the environment tends to be seen as the
social environment rather than the physical environment. Zapf (1985)
developed the idea of northern social work as a distinct variation of rural
social work practice. Isolation, climate, the northern economy, and travel
represent a number of the elements that make northern social work
somewhat unique. However, Zapf (2000) argued that despite the dominant
“person in environment” paradigm of social work, the idea of geographic
location is seldom considered in the social work literature. This is certainly
true of social work supervision. Even some research articles that look at
social work supervision within a rural context do not examine the issue of
geographic location to any extent. For example, Gibbs (2001) studied
retention of front-line workers in rural Australia and examined supervisory
qualities that promote retention. While the study was situated in rural areas,
the idea of geographic location was not a specific consideration in and of
itself.

Northern Supervision
In order to explore and identify qualities that might distinguish northern
social work supervision, 22 social work supervisors engaged in child
welfare protection work supervision were interviewed. Ten of the
supervisors were located in large urban communities in British Columbia
and Alberta, and twelve supervisors carried out their work in small isolated
northern communities in Yukon, BC, and Alberta. The urban supervisors
provided a contrast group to ensure that comments from northern
supervisors represented ideas and opinions unique to a northern setting. The
fact that all the supervisors were engaged in supervising social workers who
worked primarily in child protection meant that the supervisors tended to
deal with similar challenges related to the field of practice.

The Concept of North

The concept of north is a relative term. Although Canadian geographers
like Louis Edmond Hamelin (1979) attempted to quantify the term, its use
remains fairly subjective. For example, Kenora is often considered a
northern community, yet its latitude is south of Saskatoon, which is not
regarded as a northern Canadian community. For the purpose of this
discussion, communities that are predominantly dependent upon a single
industry, communities located north of 55º latitude, communities that have
promotional literature referring to the community as being in the north, and
communities at least two hours drive from a major population centre,
qualify as northern locations.
Schmidt 277

The concept of single-industry dependence varies as the communities in

this study ranged from those that were primarily dependent upon mining or
forestry through to communities dependent upon seasonal tourism. The
northern communities that were part of this research were isolated and
somewhat impoverished in terms of services and amenities. Winter travel
could be treacherous. The aboriginal population tended to be high, and the
non-aboriginal population was often comprised of recent migrants to the
area.

Gathering Information
The participating supervisors were recruited through a letter of
introduction and explanation. An interview guide was used to elicit
responses from the supervisors, and the interviews were taped and later
transcribed. The interviews took place in the supervisors’ work offices. The
interviews ranged from 40 to 70 minutes. The transcriptions were read to
identify manifest content in the form of thematic units (Krippendorff, 1980).
Responses to the questions were coded and analyzed. The responses that
were unique to the northern supervisors became the focus of attention.
Responses that were common to the urban and northern supervisors were
recorded and noted but not used for the purpose of this analysis. For
example, both northern and urban supervisors commented on the frequency
of reorganization and the need to adapt. Both groups also commented on the
need to deal with the media, especially around things that can go wrong in
child welfare.

Results
The following table provides selected descriptive information relevant
to the study participants’ experience in a supervisory role.

Table 1: Urban and Northern Supervisors

Urban Northern
Male 3 6
Female 7 6
Supervisory experience (Mean in years) 6.5 7.4
Supervisory experience (Range in years) 1 - 15 1 - 17
Child welfare supervision (Mean in years) 6.3 7.4
Child welfare supervision 1 - 15 2 - 17
(Range in years)
Front-line experience in child welfare 10 4.3
protection (Mean in years)
Front-line experience in child welfare 3 - 16 2-8
protection (Range in years)
Total child welfare experience (Mean in years) 15.8 11.7
Total child welfare experience (Range in years) 5 - 25 4 - 25
278 Supervision in Remote Settings

Within this brief descriptive information, there is one noteworthy

difference between the urban and northern supervisors. Northern
supervisors had an average of 4.3 years experience on the front-line before
becoming a supervisor while their urban counterparts worked an average of
10 years on the front-line before moving to a supervisor’s position. Theme 1
suggests that the opportunity to become a supervisor may happen more
rapidly in northern social work practice. This is positive from the
perspective of career advancement, but it also means that northern
supervisors may not always have the depth of experience demonstrated by
their urban counterparts.
The in-depth interview process served to draw out a number of other
themes that highlight the unique nature of northern social work supervision.
Theme 2 pertains to issues that stem from difficulty in recruitment and
retention of social work staff. It is clear that turnover in child welfare
protection work can also occur at alarming rates in urban areas (Salovitz &
Keys, 1988), but there is a significant difference in that urban areas have a
large pool of replacement workers. The rapid turnover in northern and
remote locations occurs in an environment where there is a lack of
replacement workers. This has significant implications for social work
supervisors. One northern supervisor had this to say “The biggest challenges
are recruitment and retention of staff. We tend to get very young new grads
that have limited experience and education.” Another said “I think you have
greener staff so there’s a lot of training and people get tired of training. You
just feel like you’ve got someone up and running and independent and they
leave. So the fatigue sets in for the workers who do stay and for the
supervisor the fatigue is intense.”
While recruitment and retention problems are challenging and can be
seen in a negative light, there is also a positive theme that emerges. Theme
3 is the opportunity for growth and change. This theme was expressed by a
very experienced supervisor who reflected on a history of supervisory
experience in both northern and urban locations. The supervisor said:
I’ve worked in an urban area for many years and what I know is that
having an older, more entrenched group of workers makes it harder to
get people to look at their values and beliefs and how these affect their
practice. Whereas with a younger group of workers and good mentoring
and good supervision, you have a group that is not so entrenched in
how they practice.
This northern supervisor found that less experienced northern practitioners
were more open and more conscious of values. The workers tended to be
younger, and they tended to be recent graduates of social work programs.
These facts created a greater opportunity for change and the development of
progressive practice methods.
Northern supervisors also described other important factors. For
example, the issue of work with First Nations or aboriginal people in
northern locations was noted as a difference. New workers may not have
extensive knowledge about aboriginal culture, and the supervisor has to
ensure that they learn quickly, or they may struggle in their work with First
Nations communities and people. Urban-based social work programs
concentrate on urban issues, such as the challenges faced by immigrant
Schmidt 279

populations and important considerations pertaining to diversity.

Knowledge of aboriginal people and aboriginal issues may be lacking in a
new graduate from a southern urban-based institution and northern social
work supervisors need to provide information and education quickly. For
example, one supervisor noted the following: “I had this new graduate who
just didn’t know anything about aboriginal culture. She was well-meaning
but naïve and she got into a lot of trouble very quickly and this affected her
credibility.” Theme 4 is the need to have knowledge about aboriginal people
and culture.
A number of supervisors also indicated that northern practice afforded
more flexibility and choice in the work. Urban practice was regarded as
specialized and rigid in terms of work boundaries. One urban supervisor
described it this way “I think you have more latitude to do what you want to
do in the north and when you’re working in a city you’re more constrained.”
One of the positive aspects described by northern supervisors was what they
defined as the generalist nature of northern practice. One supervisor who
had both urban and northern experience said:
I think the agency has generally moved over the last several years and
decades to more specialization. So what you have in the larger cities are
offices that devote themselves to one particular aspect of practice and
so you become very narrow in your focus. In the north you tend to have
more of a generalist practice.
Theme 5 is the need to be a creative generalist.
Northern supervisors consistently cited two other key concerns. First,
the isolation of the geographic location resulted in a higher cost of living,
limited training, and education opportunities for supervisors and workers,
and professional isolation. A second concern discussed by northern
supervisors was that of personal/professional boundaries and high personal
visibility that comes with living in small communities. This is clearly a
function of geographic location. For example, a supervisor who moved to
the north from a southern urban setting said:
It’s been a big struggle for me—maintaining my boundaries and my
privacy. I’m accustomed to that sort of urban anonymity. Whereas
some people would perceive a small community as supportive and it’s
nice to know your neighbor, I find that intrusive and I don’t want
people to come up to me in the mall and tell me stuff about child
protection intakes when my spouse is there and people are walking by.
Another supervisor at a different location made the following comments
about the same issue:
I mean, you can’t go downtown without seeing one of your clients—
you can’t go out for a social evening without running into one of your
clients. It’s very easy to be continually working. You have to be very,
very good at setting boundaries between your personal and your
professional life and, if you struggle with that at all, then this is a place
that will burn you out very fast.
These comments are a function of geographic location. Accessibility,
visibility, and lack of anonymity are realities of living in small, isolated
communities. The nature of the physical place or physical environment is
clearly a concern that has to be reckoned with by northern supervisors as
280 Supervision in Remote Settings

well as the social workers they supervise. These factors contributed to

problems with retention and turnover. For example, one supervisor noted
that 70 social work staff had come and gone in a three-person office during
a 10-year period. This creates stress for supervisors. Theme 6 is the skill and
capacity to deal with the consequences of living and working in a small
isolated community.

Discussion
Turnover and retention emerged as clear challenges for northern social
work supervisors. These are issues in urban areas as well, but in this
particular study, turnover and retention did not register strongly for urban
supervisors. Turnover and attrition, combined with the recruitment of
inexperienced young graduates, emphasize the need for particular skills and
knowledge among northern supervisors. This is a function of physical place
where pools of experienced replacement social workers do not exist. Work
with a new graduate requires that the supervisor be able to function as an
educator and a mentor. This educational function may necessitate a more
active level of involvement in direct practice. Younger, inexperienced
workers don’t necessarily have the confidence or ability to deal with more
difficult cases. By contrast, even when there is turnover in urban areas, the
urban office may have a deeper pool of social workers from which to
recruit. Often, these workers have higher levels of education and
experience, and they can act as mentors for new staff.
The need to educate and provide mentoring requires northern
supervisors to have a clear understanding of adult learning models.
Development of workers is a primary task when faced with rapid turnover
and inexperienced social workers. The lack of seasoned workers also means
that northern supervisors can’t always rely on a more experienced worker to
meet the needs around education and mentorship.
Although the fact of having inexperienced staff may be seen as a
weakness, supervision of relatively inexperienced social workers also
represents an opportunity. New graduates are often open to thinking about
practice options, values, and beliefs, whereas experienced workers may be
entrenched, rigid, and even jaded in their views. A northern supervisor may
have more opportunity to influence a worker’s practice in a manner that is
developmental and supportive as opposed to employing methods that
require surveillance within organizational structures. However, it is also true
that the continuous need to educate and develop inexperienced workers
means that supervisors in a northern setting may not have adequate time for
other activities. Opportunity may be there for program development and
community development, but as supervisors constantly deal with the
immediate needs of new staff, the time may not be available to address these
areas of responsibility.
Northern supervisors also noted that new social workers frequently
move from southern urban areas. This is not surprising information given
the location of university-based social work programs. Few social work
programs operate outside of large urban centres. When a new social worker
Schmidt 281

moves to a remote northern community, and he or she has little or no

experience in that particular kind of environment, he or she may experience
serious adjustment issues. Lack of anonymity, high visibility, isolation, and
the scarcity of certain amenities can discourage and dishearten some new
workers. The northern supervisor has to be cognizant of this aspect of
personal adjustment and take proactive steps to ensure that the worker has
the information and skills to make the transition from an urban community
to a small, isolated town. It is also important to factor this into the selection
and hiring process. Northern supervisors must be prepared to challenge
selection procedures and practices that are designed and driven by urban
needs and requirements.
Northern supervisors described the northern social work environment
as less rigid and more flexible. This was stated in a variety of ways,
including as the opportunity to be more creative and the need to pursue a
generalist form of practice. The northern supervisors clearly recognized that
their practice was generalist in nature, and they had more flexibility in terms
of service delivery. This is important, as some supervisors are only able to
function effectively in a clear structure with well-defined boundaries. While
boundaries and standards exist for northern supervisors, they are not rigid
and a northern supervisor has to be comfortable managing the ambiguity
that may arise out of this context. This is reflected to some degree when it
comes to resources. Specialized resources are typically unavailable, or at
least very limited, in the north and supervisors have to be creative and
strongly support their workers in innovative activity around resource
development.

Conclusion
In terms of educating or training northern social work supervisors, a
number of priorities emerge. First, it is clear that the constant influx of new
graduates with limited work experience requires supervisors who are
knowledgeable about adult learning and education. Northern supervision is
not just about managing human resources, budgeting, monitoring cases, and
conducting performance reviews. Supervision within a northern context
includes a significant amount of education. Social work supervisors are
educators, but this is especially the case in a northern environment where
staff tend to be younger and less experienced.
Second, northern social work supervisors need to be attentive to the
personal and social needs of workers who may be experiencing isolated
northern living for the first time in their lives. Boundary conflicts, personal
safety issues, and challenges associated with developing a social life and
social supports outside the work environment are constant considerations in
a northern environment. Management of issues like dual or multiple
relationships is challenging even for an experienced worker, and for an
inexperienced worker, this issue can create serious problems that affect
retention. Northern social work supervisors have to be mindful of this and
help the new worker develop an effective way to deal with the issues that
arise out of this factor.
282 Supervision in Remote Settings

The northern Canadian environment has a large aboriginal population.

This leads to a third requirement that northern supervisors have excellent
knowledge and sensitivity when it comes to working with First Nations
people and communities. Although First Nations people may be a small
minority in Victoria or Hamilton, they are often a majority group in
northern Canadian communities.
Finally, northern social work supervisors must have a clear
understanding of generalist social work practice. Social workers often
struggle to define themselves, and specialization in practice exerts a strong
allure. However, northern social work is generalist in nature, and northern
workers have to function as a resource for their clients in a variety of
different ways. They also have to be able to create and develop resources in
an environment that offers a limited range of formal specialized resources.
A good generalist is a highly skilled social worker, who possesses wide
knowledge and skill that can be applied and adapted to a range of situations
and circumstances. Northern supervisors must celebrate and promote this
type of practice to social workers.
Geographic location influences and shapes the demands placed upon
social work supervisors in northern Canada. It is important to recognize
some of the unique aspects of supervision in the north and develop
professional development and educational programs that address this
important area of social work practice. Supervisors that are skilled and
knowledgeable about the northern environment will be better able to
promote the retention of social workers and the development and retention
of an experienced pool of social workers can only benefit the northern
communities in which they practice.

References

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Erera, I. (1991). Role conflict among public welfare supervisors.
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or treat dilemma: Implications of a relational approach for social work
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Kadushin, A., & Harkness, D. (2002). Supervision in social work (4th ed.).
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Kenyon, G., & Power, R. (Eds.). (2000). No magic: Reading in social work
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Salovitz, B., & Keys, D. (1988). Is child protective services still a service?
Protecting Children, 3, 17-23.
Ward, K., & Sakina Mama, R. (2006). Breaking out of the box: Adventure-
based field instruction. Chicago: Lyceum Books.
Waters, J. (1992). The supervision of child protection work. Aldershot:
Avebury Ashgate Publishing Limited.
Zapf, M. K. (1985). Rural social work and its application to the Canadian
north as a practice setting (Working Papers on Social Welfare in
Canada #15). Toronto: University of Toronto.
Zapf, M. K. (1993). Remote practice and culture shock: Social workers
moving to isolated northern regions. Social Work, 38(6), 694-704.
Zapf, M. K. (2000). Geographic factors. In F. Turner (Ed.), Social work
practice: A Canadian perspective (pp. 344-358). Scarborough: Prentice
Hall Allyn and Bacon Canada.
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Toronto: Pearson Education Canada Incorporated.
 CHAPTER 19

LOCAL WORKERS IN RURAL AND

NORTHERN AGENCIES: STRATEGIES
FOR EFFECTIVE PARTNERSHIPS

JUANITA LAWSON, SHEILA ARGES,

AND ROGER DELANEY
In recent years, northern social work practice has moved away from a
pathology model toward a competence model (Delaney, 1995; Germain,
1980; Whittaker, 1983), which is grounded by the northern metaphor for
practice (Zapf, 1991, 1996). A competence-oriented practice “focuses on the
strengths people have within themselves and the resources in their
environments that they use to cope with their problems” (Whittaker, 1983,
p. 40). This focus on people’s strengths and community resources is
reflected in northern and rural social work’s appreciation for natural helping
systems.
However, how this perspective works is as important as the recognition
that people who live in our communities need to not only have a say in
policies but must be included in the policy-making and practice processes.
In this regard, partnership is a very useful construction that provides a
framework for the relationships governing the exchanges between
community and social workers. This chapter will explore the notion of
partnerships, the definitions of indigenous and natural helpers, and will offer
suggestions to assist the utilization of indigenous peoples as a vital
component of rural and northern social work practice.

Towards a Definition of Partnership

Partnership is defined by the American Heritage Dictionary “as a
relationship between individuals and/or groups that is characterized by
mutual cooperation and responsibility, as for the achievement of a specified
goal.” However, when a partnership is formalized it becomes “a legal
contract entered into by two or more persons in which each agrees to furnish
a part of the capital and labour for a business enterprise, and by which each
shares a fixed proportion of profits and losses.” In other words, when two
or more agencies agree to work in partnership, the first definition applies.
When organizations agree to be partnered where a legal contract is drawn,
the latter definition applies.
The concept of partnership may be viewed as an “idea whose time has
come.” This explication of the concept of partnership is not greatly
facilitated by a review of the literature. Unfortunately, while many authors
use the term “partnership” in their work, they are quite vague in defining
what a partnership is. Rather, they approach partnership in terms of
linkages within partnerships, attributes of partnerships, barriers within
partnerships and the outcomes of partnerships.
284
Lawson, Arges, Delaney, & Kelly 285

Partnerships have been defined as collaborative relationships

employing non-traditional ways to increase service effectiveness while
enhancing the development of trust, communications, shared beliefs, and
equal consensus in decision-making. The key to most definitions of
partnership is the notion of the equalization of power. Pascal (1991) notes
that “the old style of ‘power’ politics is no longer viable as it excludes,
rather than includes, builds walls instead of tearing them down and
alienates, rather than involving others” (p. 3). Kernaghan argues that
partnerships promote empowerment by creating a situation where all parties
are involved in the sharing of decision-making power. Thus, Kernaghan
defines partnership as being a formal agreement to share power with others
in the pursuit of joint goals and/or mutual benefits. The broad working
definition requires a sharing of power, work, support and/or information
with others for the achievement of joint goals and/or mutual benefits.
While agreeing with Kernaghan’s definition of partnership, Rodal and
Mulder view partnership as a process of devolution where a transfer of
functions from federal government to another entity occurs. This transfer
creates a decrease in federal government financial and administrative
involvement with a concomitant increase by the other parties involved.
Both of these authors suggest that there are four types of partnerships:
collaborative, operational, contributory, and consultative. Table 1 provides
an overview of these four dimensions of partnerships.

Table 1: Four Dimensions of Partnerships

TYPE OF PURPOSE EXTENT OF POWER-SHARING
PARTNERSHIP

CONSULTATIVE Advisory: to obtain Government retains control, ownership and

relevant input for risk, but is open to input from clients and
developing policies and stakeholders; the latter may also play a role in
strategies and for legitimizing government decisions.
program/service design,
delivery, evaluation and
adjustment.

CONTRIBUTORY Support sharing: to Government retains control, but contributors

leverage new resources or may propose or agree to the objectives of the
funds for program service partnership.
delivery.

OPERATIONAL Work sharing: to permit Government retains control. Partners can

partners to share influence decision-making through their
resources and work and to practical involvement.
exchange information for
program/service delivery.

