Episode: Guest:
00:00:00
Pryce
Social Worker-Client Relationship in the Digital Age Dr. Karen Randolph
Welcome to the second season of the Florida Institute for Child Welfare Podcast. I am Jessica Pryce, your host. In this season, we are focused on reimagining child welfare through technology and innovation. We will hear from visionary leaders on how they are working intentionally and collaboratively to enhance and innovate child welfare. Today, on the Florida Institute for Child Welfare Podcast, we're talking with Dr. Karen Randolph, a professor in the College of Social Work at FSU. We will learn about Information and Communication Technology and its utility in case management and child welfare services. Let's get started. Dr. Randolph, thank you for being with us.
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Randolph
Oh, thank you.
Pryce
So, I usually start by asking what brought you into child welfare. I would love to hear kind of your journey in.
Randolph
Sure, well, I started working in child welfare in the late 70s, after I graduated with my MSW. Started as a-a director of a-a group home for adolescents and worked in a residential treatment center type setting for six years. And then went to, I guess what would be child welfare proper, worked at Montgomery County Children Services in Dayton, Ohio, both kids who were in placement and then kids who were in their own homes, and we were trying to maintain the families. So, I was-it was a total of 15 years.
00:01:32
Pryce
And after you got done with that tenure, what got you involved in kind of the academic side?
00:01:36
Randolph
Yeah, well, I- to be honest, I got burned out. It's a tough job. And back then, we were dealing with the impact of crack cocaine and did-did some strong deliberation about what my next journey would look like and so decided to go back to school and get my Ph.D. And it involved really getting rid of everything you know, I s-sold everything and bought a pickup truck, drove down to North Carolina, so it was quite an adventure.
Pryce
Sounds about right.
Randolph
In my 40s, so.
00:02:05
Pryce
Well, I'm glad you're in the academic world now because we get to learn about one of your latest projects. And I'd love for you to tell the listeners about ICT, what that stands for, and just take us through that.
00:02:17
Randolph
Sure, well, ICT is Information and Communication Technology. And basically, what we mean by that is all the electronic tools that are available for communication—email, text messaging, social media, video conferencing, that sort of thing—tools that we can use in a virtual world to communicate with one another.
00:02:39
Pryce
Wow, so that definitely seems relevant in the world we're living in now, with this global pandemic. But you started this before the pandemic, so what brought this into your interest?
00:02:49
Randolph
Yeah, sure, I'm a-a digital immigrant, which means that I was born long before we had computers and electronic tools and so on. And I've encountered my own struggles with learning how to become technologically competent. And I think through that, started to also wonder about the impact of electronic communication on relationships. There was a lot of talk and a lot of research, a lot of commentary on the difficulty in developing and maintaining rela-relationships in an online world, so that really was the starting point for me to examine this.
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00:03:31
Pryce
Interesting. Thank you for explaining how you got interested in this topic, but I'd love to also hear about the challenges of the social work client relationship with this ICT.
00:03:41
Randolph
Sure, so we did quite a bit of investigation, looking at what has been written and what has been investigated with regard to the challenges, and identified at least four different challenges. One of the major challenges, of course, is the worker-client boundaries. You know, we know those boundaries to be pretty traditional, in terms of you know nine to five and maybe some after hours, but in a virtual world, basically, boundaries are much more permeable, what-what can lead to what we call professional boundary "gray zones." So, in other words, boundaries can be really difficult with clients. They can be difficult to identify yet easy to cross. At what point, you know- do we declare that we're no longer available?
00:04:28
Pryce
This is so true, and as a previous child welfare worker, I really tried to pride myself on having boundaries and having work-life balance. But you're right. When people start to text you, and when they now have your phone number, it might look a little different.
00:04:41
Randolph
Sure, and how do you navigate those issues with the client that you invested in creating a positive relationship with?
Pryce
Right, right.
Randolph
Another challenge is developing and maintaining what's called both "technical competence" and "digital literacy." So, we can learn how to use tools, have competence in that area, but we also need to have literacy in terms of thinking critically about how to use tools, when to use them, which tool is better to use than another, that sort of thing. So, another challenge is dealing with the increased surveillance capacities that social media provides to us and how that might impact the social worker-client relationship-social worker as caregiver, social worker as partner in the treatment process, and social worker as the control agent. So, the-these can create some tensions. And then finally, sometimes, there can be message misunderstanding—sending messages through, especially asynchronously, through email and text messaging, people can think that you said one thing- or meant- or indicated one thing, and really meant something completely different.
Pryce
Wow, that's so true, especially about the social media. So, when I was a child protective investigator, we definitely tried to find things out about our clients on social media. We were trying to complete our investigations, and some of them were nonresponsive. So,
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we tried to be creative with how do we find them, or where are they, and why aren't they responsive? So, it's interesting ways to leverage social media, but you're right to think through around that surveillance is also kind of a touchy area.
