The Relational Chain; capturing the essence of relationship based practice.
A Program Planning and Evaluation Model
Dr. Jean Lafrance, PhD and Kristine Morris, BSW
Many agencies working with children, youth, and families have spent considerable time and resources in the development of holistic programs that focus on wellness and connection with family. The implementation of these programs, however, somehow ends up with much the same results as always, getting lost in the bureaucratic policies and procedures that dominate child welfare services. Funders and government provide these agencies with rigid program logic models and evaluation checklists that must be utilized in order to receive funding, and somewhere along the way the programs based on heart and soul – on relationships – lose meaning in translation.
Our initial intention in this research was to revisit the traditional program logic model and remodel it in such a way that it would better reflect the relational needs of clients and workers. What we found, however, was that the model itself was a barrier; it was preventing us from taking the leap from relationship based ideas into programs and evaluations that would support these ideas. As we delved deeper into our research, we examined more closely the connections between traditional logic models and the highly bureaucratic system of child welfare; we then reflected on how this is influencing the child welfare system, from programming and evaluation to front line work.
The traditional logic model and bureaucratic influences on child welfare
The traditional logic model is based on linear processes and privileges measurable, evidence based outcomes. It is part of the bureaucratic system that has become the accepted norm in child welfare organizations, as in most other organizations. Bureaucratic systems include the notion that,
[the] “more perfectly the bureaucracy is ‘dehumanized’, the more completely it succeeds in eliminating from official business love, hatred, and all purely personal, irrational and relational elements which escape calculation. This is the specific nature of bureaucracy and it is appraised as its special virtue” (Elwell, retrieved July 27, 2006).
Weber (1947) was the first to study and describe the characteristics of bureaucracy. He worried even then about the inability of such systems to respond to changing circumstances, the dangers of a mindless and unquestioning bureaucracy and the potentially dehumanizing effects on staff, especially those who worked at the lowest levels of the organization. The child welfare agencies formed in the twentieth century inevitably reflect these prevailing paradigms as the most efficient ways to organize work, becoming part of what Morgan (1986) describes as an inevitable societal movement toward increased mechanization, specialization and bureaucratization.
Present day child welfare organizations
In spite of massive investments of resources, few are satisfied with the outcomes achieved by child welfare services. Hardly a day goes by without a major child welfare crisis somewhere in the Western world. There are calls for procedural solutions or resources to minimize the repetition of ‘errors’ that call attention to ‘deficiencies’. Child welfare reviews leave a legacy of increased paperwork, to the point where the time spent on casework with clients is now far less than the time needed to document their interventions. New procedures, safeguards, protocols, training and information requirements abound. New tools are introduced; risk assessment, sophisticated information systems, rigid timelines, greater specification of responsibilities and reporting requirements, and new legislation, to name only a few. Rarely, if ever, do the recommendations focus on the quality of supportive relationships between the social workers, children and their families, caregivers, and the community.
Current model of practice (diagram 1)
These changes and revisions seem to be more concerned with achieving the institutional role of gatekeepers to scarce resources and to protect from future litigation than guaranteeing quality children’s services. This seems to validate Weber’s fear that growing areas of life would be subjected to decision making according to technical rules, diminishing creative thinking and self direction on the part of its members. He worried that routine and hierarchical decision making might eventually replace discretion, spontaneity, and personal moral choice. Even the casual observer can see that some of these fears have become reality in our child welfare systems. And it is evident in our lost children, broken families, and burned out workers.
The Relational Chain
After much discussion and reflection, we developed an alternative program and evaluation model, and we call it the Relational Chain.
The Relational Chain enhances the program logic model by addressing issues from the social work lens of people in the context of their environment, with a specific focus on relationships. It acknowledges the connection between individuals, groups, and systems, and their interplay with each other. It promises a refreshing approach to service planning and evaluation that is consistent with a world view that sees everything in the universe as intimately connected; a worldview that quantum physics now reinforces. Following an extended period where the importance of relationship and reflective practice has been diminished, it promises to support a burgeoning of renaissance in relationship based practice – a keystone social work value.
The renaissance of relationship based practice in contemporary child welfare
There is a burgeoning interest in the importance of relationship and connection to each other. This interest seems to be driven in part by fatigue and frustration with the rigidly managed, risk-aversive, reactive practices that have invaded social work practice. Ruch (2005) writes of two key characteristics that challenge relationship based practice. First of all, there is the bureaucratic system which, as previously discussed, limits creativity and controls practice with it highly procedural expectations. The other is the reductionist approach to individuals; child welfare organizations implement interventions based on surface problems rather than addressing the root causes. As a consequence, the worker-client relationship focuses primarily on legal and administrative requirements and their associated tasks and outcomes rather than on professional relationships and the complex, relational aspects of the issues. These factors contribute to diminishing the potential for creativity at a time when it is most needed; focusing on rigid policies, procedures and gate keeping rather than on understanding the children and families involved means that the all important relationships suffer (Houston & Griffiths, p. 2000).
The Relational Chain has been developed in response to this need for the planning and evaluation of relationship based practice. It provides an instrument which has the potential to measure the essence of relationships in human services. And it may help to redress the balance necessary between rationality and relationality.
Objectives of the Relational Chain
Our objective is to assist families in framing their intentions and needs while assisting organizations in creating programs and evaluations that are more fully responsive to the rational and relational needs of the most vulnerable of our citizens and those who serve them.
The Relational Chain can be a powerful tool. It can serve to;
1. Translate community needs into a program planning model that can be more easily understood and applied by policy makers, managers, and front line workers.