COLLABORATIVE Decision-making: to Power, ownership, and risk are shared.

encourage joint decision
taking with regard to
policy development,
strategic planning and
program/service design,
delivery, evaluation, and
adjustment.
286 Partnerships and Indigenous Workers

The first type of partnership is consultative. In consultative

partnerships, officials in a public organization solicit advice from
individuals, groups, and organizations outside of the organization. The
groups are considered to be advisory in nature, their main task being to
advise. The consultative partnership is useful as it provides the organization
with information, valuable ideas, and insights for enhancing service quality.
While control and decision-making is retained within the organization,
partners can exercise influence on decisions. The level of influence depends
on whether the partnership is formalized, whether its recommendations were
made public, whether the policy issue is of broad public interest, and
whether the advisory committee has credibility. Pascal notes that
consultation does little to alter the basic power relationship between those
with power and those without it.
The second type of partnership is contributory. In contributory
partnerships, members of either public or private organizations agree to
provide sponsorship or support, usually in the form of funding, for an
activity in which it may have little or no operational involvement. This is
considered to be a limited partnership as it does not allow for the active
involvement by all players in the decision-making process. Instead, power
and control is retained by the sponsoring organization which controls the
partnership through funds.
The third type of partnership is operational. An operational partnership
is characterized by the sharing of work rather than decision-making power.
The emphasis is on working together at the operational level to achieve the
same or compatible goals. Some partnerships of this type have a strong
element of collaboration in that the partners share resources. In some
operational partnerships, the control is retained by one partner; however, all
partners can exercise influence over one another informally.
The fourth type of partnership is collaborative. In a collaborative
partnership, all partners exercise power in the decision-making process. A
collaborative partnership involves the pooling of resources such as money,
information, and labour to meet shared objectives. Each partner gives up
some autonomy, and, ideally, decisions are made by consensus. Often
partners gather together because there is a problem which individuals cannot
solve on their own. Pascal (1991) concurs that collaboration involves the
sharing of power and working with groups and/or individuals who may
bring insight and experience to the table.
Weening (1994) reviewed the literature on partnerships and noted that
the characteristics of a successful partnership are:
A partnership must involve all stakeholders whose contribution is
necessary for achieving the partnership objective.
The greater the degree of mutual dependence between and among
the partners, the greater the probability that the partnership will be
effective and enduring.
The greater degree to which individuals, groups, and organizations
are empowered by a partnership, the greater the probability that the
partnership will be effective and enduring.
Lawson, Arges, Delaney, & Kelly 287

The pooling of resources in a partnership will have a synergistic

effect in that the combined impact will be greater than the sum of
the efforts of each partner acting alone.
A partnership with limited objectives is easier to develop and
maintain than one with broad objectives.
The more formalized a partnership is, the more likely it is to be
maintained.
Collaborative partnerships are holistic and polycentric in perspective
because individuals with differing world views, agreement realities, and
experiential realities contribute to the partnership. However, comparing the
quality and effectiveness of partnerships is difficult because of the dynamics
associated with partnerships—such as the personalities, professional
orientation, and values of the key players. Therefore, what worked for one
organization may not work for another simply because the main players in
the partnership could not get along or could not resolve power issues. Since
a northern social worker orientation to practice is compatible with power
and resource sharing, it is strongly associated with collaborative
partnerships.
Partnerships cannot thrive successfully without maintenance.
Individuals within the partnership need to be managed to ensure that those
involved in the partnership have the capacity to deliver programs. This can
be accomplished by training staff in negotiation, consultation, and
information sharing. Secondly, managing effective partnerships may
involve preparing groups to take responsibility. An example of this may be
ensuring that community organizations and non-profit sectors have the
resources to get the job done. Thirdly, partnerships need to be nurtured.
This involves the slow process of establishing trust, solving problems, and
developing a culture that transcends the boundaries of each organization.
Creativity and innovation greatly assist in promoting the effective
management of partnerships.
Rodal (1993) examined the potential implications of partnerships for
public sector managers and suggests that partnerships are likely to
challenge managers in many areas. Heavier requirements for co-ordination
will require more extensive consultation and communication to all the
stakeholders to ensure that they are informed about pertinent issues.
Change may occur at the organizational and structural level; thus,
individual roles, expectations, and responsibilities may need to be clarified.
However, prior to the development of a partnership, there must be an
identification of potential constraints and obstacles such as reluctance to
share power, political factors, mistrust of the governing organization, and
cultural gaps.
The potential benefits that arise from partnerships can include:
pooling of resources and expertise;
integrated service delivery;
improved management and understanding of clients;
promoting public education and responsibility;
building consensus; and,
greater operational flexibility.
288 Partnerships and Indigenous Workers

Partnerships seem to be most appropriate when they help to achieve

important social objectives that different parties cannot obtain in isolation,
such as when a program is considered important but sufficient funding is not
available. They can be positive when groups with compatible agendas and
interests are able to define acceptable outcomes for all parties and reach
consensus on joint action.
Partnerships seem to be least beneficial when:
there does not exist a strong rationale for collaboration;
there are different and incompatible agendas and ideologies; and,
when there is a fundamental disagreement on the problems to be
solved.
When potential partners are unclear, unwilling, or mixed in motives, the
formation of partnerships may not be the best approach. The risks in all
partnerships, such as blurring of accountability and loss of control, may
place great stress on decision-making abilities. Furthermore, if public values
are seen as being undermined, there is a risk of one's credibility and image
being damaged.
In summary, a partnership is defined as a relationship or formal
agreement between or among two or more units of attention in a system
characterized by the sharing of power, decisions, work, support,
information, and/or responsibility as a means of achieving joint goals and/or
mutual benefits. The degree to which the units of attention share power,
decisions, work, support, information and responsibility reflects the
dimensions of partnerships. These dimensions range from consultative or
advisory, to contributory or support sharing, to operational or work sharing
and finally, to collaborative or shared decision-making.
Partnerships are intended to allow stakeholders to participate as
partners in areas that impact their life. The following section will examine
practice settings in which partnership activities have been used as northern
social workers, equipped with an eclectic knowledge base, strive for
knowledge competencies, performance competencies, and consequence
competencies (Clark, Arkava & Associates, 1979; Delaney, 1995).
Supporting this approach is a fundamental belief that the community has the
ultimate responsibility to resolve community problems (Farley, Griffiths,
Skidmore & Thackeray, 1982; Wharf, 1991).
Since local control and community empowerment have emerged as key
issues in most northern regions across Canada, northern social workers will
be expected to use collaborative approaches working with communities
rather than simply working in communities (Zapf, 1991, p. 45). Northern
social workers are expected to establish collaborative partnerships which
seek to improve “the transactions between people and environments in order
to enhance adaptive capabilities and improve environments for all who
function within them. To carry out the professional purpose requires a set of
environmental interventions and a set of interventions into the transactions
between people and environment to complement the sets available for
intervening in coping patterns of people” (Germain, 1979, p. 8).
Social workers who choose to work in Canada’s rural and northern
areas must learn to appreciate and respect the life history of the
communities in which they work (Delaney, 1995; Delaney & Brownlee,
Lawson, Arges, Delaney, & Kelly 289

1995; Nelson, McPherson & Kelley, 1987; Zapf, 1991, 1993, 1996).
However, for social workers who are trained in southern, urban-based social
work programs, this is not a simple task; indeed, it is a major cause of high
staff turnover in rural and northern areas (Delaney, 1979; Farley, Griffiths,
Skidmore & Thackeray, 1982; Zapf, 1991, 1996). Repetitive situations of
high turnover of professional staff may test the willingness of agencies to
hire professional social workers, and these agencies may simply resort to
hiring “locals” who are going to stay (Drechsler, 1996; Wharf, 1991).
This high staff turnover has created a situation where northern agencies
face a difficult dilemma. Most professional social workers are located in
southern centres or attend urban-based schools of social work. To replace
professional vacancies, the recruitment process must focus on social
workers trained in a “southern metaphor” driven practice approach, which is
inappropriate in northern social work practice and, even worse, will itself
create staff turnover (Zapf, 1996). Agencies are then left with a continuing
staff recruitment need—a need that could be partially resolved by hiring
indigenous workers while attempting to retain a loyal group of northern
social workers. The use and need for indigenous workers in northern areas
was recognized in Children First (Report of the Advisory Committee, 1990).
Designated resources must be provided to promote natural helping networks
and to train indigenous workers in isolated rural and northern communities
in order to develop and support community models of service delivery
(Report of the Advisory Committee on Children’s Services, 1990, p. 65).

Indigenous Workers
Lynn (1990) suggests that indigenous practice or generalist community-
led, locality-specific, network-enhancing practice appears most relevant to
non-urban social work practice. But, who are indigenous workers? An
indigenous worker is one who is “usually a local lay person who has been
known and respected for their contribution to the community” (Milliken &
McGowan, 1981, p. 97). Indigenous workers can also refer to professionals
who actually reside in the community in which they work (Milliken &
McGowan, 1981). An itinerant worker, on the other hand, refers to a
“professional worker who is based in a larger centre, perhaps still rural by
definition, but who travels to a number of smaller communities for the
purpose of providing rural social work service delivery” (Milliken &
McGowan, 1981, p. 97).
Milliken and McGowan conclude by asserting that, while the
indigenous worker can work effectively with the itinerant worker, “we
believe there is no substitute for the quality of service a local person can
provide” (Milliken & McGowan, 1981, p. 106). Communities which do not
have professional indigenous workers are, in fact, often in conflict with
itinerant workers (Nelson, McPherson & Kelley, 1987). For example, the
Integrated Services for Northern Children project used multidisciplinary
teams based in Kenora, Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Timmins,
and North Bay. Many of these professionals served as itinerant workers for
the smaller communities in their catchment area because “it was unlikely
that we could entice the professional members of the inter-disciplinary team
290 Partnerships and Indigenous Workers

to live in one of the District communities” (Ministry of Community and

Social Services, 1989, p. 3). How, then, were these professionals to include
the community and the community’s life history and metaphor into their
clinical assessments? Not including the community and its life history
reduces practice to simply modeling a southern metaphor, which can only
create problems and frustrations for the community and the itinerant
professionals. This chapter is concerned with indigenous workers who are
lay people chosen from the local communities on the assumption that those
closest to the situation understand the situation best and have the potential to
be the most helpful (Patterson, 1977).
Three major problems emerged regarding the usefulness of indigenous
workers 1) since indigenous workers would be employees of an agency,
they would carry the stigma of that agency in the community; 2) the cost of
training, supervising, and paying for these staff is expensive and perhaps
prohibitive for poorly funded rural and northern agencies; and 3) the process
of training and making indigenous workers part of the agency may reduce
“the spontaneity, naturalness, and closeness to the situation, which were the
very factors that made these people desirable helpers in the first place”
(Kelley & Kelley, 1980, p. 130).
Indigenous workers are not the same as natural helpers. Natural helpers
work within natural helping systems in northern social networks (Maguire,
1991; Whittaker & Garbarino, 1983). Social support systems generally
refer to positive things, such as informal caring by family members and
friends. Social network, on the other hand, refers to “a method of analysis to
help us understand precisely how and why people affect each other through
various types of social exchanges or in the process of giving and taking
resources from each other” (Maguire, 1991, p. 3). Indigenous workers are
employees of social agencies and are members of the community being
served. Often, indigenous workers were natural helpers prior to being
employed by the agency.

Who are Natural Helpers?

Communities throughout history have had natural helpers as an integral
component of their everyday lives. Over time, people have viewed these
natural helpers in a variety of ways. The most common definition views
natural helpers as those to whom people turn to naturally in difficult times
because of their concern, interest, and innate understanding (Patterson &
Brennan, 1983). Other definitions of natural helpers place emphasis on
community structures and roles. Natural helpers are broadly conceptualized
as the network of persons at many levels in a community who are already
helping people by virtue of their community roles, occupations, or
personality traits. They may be personal helpers—friends, neighbours, or
relatives of the persons they help—or community helpers—persons who
serve anyone who comes to their attention (Kelley & Kelley, 1985, p. 358).
Still other definitions of natural helpers focus on the nature of natural
helping relationships, where natural helpers are “non-professionals who do
not function as volunteers and who bring equality to the act of helping. As
accessible members of social networks, natural helpers often are the first to
Lawson, Arges, Delaney, & Kelly 291

provide help to others in dealing with problems in living, and they play a
vital role as agents of prevention in rural communities (Memmott &
Brennon, 1988, p. 15).
However, most definitions of natural helpers appear to have two
common agreements. First, they describe natural helpers as individuals who
possess some innate attributes complemented by a set of behaviour and
skills that make them both effective and attractive to others in their helping
role. Second, natural helpers service, and are usually limited to, the social
networks in which they live. These same features describe natural helpers
found in northern communities and will serve as the definition of natural
helpers for the purposes of this chapter. It is important then to examine and
identify the attributes, behaviour, and skills that make some individuals
natural helpers.

Characteristics of Natural Helpers

First and foremost, natural helping occurs within the context of a
supportive, caring relationship. The natural helping relationship is formed
from a base of equality and mutual exchange. Studies by Kelley and Kelley
(1985), Patterson, Holzhuter, Strubble and Quanagno (1972), and Sheehan
(1988) suggest that both mutuality and reciprocity are involved in the
natural helping process, while Patterson, Memmott, Brennan and Germain
(1992) found that one’s relative permanence in a community is a
requirement to forming this stable relationship and creating social support
networks within the community. Brown (1933) developed a list of helper
attributes that describe the natural helper as outgoing, possessing insight and
vision, having good judgment and common sense, being patient, and having
a good sense of humour. To this, Pekarsky (1980) adds that natural helpers
require “a native philosophy indigenous to the soil ... an innate respect for
the man (sic) who lives by it” (p. 439)
A study to determine behavioural characteristics that would make the
natural helper most acceptable to their community was conducted on 44
farm families who had been “help” recipients in Iowa and Pennsylvania
(Martinez-Brawley and Blundall, 1989). In the open-ended discussions
with these families, desirable attributes of helpers repeatedly identified
were:
the ability to recognize, appreciate, and understand the uniqueness
of a particular community’s way of life;
the attribute of having a caring, compassionate, and understanding
attitude;
the ability to be a good listener with a genuine interest in and
knowledge of the plight of these farm families;
the ethical commitment not to betray people’s confidence;
the want for an egalitarian relationship between themselves and the
helper;
the disposition for mutuality and reciprocity in the disclosure of
problems within the helping relationship; and,
292 Partnerships and Indigenous Workers

the need to recognize and understand the uniqueness of their way

of life.
In addition, the study provided these families with a list of optional natural
helper characteristics. Preferred characteristics of natural helpers that
emerged, from most to least important, were as follows:
Having experience
Being friendly
Being open-minded and receptive to new approaches
Being able to tell it like it is
Having expertise on the issue
Possessing a sense of humour
Being able to reveal something about himself or herself
Being interested in farm folk without necessarily having a rural
background
Taking time to chat before doing business
Having a rural background (Martinez-Brawley & Blundall, 1989,
p. 517)
Martinez-Brawley and Blundall (1989) summarize preferred attributes of
helpers as:
not only generalized attributes such as caring, good listening skills, and
pleasant manners, but also a keen understanding of the indigenous
concerns of those connected with agriculture. Knowledge of the plight
of those caught in the dilemmas of agricultural change was mentioned
in both regions—a challenge in the training and development of helping
professionals . . . In communities where competition runs high,
assurances of confidentiality were critical . . . They frequently voiced
concern about helpers who see their work as just a job. Unless helping
is personalized in some fashion, it is suspect. This is a major issue in
the professionalization of services (p. 521).
Natural helpers bring their personal talents and strengths to the helping
relationship. As valued and respected members of the community, they also
carry leadership responsibilities to ensure that mutual aid functions in the
community are being met within a framework supported by the community.
In order to meet these expectations, the literature suggests that natural
helpers usually possess the following strengths:
the ability to develop, support, and maintain helping networks for
families consistent with their values and preferences;
the ability to initiate relationships with mutual trust and
confidence;
the ability to establish immediacy of relationship;
knowledge of the history, issues, and strengths of the community;
the ability to form relationships with and to personally know other
natural helpers;
knowledge of the local helping networks and the ability to access
these;
the ability to be actively involved in the community (thus to be
highly visible);
the ability to serve as a connection/bridge to itinerant workers; and,
Lawson, Arges, Delaney, & Kelly 293

knowledge of local needs.

(Martinez-Brawley & Blundall, 1989; Kelley & Kelley, 1985; Patterson,
Holzhuter & Quanagno, 1972). It is imperative that social workers working
in (or preparing to work) in a northern context are aware of natural helpers,
as they can be incredibly rich sources of information, cultural awareness,
and credibility within the community.

Northern Practice Skills

Prior to discussing the importance of northern practice skills, a brief
definition of the north will provide a framework for future discussions about
working within the “northern context.” Several attempts have been made by
individuals such as Coates and Morrison (1992), Farley, Griffiths, Skidmore
& Thackeray (1982) and Bone (1992) to define the north (Delaney, 1995, p.
6). Definitions vary as authors attempt to describe the north in terms of the
region it inhabits or by describing it as it relates to its geographic location.
Regardless of these definitions, Zapf (1991) argues that the far north is
vastly different from the normal rural areas and is somewhat different from
the Canadian provincial north, where the same conditions exist but on a
smaller scale. What this means is that there are distinct environmental
differences between what is rural and what is northern. Yet, northern areas
may and do contain areas which are remote, urban and rural, all of which
make up the fabric and identity of northern peoples (Delaney, 1995). Thus,
when referring to northern practice, individuals must be sensitive and aware
of the attributes and special characteristics which make up the north.
The uniqueness and remoteness of the north require practice skills
which are complementary to the individuals who live in this environment.
The northern practitioner who adopts a perspective that is partnership-
oriented will be compatible with northern practice because “in collaborative
partnerships the northern practitioner is in a “non-expert” role, which
reflects the true nature of northern practice” (Delaney & Weening, 1995,p.
74). The northern practitioner must display context-awareness, context-
sensitivity, and community development skills in order to match the
appropriate type of partnership with a community’s or client’s readiness to
engage in partnerships. Martinez-Brawley states that an individual who
works in rural areas should have not only generalized attributes such as
caring, good listening skills, and pleasant manners in his/her work, but also
a keen understanding of the indigenous concerns of those connected to the
community (Martinez-Brawley, 1989, p. 521). Jenkins (1981) concurs by
suggesting that the practitioner must understand the culture and
characteristics of the community.
In order to be context-sensitive and context-aware, therefore, the
northern practitioner must have sufficient knowledge about the environment
and the unit of attention at the microsystem, exosystem, mesosystem, or
macrosystem level to help create an adaptive fit between systems and the
environment. The more knowledge a practitioner has about the client system
and environment, the more likely that individual is to reflect contextual
awareness and contextual sensitivity in practice (Delaney, 1995, p. 13). To
294 Partnerships and Indigenous Workers

work effectively within this “northern context,” Nelson suggests that

northern practice skills must be “context focused” and be usable in whatever
context necessary. Thus, the professional worker’s ability to choose an
appropriate manner of responding cannot be a mechanical process; rather,
the effective practitioner must create responses that are individualized and
fit the specifics of the particular situation (Hills, 1989, p. 17). For example,
the northern practitioner working as a generalist will have an approach that
assists in the transactions between the person and environment.
Understanding and remaining contextually aware and sensitive is
important for the northern practitioner. However, Clark, Arkave and
Associates (1979) suggest that the following components—knowledge
competence, performance competence, and consequence competence—will
assist the northern practitioner with developing a strong eclectic base
(Delaney, 1995, p. 14). A brief explanation of these terms will follow.
Knowledge competence is the judgment and actions based on the sound
interpretation and integration of theory and published research data
generated in practice. The two subsets of knowledge competency are
content and process. Content includes the knowledge an individual has
about human behaviour and the environment; process knowledge describes
the dynamics of northern practice in remote and rural northern communities
(Delaney, 1995). Performance competence pertains to the ongoing practice
behaviour that is performed daily. One critical area of competence that
northern practitioners must have is “a high level of interpersonal skills
which focus on problem solving, resolution of conflict and strengthening
relationships” (Delaney, 1995, p. 15). Consequence competencies require
the practitioner to be able to determine, with measurable criteria, whether
clients were helped or, at a minimum, were able to reach the desired goals
(Delaney, 1995, p. 16).
To be effective, the northern practitioner should have (1) social action
skills to respond to the threats which may occur to the local autonomy of the
community; (2) knowledge of consultation methods to gain entry to the
community’s mutual aid system; (3) community organization skills such as
needs assessment and facilitating relationships between rural community
agencies and professionals; (4) knowledge of group dynamics and group
work skills of organization, facilitation, and mediation as they are helpful in
promoting transactions between individuals, groups, and community
agencies; and, (5) effective public relations skills, beginning with projecting
a professional personal image to the community (Waltman, 1986, p. 468).
Assessing the needs of the community and having the ability to
establish linkages and resources is also beneficial and necessary in northern
practice. The astute worker should be sensitive to and make use of local
systems of communication and self-help, always remembering the client’s
or the community’s right to self-determination (Waltman, 1986, p. 468) One
way of doing this is by acknowledging and being respectful of the existing
partnerships between and among community members such as the clergy,
farmers’ groups, and social service professionals (Martinez-Brawley &
Blundall, 1989). The northern practitioner's support and help need to be
consistent with the community’s values and preferences, ensuring that the
informal helping networks are maintained (Martinez-Brawley & Blundall,
Lawson, Arges, Delaney, & Kelly 295