00:06:23
Randolph
Well, it raises issues around eh-eh, some ethical issues around transparency and disclosure in using social media for those purposes. So, it's a- it's a complicated policy issue that I think really goes beyond the individual worker and really is an agency-level issue.
00:06:41
Pryce
Right. So, I know we just went over the challenges of using ICT in a social worker-client relationship, but what are some of the benefits of using ICT?
00:06:49
Randolph
Sure, and we've identified five benefits. First, the availability of these IC-to-T tools just allows for more ways to communicate with the client. So, the tool belt, if you will, has expanded, and there's beyond just phone and face-to-face, there's all kinds of other ways that we can communicate with our clients. Also, through the availability of more tools, a second benefit is just having increased social presence in an online world, just s-sort of a more sense of connectedness, being more available, being more present in the client's world through ICT opportunities. Another benefit is having fixed records of communication, such as through email and text messaging. So, this is not only good for documentation purposes, but it also gives both the client and the worker an opportunity to reflect on what's been exchanged in-in, and not having to re-rely necessarily on, you know, memory, but rather to be able to look at the words and- think about it, and ponder what next steps might be coming, and so forth. Many workers have identified the ease and efficiency of ICT. For example, it's much more time-efficient and easy to use your mobile phone to send a text message or an email or to make a call while you're outside of the office, as opposed to some more traditional methods. And the final benefit is related to client preferences. You know, we've all been trained in the idea that we start where the client is at, and many clients these days, especially our younger clients, prefer to communicate using ICT. So, this is more compatible and more responsive to what their preferences are.
00:08:38
Pryce
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Absolutely. I know I had clients that only wanted to text me, so I would call them, and they wouldn't pick up and, almost immediately, I would get a text from them. So, you're absolutely right.
So, as you know, one of my main focuses lately has been that power differential between child welfare professionals and their clients. I deconstruct power theory to really think about how we wield power, how we negotiate it, and if we share it with families. So curious about the connection between the power differentials and ICT?
00:09:07
Randolph
Sure, and there is at least two ways that we can think about that, the type of impact. Theon the positive side, having ICT use available in worker-client interactions can serve to redistribute power. It gives the clients an opportunity to reach out to the workers with more mech- mechanisms, you know, to initiate contact and to stay connected with their workers more than, like, telephone and in-person visits. On the other hand, we talked about the issue of surveillance and questions about the ethics and the power imbalance, especially if we're using social media for surveillance purposes without the client's knowledge. And so, this rai-raises some issues with the power imbalance as well.
00:09:53
Pryce
So, what factors should be considered when selecting what ICT to use with your clients?
00:09:59
Randolph
We've identified five factors that we think are important to consider when deciding which ICT would be best to use. The first factor is the bandwidth, the amount of cue systems that the communication medium supports. So, like with email, well, email is just basically text, it's written word and image, as opposed to video conferencing, you've got both your verbal and your nonverbal cue systems that become available in the communication exchange. So, that's definitely one thing you want to keep in mind. What's been shown in the research is that the greater the bandwidth, the stronger the emotional closeness there is between the two parties. So, for instance, at the start of the relationship, the worker may want to use video conferencing because it provides more knowledge or more-more information about the exchange for both the worker and the client.
00:11:04
Pryce
So, my understanding, you when you say at the "start of the relationship," so at the beginning of a case?
Randolph
Yes.
Pryce
Maybe do virtual meetings?
Randolph
Yeah! If-if, yes, if you can't do home visits, a virtual meeting would-would allow for more information, more of a-a depth of interaction than say email or even phone.
Pryce
So that will be secondary to the primary of meeting them in person?
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00:11:28
Randolph
Exactly, yeah.
Pryce
That makes sense.
Randolph
Yeah, and these- we can think of these-these tools as just an addition to face-to-face andand telephone. So, it-it, basically, it's an expansion of what's available. Another factor to consider is the opportunity for mutual- mutual-what's called “mutual directionality.” And this is the opportunity for synchronous-synchronous exchange, that immediate exchange back and forth that is provided like in-person or in a video conferencing system and that sort of thing. Sometimes, those synchronous exchanges are really important. Other times they're really not necessary. If the intent is to communicate, "Hey, you've got an appointment on this date and time," that probably doesn't call for, you know, an inperson or-or synchronous exchange. A third factor is the extent to which the message is sensitive and private. And if the message is sensitive and private, then it would behoove a worker to use something that they can maintain that-that restriction, that confidentiality. So, of course, don't want to use social media if the information is sensitive. Another factor to consider is the extent to which the content is formal. If the message is a formal type exchange, then something to think about is maybe use email, something that can be documented. And the final factor to consider is the complexity of the message content. If the message content is complex, that's going to cause or-or that can lead to a difficulty in that exchange, so messages that are complex, wou-it may be better served to be done through something with greater bandwidth like video conferencing. So, if you've got a-a complicated thing to share, where you know an exchange is use- in a synchronous exchange is useful, and that body language is important, and the feedback is important, video conferencing would probably be best served in that situation.