2. Provide an instrument that can better capture the intangibles of relationships in its evaluations.
3. Bring coherence to social work practice by providing an instrument that recognizes the importance of measuring outcomes of heart and mind, which are the essence of holistic practice.
Relationship based practice (diagram 2.)
We propose that the de-emphasis on the critical importance of relationship, between client and workers, as well as between families, has a detrimental effect on program quality and accountability. We base our premise on the belief that most of the problems encountered in child welfare practice are problems grounded in the quality of relationships; between parents and children, between families and communities, between communities and society, between professionals and those they assist.
Model of the Relational Chain
Current Situation → Proposed Action → Anticipated Outcomes→ Quality Assurance
CURRENT SITUATION
PROBLEM STATEMENTMust be succinct and accurate; can be elaborated on in the CURRENT REALITY section. / CURRENT REALITY
Sub-text to Problem Statement, elaborates on the issue. / OBJECTIVE
What do we want to achieve?
PROPOSED ACTION
ACTIVITIESWhat could be done to improve the current situation? / TARGET GROUP
Who could benefit from these activities? / RESOURCES
What resources would be needed to carry out these activities?
ANTICIPATED OUTCOMES
CLIENT OUTCOMESWhat will this proposed action do for individuals, families and communities? / SYSTEMIC OUTCOMES
What will this proposed action do for the human service system? / ULTIMATE VISION
What would it look like in the end?
QUALITY ASSURANCE
WHAT DO YOU WANT TO KNOW· Have you achieved the objective?
· What is the impact on clients?
· What is the impact on the human services system?
· Have you met your ultimate vision? / HOW WILL YOU KNOW IT
What information will you require in order to confirm what you want to know?
The Relational Chain (diagram 3)
Principles of the Relational Chain
· Incorporates relational aspects of human services
· Provides an alternative to the traditional logic model; one that represents the balance of mind and heart in program planning and evaluation, as well as for research proposals by grass roots agencies
· Accessible to all levels of practice; individual practice, management, as well as policy and organizational planning and evaluation.
· Provides the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of services based on the context of relationships driven by social work values:
Dignity ~ Self-worth ~ Respect ~ Self-determination ~ Acceptance ~ Belonging
· It is easily understood
· It is transferable across organizational boundaries and hierarchies.
· It can inform policy, practice review, and evaluation on an ongoing basis.
· It can enrich personal and professional relationships
· It can create greater understanding between communities, service recipients, service providers, administrators and policy planners.
For the past three decades, the importance of relationship in social work practice and in child welfare has lost ground. We are suggesting that many of today’s problems in child welfare practice can be attributed to this loss. We ask if the Relational Chain may not be part of the answer to the problems so often reported.
If relationships were a primary consideration:
· Would there not be more creative ways to keep families together and keep children safe?
· Would we place children hundreds of miles away from their communities and families?
· Would children lose their connection to siblings, parents, grandparents and extended family?
· Would professional staff be so unavailable to the children in their care?
· Would there be so many specialists in the lives of children, few of whom create continuity?
· Would children have so many different foster homes?
· Would child welfare workers’ relationships with children and families be as easily disrupted for administrative reasons?
· Would siblings placed in the same city remain isolated from each other?
· Would fathers so easily lose their connection to their children and families?
· Would so many children spend their lives in care and end up on the streets and in jail?
With family kinship and connection as the primary consideration, workers would be evaluated on the following:
· How do well do the children know their relatives and keep in contact with them?
· Does the community see its children as a community responsibility?
· What creative ways have you found to sustain connections to family and community, for example homecoming celebrations?
· What is the nature of the relationship between child welfare systems and the community you are working with?
· How do your agencies recognize and support kinship connections?
· How do families share their values? for example, visiting one another, storytelling, family history
· How do the children and their parents learn the family ways of grandparents, parents, aunts uncles, cousins, and other extended family?
Quality assurance
We suggest that the Relational Chain is the missing link from many, if not most, quality assurance efforts. The following describes some key features from a quality assurance perspective;
A. The Relational Chain assures that the initial intention or purpose is congruent with the impact on the client and the community, by asking:
- Were the desired outcomes achieved?
- To what extent?
- If not, why not?
B. The Relational Chain measures and analyzes the contextual conditions that contribute to or negate proposed outcomes. It asks the important questions:
1.) What do you want to know?
2.) How will you know it?
Conclusion
By focusing on the interaction and relationship between front line workers, children, families, and communities, significant enhancements can be achieved by making more effective use of human and fiscal resources.
The Relational Chain proposes to achieve greater balance between accountability due to government authorities and that due to communities, including those who are served. It brings about not less, but greater accountability, one that is grounded in community responsibility for its children while fully meeting legal accountability to the federal and provincial authorities.
Our ultimate vision is a service system that integrates relational practice and opportunities for reflection to counter balance the overwhelmingly rational system that is currently in place, and to make it more fully human as a result.
Jean Lafrance is an associate professor with the University of Calgary Faculty of Social Work in Edmonton. Kristine Morris is a child protection worker with Mic’mac Child and Family Services in Nova Scotia
Kristine Morris lives in Nova Scotia and has a strong interest in community led research, social activism and social justice.
References
Elwell. (n.d.). Retrieved July 27, 2006
Griffiths, S. H. (2000). Reflections on risk in child protection: is it time for a shift in paradigms? Child and Family Social Work , 5, 1-10.
Morgan. (1986).
Ruch, G. (2005). Relationship-based practice and reflective practice: holistic approaches to contemporary child care social work. Child and Family Social Work , 10, 111-123.
Weber. (1947).
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