1989, p. 520) and that the individual and community’s values and standards
of behaviour are respected (Waltman, 1986, p. 468).
Further, the northern practitioner must have a solid academic and
professional background, ensuring that the educational training and skills
being obtained are relevant and applicable to working in the northern
context. Due to the lack of valid and relevant information on rural
communities, the practitioner must have skills in both doing research and
collecting data from a wide range of sources, such as newspapers, archives,
town records, church records, and oral histories (Delaney, 1995, p. 16). As
well, the northern practitioner must be able to work at both the individual
and community level, as there is a delicate interrelatedness between the two
(Irey, 1980).
Finally, when working in northern communities, it is important to
acknowledge that human beings are not different but rather that human
beings in similar ecological environments tend to develop similar coping
and response skills in relation to the environmental press. Environmental
press is defined as the combined influences of forces working in a setting to
shape the behaviour and development of people in that setting (Delaney,
1995, p. 13). These combined influences may be environmental in nature
due to potential changes in the demographic or the economic environment.
In this context, the northern practitioner must also have the ability to
understand: the history of the environment and the people who live in it;
natural and formal helping networks and how they have traditionally
operated and currently operate; the existing nature of relationships between
community members and among and between communities; the structures
of social organizations and the nature of power relationships within the
environment; the values or the beliefs espoused by residents; and, quality of
life issues as determined by residents (Delaney, 1995, p. 15). Certain values
and traditions are maintained in the northern environments that differentiate
these areas from more populous areas. These attitudes include a high value
placed on the land, a closeness to the earth, a belief in the work ethic, a
strong tendency toward insularity, a belief in the principle of self-help, an
emphasis on family loyalty, and a tolerance for idiosyncratic behaviours in
members of the community (Jenkins & Cook, 1981, p. 414).
In summary, northern practitioners must have the critical skills of being
context-sensitive and context-aware. Context-awareness is described as the
knowledge the northern practitioner has regarding the unit of attention and
the environment. Context-sensitivity is described as “the degree to which
the northern worker understands this contextual knowledge and can
empathize with the salient and emotive features of the environment and the
people who inhabit it” (Delaney, 1995, p. 13). Being context-sensitive is
particularly important for the northern practitioner who is working with
First Nations people as they are major partners in northern environments.
Northern practitioners must have the skills and knowledge to establish
collaborative partnerships based on a respect for community control
(Delaney & Boersma, 1995, p. 163).
296 Partnerships and Indigenous Workers

Differences between Natural Helping and Professional

Northern Practice
Like professionals, informal helpers can listen, share empathy, help
with problem clarification, make referrals to other helpers and give advice.
Lay support is more likely to involve practical help, reciprocity, friendship-
based relationships, altruism, experiential knowledge, solicited and
unsolicited advice, self-disclosure on the part of the helper, reassurance,
alternative interpretations, minimization of the importance of problems,
consensual validation and self-deprecation’....On the other hand,
professional, consultative relationships focus on such elements as
communication and listening skills....confrontation, goal-directed problem-
solving, and behaviour change (Cossom, 1995, p. 430 ). As Cossom
suggests, an overlap exists in relation to the attributes and skills of natural
and professional helpers. However, there are also some significant
differences between the two. In a study comparing natural and professional
helpers, Jenkins and Cook (1981) offer a differentiation (Table 2).

Table 2: Differences Between Natural and Professional Helpers.

A Natural Helper A Professional Helper

Is a friend, neighbour or Is usually a stranger
relative
Maintains an informal Maintains a formal relationship
relationship
Is independent Represents a community agency
Is unpaid Is paid
Is untrained Is trained
Has a reciprocal relationship Has a non-reciprocal relationship
with individual needing help with individual needing help
Is immediately available Has limited availability
Is familiar with individuals Relies on professional assessment
and their strengths, skills
weaknesses, and coping
abilities
Interacts with individual on Interacts with individual on
equal basis unequal basis
Has no limit on time Has limited time
Sets limit of help together Has limits of help set by agency
with individual needing help policy
Has common life experiences Frequently has different life
with individual needing help experience from individual
needing help
Has primarily subjective Has primarily objective view
view
Source: Jenkins & Cook, 1981, p. 416.
Lawson, Arges, Delaney, & Kelly 297

As many northern communities are dependent on indigenous workers to

perform social services, it is important not only to identify these differences,
but to ensure that indigenous workers are provided the opportunity to build
upon their natural helping skills to enhance their northern practice. One
critical difference between indigenous workers and professional workers is
in relation to uni-directional giving—that is, giving without the need or
expectation for reciprocal giving by the client system. On the other hand,
giving is often mutual in a natural helping relationship. A second major
difference is in relation to one’s personal needs—the professional helping
relationship must meet the needs of the client system, not the worker’s.
This requires a level of awareness of one’s own needs, and how these are
potentially translated into relationships. Professional relationships exist only
while the problem remains and then the professional is expected to
terminate the helping relationship. Within this time-frame, the professional
establishes boundaries as well as the purpose for this relationship which is
translated into objectives and performance expectations. The professional is
expected to bring objectivity, knowledge, and emotional neutrality to the
relationship.
On the other hand, natural relationships exist within a community, and
the best interest of the individual and the community often guides the
natural helping relationship. However, should the community’s interest and
the individual’s interest become at odds, the natural helper will often
respond in a manner that validates the community’s interest. This process is
known as communitarianism, where the individuals are assigned rights by
the community and the survival of the community overrides the interest of
members: that is, members will be sacrificed in order to ensure the
community’s survival (Delaney, 2009).
Many problems for natural helpers also occur at the individual helping
level. A natural helping relationship is characterized by caring and support.
It is primarily a person-focused relationship; i.e., you get angry and kick the
door; I will support you, empathize, and attempt to make you feel good.
However, a professional helping relationship uses natural helping (caring
and support) but for a different reason. It is directed to one’s coping and
changing, i.e., intra-system focused. Accountability enters in (you kick the
door—yes I understand you’re angry, and . . .). As opposed to attempting to
make one feel good, the professional does not run from the intensity of
feelings, but rather acknowledges these and plans to address them and their
behavioural outcomes.
Another critical difference is the level of personalization. In a natural
helping relationship, if the client does something that the helper finds
offensive, the helper can personalize this behaviour because the client could
also be his/her friend. In friendships and natural helping situations, people
are often “nice” to each other as a social expectation for communal
behaviour. However, should a person act out in some disruptive or
unacceptable manner, the natural helper, as a member of the community,
may personalize this behaviour and respond with either rejection or
punishment. A professional relationship treats individuals with dignity and
respect based on one’s professional code of ethics and not community
expectations. Finally, the natural helping relationship could be used to
298 Partnerships and Indigenous Workers

encourage compliance to community standards by using the

relationship/friendship itself. On the other hand, the purpose of the
professional relationship in the northern context of practice is to enable a
person/group to make choices about a problem or a situation and about the
help they are willing to accept. This is accomplished by helping clients to
become more realistic by helping them see and accept what is; helping
clients to feel more self-confident by increasing awareness of and belief in
their strengths; helping clients to become more self-directing and to assume
responsibility for their life; and, helping clients to value life especially in
terms of purpose and meaning.

Challenges Facing the Indigenous Worker

Historically, Hardcastle (1972) suggests that organizations delivering
social services have hired indigenous workers because doing so helps to
create employment opportunities for low income persons and, at the same
time, alleviates the professional social work manpower shortage. Hiring
indigenous workers also reduces staff costs in agencies as nonprofessional
receive less money than professionals. Employing indigenous workers can
also respond to various environmental pressures from such groups as
politicians and funding bodies and serve as a form of co-opting, where the
agency hires significant community leaders or members of relevant groups.
Finally, indigenous workers improve the delivery and quality of services.
However, the creation of employment and the reduction of costs as
motivations for hiring indigenous workers serve only to cause an immediate
power differential among agency staff where the indigenous worker is
minimized and dismissed, rather than validated and utilized. Some analysts
project the benefits of collaboration among formal and informal care givers;
many others are finding serious problems, in particular rational
incompatibilities and power differences. The efforts to link the informal
and formal care may produce mutually exclusive and even antagonistic
relationships as professionals and lay persons act at cross purposes (Hoch &
Hemmens, 1987, p. 437).
The motivation for hiring indigenous workers to offset an existing
professional social work labour shortage is one that is often applied in the
north. The north has a history of high staff turnover among professional
social workers (Delaney, 1979), especially when those social workers are
southern-trained and itinerant to the north (Delaney, 1995; Zapf, 1991,
1996). However, if indigenous workers are being hired to replace
professionals and are expected to perform professional tasks, then not only
are the indigenous workers being misused, but they are also being hired to
be incompetent. This can result in a situation where the indigenous worker
will attempt to redefine either agency roles to suit existing natural helping
skills, or the worker becomes identified in the agency as “a second-class
citizen” with minimal competence to perform professional tasks. The hiring
of indigenous workers based on the premise of co-opting them is most often
tokenism as opposed to an opportunistic approach, which recognizes both
the need for indigenous workers and the valuable contribution that
indigenous workers can make to the agency. The failure to recognize the
Lawson, Arges, Delaney, & Kelly 299

skills and strengths of the indigenous worker generally limits the role and
potential of this worker within the agency and community. Worse, it
reduces the indigenous worker to a “political appointment” in the agency
rather than a valued worker and partner. This leaves the indigenous worker
feeling isolated and often under-resourced within the agency.
Another, more positive motivation for hiring indigenous workers is to
use indigenous workers to improve the delivery and quality of service. This
motivation differs substantively from previous motivations because it
recognizes the value of indigenous workers rather than simply trying to
create employment for the poor or to cut staff costs. The fundamental
difference is that this motivation views nonprofessional as useful “because
they will add something to the service delivery in their own right, not just as
adjuncts to professional manpower or to create new employment
opportunities for the poor” (Hardcastle, 1972, p. 57). A fundamental tenet
for northern social work practice suggests that effective service delivery in
northern communities requires a thorough understanding of how these
communities work. Indigenous workers, as effective natural helpers,
provide this knowledge.
What these five motivations for hiring indigenous workers suggest are
that the indigenous worker is being hired into an agency where it is
expected that the indigenous worker will adapt to a bureaucratic role.
Putting the indigenous worker into this bureaucratic role defeats the very
strengths that the indigenous worker brings. In effect, the indigenous
worker is expected to learn a whole new set of knowledge and skills that
relate to agency mandates and expectations. Often, he/she is prohibited from
relying on natural helping skills due to agency-set boundaries. By doing
this, the agency redefines the natural helper within the context of the
existing social support network in the northern community. Not only does
this create confusion for those whom the natural helper has assisted in the
past, but it also changes how the natural helper can help those he/she has
helped in the past.
Professional intervention frequently changes the meaning of aid for the
informal helper and the recipient. This authority may include middle class
moral values, educational expertise, or the delegated police power of the
state. The legitimacy and power of the professional care giver contrasts
strongly with the legitimacy of the informal helpers whose claim to aid rests
mainly on relationships of mutual trust among kin, friends and neighbours
(Hoch & Hemmens, 1987, p. 441). What can result when the indigenous
worker is assigned this form of bureaucratic role is mistrust among care
recipients; loss of confidence in the indigenous worker’s own skills; duality
of roles which, over time, can create disillusionment; and, burn-out in the
worker. The strengths that assisted the indigenous worker in being effective
and which were sought after by community members in the natural helpers
often work against him/her when they become agency representatives.
Overall, agencies have failed to recognize the strengths the indigenous
worker brings and have failed to organize in order to maximize these
strengths.
300 Partnerships and Indigenous Workers

Strategies
Collaborative partnerships can be described as a means of employing
non-traditional ways to increase service effectiveness while equalizing
power among the partners (Delaney & Weening, 1995, p. 59). The hiring of
indigenous workers can be viewed as a creative and non-traditional way of
providing services to northern communities. The utilization of indigenous
workers is a valuable asset to community-based organizations which are
struggling with maintaining the often imported southern-based professional
whose perspective is based on the southern metaphor which is ineffective in
northern communities. Formal agencies and indigenous workers should be
brought together in a manner that will enhance their functioning, taking into
consideration the strengths of both the natural helper and professional helper
(Jenkins & Cook, 1981). It is important that the hiring of the indigenous
worker be complementary to meeting community and agency needs.
Expanding on the already existing natural helping skills of the
indigenous workers will assist in bridging the gap between the formal and
informal networks within northern communities. Developing and fostering
the indigenous workers’ natural helping techniques will ensure that the
indigenous workers’ knowledge and understanding of the community are
enhanced and expanded to include information not readily accessible to the
community, such as demographic data and evaluation tools. Indigenous
workers should be hired to perform community roles rather than traditional
therapeutic roles. Studies have indicated that the investment of educational
resources in indigenous workers strongly correlates with a commitment to
being socially aware and interpersonally sensitive (Patterson, Memmott,
Brennen & Germain, 1992, p. 27).

Agency Strategies for Effective Northern Practice

Northern agencies, similar to northern professionals, are influenced by
southern metaphors that relate to agency design and staffing structures. A
new strategy for northern agencies is required if northern professionals and
natural helpers are to perform their work in a respectful and effective
manner within their environment. The first element in this strategy requires
agencies to reconceptualize how staff are used and how the status, power,
and prerogatives are granted to competing groups within the agency. In
northern agencies, employing natural helpers is a means of ensuring that the
agency can appropriately relate to its service environment. Natural helpers
understand the contextual patterning that drives community relationships,
role expectations, norms, appropriate behaviours and agreement realities.
Therefore, all northern agencies would benefit by employing a number of
natural helpers specifically hired to perform natural helping tasks on the
behalf of the agency and, most importantly, that role should never be
viewed as less than other roles in the agency. This effort at “collaborative
agency management” rather than “elitist or competitive agency
management” not only reflects good northern practice, but also is the only
means of establishing a meaningful and empowering relationship between
Lawson, Arges, Delaney, & Kelly 301

agency and community. Natural helpers, when working as indigenous

workers, are hired for what they bring to the agency and not just for what
the agency can train them to be. In large institutions, unqualified staff are
sometimes hired because they have natural helping skills. However, these
natural helping skills are environmentally sensitive: that is, natural helping
skills are most effective within the context in which they were formed and
are less effective and, sometimes, ineffective in other contexts. In short,
natural helpers perfect their skills within the culture of a given context;
removing a natural helper into another context requires substantial
adaptation by that person.
The goal, when hiring indigenous workers, must not be to make them
into social work professionals, but to enhance their natural helping skills
while providing management and professional level training that will allow
the natural helper to move from the independence of being a community
member to the role of providing an agency service and being an agency
representative (Jenkins & Cook, 1981, p. 416). Natural helpers must be
trained to adapt to agencies in the same manner that professionals need to be
trained to adapt to northern communities. The professional is dependent on
the guidance of the natural helper to negotiate and understand the contextual
patterns of the people with whom they are working, including appropriate
communication and language skills. Working together, the professional and
the natural helper can each learn from the other and both can be enriched
from this experience. As well, both can benefit from training in each other’s
area of “knowledge and experience.”
From this perspective, professionals and natural helpers work together
to achieve agency objectives and to meet community expectations. Each is
equally important, and professional status alone should not determine
agency status. In northern agencies, status should be equalized if the
principles of northern social work are to be met. The objective is to create
effective, healthy, and appropriate agencies that are equipped to work in a
respectful and meaningful way with communities—a process that empowers
both parties. The following strategies are recommended to ensure that
communities and agencies which hire indigenous workers have adequately
planned and prepared for them in a manner that is respectful of their natural
helping skills, while placing emphasis on skill enhancement in areas which
may be lacking. The strategies have been organized into four categories:
resource strategies, training strategies, supervision strategies, and support
strategies.
Resource strategies refer to the provision of resources that will assist in
reducing the isolation often felt during residence in northern communities.
Training strategies refer to strategies that will assist the indigenous worker
to adapt to the agency and to learn new knowledge about community work
in a manner that is complementary to his/her existing skills. Supervision
strategies in northern communities provide for the development of
comprehensive and effective northern practice skills. Support strategies will
provide ideas and information about the use of support networks as a tool
for reducing the isolation felt by some northern practitioners, thus taking
steps to prevent burnout and high turnover. The implementation and use of
these strategies can serve not only to promote the effectiveness of
302 Partnerships and Indigenous Workers

indigenous workers as agency staff, but to also assist other agency members
to appreciate the valuable contribution indigenous workers can make to the
effective delivery of agency services.

Resource Strategies
Due to the cost of accessing an appropriate range of training
opportunities in northern communities, modern technology can be utilized
as a resource and means for training and providing continued education for
indigenous workers. Technological advances in electronic media have
expanded the possibilities of linking learning centres with workers in the
field through the use of the telecommunication systems such as
teleconference, audio conference, and interactive closed-circuit television.
Despite such disadvantages as malfunctioning or non-functioning
equipment, user anxiety and resistance, problems in mastering procedures,
and lack of face to face interaction among participants (Waltman, 1990, p.
18), when used appropriately and conjointly with other training strategies,
technology can serve a very useful purpose.
Developing partnerships with community colleges and universities can
also assist northern agencies and communities by providing professionals,
indigenous workers, and natural helpers with adequate library resources.
This partnership can be extended to using existing town or school libraries
as an innovative resource where professional books and journals could be
made available as well as other resources such as a toll-free student
assistance line and a supplemental services mail-loan service. Negotiating a
collaborative partnership with the community-based library or other local
facility can be a valuable resource in northern communities (Waltman,
1990).
Azzarto (1995) recommends that financial grants, similar to grants
provided to educate other professionals, should be made available to
indigenous workers. Outreach programs, if developed professionally and
executed with cultural sensitivity, can provide the primary prevention that is
so desperately needed (Azzatro, 1995), while also serving as an
environmental context in which the indigenous worker’s skills are
maximized. Creating learning opportunities for natural helpers through the
use of specialized training, placements can be helpful in the future
recruitment of indigenous workers. Finally, using itinerant workers as a
resource for the indigenous worker and the agency may not only alleviate
staff coverage problems, but could also serve as a means to alleviate worker
burn-out and stress.