00:13:37
Pryce
No, that makes total sense. I think, when I was thinking about email, I was thinking if it's a lot of information, and sometimes- I'm so visual. So, I was thinking, maybe, it should be emailed. But I hear what you're saying, it's-you-you might get some feedback, if it's going to be a dynamic conversation, that's needed, it should be done not in an email, so that makes sense. So, I know we talked about power theory a little bit, a few moments ago, and I wanted to also ask about communication theory and how that connects to this?
00:14:02
Randolph
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Sure, much of our work in this area has revolved around looking at communication
theory. And, of course, theory is a really important tool to use in helping us put parameters around our thinking, helping us make decisions about how we're going to approach our client systems and that kind of stuff. So, it's-it's really critical. Specifically, in this case, we found three communication theories that were really useful in helping us make sense of communicating with clients, that worker-client relationship. The first one is Social Information Processing Theory, and this, basically, is a theory that has been shown to support that, yes, in fact, we can develop interpersonal, close relationships in an online environment. It just takes longer. We don't have as much information as we have when we're developing relationships in an in-person setting. So, we have to accommodate for that and-and give ourselves more- a little bit more time than we would normally in an in-person situation. Another theory that was very important to our work is Social Presence Theory. And this goes back to what we talked about in terms of one of the benefits that connectedness, that sense of connection, that certainly can happen in an online environment. We can feel socially connected in an online world similar to what we might feel in a- in a face-toface type situation. And then the third theory that we used, or that we found to be useful, is Electronic Propinquity Theory. And-and this is the idea of psychological closeness between the sender and the receiver in an online environment, and that theory, which has been tested many times, shows that, yes, we can have this psychological closeness in an online environment.
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Pryce
Hmm, no, that's really interesting, and it's making me think about what I mentioned earlier about utilizing social media to try to get ahold of clients or to try to reach out to them, because I'm-I’m hearing these theories and how there's this, for lack of better words, social intimacy you can have online. And what I'm thinking about me, as an investigator, reaching into someone's social media world, you know, some people feel like it's a free for all, "It's social media, just them a message." But just hearing those theories, it's like that could be their-their space, and why am I inserting myself into their social network? So, it's interesting. I think it's important, like you said earlier, that there are some parameters. Some conversations, organizationally, how far are we going to take this investigation? Like, how are we going to get ahold of clients if we can't reach them? So…
Randolph
And there's a lot we don't know yet about all this. I mean, this is a really new area, in terms of, you know, developing our-our practice approaches in an online world, so.
Pryce
And that lends itself to a conversation around implications.
00:17:06
Randolph
Yeah.
Pryce
You know whether we have implications for practice, policy research. What are your thoughts around implications?
Randolph
Sure, well there's- there are certainly implications for practice, education, and research in this area. The two practice implications we've already discussed--that was the use of social media for client surveillance and what the impact is on the worker-client relationship, specifically in terms of worker as partner in the change process and worker as you know a control agent. We also talked about the possibility of being able to redistribute the power a little bit, having the clients more-more able to reach out to their workers, in terms of what they need and when they need it and things like that. The third practice implication involves the social presence that provides opportunities to reconceptualize and even maybe expand our worker-client boundaries. You know, we're living in an online world now, it's the digital age. It may be time to reexamine what our views are. What are professional stances around boundaries? And then the final practice implication, this is a social justice issue. This is around needing to account for the digital divide, so client access to tools, electronic tools, as well as a reliable internet connection, especially for clients who are living in rural areas where the bit-broadband isn't as strong. In terms of education, educational implications, I think we really have to look at what we're doing in our social work programs with regard to educating our students around not only becoming technologically competent but also digitally literate not only with our students but our current practitioners to offer, perhaps, you know webinars, other training opportunities where they can develop and maintain these skills and also think critically about how to use them and when. And then finally, with regard to research, we think it's really important to have work in this area to be theoretically driven. We found communication theories, the three communication theories that I mentioned, to be quite promising. There's likely other theories that will be helpful in pushing this work forward. Also, we think it's really important to investigate the impact of ICT on worker well-being, as well as client well-being. You and I both know that there's really a-a crisis in worker retention, worker turnover. Can the availability of these electronic tools reduce some of the burden, some of the frustration and stress that these workers feel to make a more pleasing work environment, a more satisfying work environment? The final implication with regard to research, in terms of future, is you know we really need to untangle the impacts of these tool features, in other words, bandwidth, the mutual directionality, the information complexity, and so-so on to increase our evidence with regard to tool selection. So, we have some preliminary evidence, supported by theory, with regard to these tool features, but it's time to get this stuff out in the field and really understand what's going on.