Training Strategies Defined

Training occurs at formal and informal levels. Formal training utilizes
the educational system to obtain information and knowledge in preparation
for performing one’s tasks, such as obtaining a degree in social work.
Informal training refers to the development and enhancement of existing
natural helping skills. Both types of training used in conjunction are equally
Lawson, Arges, Delaney, & Kelly 303

important in the growth and development of effective northern social

workers.

Formal Training
Universities and colleges need to provide northern practitioners with an
education that is relevant to northern practice (Zapf, 1991) and discontinue a
current trend of abandoning the training of northern practice skills
(DeWeaver, Smith, Hosang, 1988). In formally training social workers to
work in the north, educational systems must understand and recognize that
much of social work knowledge is biased towards a “southern metaphor”
that reduces the applicability of that knowledge as a theoretical guide for
northern practice (Zapf, 1996). If an individual is to work in the north, a
practice metaphor must be adopted which is consistent with the northern
contextual framework (Arges & Delaney, 1996). If a northern indigenous
worker is sent to a formal institution based on the “southern metaphor” for
professional education, then not only will the worker’s natural helping skills
experience a “lack of fit,” but the indigenous worker will also suffer a lack
of fit with the educational institution itself, resulting in frustration and added
stress for workers, clients, and agencies. The educational system can foster
and enhance the development of northern practice skills by adopting a
northern perspective based on collaborative partnerships guided by high
degrees of context sensitivity and context awareness.
In response to consumer demand, competition, and enrollment
concerns, colleges and universities are reaching out to northern areas
through off-campus courses which offer evening and weekend classes in
local facilities to community members who often are already performing
indigenous work or natural helping roles in the communities. These off-
campus professional education programs can provide a valuable service to
indigenous workers who have made professional training a career goal. By
taking these types of course offerings, indigenous workers can reduce
isolation (Waltman, 1990) and expand their boundaries through exchanges
with other indigenous workers and professionals who share the same
practice concerns and dilemmas as they do. The availability of these
resources goes a long way toward fostering a lifelong appreciation for
learning in the indigenous worker, the results of which can be helpful when
used within the community.
The indigenous worker is knowledgeable about the contextual
environment. Hills (1989) notes that the knowledge and skills that an
individual acquires are more likely to be retained and used if integrated with
the worker’s natural helping style. Information which is provided to the
indigenous worker needs to be practical, understandable, and applicable. As
indigenous workers have a thorough knowledge of the informal helping
systems within the community, it would be beneficial to expand these skills
to assist them in establishing collaborative partnerships within all levels of
the community. Having the northern practitioner attend professional
training programs allows the individual to network with professionals from
a variety of geographic regions and actively exchange ideas between
educators and practitioners. However, opportunities to travel to distant
304 Partnerships and Indigenous Workers

universities for conferences and national meetings are limited by the

realities of northern practice: lack of time and money, inclement weather,
and inadequate agency coverage for absent workers (Waltman, 1990, p. 17).
Thus, northern practitioners are often restricted in their opportunities for
professional development.

Informal Training
In order to alleviate limited opportunities for development, workshops
and staff training sessions are often employed. The conventional one-day
workshop remains a common, economical form of training used by rural
agencies (Brownlee, 1994). However, despite the popularity of the one-day
workshop, where the presenter is often “flown in” from a major centre,
Brownlee questions whether the integration of new material, especially if
accompanied by feelings of uncertainty, is utilized under the pressure of
everyday work (Brownlee, 1994). In order to offset these problems, he
recommends the use of follow-up workshops to expose the southern
metaphors contained in the previous workshop; increased supervision to
discuss these new ideas; group discussion opportunities; and linkages with a
consultant in order to utilize newly acquired skills in one or two new cases
in order to familiarize oneself with the techniques.
Indigenous workers also need to receive support in establishing and
maintaining boundaries to reduce their levels of stress and burn-out. This
will require ongoing supervision and training to help deal with these
difficulties. Being present and known to the community can present
problems for indigenous workers, and practical techniques to assist the
indigenous worker in maintaining an effective use of self within the
northern community need to be developed. Indigenous workers must learn
to accept feedback from professionals, other indigenous workers and
community members. It is crucial that the indigenous worker view and
accept this feedback as an important part of learning and development. This
ability to accept feedback can be established through face-to-face
supervision and performance evaluations that are completed in conjunction
with other indigenous workers within the organization.
Training must also occur at the management level because many
professional managers are imported from the south. The ideals, philosophy,
and management style that they bring to the agency need to be consistent
with attending to the needs of northern communities and indigenous
workers. However, for many “southern trained” managers, this is very
difficult to accomplish, especially those managers who view power as the
prerogative of executive positions. For southern professional social workers
who move to the north, there is soon a discovery that the ideology and
values of the profession are incompatible with the ideologies and values in
northern communities (Zapf, 1996). It is not surprising that southern-trained
social workers often relate well to southern managers. However, both of
these groups often undervalue and underestimate the value of the indigenous
worker and simply create a “reality” that is framed by southern value
systems and southern ideals (Arges & Delaney, 1996). As noted, both of
these groups need to be trained to perform northern social work practice
Lawson, Arges, Delaney, & Kelly 305

and, the indigenous worker can be an important contributor to their training.

Supervision Strategies
Supervisors working in northern communities need to be aware of the
factors which contribute to shaping professional and indigenous worker
roles in order to appreciate where role conflicts may develop. Katan (1984)
identifies the following factors which may create role conflict: the worker’s
profession; the organization’s bureaucratic characteristics; the power
relationships among workers; the dominant profession in the organization;
consensual decision making in worker’s groups; and, client's effects and
worker characteristics. Supervisors need to have the skills to address these
factors within an organization and to ensure that all members of the agency
are given the same information regarding them.
Indigenous workers have the advantage of being knowledgeable about
the agency’s contextual environment and of having already established
supportive relationships within the community. However, as previously
identified, a dualism may develop as the indigenous worker continues to be
a helper within the community and yet is expected to prescribe to the
agency’s mandates, philosophies, and standards. An important function of
the supervision of indigenous workers must be to assist the indigenous
worker to deal with this situation and to avoid a situation where the
indigenous worker may feel pressured to choose between the organization
and community. The organization must support and foster the use of
indigenous workers in northern communities and to support the indigenous
worker when conflicts may arise at the organizational, community and
individual level. Research conducted by Doyle suggests that the training of
indigenous workers is maximized when immediate and continuous
supervision is provided (Doyle, Foreman & Wales, 1977).

Support Strategies
When hired by agencies, indigenous workers may experience
difficulties with privacy, anonymity, and maintaining appropriate
boundaries within their community. The indigenous worker who had always
been responsive and helpful prior to working in an organization may have
difficulty establishing a new set of boundaries, especially if the agency’s
mandate is not community focused. The indigenous worker will need the
support of agency colleagues to ensure that this situation does not prove too
stressful and eventually cause burn-out. Developing peer-mentor programs
within an organization can assist with the establishment of supportive
relationships within the organization and can be an opportunity for
indigenous workers to learn from others by discussing client and case work
concerns. Finally, utilizing interactive seminars within the northern
community allows workers to develop partnerships with other indigenous
workers and can provide an excellent opportunity for integrating theory and
practice.
306 Partnerships and Indigenous Workers

In summary, strategies provided to the indigenous worker need to

enhance their existing natural helping characteristics. It is important that the
hiring of indigenous workers be complementary to the needs of the
community and agency. Agencies that take the time to ensure that
reasonable support, supervision and training resources are available prior to
hiring indigenous workers will maximize the many benefits that indigenous
workers bring to social services in the north.

Conclusion
Indigenous workers are important members of the social welfare
network in the north. Not only do they bring valuable information to
agencies about their communities and the people who live in them, but they
also understand the more subtle nuances that guide the contextual patterns
of these communities. When used appropriately, indigenous workers
provide an excellent service for social agencies and a natural linkage to the
social networks that exist in the work environment. However, if indigenous
workers are to be used effectively, they must be viewed as full members of
the social agency and the unique work they do must be recognized and
respected for the contribution it makes. When working conjointly as
collaborative partners with professional staff, indigenous workers bring a
grounded knowledge and know-how to the helping process.
To be clear, indigenous workers are not miracle workers and not all
relationships they have in their environment are healthy and progressive
ones. Often indigenous workers bring the biases and prejudices that mark
the community in which they live. Therefore, indigenous workers do need
assistance in identifying negative community influences and the opportunity
to grow in their agency role. Although the problems the indigenous workers
bring to the agency are real, the contributions they can make are also very
real and very important for northern social work practice.

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 CHAPTER 20

MANAGING AGENCIES IN THE

NORTHERN AND RURAL CONTEXT

ROGER DELANEY AND JANE McMICHAEL

McKay (1999) suggests that social work, as a profession under siege, must
seek commonality amongst its divergent “opinions and knowledge and value
bases” (p. 20) if it is to survive the struggles generated by globalization,
corporatism, and government withdrawal from issues of the common good.
While this goal of enhanced professional commonality is an exciting one, Zapf
(1999) suggests that Canada’s north is in a state of opposition not only against
the intrusion of Canada’s south into the north, but also among the many
communities and organizations located in the north. Moreover, the
development of northern, rural, and remote community social work theory and
practice, which hopefully will provide a unifying framework for northern
practice, is still at an early stage and unlikely to be of immediate help in
providing a framework which would allow for greater professional
commonality.
This chapter will address one area of northern social work practice which
has received too little attention in the northern social work literature. Yet, this
area of practice highly influences not only how northern agencies function, but
also how these agencies interact with their service environment. This is the area
of agency management within the northern context. While there is evidence to
suggest that management in the north is different than management in the
southern urban centres (Delaney & Brownlee, 1995), little work has been done
to specify how it is different.
Certainly, with vast geography and small population, agencies in the north
must address service issues differently than do agencies with an entire client
population within a few kilometres of the office. This chapter will provide an
approach to northern management which respects and promotes the value of
community. This approach suggests that a hermeneutic phenomenological
approach to management supports contextual awareness and contextual
sensitivity (Delaney, 1995) as integral elements in the management process.
The high value placed on context and community must become part of the
organization’s culture and the various styles that managers must perform must
also be contextually sensitive. Reddin’s (1970) 3-D Management Style is
adapted in this chapter to conform to the contextual demands of northern social
service agencies.

What is a Hermeneutic Approach to Management

A hermeneutic phenomenological approach is a “philosophy of the
personal, the individual, which we pursue against the background of an

312
Delaney & McMichael 313

understanding of the evasive character of the logos of other, the whole, the
communal, or the social” (Van Manen, 1990, p. 7). In other words, it seeks to
understand the lived experience of people within the context in which they live.
By doing so, it validates personal experience while attempting to understand
that experience within the shared consciousness of the group, be it family, peer
group, or community.
What this does is to help an outsider to appreciate the language, values and
perceptions that are used to explain behaviour or discuss phenomena by
insiders. For example, this approach supports the use of narratives or stories
because it is respectful of the individual within the social context. By allowing
an individual to relate how an event was experienced, one is able to gain
insight into the individual based on such factors as what the person viewed as
being important about the event, the aspects of the event which received most
attention, the language used to describe the event and the words used to
describe any people involved in the event, and the value-orientation driving the
person’s narrative. Moreover, as other people describe the event or hear this
person’s “storying” of the event, insight can be gained into the congruence or
lack of congruence among the various descriptions of the event, leading to a
better understanding of the community’s “storying” of the event. Van Manen
(1990) suggests that narratives have the following powers:
1. to compel: a story recruits our willing attention;
2. to lead us to reflect: a story tends to invite us to a reflective search
for significance;
3. to involve us personally: one tends to search actively for the story
teller’s meaning via one’s own perception;
4. to transform: we may be touched, shaken, moved by the story; it
touches us; and,
5. to measure one’s interpretive sense: one’s response to a story is a
measure of one’s deepened ability to make interpretive sense (Van
Manen, 1990, p. 121).
By being offered a story, an outsider is being invited into the
consciousness of the insider and the insider’s context. The careful listener will
not only increase contextual awareness through this process, but will also
enhance contextual sensitivity, thus allowing for an emotional empathy with
the narrator and the narrator’s reality.

Skills for the Northern Manager

Northern social work practice argues that appreciating the value of the
person and the context is an important attribute for all practitioners, including
northern managers. The northern (and rural) manager is confronted with an
array of management challenges that are unique to the context of practice.
These challenges include operating small agencies in small communities with
as few as one other staff member; operating satellite offices located in
sometimes very different contextual settings; dealing with variant population
groups, each demanding respect for their particular circumstance or reality;
dealing with boards of directors that may or may not represent the interests of
the whole community (or communities); and, dealing with central offices or
314 Managing Agencies in the Northern and Rural Context

other formal government organizations whose information needs may be the

opposite of the information needs of the local agency or office.
Sometimes, when people think of managing small, remote social work
offices in the north or in rural areas, there is a sense of simplicity. Indeed,
people can confuse small or remote with having less paper work, less complex
human resource management, less complex information systems, less stringent
dress/conduct codes, and less complex client systems. The reality is that this is
simply not true. Legally mandated northern-based agencies, such as Children’s
Aid Societies and Young Offender programs, must follow the same
professional and system accountabilities as urban-based agencies.
In order to cope with the demands for effective and efficient management,
the northern social work manager is often expected to serve rather than manage
highly diverse and complex population groups with minimal staff, operating
budgets, clerical help, and managerial support. Northern managers must have
the ability to:
1. conduct strategic and operational planning processes;
2. prepare budgets;
3. establish effective and efficient information systems, sometimes involving
several off-site offices or workers;
4. prepare annual reports;
5. supervise staff;
6. maintain a collaborative partnership with other agencies and interested
persons;
7. create and maintain effective linkages within organizational domain;
8. maintain effective organizational structure; and,
9. upgrade managerial skills.
Obviously, depending on the mandate, size and location of a manager’s
agency, the demand for depth in these task areas will vary. Regardless, being
proficient and current in each of these areas is an expectation that very few
northern managers, or southern managers, will ever meet. When agencies are
large, managers with different skills can be hired to share the managerial
process. In the north, many managers who work in small, isolated communities
are essentially working on their own, without other managers to help them
perform these tasks. When one considers that managers are sometimes in non-
sexual dual relationships not only with people within their community, but also
with staff as well, the demands to remain sensitive to the person and the
context can become strained. For example, it is not uncommon in small rural
and northern communities for social workers to perform other functions, such
as coaching sports, conducting community fund-raising, assisting local church
activities, such as Sunday School or spiritual retreats, or owning a local
resource, such as a store or other business enterprise such as an air service.
Managers in small northern and rural communities can also have rather
unique relationships with other professionals. In one northern satellite office
where there was a no-smoking policy imposed by the central office, the
manager had an arrangement with the local police to notify her when a member
from the central office was spotted on the highway approaching the office.
Since all members of the satellite office smoked, the manager rationalized that
the no-smoking policy was “bogus” and that with proper warning, the office
Delaney & McMichael 315

could quickly appear to be non-smoking.

Staff members may experience real problems when they are located in
communities other than the community in which the central office is located.
Zapf (1985b) relates the problems he experienced as a northern worker when
he was to address head office managers in a language they could understand
(and expect of a professional) and to talk with community people in a language
that respected them as a people and as a culture. He mused over what would
happen if managers from head office ever came to the community and he was
confronted with how he would express himself.
In a real sense, managers in small northern communities are generalists.
They need to perform or have access to a variety of performance skills and they
must be able to communicate sensitively with all system levels. Moreover, they
have to create an organizational climate that is conducive to organizational
goals as well as staff well-being. In essence, they are asked to manage the
organization’s culture.

Organizational Culture
Organizations are made up of people. However, how the organization
views people has been regarded as a prime indicator of how the organization
will be structured and how managers will approach staff. For example,
McGregor’s (1960) Theory X and Theory Y suggest that there are two major
perspectives that organizations may have regarding their managers and staff.
Theory X suggests that people are essentially lazy, unmotivated, and afraid of
responsibility, and that the principles of scientific management are required to
maximize performance and productivity. Theory Y suggests that people love to
work, are responsible, and seek new challenges. Obviously, an organization
which is developed on the basis of Theory X will be very different from an
organization developed based on Theory Y. However, this approach fails to
include how the community, the staff, or, for that matter, middle or front-line
managers view the role of the agency, and the structures and processes that
should be put into place that would further that role. This rather “hands-down”
view of management still shapes reality for many of our organizations. For
example, in many of our private agencies, people on an agency’s board of
directors are viewed as policy makers who are in continual contact with
managers and only in very limited contact with staff.
A more promising and current approach to organizational development is
the notion of organizational culture. Organizational culture suggests that,
whether organizations want it or not, each organization establishes a culture.
This culture has its roots in the forms of communication engaged in by
organizational members which results in shared ways of addressing the world.
Managers can bring about change in their organizations by infusing new
rituals, symbols and metaphors that best reflect the organization=s mission.
However, these changes can also solely reflect the manager=s personal vision
for the organization, which may or may not reflect the best interest of staff,
community, and consumers. Again, much depends on how senior management
views the roles of staff, community, and consumers in organizational affairs
and on how power is used and understood within the organization.
316 Managing Agencies in the Northern and Rural Context

A hermeneutic phenomenological approach to management would seek to

ensure that each worker’s story is heard and hopefully understood within the
framework of the organization, its mission, its community, and its consumers.
The advantage of this approach is that the organization is viewed organically—
that is, as a living system which is productive, flexible, and adaptive (Mott,
1972). Productivity, in this instance, means accomplishing goals that are
mutually agreed upon by the organization, community, and consumers.
Flexibility allows the organization to organize and reorganize itself
continuously in a manner that is responsive and appropriate to its service and
geographic community. Organizational roles would change to accommodate
community and consumer need, and various staff may assume leadership roles
depending on their knowledge and skills. Adaptability allows the organization
continually to be in a process of achieving excellence (Peters & Waterman,
1982) and effectiveness while remaining sensitive to its membership and its
context for practice.
In an age when corporatism as the by-product of globalization sponsors a
business approach to government programs and services resulting in
mechanistic and detached view of people driving the Canadian context (Saul,
1995), the notion of a hermeneutic phenomenological approach to management
may seem naive and even silly. However, if social service agencies are to enter
realistically into collaborative partnerships with their communities, then the
north may provide the site that will allow for the benefits of such partnerships
to emerge and be offered to the rest of Canada.

Management Style
New organizations will require new types of managersCmanagers who
understand that there is no “one way” to manage. Historically, managers were
seen as being either task-oriented (planning, organizing and controlling),
relationship-oriented (mutual trust, respect for other’s ideas, consideration for
other’s feelings, and the degree to which the manager has personal job
relationships), or some combination of the two. The notion is that managers
bring their own personality characteristics and managerial training into the job
and these characteristics and training are often expressed along the task-
relationship continuum.
Workers and consumers could quickly assess whether the agency’s
manager is task- or relationship-oriented and begin to work with that manager
along those lines. When a manager had a preferred style, there was also a
natural disposition to value staff with a similar orientation over others with a
different one. The dichotomy between task-orientation and relationship-
orientation is also organizationally expressed by labeling managerial positions
as being either task jobs (such as accounting, planning, or programming) or
relationship jobs (front-line supervision, human resource management, or
public relations). Worse, each of these orientations assumes that the manager’s
preferences or personality should determine managerial performance
expectations.
The above approach has been classified as falling within the behavioural
perspective of leadership, a perspective which has largely given way to the
Delaney & McMichael 317

contingency perspective (McShane, 1995). Within the latter perspective there

are multiple leadership theories, notably one by Reddin. Reddin (1970)
proposed the idea that the main role of the manager is to perform effectively
the output requirements of the position. In doing so, Reddin argues that the
situation or the context, not the manager’s personality or role, should determine
managerial style, that is, the manner in which managers perform their duties.
To be an effective manager, Reddin (1971) suggests that two major skills
are required by managers. The first skill requires the manager to have the
contextual awareness and contextual sensitivity to understand accurately what
managerial, staff or community actions are required by a given situation. The
second skill requires that the manager respond to her or his role in a manner
that is congruent with the demands of the situation. Each situation requires the
manager to respond in a manner that is appropriate to the situation and the tasks
that must be accomplished.
For example, if a situation demands high task and low relationship, such as
the need to ensure that staff complete case files on time, then the effective
manager responds with high task-low relationship managerial style. On the
other hand, if a situation requires high relationship-low task, such as the death
of a staff member or their family, then the effective manager responds in-kind.
In essence, Reddin postulates that a manager’s situational sensitivity—that is,
the ability to read all aspects of a situation accurately—is a critical managerial
skill and one that can be learned through training and experience.
In summary, a manager is responsible for appreciating accurately which
managerial style is appropriate in a given situation and to respond to that
situation by using the appropriate style. Table 1 shows four leadership styles
that correspond to different situational tasks. Each style is the appropriate
managerial response provided, as noted earlier, the manager has correctly read
the situation.

Table 1: Effective and Ineffective Managerial Styles

Applied to an Applied to an
Situation calls for Leadership Appropriate Inappropriate
Style Situation Situation

Low Task Separated Bureaucrat Deserter

Low Relationship

Low Task Related Developer Missionary

High Relationship

High Task Dedicated Benevolent Autocrat

Low Relationship Autocrat

High Task Integrated Executive Compromiser

High Relationship
318 Managing Agencies in the Northern and Rural Context

Reddin underlines the importance of the match between managerial style

and situation by labelling the same managerial behaviours differently according
to whether they fit the situation or not. For example, an integrated style applied
to a high task/high relationship situation would be labelled “executive,”
indicating effectiveness. An integrated style applied to situations not
characterized as high task/high relationship would be inappropriate and
labelled “compromiser.”
Redin describes the four basic managerial styles, then outlines how each is
perceived when applied appropriately to a situation and when applied
inappropriately as follows:

Integrated Leadership Style

Applied appropriately: Executive - good motivator who sets high standards,

who prefers team management and who treats everyone differently (effective)

Applied inappropriately: Compromiser - a poor decision-maker who allows

various pressures in situation to overly influence, and a minimizer who handles
immediate issues without regard for long-term production (ineffective)

Dedicated Leadership Style

Applied appropriately: Benevolent Autocrat - seen as knowing what is needed

and able to achieve this without creating resentment (effective)

Applied inappropriately: Autocrat - seen as having little confidence in others,

as being unpleasant and interested only in immediate job (ineffective)

Related Leadership Style

Applied appropriately: Developer - seen as having implicit trust in people and

with developing them as workers and people (effective)

Applied inappropriately: Missionary - seen as being primarily interested in

harmony and therefore avoiding hard decisions and staff supervision
(ineffective)

Separated Leadership Style

Applied appropriately: Bureaucrat - seen as being interested in rules and
procedures and in maintaining and in controlling the situation by their
application. Also seen as conscientious (effective)

Applied inappropriately: Deserter - seen as uninvolved and passive, often

passive-aggressive and counterproductive to situation (ineffective) (Reddin,
1968).

In summary, the effective manager has two tasks: accurately assess the
Delaney & McMichael 319

situation and respond with the appropriate and effective leadership style
demanded by the context.
It might be assumed from the above that managers with the most style
flexibility will be the most effective managers. Reddin makes another
distinction which again underlines his major thesis: it depends on the situation.
If high flexibility is appropriate, then this style is effective and is labeled “style
flexibility.” If it is inappropriate, it may be perceived as ineffective, that is, as
“style drift.” Similarly, a manager with a narrower range of behaviours and,
therefore, a narrower range of styles, may be effective or ineffective depending
on what the situation calls for. If the situation calls for low flexibility, then the
manager may be perceived as effective and as having “style resilience.”
Alternatively, if the situation demands high flexibility, then a manager with low
flexibility will be perceived as ineffective and as having “style rigidity.”
It is important to note that Reddin’s (1970) theory includes five types of
situational elements to which a manager must respond: organizational
philosophy or culture; technology; and the styles and expectations of each of
three groups—superiors, co-workers, and subordinates. On the surface, all of
these appear to be intra-organizational elements. However, Reddin argues that
extra-organizational elements can be taken into account via his five basic
categories. For example, the impact of a recession can be expressed through
subordinates’ and superiors’ expectations. A second option, he suggests, is to
simply include additional elements. For our purposes, it is perhaps most
appropriate to consider both, that is, to include additional elements that are
explicitly extra-organizational to take into account the nature of the community
in which the organization is embedded, and to recognize that intra-
organizational structures and processes are both subject to the effects of the
external environment (the community). To do this is to explicitly acknowledge
that there are multiple points of contact and sites of influence between the
community and the organization (e.g. manager, supervisors, co-workers,
subordinates, community/organizational culture). In this context, Reddin’s
prescription to diagnose accurately and then respond appropriately requires the
manager to attend to the extra-organizational elements as observed directly by
her/him, as well as those perceived indirectly via other members of the
organization.
These extra-organizational elements may be further delineated, again by
adapting Reddin’s (1970) theory. He identifies five types of situational
elements within organizations. Four of these could be readily adapted to
describe important elements within the community—namely, the community
culture or cultures, the styles and expectations of each community leaders or
decision-makers, other human service organizations, and potential and actual
users of services.
When this model is considered from a hermeneutic phenomenological
approach, the manager is not just a member of an organization but a member of
the community as well. Using this construction, the manager is acutely aware
that his or her presence in a community means that the community has become
a part of the agency’s “story” and the agency has become a part of the
community’s “story.” Of great concern to northern managers is to ensure that
they are reading the community correctly and not simply imposing their own
320 Managing Agencies in the Northern and Rural Context

metaphors on the community and, in effect, attempting to reorder or redefine

the community’s culture.
One suggestion that might help agencies to remain in touch with their
communities is to ensure that indigenous people play a vital role within the
agency. Weening, Arges, and Delaney (1997) suggest that indigenous workers
should be hired to perform the role of interpreting the agency to the community
and the community to the agency. In this role, indigenous workers are valued
for their contextual awareness and sensitivity and essentially guide the agency.
While this role is very demanding, it nevertheless improves the agency’s
understanding and appreciation for the context being served. These authors go
on to recommend that every context should have indigenous guides as contexts
even within close proximity can be very different from each other.
Certainly, when encountering the outcomes of oppression and cultural
wounding, having indigenous workers involved in efforts to deconstruct
oppressive narratives that re-victimize people and communities is absolutely
essential. Even then, though, a great deal of care must be taken to ensure that
the people within the context have the power to recreate their own stories or to
remember forgotten ones.

Conclusion
Except for the larger centres in the provincial norths and in the far north,
most northern social work agencies are located in small and remote
communities. While some of these agencies are satellite offices belonging to
larger agencies located in densely populated areas, others are stand alone
agencies with one to several workers. The demands placed on these agencies
are great and cause continuous strain on agency managers, not only to meet
funding or home office expectations, but also to serve as effective linkages
with the communities being served. In order to accomplish this, a hermeneutic
phenomenological approach to management is recommended. By viewing the
agency as a living system which is also part of the community’s living system,
the manager is better able to adapt the agency to the community it is serving.
By viewing people within their own understanding and narratives, the agency is
sensitized to the community and a relationship based on mutual respect and
collaborative partnerships becomes a possibility.
When central offices and public policy-makers understand the realities
faced by northern agencies, then a greater willingness may emerge to see
northern agencies as community resources that need to be designed in a manner
that serves community purposes rather than as metaphoric clones of their own
vision and understanding. This understanding could pave the way for
negotiations between head offices and policy-makers and northern agencies
and communities that are based more on mutual respect and cooperation, and
less on power and preconceived notions.
Finally, this chapter has suggested that management styles should result
from situational needs and demands and not from personalities or preferred
managerial styles. Four management styles and their effective and ineffective
styles were examined. Managing in northern communities has the potential to
provide leadership in power-with models of collaborative partnerships between
Delaney & McMichael 321

agencies and their communities. However, northerners must also be prepared to

re-examine their “opposition-to-each-other” attitude and to attempt to revitalize
and redefine the helping relationship from one being sent to fix another’s
problems to one of working together to create vital and sustaining
communities.

References
Delaney, R. & Brownlee, K. (Eds.). (1995). Northern social work practice.
Thunder Bay, ON: Lakehead University Centre for Northern Studies.
Delaney, R. (1995). Northern social work practice: An ecological perspective.
In R. Delaney & K. Brownlee (Eds.). Northern social work practice. (pp. 1-
34). Thunder Bay, ON: Lakehead University Centre for Northern Studies.
McGregor, D. (1960). The human side of enterprise. New York: McGraw-Hill.
McKay, S. (1999). Postmodernism, social well-being, and the mainstream/
progressive debate. In Turner, F. (Ed.). Social work practice: A Canadian
perspective (pp. 10-20). Scarborough, ON: Allyn and Bacon Canada.
McShane, S. (1995). Canadian organizational behaviour, 2nd Edition.
Homewood, Ill.: R.D. Irwin.
Mott, P. (1972). The characteristics of effective organizations. New York:
Harper & Row.
Peters, T. J. & Waterman, R. H. (1982). In search of excellence. New York:
Harper & Row.
Reddin, W. (1971). Effective management by objectives. Toronto: McGraw-
Hill.
Reddin, W. (1970) Managerial effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Reddin, W. (1968). Management style diagnosis test. Fredericton: Managerial
Effectiveness Ltd.
Saul, J. R. (1995). The unconscious civilization. Concord, ON: Anansi.
Van Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an
action sensitive pedagogy. London, ON: The Althouse Press.
Weening, J., Arges, S. & Delaney, R. (1997). In Brownlee, K., Delaney, R. &
Graham, J. (Eds.) Strategies for northern social work practice (pp. 60-89).
Thunder Bay: Lakehead University Centre for Northern Studies.
Zapf, M.K. (1999). Geographic factors. In Turner, F. (Ed.). Social work
practice: A Canadian perspective, (pp. 344-358). Scarborough: Prentice
Hall Allyn and Bacon Canada.
Zapf, M.K. (1985a). Rural social work and its application to the Canadian
north as a practice setting. Occasional paper, Faculty of Social Work,
University of Toronto.
Zapf, M.K. (1985b). Home is where the target group is: Role conflicts facing
an urban-trained social worker in a remote northern Canadian community.
In Whitaker, W. (Ed.). Social work in rural areas: A celebration of rural
people, place, and struggle. (pp. 187-203). Orono, ME: University of
Maine.
 CHAPTER 21

CREATING A REFLECTIVE COMMUNITY

IN A NORTHERN AGENCY
MARGARET McKEE
A common theme through many of the chapters in this collection is that
the Canadian North is a unique practice context for Social Work. We cannot
assume that policies and practices that were developed to fit a western/
southern, urban, modern context are relevant or compatible with the unique
needs and issues of the North. Some may be; others are not. Clearly, too
much of what has already been done in the North under the guise of
benevolent intervention has been imperialistic and disempowering to the
people who live there. The chapters in this collection are an attempt to right
some of those wrongs—to build a knowledge base that introduces social
workers to the North—in some cases, to issues and needs that transcend
cultural and geographic difference and sound truly familiar even to the
“southern ear;” in other cases, to issues that are unique and that will require
radical re-thinking of our tried and true ideas and methods.
What I want to do with this chapter is build on a theme which threads
its way throughout this volume: that a social work practice for the North
must arise from authentic dialogue with the people of the North. It must be
grounded in their needs and experiences and made to serve their goals and
interests. It must be built from the ground up, incorporate local knowledge
and expertise, and honour local customs and ways of being. Blind adherence
to practices and protocols imported from somewhere else—no matter how
much empirical support they have—cannot be considered ethical practice in
the North. In this chapter, I will use ideas drawn from the work of Schon
(1983, 1987) to try to articulate a more dialogical orientation to knowledge
and knowledge-sharing, and I will describe a set of practices and values at
the agency level that can support it.
First, I want to address what I mean when I use the term “critical
reflection” and “reflective practice.” I will argue for it being the central
feature of professional practice—the feature without which professional
practice ceases to be “professional” and becomes instead blind
proceduralism (ie, following prescribed procedures, protocols, or
standardized practices as if by rote). I want to show that an intentionally
critical, reflective stance towards our knowledge and a genuine curiosity
about the local knowledge of the clients and communities of the North are
absolutely crucial to the development of the collaborations that are needed
to build a contextually-relevant social work for the North. When we really
“get it” that what we know is shaped by our own theories, assumptions, and
values, and that the world we take to be so self-evidently real can be
constructed very differently by someone holding different assumptions and
values, we begin to understand how contestable our knowledge really is and
how obligated we are to open it up for inquiry and critique. In this chapter, I
want to show that the ability to open our knowledge to inquiry, critique, and
322
McKee 323

debate is the foundation for real dialogue with the communities we serve. I
want to show how important agency culture is in creating the conditions for
such critical reflection to flourish, and sadly, how easy it is to create
conditions that actively discourage it. I hope to persuade the reader that
more reflective agency cultures are crucial for creative, ethical, accountable,
and effective social work in the North.

What is “Professional” Practice?

There has been a spirited debate in the social work literature about what
exactly constitutes “professional” practice—what distinguishes it from other
forms of human interaction, what makes it “professional.” There are those
who would argue that the characteristic feature of a professional is that their
actions are guided by a body of research-derived, scientific knowledge: they
do what they do because it has been shown to be effective. The old scientist-
practitioner model of clinical practice is an early expression of this idea
(Barlow, Hayes & Nelson, 1984). More recently, we have the empirical-
clinical practice and evidence-based practice movements, all of which
depend on the idea that to be truly effective, ethical, and accountable,
practice should be based on techniques and methods with proven efficacy,
not on intuition, hearsay, myth or fad (see, for some of the debate, Bloom,
1978; Gambrill, 1990; Goldstein, 1990; Ivanoff, Blythe & Briar, 1987;
Rein & White, 1981; Thyer & Curtis, 1983; Witkin, 1991) .
On the surface, this whole configuration—from university training to
front-line practice—seems appealing and uncontroversial: it creates a
performance culture of evidence-based practice, accountability, and
controlled risk that is a manager’s dream. The vulnerable people served by
social workers get the best of what social work has to offer, and the most
current in knowledge and practice is assured through education,
bureaucratic structures, managerial policies, and reporting mechanisms
designed to monitor adherence to standardized best practices and protocols.
It is beyond the scope of this chapter to offer a full critique of the
rational-technical paradigm of practice, but one issue needs to be
highlighted for the purposes of this chapter: Knowing the research evidence
and having a strong grounding in theory are undoubtedly important for
effective practice, but there is far more to skilled practice than the linear,
technical application of scientific knowledge to practice that is suggested by
empirical clinical practice advocates (Gambrill, 1990; Ivanoff et al., 1987;
DeMartini & Whitbeck, 1987; Rein & White, 1981; Witkin, 1991). There is
rarely anything “standard” about the situations social workers encounter,
rarely any problem that comes neatly packaged like a standard textbook
case. Instead, social workers often deal with messy, chaotic situations where
the problem itself is not clear, where “what is wrong” is itself a matter of
controversy and requires on-the-spot improvising with a variety of ideas and
techniques. A revealing body of research (Dean, 1989; DeMartini &
Whitbeck, 1987; DeRoos, 1990; Fook, Ryan & Hawkins, 1996; Imre, 1984,
1985; Ivanoff, Blythe & Briar, 1987; Papell & Skolnick, 1992; Pemberton,
1981; Pray, 1991; Schon, 1983; Scott, 1990; Witkin, 1991) suggests that the
324 Creating a Reflective Community in a Northern Agency

rational-technical model does not fully capture the creative way social
workers craft knowledge for the local, unique situations in which they find
themselves. This model simply doesn’t go far enough in accounting for the
most important elements of professional practice. Instead, it reduces
practice to its most technical moment—the application of correct methods—
dismissing entirely the far more important and complex acts of inquiry and
reflection that underpin all of practice.

What is “Reflective Practice”?

Donald Schon’s landmark works, the Reflective Practitioner (1983) and

Educating the Reflective Practitioner (1987) are often cited as the first
systematic efforts to describe an alternative to the rational-technical model
of practice, one that acknowledges the complex artistry and judgment
required of skilled professionals in their day-to-day work. Schon’s model—
commonly called the “reflective practice” mode—holds some key insights
into the nature of professional practice, the most important of which for our
purposes, is his insight into the role of ongoing reflection in the conduct of
skillful professionals. Schon argued that effective practice has the character
of an ongoing conversation or improvisation that he called “reflection-in-
action:” we begin with a tentative hypothesis and the action (a method or a
strategy) that flows from it, but we expect the situation to “talk back” to us.
We expect that there will be unique aspects of the situation that our first
hypotheses have failed to account for and that will only reveal themselves to
us as we begin to take action. We encounter these as obstacles to our
action, but they are better thought of as “back talk” (Schon, 1983, 1987),
and, to be effective, we have to be willing to listen, to reflect on our actions
and the theory guiding them, and to develop a new theory of the situation,
and a revised course of action that would flow from it. Effective
intervention unfolds through time in response to the unique situation, guided
by this ongoing process of “reflection-in-action.”
So, it is a good thing to encounter such obstacles to our theorizing: it is
an invitation to us to revise and improve our understanding of the situation
in its uniqueness. Rather than seeking to reduce the complexity of the
situation into a standard “case of” something, we remain open to developing
a theory of the unique situation—a theory that incorporates rather than
dismisses its complexity. The key to this process is ongoing reflection on
the theories we bring to our practice. When we encounter a dilemma—when
intervention hits an obstacle or surprise, something we had not
anticipated—we need to pause and ask ourselves questions like:
“Why did I do it that way? What was I hoping to achieve? What
assumptions was I making? Why those particular ones? What shaped
my preference for thinking that way? What was the source of the theory
shaping that action? Did that come from a particular knowledge base
that I am confident about? Do I have sound research backing that
choice? Could my action have been shaped by some personal bias I
have not fully been aware of, or by institutional pressures to “do it that
way?”
McKee 325

“What does this surprise have to teach me about the situation? How can
I think differently about it? If I didn’t assume x, y, and z – if instead I
remained open to an alternative view – how might I think about the
situation? How would someone with a theoretical orientation different
from mine (narrative as opposed to cognitive; feminist as opposed to
analytic, for example) think about this?”

“What could I try doing differently? What action would flow from this
different way of thinking/theorizing?”