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00:20:29
Pryce
I'm so intrigued about the use of ICT and also professional boundaries and work-life balance because of what you just said, the well-being of workers has always been in this volatile way, and not being sustained in our- in our workforce. And if we start to really lean on ICT, I just wonder how that might impact workload? And- but it's really an individual decision of how to set boundaries. But I wonder can we do more organizationally, kind of educate on boundaries?
00:20:56
Randolph
Right, I-I think o-organizational-level education would be great, and it needs to be really a policy decision where-where we have input from all levels of practice and can- and really flush out what the issues are, and the pros and cons, and so forth, in a way that we can develop best practices, in this area.
00:21:19
Pryce
So, I'm also curious, Dr. Randolph, about when you were in the field, you called yourself a "digital immigrant" is that what you called it?
Randolph
Yes.
Pryce
So, when you were doing casework, I'm assuming you didn't have all of these avenues of ICT? Did you feel like you had work-life balance? Did you feel like you had any issues with boundaries, like how was it different?
00:21:36
Randolph
Well, you- so I would never make any plans on Friday afternoon because I-I was in a position to handle chil-children who are coming into care. And inevitably, we would have families of children coming into care, and I would have to just be available to make sure that they were moving through the system and getting their medical checkups, and we had placements for them and that sort of thing. And so, yeah, it- -I think I struggled with, you know, boundaries.
00:22:02
Pryce
And so, imagine struggling with boundaries without all of these, you know, ICT tools. You know, and right now, so, in this age, in this digital age, I wonder, if boundaries will b- will be even harder?
Randolph
I think so because it's a lot more complicated, and I think there's the nuances to take into consideration. That's why it really has to be done in a thoughtful, methodical way.
Pryce
And, in the part of this podcast that it's also really sticking with me is choosing which ICT
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for what time. Because I'm thinking about, as child welfare professionals, if we choose the wrong one, I'm putting "wrong" in quotes, you know if we're trying to get some information from a client like you said, they could send you an answer or send you things via text, and it's not really getting to the authenticity of who they are or what they're doing or behavioral change. So, it's even more important to pick the right ICT because you might be getting a completely different picture of what someone is actually doing by a few words in a phone.
00:23:03
Randolph
Absolutely, and of course, that changes over time as we develop relationships with one another. If you're sending me a text message now, I'm going to have a pretty good idea about what the intent is because we know one another. We have that background. But especially in the beginning of a relationship, where there's a lot of unknowns, that-that can be a real risk.
00:23:26
Pryce
So, Dr. Randolph, can you tell us what's next for ICT?
00:23:29
Randolph
Sure, well, what we're hoping is that social workers, all social workers, think about ICT in terms of enhancing their practice, enhancing their abilities to make that relationship with the-that client, rather than ICT as an impediment. Many of our digital natives, workers who have grown up with ICT, can easily, you know, see- I think, embrace this view, others of us who have not, who have continued maybe a struggle with it. So, we're really hoping that people can embrace the ICT as an enhancement rather than an impediment. We also recommend that ICT should be incorporated into one's practice repertoire thoughtfully and really consider the potential implications in developing that relationship with the client, maintaining the respect and the rapport, that's so important when we're working with our clients and so forth. Finally, we think it's really important for agency leaders to be proactive in embracing technology, embracing these ICT in a way that can enhance the-the work-life, and ultimately, client outcomes. So, one thing, I guess, I'd like to say is, you know, as a profession, I think it's useful for us to reflect upon the fact that we've been here before. You know, similar struggles were encountered in the early 1900s with the invention of the telephone. Our pioneering social workers had the same kind of questions, dealt with the same kind of issues. We overcame that, and we can certainly overcome this.
00:25:15
Pryce
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Yeah, agreed. Thank you so much, Dr. Randolph. Is there anywhere folks that are listening
in can get more information about this?
00:25:34
Randolph
Sure, I'm happy to respond to any questions or any request for information. If anybody wants to email me, that would be great.
Pryce
Great! Thank you so much, Dr. Randolph, for being with us.
Pryce
I want to give a huge thanks to our guests, and we are so appreciative of their commitment to improving our child welfare system. If you want to learn more about this topic or contact these speakers, please visit www.ficw.fsu.edu. Stay safe and well.
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