Reflection With Others

The great value of reflective practice is that it tries to make plain what
authoritative experts would prefer to keep quiet about: the many layers of
personal and professional assumptions, the values, and the empirical
research that structure our theorizing and drive our work. This is exactly the
kind of practice we need if we are serious about collaborating with Northern
communities. But, the crucial next step is to learn how to make our
reflection-in-action more deliberately public and shared. We need to engage
— in a process of mutual reflection on our knowledge and our interventions.
Such joint reflection would entail a de-mystifying of our knowledge
and a greater mutuality with our clients. We are not “the experts who know
what the people need,” but collaborators in a conversation to produce joint
ownership of problem-framing and intervention. The communities of the
North have complex, natural networks of mutual help and a rich knowledge
base about what does and does not work in their communities. In the
reflective practice model, we offer our knowledge not as “the way it is,” but
tentatively as an invitation to dialogue with those we want to serve. Rather
than claiming neutrality for what we know, we try to position our knowing
within professional, autobiographical and cultural horizons. Instead of
saying to our clients “These are the facts” or “This is how it is,” we
acknowledge “This is how I have come to see it this way. These are some
of the assumptions I make in situations like this, and some of the values and
biases, both professional and personal, which I know influence my
orientation to the world. When I look from this vantage point, this is what I
see. How do you see my actions? What do they mean or suggest to you
about the values and assumptions hidden in my work? How are these
different from the assumptions and values you take to be important?”

Barriers to Reflection on the Sources of our Knowledge

Without reflection-in-action, practice becomes oblivious to context; it
becomes the rote application of rules and procedures without consideration
of their fit to the particular context at hand. With reflection, we become
engaged researchers in our own practice, tailoring our knowledge to fit the
context—not making the context fit us. The problem is that reflection is not
easy, and, in this next section, I want to describe the main challenges.
326 Creating a Reflective Community in a Northern Agency

The first challenge: Multiple sources of knowledge inform practice

The first challenge we face in reflecting honestly on the theories
driving our practice is related to the fact that our practices are so often
shaped by multiple sources of knowing—everything from formal textbook
theory to personal hunches; from research-based best practices to practical
wisdom based on years of personal experience; from formal education to
advice from the colleague down the hall; from carefully-reasoned,
intellectually sound opinion to emotional gut reaction (Barbour, 1984;
Carew, 1979). Teasing out the role of each of these and understanding their
influence in shaping our professional actions requires commitment, honesty
and courage, particularly when we uncover sources of knowing that are
naïve and unflattering (uncovering for example, a hidden bias—perhaps a
remnant of some childhood experience that shapes our response to a
particular kind of client without us even being consciously aware of it).
Because we ourselves are the instrument of delivery in professional
practice, we are inescapably in our actions. If we are honest when we reflect
on the theoretical assumptions driving our actions, we will find this complex
mix of driving forces.

The second challenge: Espoused theories are more appealing

A related challenge arises from the fact that often when we begin the
work of reflection we are inclined to uncover what Schon calls our
“espoused theories.” These are the theories that sound good, that we believe
represent our values and that have personal resonance for us. They are the
ones we enjoy reading about, telling others about, even writing about.
Strangely, they are sometimes not the ones that actually govern our
behaviour (see for example, Argyris & Schon, 1974). Others who observe
our behaviour can sometimes see that the theories we espouse do not seem
to match with what we actually do, that what we say we believe has not
really made its way from our heads into the way we do our work. A
colleague may notice, for example, that in spite of my espoused allegiance
to democratic and participatory models of adult learning, I still use
counselling techniques that are highly prescriptive and controlling. In other
words, my action seems to be saying, “People really need to be told what to
do,” even though I profess otherwise. My counselling style reveals a
“theory-in-use” whose source has remained invisible to me, and yet has
profoundly influenced my work. It can take the skilled observation of a
trusted colleague to bring that theory-in-use to my conscious awareness,
where I can reflect on it and possibly begin to change it. Similarly, it may be
the feedback of member of the community where I work, or the feedback of
a community advisory board, that alerts me to the fact that the way my
agency operates reveals an unspoken assumption that, “We know better
what this community needs.” Or, perhaps a program carries Eurocentric
assumptions about family life, or about what constitutes “good parenting.”
The problem is that many of us have learned so well to invoke the
authorized theories of our profession or our workplace as explanatory
devices for why we do what we do that we find it hard to see in our daily
practices the legacy of framing assumptions far more complex and remote
from conscious awareness. In fact, in most agency settings much of our
McKee 327

professional conversation is so devoted to policing the authorized theories

of our discipline that we do not make space for the kind of honest dialogue
that is needed to surface the other, less official theories and assumptions that
drive our practice. It is only when we take the time—and when we have the
agency culture to support us—that we can sometimes see the many layers of
assumptions shaping our work. It is only then that we have the possibility of
real accountability.

Third challenge: Surfacing tacit knowledge

One of the reasons our theories-in-use sometimes do not match the
theories we espouse is because our behaviour as social workers is so easily
shaped by forces lying outside our conscious awareness. If we were to probe
more deeply, we might find that our work has been infiltrated by theories
imposed on us from outside and that we have uncritically assimilated the
theories-in-use of a supervisor, or a colleague, or our agency’s mandate.
Agency protocols and routines are themselves the bearers of institutional
assumptions, and they can make their way into our everyday work. We
enact the theory-in-use embodied in them, whether we are aware of it or not.
Ordinary habits like our hours of operation, the forms we have clients fill
out, the way we organize our office furniture, how we document our cases,
how we greet our clients, and how much time we allow them all reveal the
powerful regulatory effect of institutional assumptions. These habits
become so automatic that the Eurocentric assumptions they embody
eventually escape our attention altogether.
We absolutely depend on the observations and feedback of others— not
just our colleagues, but also our clients and communities—if we are serious
about practicing more reflectively, more transparently, and more
democratically. Much of our tacit knowing will remain inaccessible to us
until we have a community of critical listeners whose honest observations of
our behaviour, and our agency’s behaviour, can help us see past our
espoused theories to our real theories-in-use.

Fourth challenge: Surfacing the theories underlying practice wisdom

A related problem arises because we don’t always consciously think
about what to do before we do it. Especially in highly skilled and
experienced professionals, the knowledge accumulated over years of
practice becomes embedded in habits and routines so automatic that we
don’t always have to “theorize first, then act” (Pemberton, 1981). Just as we
inhabit and enact the customs of our own culture without being able to
articulate its rules, so we learn over time to inhabit our professional practice
worlds, fulfilling our roles and carrying out our work without ever being
able to unravel and articulate how we do it. Like riding a bike or speaking
our mother tongue, we simply do it (Polanyi, 1966). Thus, experience itself
confers enormous benefits on our practice: much of what we know to do is
so rehearsed that it is automatic, requiring very little conscious thought. It is
what experienced social workers would call “practice wisdom,” Schon
would call “knowledge-in-action,” and Polanyi would call “tacit
knowledge.”
328 Creating a Reflective Community in a Northern Agency

Such knowledge-in-action can indeed be “wise.” But in the practice of

social work, these tacit sources of knowing are not always ‘wise,’ no matter
how intuitively “right” they feel. Further, as long as these sources of our
knowing remain tacit, influencing our work behind the scenes, a lot of what
we do as professional social workers remains mysterious and inaccessible to
conscious reflection and inquiry with our colleagues and clients.

Fifth challenge: Organizational barriers

It requires maturity and cognitive flexibility to remain open to
reflection, but, just as importantly, it requires an organizational culture that
acknowledges the importance of such reflective inquiry, that provides the
support for it to flourish, and that is not threatened by the professional
uncertainties it might unveil. This leads me to the final challenge to
reflective practice: organizational forces that tend to suppress open
reflection.
A number of broad forces have come together in recent years that
undermine the kind of agency culture that is needed for reflective practice to
flourish. Funding cutbacks have meant increasing pressure to do more with
less, to move clients through the system more quickly, and to trim off
excess services. Simultaneous demand for greater accountability (i.e., to
prove we are providing service that meets the highest standards, and that we
are actually effective) has magnified the pressure. Many agencies have
responded by moving in the direction of standardizing and proceduralizing
social workers’ work. Components of practice that seem routine can be
manualized or converted to protocols that anyone can follow by rote. Roles
become more tightly mandated; less is left to individual discretion.
Monitoring of worker efficiency through scrutiny of caseloads and other
standard performance indicators brings the worker’s practice increasingly in
line with a standard model of practice. Performance is governed more by
policies and procedures, and less by the creative, improvisational reflection-
in-action that is the very heart of professional practice. This kind of
proceduralism (just “going by the book”) too easily ends up re-inscribing
the colonizing cultural practices which have already been so destructive in
the North. The reflective practitioner who has a talent for submitting
everything routine and proceduralized to critical inquiry, and who opens
his/her practice to critical inquiry with his/her clients, becomes a threat to
such an agency.
When we open our knowing to inquiry with others, we are forfeiting
authority and power. This is not safe to do in an unreflective agency, or in a
community that has been socialized to expect the experts to tell them what
to do. To reflect out loud on our uncertainties, to honestly probe our practice
dilemmas in order to uncover the hidden assumptions and biases that have
gotten us stuck, we need an agency culture of trust and a willingness to
tolerate uncertainty. We also need protected time. One of the biggest
barriers to reflective practice is the constant pressure to increase worker
efficiency—to do increasingly more in less time. This puts enormous
pressure on social workers to adopt habits that are unreflective, that just “get
the job done.”
McKee 329

The Reflective Agency

The irony is that, while reflective practitioners may be a threat to

organizational stability, they are also the key to organizational learning and
adaptation in changing environments (Schon, 1983). This next section
summarizes some of the possible strategies for creating and maintaining an
agency culture conducive to reflection.

Resistance
Managers who want to nurture reflective practice have to resist the kind
of “corporate discourse” that has infiltrated social services and that places
value above all on worker efficiency and performance measurement.
Professionals need freedom in the performance of their work. They need to
be able to exercise discretionary judgment and creativity. Managers have to
be willing to see their policies and procedures opened to inquiry and debate,
be able to tolerate the threat of instability, conflict and uncertainty, and be
skilled at channeling such tensions into creative change that reflects the
interests of northern people.

Evaluation
Professional effectiveness should be judged not by whether the protocol
was followed, but by the outcomes our clients obtain. There is a huge
difference. Central systems of evaluation and control that measure
performance against standardized protocols only measure whether workers
follow the manual; they do not determine whether the work was effective.
We really need to re-think how we measure outcomes. If our agency values
effectiveness, then we need to start measuring client outcomes – not just
employee performance – and the only way to do that is to fully involve our
clients in evaluating the quality of our services and our collaboration with
them. Once again we see the need for a reflective model of practice that is
fully democratic and participatory – that places our clients and communities
at the center of care. This is true accountability.

Excellent outcome evaluation tools are available (e.g. the Working

Alliance inventory by Horvath & Greenberg, 1989; the Outcome
Questionnaire 45 by Lambert & Burlingame, 1995). Whichever one we use,
the key is to get used to the idea that clients themselves need to be asked—
frequently (as in every session)—about the quality of our collaboration with
them. And we should be asking not, “Did you like that intervention?” but
“What is happening here with me/us that is helpful to you? What has
improved for you and how do you account for it? Have you felt truly heard
here? What has not been helpful? What do you wish I/we would do
differently?”
Similarly, effective supervision should entail inquiring less into, “How
well did you follow that protocol?” and more into, “What did your client
achieve, and how well have you engaged him/her in the collaboration with
you?” And further, agency team meetings should involve less talk about the
latest technique we used and more about our struggles and successes in
330 Creating a Reflective Community in a Northern Agency

gaining the full participation of our clients in the work.

Time
We need a culture that values the hard work of introspection and makes
time for it.

Supervision
We need supervisory practices that offer more than performance
management. Whether we do it through peer supervision, group supervision,
or one on one with a clinical supervisor, we need a culture where it is safe to
reflect on the sources of our world-making, safe to offer and receive
feedback, safe to dissent from popular espoused theories, and where
surfacing our theories-in-use—some of which are deeply personal and
emotionally charged—will not expose us to ridicule. We need a community
of critical listeners, listeners who really are interested in understanding
alternative ways of world-making, who will inquire thoughtfully and with
genuine curiosity into the assumptions and values which others bring to the
framing of their work.
We also need to build a culture of care in which we can actually speak
truthfully about our work—not just about our successes, but also our
failures and disappointments, our uncertainties, anxiety, and confusion. We
need to be able to speak about the pain and suffering we sometimes
experience through our work, and the ambivalence and anger it can cause
us. All of this is written into our very selves and becomes intimately
reflected in our work. If, for example, I carry a tacit theory-in-use that says
“I must not allow my pain to show,” or “I must appear to be strong at all
times,” my work with my clients is unavoidably affected. This tacit theory
deserves explicit rendering into language; it deserves telling in a community
of listeners who can provide the care and support I need to fully process
what is written in my body. We desperately need old-style models of
supervision that make the care of the whole person of the social worker—
not just performance management—the primary concern.

Conclusion
There is an acute sense of accountability to the community in the north
and a need to partner with the people we serve to make the knowledge we
bring to practice open to dialogue. The social worker who exercises
professional judgment and discretion in interpreting her agency’s mandate
and who invites her community to partner with her to adapt this mandate for
the local context is exactly the kind of worker who is needed in the North.
Reflective practice is the key to meaningful partnership with our
communities in the construction of a context-sensitive knowledge for
practice, but it requires an agency culture which can be difficult to create
and sustain. This chapter has explored some of the challenges involved and
has argued for the importance of creating reflective communities in our
workplaces.
McKee 331

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332 Creating a Reflective Community in a Northern Agency

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 CHAPTER 22

THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS IN A

NORTHERN RURAL COMMUNITY:
A STRATEGY FOR EFFECTIVE
GOVERNANCE
DIANE WALKER AND SHARON TAYLOR
Long before there were social workers, there were Boards of men and
women doing “social work.” Long before there were state and national
welfare programs, before social security and Medicare, before aid to
dependent children and child labour laws, there were Boards of private
citizens concerned about feeding the hungry, finding shelter for the
homeless, young and the dispossessed aged, building hospitals and
establishing clinics, and focussing public attention upon the ills of their
society (Hartogs & Weber, 1974, p. xiv).
Curiously, most if not all human service organizations including
education, health, mental health, child welfare, recreation and culture were
brought into being and are now governed by a board of directors (Carver
1986, 1990). John Carver (1990) author of Boards that make a difference,
states, the board “sits atop almost all corporate forms of organization—
profit and nonprofit—and often over governmental agencies as well” (p. 1).
Can these boards be a community’s conscience and compass in the delivery
of human service and inevitably the practice of social work in the north? It
seems that the vital role a board of directors can play in the provision of
services towards resolving some of the problems experienced in small
northern communities may be underestimated or unrecognized.
The unique context—including geography, climate, resources and
culture—that envelops the delivery of human services in the north cannot be
minimized nor underestimated. It is this context, described by two key
words, “northern” and “rural,” that challenges the standard paradigm of
service delivery articulated by those located in more populated urban areas
where most power in the form of government and corporate business is
centred. What is unique about a northern rural community, and how is it
different from urban or city life? Denton, York and Moran (1988) suggest
that not only is “there ... no clear, universally accepted definition of rural ...
[it may also be irrelevant because] ... rural communities vary so much from
one another in style, customs, economic situations, population density,
geographic location and topography” (p. 14). Much of the literature refers
to rural from an American perspective with the focus on the agricultural
nature of communities (Zapf, 1991); however, rural can also refer to
communities that are remote, northern, or single-industry towns. In Ontario
alone, a rural farming community in Southern Ontario is quite different
from a small industrial town in Northern Ontario, which is entirely different
from a remote First Nations Reserve—yet, they are all considered “rural.”

333
334 The Board of Directors in a Northern Rural Community

Many writers have described the following characteristics of rural

communities that are also unique to small northern communities and of
particular relevance to issues related to the function of boards of directors: a
lack of services and recreation; employment that centres around one or two
industries; a government run by local power structures such that work and
financial status equals civic status; a concentration of ethnic or religious
groups; a smaller scale of living that is more personal in nature and that can
ostracize those that dissent from the norm; transient populations; and
isolation due to climate and distance (Delaney, 1995a; Ginsberg, 1976;
Taylor, 1995). The northern context, although unique as experienced by
those who live there, is also similar to those communities that identify with
the concept of rural. It might then be suggested that the term “northern”
intensifies these general characteristics when combined with the concept of
rural. Perhaps, “it is preferable that rurality be defined as a continuum
rather than a dichotomy” (Denton et al., 1988, p. 16).
In northern rural communities, power distribution—the ability to
influence decision-making—in all relationships and groups tends to be
based on financial or work status. In single-industry towns, a prevalent
phenomenon in the north, the effects of this power distribution are: money,
status and, therefore, power associated with the company; conformity with
the company around behaviour and values is expected; and when the
company dies so does the town (Minore & Nelson, 1985; Reid, 1987).
Winjberg and Colca (1981) discuss power in rural communities as a
blurring between political and sociocultural life. Those with status are then
able to influence either directly or indirectly. “Acute localitis,” a concept
coined in the literature discussing community control, refers to the
domination of local affairs by the elites (Wharf, 1985, 1991). The issue
remains that “individuals prominent within a small community could
attempt to use political or financial influences with a board or staff
position.... With power highly centralized in the company ... the potential
for attempts to dominate and influence strongly exist” (Taylor, 1995, p.
223).
Both community self-determination (Minore & Nelson, 1985) and
community control (Wharf, 1985, 1991; Nelson, 1985) have three important
themes in common. They refer to the ideas that local citizens should have
more control of services, that services are developed with respect for the
culture of the community, and that local people can govern their own
destiny. In the 1970s, “funding, planning and delivery [of services] were
done almost entirely outside the community” (Minore & Nelson, 1985, p.
8). Has much changed since then? At the policy level, Delaney (1995b)
argues that the “provincial norths” are still being viewed as the hinterland
which is disadvantaged, available for exploitation, and in great need of the
“south’s” help. At the service delivery level, Collier (1993) suggests that
social workers are still importing and imposing outside solutions to rural
problems. Obviously, the fact still remains that services are not being
decided on, developed by, or delivered through community controlled
structures. It is this issue that boards must face in the establishment of
service delivery to meet the needs unique to a northern rural community.
Walker &Taylor 335

Boards of Directors and The Policy Governance Model

A review of the literature regarding nonprofit boards (Carver, 1990;
Chait & Taylor, 1989; Griffith, 1987; Rapino, 1988) indicates that a number
of issues emerge regarding a director’s role within organizations. These
include:
setting mission, long range planning, providing continuity
legal, financial and moral responsibility
policy formulation
monitoring and evaluating performance against policy and plans
hiring and ongoing evaluation of an executive officer
trusteeship for the stakeholder or ownership
linking with the community or ownership
The establishment of a model of board governance can provide a
structure in which these roles are operationalized. It is a “framework within
which to organize the thoughts, activities, structure, and relationships of
governing boards” (Carver, 1990, p. 19). The most common method of
board governance is the committee model, whereby roles are enacted at the
smaller staff-board committee level (program, personnel, finance etc.) and
then brought to the board as a whole for approval (Conrad & Conrad, 1986;
Griffith, 1987; Rapino, 1988).
Historically, organizations have struggled with a lack of role clarity, not
only for the board, but for the executive director and staff as well. Boards
frequently experience four problem areas: rubber stamping and redoing staff
activities; apathy, misuse of power, and rapid turnover in board
membership; excessively long and unproductive meetings; and over-control
or lack of control of the organization (Carver, 1990; Chait & Taylor, 1989;
Taylor, 1995). It is the decision to choose a particular operational model
that can establish the roles and responsibilities of both board and staff to
develop service delivery in the north as an organization attempts to address
community needs.
The Policy Governance model, as developed by John Carver, is one
model that clarifies roles and responsibilities using policies. As Carver
(1995) states, “observing the principles of the Policy governance model, a
board crafts its values into policies of four types” (p. 3). All policies of the
board will fall into one of these four groups: Ends, Executive Limitations,
Board Process or Board-Executive Relationship.
The link between the Ends and Executive Limitation policies is critical
to the operation of this model. The Ends are commonly referred to as the
mission or goals of the organization, stating what the organization must be
producing, not how it should be done. Considerations of the product or
human needs (individual, family or community) are the basis for
determining the Ends. The Executive Limitations define the ethical
boundaries limiting the actions and further defining the roles of the
executive director and staff. The board does not tell staff how to do their
job, but specifies the end product of their activities through policy. Staff
determine the means to meet the Ends and how it will be achieved without
crossing the limitations determined by the board. The roles of board and
336 The Board of Directors in a Northern Rural Community

staff are clearly delineated, providing clarity to governance and

management.
Board Process and Board-Executive Relationship policies focus on how
the board will conduct itself in relationship to the ownership, the executive
director, and the staff. Board Process outlines the leadership of the board,
the organization and conduct of the board, including the establishment of
committees or task forces as needed. The delegation of authority to the
Executive Director further defines the power and roles of the board and
Executive Director.
Along with these four types of policies, a number of working principles
apply and are found articulated in Board Process policies. Within each
policy category, the board must approach all policy making from the largest
issue first, moving to the smaller issues in sequence. Where the board stops
making policy, the Executive Director’s authority begins and staff policy
commences. This place of transition can be different for different
organizations, but the board cannot venture beyond policy making to
approve, monitor, or dictate staff activities.
Board members as community representatives can express diverse
points of view as they debate northern values, establish the mission and
policy, but this debate, guided by the Board Process policies, should occur
only in the board room. The board’s position is delivered in policy and the
board speaks as one voice or not at all. According to Carver (1990), “The
only way a board can create unified policies is to do so as a whole ....
Consequently, board committees, when they are needed to assist the board
in decision making, should do preboard work not subboard work” (p. 160).
Committees or task forces are established to assist the board to do its job,
not to assist staff with their roles. The executive or board officers
(chairperson and secretary) exist only to help the board perform its function.
They are not more important and no more powerful than any other board
member. The chairperson’s role is to ensure the integrity of the board
process as stipulated in Board Process policies while the role of the
secretary is to ensure accurate documentation of board activities.
The board is completely and entirely responsible for its own activities.
It is imperative that it actively seek out and link with its ownership in an
effort to set policies that value the context of the northern community.
Consequently, services should be tailored to the local community’s needs
independent of other power structures and ideologies.
Within the establishment of linkage to its community, the board acts in
trusteeship as the connection between the ownership and the organization.
“The board sees its primary link to be with its ownership (usually the
public) rather than with its staff” (Carver, 1986, p. 5). Through establishing
explicit governing policies, the board sets the direction of the organization
(Ends), ensures prudent and ethical conduct of its members (Executive
Limitations), delegates power to staff (Board-Executive Relationship) and
specifies its job contributions to the organization (Board Process). The
board assures the executive performance by monitoring whether the
executive director has complied adequately with the board policies towards
“accomplished (Ends) and what must not occur for reasons of ethics or
prudence (Executive Limitations)” (Carver, 1989, p. 6).
Walker &Taylor 337

Application of the Board Governance Model in a Northern

Context
Much of the literature and research on problems in rural communities
focuses on post-secondary education, (Zapf, 1991), management (Nelson,
1985; Wharf, 1985) and the social workers’ experience (Denton et al.,
1988). What role can a focused board, a board that understands and enacts
its roles and responsibilities, play in providing services within a northern
community towards alleviating some of the community’s struggles?
Power, in relation to status, has clearly been cited as a serious problem
in the northern rural setting. Community control locates power back in the
hands of the local people. According to Wharf (1985) “community
controlled structures [including boards] can ensure that services are tuned to
local needs, are connected with each other in a way that makes sense in the
community, are responsible to and supported by a definable constituency”
(p. 14). If a board functions within the framework of Carver’s model, it can
assume a vital role in addressing power distribution problems in northern
communities. Essentially, the board can become a community controlled
structure. Acute localitis, the concentration and misuse of power by the
elites, can be addressed at the board level in five ways.
1. A Policy Governance model board is responsible on two levels. The
first level of responsibility is to the whole northern community and not just
to the elite. The second level is its responsibility for itself. Board Process
policies, the values that regulate how a board represents its ownership, exist
to direct boards toward this second level of responsibility. If a northern
community board creates an explicit set of policies that guide its own
behaviour and discipline, the result can be “a sound, codified board Process
... [which ameliorates] jockeying for power, control of the group ,…. and
diversion” (Carver, 1990, p. 136). According to Zald (1969), “the higher
the prestige and status of the member, the more likely other board members
and staff are likely to defer to his opinions” (p. 106). This fact may become
even more visible in a northern context. Under the Carver model, however,
those individuals with perceived status entering onto a board can be held
accountable through Board Process policies.
2. The board as trustee is morally, ethically, and fiscally responsible for
everything that goes on in an organization (Carver, 1990; Griffith, 1987).
However, its first and foremost accountability is on behalf of those for
which the organization exists. Its loyalties are not to the stakeholders such
as staff, funders, the company or the government. In northern settings,
where one power structure such as government or the “company” is trying
to impose their ideologies, boards can play a vital role in reconciling the
situation. Wharf (1985) suggests, “social services in rural communities are
characterized by ... a structure which is unconnected to local communities”
(p. 17). Under Policy Governance, boards, as trustees, are a structure which
is directly linked to the local community. If a board is true to its process
policies and true to its ownership, it can be an architect of a community
controlled structure.
338 The Board of Directors in a Northern Rural Community

3. As previously discussed, members of a rural organization—be it

staff, executive director or board—can carry with them status and therefore
power. Kramer (1985) acknowledges the Board-Executive relationship and
discusses how power can play a key role in the non-profit organization.
With Policy Governance, the roles and limitations of the executive director
and board are explicit. There is little opportunity for power struggles, for it
clearly delineates who is responsible for what and how. Recognizing that,
within a small northern community, individuals may wear “two hats” in an
organization, the clarity of roles under Policy Governance allows them
limited power regardless of which “hat” they are wearing.
4. Many boards, especially ones using the Committee Model, have
power concentrated in the executive committee and the chairperson.
Individuals wanting to exert influence at the board or staff level can do so
through these structures. With Policy Governance, there is no decision-
making power at any committee level, nor do board members participate on
staff committees. The board discusses, debates, and speaks as a whole;
consequently, all members have equal power and influence at the board
level including the role of the Chair, which exists only to ensure board
holism. Subsequently, even in northern rural environments where status and
smaller scale living can potentially impact an organization’s functioning, the
Governance model can prevent misuse of power.
5. A board, through the Ends policies, can articulate what community
needs are being met at what cost. Thus, if a community requires services to
meet certain needs specifically within a northern context, the board is
accountable to this in policy. Even if high staff turnover is experienced, a
problem prevalent in rural organizations (Tate, 1993), the end product in an
organization can remain stable in the long-term. The board must scrutinize
the environment that its organization sits within when establishing its
mission or ends. The creation of horizontal linkages within other boards and
organizations as opposed to vertical linkages with government or funders is
extremely important in “rural isolated communities where professional help
is severely limited” (Nelson, 1985, p. 134). By establishing linkages with
other boards, whose role it is to also represent the ownership, each board
can better determine the values, mission, and ends for their own
organization in relation to serving the needs of a northern population.

Proceed with Caution

Nothing in life, especially life in a smaller northern rural context, is as
simple as it seems. Complex issues remain despite a smaller scale of living,
and the implementation of any change is difficult, especially when viewed
as being brought in from the outside. Northern rural communities have
unique environments that hold both driving and restrictive forces, therefore,
thorough knowledge of the people, their heritage, and the environment can
be the best starting point to initiate any change process. According to Wharf
(1991), “those who hold power usually favour the status quo.... and the
views and preferences of the powerful determine if change will occur and
the direction of that change” (pp. 137-138). However, the implementation
Walker &Taylor 339

of change can be a limitation of any model or framework that guides

behaviour and should be viewed through an examination of recent trends in
change theory.
Recognizing that change presents a threat to an organization’s culture, it
is important to examine how the board operates both formally and
informally. In a rural context, the culture of the organization, the board and
the community need to be examined. This includes individuals’ abilities to
take risks, tolerance for conflict, long-range plans or direction,
communication patterns, the location of power, how is exercised, and
identification of culture from within and external to the organization.
Any consideration of change to the model of board governance must
come from within. Recognizing a need for board development, or the need
for change, must be acknowledged by the members of the board. An
identification of problem areas currently affecting the operation of the
organization or the effectiveness of the board will assist in identifying a
need for change or what needs to change. Reviewing the current model of
operation and other alternate models ensures informed choices and decision
making by the members.
Change to a policy model of governance may be developmental or
revolutionary. For some boards, developmental change may mean only
small, incremental changes, to the current operational model. For others, it
may mean significant changes including dramatic shifts in power, control
and relationships. In a smaller, northern, rural context, these changes are
more visible and may be more personal. It is important to determine how
they will influence the change process and how the change will influence
them.
A further important factor in considering organizational change is
determining the driving and restraining forces impacting on the
organization. In order to bring about any change in a system, one can
increase the driving forces, decrease the restraining forces, or use a
combination of both. In a small northern, rural community, those with
power or status, by tradition, can be either drivers or resisters in the change
process. The perceptions of those impacted by the change must be
recognized, determining if resistance is a normal process or a reaction to
change perceived to be imposed from the outside.
The commitment to a common goal is important involving all key
players—including community participation—while maintaining control of
organizational governance. Education is important to facilitate informed
decision-making about what needs to change, what possible options are
available, and further specific information about the Carver model of board
governance. This educational process from within the community can assist
to legitimize this proposed model and acceptance that it could meet the
specific needs of this organization for the community while maintaining
community control and self-determination.
Having established the Policy Governance Model, there are minimum
requirements to be fulfilled at the board level, although the following
principles must be present for the model to work successfully: a strong, not
necessarily powerful Chairperson who understands and believes in the
model; explicit Board Process policies that follow the Governance model
340 The Board of Directors in a Northern Rural Community

principles; a monitoring process that focuses only on ensuring all board

policies are followed; and a board that is willing to focus on the Ends and
their relevance for the northern community, without focussing on the means.
Assurance that board members are knowledgeable about this model of
governance is vital to their commitment to policy governance as a means to
the goals of the organization. Recruitment of future board members must
ensure knowledge of and commitment to this model of governance.
Consultation with other boards operating under this model can be
enlightening as to its effectiveness.
It is imperative that the executive director of the organization accept the
model and possess the knowledge and skills required to function within its
framework. The skills required include strong leadership, organizational
and administrative skills, an individual who is self-directed, self-motivated,
self-monitoring, and interdependent. The board must establish and maintain
a trusting relationship with the executive director, being respectful of the
roles, responsibilities, and power sharing, and confident in the individual’s
skills. Regular performance evaluations must be maintained.
In a small community, other boards and organizations may present
resistance to accept this model as an effective means to governance. It may
not be viewed as a grass-roots operational model; however, lack of
knowledge and understanding of the model may be a factor in failing to
recognize it as purposeful change from within. Collaborative working
relationships are important and must be maintained in a small community
with limited resources and services. It is vital to ensure that the board views
this model of governance positively for the functioning of the organization
and t make it meaningful as a volunteer experience and as beneficial for the
community.
Without these components, the likelihood of success is severely limited.
For a small, northern, non-profit board, this task can be difficult due to the
lack of resources, isolation from other boards, distribution of power and the
personal nature, and intimacy of rural living. The application of the Policy
Governance Model must be seen as positive, increasing community
representation and control.

Conclusion
Policy Governance steers boards to the heart of the difficulties
encountered in northern Canadian communities. The establishment of a
model of governance that will eliminate over-involvement, influence or
power from a few is important to the overall functioning of a board. John
Carver presents a Policy Governance Model that offers a reasonable choice
among the alternatives at this time, providing clearly defined role
responsibilities.
Similar to the conclusion reached by Nelson and Minore (1985)
regarding the use of interactive telecommunication in rural communities, a
board using Policy Governance can be a source of empowerment for the
northern community. With the development of this “community controlled
structure,” the board can ensure a more context-focused and context-
Walker &Taylor 341

sensitive (Delaney, 1995a; Zapf, 1991) approach to the delivery of human

services in the North.

References
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Carver, J. (1990). Boards that make a difference. San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass Publishers.
Carver, J. (1989). Monitoring. Paper presented to Family Services Thunder
Bay, Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Carver, J. (1986). Leadership through boards, councils and commissions.
National Association of Community Leadership Organizations Annual
Conference, Cleveland, Ohio.
Chait, R. P. & Taylor, B. E. (1989). Charting the territory of nonprofit
boards. Harvard Business Review, Jan-Feb, 44-54.
Collier, K. (1993). Social work with rural peoples (2nd ed.). Vancouver:
New Star Books.
Conrad, W. R. (Jr) & Conrad, W. E. (1986). The effective board of
directors (2nd ed.). Athens: Ohio University Press.
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Lakehead University.
Delaney, R. (1995b). Social policy a northern perspective. In R. Delaney &
K. Brownlee (Eds.), Northern Social Work Practice (pp. 230-277).
Thunder Bay: Centre for Northern Studies, Lakehead University.
Denton, R. York, R. & Moran, J. (1988). The social worker’s view of the
rural community: An empirical examination. Human Services in the
Rural Environment, 3, 14-21.
Ginsberg, L. (1976). An overview of social work education for rural areas in
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Griffith, J. R. (1987). The well-managed community hospital. Ann Arbor:
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Hartogs, N. & Weber, J. (1974). Boards of directors. New York: Oceana
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Kramer, R. (1985). Toward a contingency model of board-executive
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Minore, B. J. & Nelson, C. (1985). Call from the wilderness: The
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meeting of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association.
Nelson, C. (1985). Management practice in rural social service delivery: A
case study. In W. H. Witaker (ed.) Social work in rural areas (pp. 129-
147). Maine: University of Maine at Orono.
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Reid, L. (1987). Marathon Ontario: Ghost town/boom town. Equinox,

January/February, 88, 91-95.
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Taylor, S. (1995). Boards of directors: Towards an effective model in a
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Wharf, B. (1985). Toward a leadership role in human services: The case for
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Review, 7, 35-52.
 CHAPTER 23

BURNOUT IN NORTHERN AND

RURAL SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE
KEITH BROWNLEE, ROGER DELANEY,
DAVID TRANTER, AND JODIE MURPHY-OIKONEN
The social work literature on small and rural communities often reflects
a theme of resource deficiency and readily fosters an image of weary,
enervated practitioners that toil against substantial odds with exhaustion and
dissatisfaction imminent. Certainly, repeated reference has been made to the
taxing nature of the context for practice and challenges of low staff
complements, few specialized resources, greater distances, isolation, and the
strain of high worker visibility (Brownlee, Delaney, & Graham, 1997;
Delaney & Brownlee, 1995; Delaney, Brownlee, & Zapf, 1996; Green,
Gregory and Mason, 2003; Lonne & Cheers, 2004; O’Toole, Schoo,
Stagnitti & Cuss, 2008). These factors are usually referred to as separating
rural or northern practice from its urban counterpart and as being implicated
in practitioner burnout. However, the purported contextual differences have
not gone unquestioned (Mermelstein & Sundet, 1995). Whittington (1984)
referred to the similarity between urban and rural problems, and empirical
studies have found considerable correspondence between the two forms of
practice (Denton, York & Moran 1986; O’Neill & Horner, 1984; Rogers,
Smith, Hull, & Ray, 1995; Whitaker, 1986). Even social workers’
perceptions of the work environment have not reflected clear differences
(Dollard, Winefield, & Winefield, 1999). This raises the question as to what
elements of the northern, rural, or remote context are implicated in stress
and burnout. Based upon the available empirical literature, this chapter will
explore what specifically may lead to burnout among workers in small,
northern communities and the role organizations can adopt in limiting its
deleterious effects.
In the Social Work Dictionary, Barker (2003) defines burnout as, “a
non-technical term to describe workers who feel apathy or anger as a result
of on-the-job stress and frustration” (p. 54). Freudenberger (1974) is most
often credited with developing the concept of burnout, whereas Maslach,
Shaufeli & Leiter (2001) and Maslach and Jackson (1981a, 1981b) are
associated with the empirical assessment of burnout. It is a concept that has
attracted considerable attention over the years, and there exist many
different definitions of burnout and numerous ways to assess burnout
reactions among workers (Lewandowski, 2003; Winstanley & Whittington,
2002; Zellars, Perrewe & Hochwarter, 2000). Reasonable agreement
343
344 Burnout in Northern and Rural Social Work Practice

appears to exist on the effects of burnout. As Barker (1995) notes, burnout

has generally been associated with a state of frustration, fatigue, and loss of
interest among workers. Pines, Aronson & Kafry (1981) described the
effects of burnout as being “characterized by physical depletion, by feelings
of helplessness and hopelessness, by emotional drain and by the
development of negative self-concept and negative attitudes toward work,
life and other people” (p. 202). While the symptom list may vary, burnout is
usually framed in such terms that emphasize strain experienced by the social
worker and eventuating in an attitude change towards negative views about
the job, clients, and one’s self. Less agreement emerges from the literature
over the factors responsible for the development of burnout. This could be
anticipated, as contributing factors must inevitably be situationally specific.
The most consistent causal reference is to stress and job frustration. The
association is so strongly presented that the terms “stress” and “job
dissatisfaction” are often used interchangeably with “burnout” in the social
work literature (Huxley, Evans, Gately, Webber, Mears, Pajak, Kendall,
Medina & Katona, 2005; Pinikahana & Happell, 2004), thus necessitating a
distinction be drawn between burnout, stress,and job satisfaction.

Stress
There is no accepted definition of stress (Greenberg, 1996). Holtz
(1995) suggests that “there is some agreement that psychological stress can
be defined as an internal subjective state in which one’s well-being is
perceived to be threatened in the face of internal or external demands that
are appraised as taxing or exceeding a person’s coping resources” (p. 8).
The definition bears a remarkable similarity to what would also be defined
as a crisis. Slaikeu (1990) clarifies the difference by emphasizing that stress
is usually characterized by a chronic, enduring condition that accumulates
over time, whereas a crisis is invariably short-lived and self-limiting. There
are an infinite number of events that would qualify as invoking stress. An
essential element of the definition is that the external demands are appraised
by the individual as stressful and cannot be fully separated from this
perception. Goldsmith (2007) points out that what could be considered
stressful life events are defined by individuals and based on culture,
relational, and environmental sources. Thus, although it is possible and
reasonable for particular life events to be judged as stressful, the interaction
between the event and the perceiver of the event must always be borne in
mind. Despite the implications of stress in burnout, stress is not considered
as synonymous with burnout, but burnout is seen as one of the possible
reactions to enduring stress (Kumar, Fischer, Robinson, Hatcher & Bhagat,
2007). The presence of on-the-job stress alone would not predict the
emotional reactions associated with burnout, but, as noted above, must be
Brownlee, Delaney, Tranter & Murphy-Oikonen 345

consistent, perceived by the individual as stressful and as depleting or

exceeding an individual’s usual coping resources. To this requirement,
Zastrow (1984) adds a sense of exasperation with the job. If protracted
stress is to rise to the status of burnout, it needs to be accompanied by self-
defeating attributions that are fuelled by disappointments associated with
the job and initiated, according to Zastrow, by previously unrealistic
expectations and unreasonable job demands. In short, “job dissatisfaction”
is routinely linked to stress and burnout, (Hegney, Plank, & Parker, 2006).

Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction has been extensively explored within the literature to
reflect an individual’s appraisal of the workplace (Huang & Hsiao, 2007;
Pinikahana et al., 2004). Crede, Oleksandr, Chernyshenko, Stark, Dalal &
Bashshur (2007) explore job satisfaction as the mediator between personal
characteristics (i.e. employee relations) and environmental factors (i.e.
remuneration) that affect an employee’s appraisal of the job and its
reciprical relationship with organizational outcomes. Specific elements of
satisfaction would encompass elements such as feelings of accomplishment
or remuneration (Egan & Kadushin, 1993). The implication is that an
individual may be dissatisfied with aspects of the job without becoming
entirely dissatisfied or defeated. This position is supported by Kumar et al.’s
(2007) study of burnout and job satisfaction of psychiatrists. While more
than half of the psychiatrists reported low satisfaction with feedback on
their performance, most psychiatrists reported high levels of job satisfaction
and pleasure with their work. Further, a breakdown in coping skills is not
implied in the concept of job dissatisfaction, as it would be for burnout.
Irritants within the workplace may serve to disenchant and spur the social
worker to action, such as relocation, but a notion of failing coping skills is
not inherent to dissatisfaction. Empirical findings show variable correlations
between burnout and job dissatisfaction (Jenaro, Flores & Arias, 2007;
Kumar et al., 2007; and contribute support to the contention that the two
concepts are far from synonymous. Thus, equating job dissatisfaction with
burnout would seem to be overly simplistic. Pinikahana et al. (2004)
investigated stress, burnout, and job dissatisfaction amongst rural
psychiatric nurses and found, that despite the presence of stress and burnout,
the majority of nurses are satisfied at work. In the present instance,
therefore, attention will be directed to burnout rather than broadened to the
wider scope of job dissatisfaction.
346 Burnout in Northern and Rural Social Work Practice

Burnout
In summary, three elements emerge as most salient with respect to
burnout: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and a decreased sense of
personal accomplishment in response to chronic stress on the job (Maslach
et al., 2001). Burnout does not occur at a moment in time; rather, it is a
condition which results from a build up of stress and frustration
(Lewandowski, 2003), negativity and cynicism within the workplace
(Maslach, 2000), and a sense of helplessness and disillusionment with work.
Lewandowski (2003) provides insight into the multifaceted face of burnout
by bringing attention to the organizational factors and employment
environment that raise the profile of the condition from an individualistic
concern to one of public interest. While organizational factors, such as role
conflict and role ambiguity, are believed to increase job stress,
Lewandowski found that it was organizational factors that had an impact on
clients that increased a worker’s sense of frustration. This is not surprising
in the helping profession where workers are skilled in empathy and work to
improve the lives of their clients. It could be anticipated that there are stress
factors intrinsic to social work—whether it is in a northern, rural, remote or
urban context—by virtue of attention to the core values of emotional
engagement and front-line work with human suffering. General principles of
burnout related to the experience of stress in the work place could be
expected (Dwyer, 2007). Despite the expressed need for different
knowledge and practice skills in a rural setting (Green, 2003), the
differences separating rural and urban practice are unlikely to preclude
overlapping forms of stress. This contention is reinforced by some empirical
studies that accentuate the remarkable similarities between urban and rural
practice (Rogers et al., 1995), implying, therefore, that the stress factors
inherent in the work will not be vastly different. Whitaker (1986), for
instance, compared the work of rural and urban social workers in Maine on
a series of dependent variables spanning a number of domains such as roles,
activities, and types of problems addressed: no meaningful differences
between the two practice contexts were found. Similarly, in that turnover of
staff can be an indicator of burnout, Lonne & Cheers (2004) undertook a
longitudinal study of Australian social workers and retention in rural areas.
They found that employer initiatives (remuneration, tenure) and support are
more important factors contributing to retention of social workers. These
factors can be addressed in all organizations, regardless of geographical
loation. Yet, the social work literature supports the contention that real
differences exist with locality. Francis & Henderson (1992) argue that the
practice of social work in a northern context is so different that it merits a
unique specialty. Perhaps the most appropriate question would be to ask
Brownlee, Delaney, Tranter & Murphy-Oikonen 347

which characteristics of locality or the unique aspects of northern, rural or

remote social work practice act as a co-variant in contributing to burnout.

Community Context
Associating worker fatigue, stress, and disenchantment with the
characteristics of a community naturally calls into question the
generalizability of a limited classification for communities. A simple
designation of a community as northern, rural, or remote risks undermining
distinctiveness. Communities that share these characteristics may be quite
different in nature. Obviously, Edmonton, Whitehorse, and Yellowknife
could not be thought of in the same terms as smaller, inaccessible
communities in a more southern location. Similarly, single-industry towns
usually have tightly clustered populations compared to the dispersed nature
of farming districts. The literature is replete with accounts of the difficulties
in defining what should be considered rural (Green, 2003; Lonne & Cheers,
2004; Weiss Roberts, Johnson, Brems & Warner, 2007). Historically a
common designation, especially for legal and service purposes, has been the
size of the community (Zapf, 2001). The definition of rurality is so vastly
different dependent upon which literature is reviewed, it would seem that
the definition is chosen in arbitrary terms to meet the needs of the research
being conducted at any given time, or to reflect the community in which
they are studying Brown and McEachern (1981) made the point that
“Community implies a certain sharing of values and expectations and a
certain self-containment” (p. 111). This view is predicated on a notion of
community as a network of relationships not necessarily bounded by
temporal, spatial and territorial-political units. The implication is that for the
members of a community the concept is “aspatial.” While interpersonal ties
are central to any analysis of community effect, contemporary notions of
aspatial relationships made possible through technology are beyond the
scope of the present chapter. It is acknowledged, though, that technology
could have an essential role in ameliorating a northern worker’s sense of
isolation, stress, or professional estrangement. The position adopted in this
chapter is that communities should be regarded as unique, that northern
communities share sufficient similarities to allow for a general discussion
(Delaney & Brownlee, 1995), and that the reader will extract the qualities
and issues germane to his or her own community or situation.
Visibility and exposure are the two most frequently cited factors
influencing client worker relationships in a small community (Green, 2003;
Green, Gregory & Mason, 2006; Pugh, 2006; Scopelliti, Judd, Grigg,
Hodgins, Fraser, Hulbert, Endacott & Wood, 2004). Pugh (2006) gives an
account of issues of exposure in rural communities:
348 Burnout in Northern and Rural Social Work Practice

Continuing credibility over time will not rest solely on local

judgements about service delivery and outcomes, but will also be
based upon personal conduct on other areas of one’s life, such as
recreation and child rearing practices. Thus the choices about
personal presentation extend beyond the immediate professional
setting. In small communities, it is not unusual to be invited to
weddings, family parties and funerals, or to attend other local
events at which people already known to the worker will be present
(p. 1413).
Limiting exposure through relative personal isolation is seldom an option
and particularly difficult the smaller and more isolated the community. In a
qualitative study of counsellors who relocated to the Northern community of
Nunavut, Wihak & Merali (2007) offer an account of this issue as cited by
one of the participants:
I was still thinking that it’s important to do things by the book when
I get there and keep the boundaries really clear. After going to
Nunavut, I really learned that you can’t have those boundaries all
the time. I counselled someone in the day, and I’d be at a get
together with them at night…of course, I would say hello, or they’d
never come back.
Without the sanction of the community, social workers in a small, remote
context are unlikely to either function effectively or to remain long in the
position. Professional skills and training in this situation are often not
enough. The community may be wary of a newcomer, and the social worker
may be required to participate in community activities alongside clients in
order to gain acceptance (Green, 2003; Weiss Roberts et al., 2007). This
acceptance can cause ethical dilemmas in social workers related to the
appropriateness of dual relationships (Green, 2003; Lonne & Cheers, 2004;
Pugh, 2006).
The absence of a full spectrum of resources, a frequently noted issue for
smaller communities (Green, Gregory & Mason, 2003; Lonne & Cheers,
2003; Weiss Roberts et al., 2007; Zapf, 2001), also affords a northern social
worker less professional support. The seemingly obvious solution of
referring to an urban centre to access a wider array of resources is not
always feasible due to distances, the pressure of crisis, and costs (Riggs &
Kugel, 1976). The northern social worker must contend with a diversity of
clinical problems, including ones with which the individual has had little
previous experience, but where he or she is unavoidably the service provider
(Wihak et al., 2007). Responding to expectations for service under such
conditions can lead to a situation of considerable stress for the therapist and
even ethical conflict (Green, Gregory &Mason, 2006). It can also lead to
what Lazare (1984) has called the “no escape” phenomenon, namely, that in
rural areas there is no such thing as closing a file: “one confronts constantly
Brownlee, Delaney, Tranter & Murphy-Oikonen 349

one’s successes and one’s failures” (p. 49). Northern social workers could
readily find themselves experiencing a sense of stress about having the
depth of experience and resources to provide the quality of care they would
hope for their client, while being confronted with the ever-present reality
that their efforts have not met with the desired success. It is in this situation
that collegial support and experience can be of greatest benefit. It is a form
of support that often takes place casually and frequently in the halls, over
coffee, or at lunch. A quick question easily answered or the perspective of
experience can go a long way towards reducing the anxiety and stress of
uncertainty.
The stresses surfacing from context according to the above speculative
accounts would suggest three dimensions as potentially important influences
on burnout. These dimensions could be conceived as community integration
and acceptance versus alienation; the merging of roles within the
community introducing role conflict or multiple role pressures; and the
reassurance afforded by the comradeship of fellow professionals and
supervision in all aspects of practice versus professional isolation.
Community acceptance or its counterpart, community alienation, has
not been studied directly as a factor increasing burnout for rural social work
practitioners. However, Green (2003) identifies some of the challenges in
rural social work practice related to the lack of anonymity, privacy, and
safety, and the necessity to use a broad, generalized skill base in everyday
practice. In a study identifying safety issues for rural practitioners, Green et
al., (2003) report one social worker’s account of a neighbour who sought
her assistance after hours to escape an episode of family violence; while
another participant’s moto became “always treat people with respect and
courtesy; they could end up being your neighbour.” Similarly, although not
designed to examine the relationship between burnout and rural social work,
Koeske and Kelley (1994) found that over-involvement with clients by
social workers in general was definitely a problem that was associated with
increased burnout and job dissatisfaction. In a study of northern social work
practice with remote communities in the Yukon, Zapf (1993) reported that
workers recruited from southern localities underwent a period of culture
shock. He found a U-curve pattern of adjustment over the first year with
initial feelings of optimism deteriorating into confusion and difficulties
interacting meaningfully in the new community and later emerging with
returned confidence and adjustment. The difficulties reported by Zapf were
temporary and did not seem to exist for locally hired social workers. These
studies lend support to the anecdotal accounts that social work practice in
small, remote, or northern communities adds an increased pressure to the
social work role and may contribute to burnout; however, they point more to
role conflict as a factor to be considered than community acceptance.
350 Burnout in Northern and Rural Social Work Practice

Role conflict has been identified empirically as an important stressor

associated with higher levels of burnout among those in a helping
profession (Huxley, Evans, Gately, Webber, Mears, Pajak, Kendall, Medina,
& Katona, 2005; Chu, Lee & Hsu, 2006). It could be anticipated that social
workers in rural or remote contexts would be no different and only that the
factors associated with role conflict might be different. Egan and Kadushin
(1993) conducted a study of burnout and job satisfaction among hospital
social workers in West Virginia, examining the influence of multiple-role
pressures on burnout. Although they concluded that the levels of job
satisfaction and burnout did not differ markedly from previous studies of
urban-based hospital social workers, they were not able to examine possible
interaction effects of specific stress factors by locality because they only
included a rural sample in their survey. While a direct focus, the results did
imply that multiple role pressures would be an important influence in
increased burnout for rural social workers. Dollard et al. (1999) conducted a
survey with rural and metropolitan social workers in Australia that
examined job satisfaction, burnout, physical health symptoms, and job
change intentions. The overall average levels of burnout and satisfaction
among both rural and urban social workers were found to be moderate.
Differences were revealed between the two groups associated with different
predictors of strain. For the rural social workers’ work, role ambiguity was
found to be the most influential variable affecting potential burnout and was
reflected in a number of measures of strain.
In a study of mental health and psychiatric health care professionals in
Finland, Hyrkas (2005) found that efficient clinical supervision is directly
related to decreased burnout and an increase in job satisfaction as measured
by the Manchester Clinical Supervision Scale, the Maslach Burnout
Inventory, and the Minnesota Job Satisfaction Scale. Similarly, Glasberg,
Erikson & Norberg (2006) concluded that a lack of support from colleagues
was associated with both emotional exhaustion and depersonalization as
measured by the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Participants in a study
addressing personal safety in rural environments, where high visibility is a
part of everyday practice, acknowledged a strong desire for support,
supervision, and the opportunity to debrief with colleagues as a means to
managing stressful situations in rural work environments (Green et al.,
2003). These studies support the frequently stated impression that isolation
from one’s colleagues and supervisory support is associated with increased
stress when practising social work in small, remote, or isolated
communities.
Brownlee, Delaney, Tranter & Murphy-Oikonen 351

Responding to Burnout
Dwyer (2007) highlights the emotional impact of social work practice in
that social workers, by virtue of their role and training will inevitably work
with the most margenalized and emotionally and mentally disenfranchised
populations. This “care work” will contribute to transient episodes of stress
in the workplace that could evolve to burnout or “compassion fatigue.”
While it would seem reasonable to conclude that social workers based in
any locality experience similar inherent pressures from the job, the social
worker in a rural, remote or northern context needs to be particularly
vigilant about the effects of professional isolation and multiple-role
pressures. Although an understanding of burnout must include individual
factors and a personal ability to adapt to the situation, the organization could
be expected to assume some responsibility for anticipating stress and could
be expected to structure the work environment to ensure that burnout is
prevented. The implication is that a northern or rural organization would
need to consider burnout from the perspective of its own unique context.
Strategies to prevent or address burnout would need to be developed from
these realities. In sum, we appear to have isolated as critical to burnout the
personal characteristics of stress, personal strain and defensive coping, and
the contextual characteristics of community acceptance, multiple-role
pressures, and collegial support. The challenge to any organization is how to
address these factors.
As with any good social work strategy the first step in an organizational
response to burnout would be to begin “where the client is at,” that is, to
consider a strategy to review what the unique circumstances may be for
each worker that could contribute to burnout. Wilder and Plutchik (1982)
have suggested a model of burnout assessment that turns attention to the
congruence between a worker’s needs and the need-fulfilment properties of
his/her job; the closer the congruence between the two factors, the less
chance of burnout. Conversely, the greater the divergence between these
factors, the greater the chance for burnout. To assist with the recognition of
personal needs and potential stresses, Wilder and Plutchik developed a
needs assessment rating scale. The scale suggests for consideration the
inclusion of factors on collegiality, recognition, stimulation, family and
social life, achievement, competence, autonomy, and advancement.
However, any salient factors could be added to the scale. Workers are then
asked to use a Likert scale from 1 (not being met) to 10 (fully met) to rate
their needs on each dimension and to rank the dimensions in order of
highest to lowest importance. Once this exercise is complete, the social
worker then rates the extent to which each of the specified needs is being
met by the organization. The result is a clear statement of congruence
between needs and how the organization is meeting these needs for each
352 Burnout in Northern and Rural Social Work Practice

worker. When responses are examined as a group, trends may become

apparent that reflect organizational characteristics in need of attention.
Rather than a “blame the victim” approach, organizations can assist in
preventing or alleviating burnout through simple strategies aimed at
combating isolation, role ambiguity, and ethical dilemmas of dual
relationships and scope of practice issues which are all potential precursers
to burnout, especially in a rural environment. Efficient clinical supervision
has been cited as a strategy to address the above stated issues, decrease
burnout, and increase job satisfaction (Chu et al., 2006; Dwyer, 2007;
Green, 2003; Green et al., 2006; Hrykas, 2005; Huxley et al., 2005).
Supervision is noted to promote reflective practice, close the gap on ethical
disperaties, and increase safety and feelings of competence in the worker.
Organizational strategies extend beyond supervision to promoting inter-
professional support networks that allow for effective teamwork and
decrease feelings of social isolation. Dwyer (2007) notes that collaboration
with colleagues can alleviate the anxiety of complex cases and enable
clarity and reflective practice. This is of particular importance in rural
communities whereby the limited resources and personnel dictate that social
workers practice autonomously in many circumstances and often must make
spontaneous and difficult decision’s regarding a client’s health and well-
being.
When consensus can be found among workers on areas requiring
attention, an obvious step is for the organization to consider in-service
training. The need for a coherent and individually responsive training plan is
essential for any organization that has social workers operating in relative
isolation (Green et al., 2003; Perkins, Larsen, Lyle, & Burns, 2007). The
argument being made here, though, is that rural or remote organizations
have an added responsibility, not necessarily characteristic of urban based
organizations, to anticipate, reduce, and counter factors that contribute to
worker stress or eventual burnout. These considerations may go beyond the
bounds of the organization itself and include an awareness and
consideration of the community factors noted above of community
acceptance, multiple role pressures, and collegial support that play a role in
worker stress. Responding to such factors will be individual and contextual.
Each organization will need to be creative in finding ways to meet the needs
of the workers. More important than solutions is the commitment and
relationship reflected by the organization towards such isolated social
workers and staff in trying to develop a healthy and satisfying working
environment. While in-house training is essential for local knowledge and
specific skill sets, post-secondary education is also an essential tool in
preparing new graduates for their role in a rural context by shedding light on
some of the challenges inherent in a rural context (Green et al., 2003; Lonne
& Cheers, 2004).
Brownlee, Delaney, Tranter & Murphy-Oikonen 353

A common response of organizations to worker needs is to focus upon

the worker and not the organization through the provision of an Employee
Assistance Program. This is not surprising, given that the literature couples
burnout prevention and self-care with self-awareness (Maslach & Leiter,
1997). On the surface, an Employee Assistance Program could be pointed to
as an indication of the organization reacting responsibly to worker stress.
Yet such programs tend to retain, if only tacitly, the idea that difficulties
experienced by the worker are an individual affair and so typically represent
a response to the personal issues of stress, personal strain, and coping.
Employee assistance programs seldom invite reflection upon the
organization as a contributor to burnout or at least as an important agent in
preventing burnout. It is our position that the organization should adopt a
more equal partnership with workers and be prepared to entertain a review
of organizational and community factors implicated in worker burnout and
respond systematically as an organization rather than leave the
responsibility with the worker. Technological advancements also offer
potential tools to increase knowledge and awareness, increase opportunities
to debrief and communicate, and decrease isolation. Technology such as
telemedicine has been found to be an effective means of communication
across geographical boundaries in real time (Norman, 2006). This is not to
say that rural practitioners must turn to urban colleagues as the “experts;”
rather, the use of this technology offers opportunity to share knowledge and
maintain a connection with others employed in a similar discipline. Other
technological advancements such as mobile phones, teleconference
equipment, and pagers have been noted to increase feelings of safety (Green
et al., 2003) and connectedness with supports. These advancements may
offer a buffer in preventing burnout among isolated professionals.
In summary, the argument advanced in this chapter has been that
burnout may be idiopathic and idiosyncratically experienced, but it would
be a mistake if this obscured the contextual contributions to burnout.
Accordingly, the view is held that organizations should recognize their
responsibility for addressing factors that contribute to burnout, whether
these are organizational or consequences of the rural, northern or remote
location. In these contexts, it is imperative that social workers and
organizations collaborate in creating innovative responses to anticipating
and addressing burnout.

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