Post on 11-Jan-2016
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Congrès dela Société Internationale d’Ergologiemai 2014
Produire des normes et
intervenir dans la vie des autres : Savoirs et démocratie
en travail
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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Interpersonal Exchanges/trade
in Social Work
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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To intervene is to occur or to interrupt To intervene in someone’s life is a usual
duty for social workers It consists in working directly with the
user/subject, in order to transform a situation and solve a problem
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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Each and every individual; like any human being is exposed to a set of norms
These norms constantly progress according to times and customs
The individual will adjust to his surrounding environment and make it his own‘s environment, he appropriates it as the norm, it’s a constant process of re-formating
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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That a person should come to face a social worker is evidence that he encounters some form of difficulties and he needs technical aid
Does it mean that he meets difficulties in his normative process ?
Is he encountering difficulties adapting to his environment, its evolutions, changes, accidents ? Does he meet problems to adapt to his environment, to evolutions, to changes and accidents of life ?
Thus, isn’t social work a form of intervention designed to restore the subject‘s normative capacities ?
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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Social work is the sum of professional actions geared at interrupting a condition in order to restore an individual’s autonomy
My work is based on two assumptions : The person asking for help must be
considered as an “enterprising subject” (someone with an enterprising mind)
There are value issues connected with the two protagonist’s attitudes
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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The “assisted entrepreneur” Man is a social being. To live with others he has
defined a set of rules. He has stated the rights and duties of each one towards everyone in order to make it possible for people to live together
Rights and duties are a moving network connecting people
The concept of duty comes always first before the notion of right
A democratic society is based on the idea of reciprocity, a circularity of rights and duties
I have rights and duties. I have rights because I have duties
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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Social work must not be considered as a mean to an end but as an end in itself
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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In the performance of social work there are two ways to approach the person being “assisted”, as a subject or as an object
As an object, he becomes a means to accomplish a professional act
As a subject, his cooperation/involvement will be sought in a self constructive logic
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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Astonishment understanding a problem self awareness as an “enterprising subject”
It is through participation, through implication, that human beings develop their normative abilities
To be autonomous, an individual needs to feel free and not to feel dependent
The social worker makes his work transitory when he works in order to make the other being aware of his abilities
Multiplying points of views : exchanging knowledge
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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Exchanging knowledge
To listen to the other person and to accept what he says, with the humility of one’s own knowledge
To be taught by others is to let oneself being enriched by some others ideas
Exchanging knowledge, is to institute a dialogue between “invested knowledges” and “instituted knowledges”
Building a shared vision requires that one adopts a welcoming attitude
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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Accepting to have one’s certitudes being re-worked by another person’s values puts us in an “intellectual discomfort”, because to work with and face to face with some one else is to agree to be internally modified
Social work requires constant intellectual discomfort, constant self-interrogation
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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Relationship and attitude in social work
Professionalism is materialized by the dissymmetric relationship : assistant (the one who helps)/ assisted (the one who is helped)
Relational dissymmetry enables solicitude ( care /concern).
Other is not the object of the intervention but an active subject able to act for and by himself
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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The attitude is symmetrical : no one having the right solution
Symetrical attitude means acknowledging every one‘s particularities
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
15Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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The help relationship is efficient when everyone agrees on the notion of attitude based on reciprocity in the context of a dissymmetrical relationship
This interconnection allows mutual teachings
The two protagonist use their “corps-soi” (body-self”)
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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Knowledge confrontation is evidence of the user’s implication
Personal investment is a life motion opposed to inertia
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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The professional social worker has at his disposal two methodologies of actions
An individual help intervention targeted on a person and a social intervention linked to a community’s benefit
Social work carried out with groups allows users to participate more easily
Access to symetrical attitude is therefore facilitated
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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The social work acts towards restoring the other person’s capabilities/autonomy
This could be what we may call democracy at work
Freedom to speak, on an equal plan to take part in the power to decide or/ and to do
That’s the way how mutual responsibility leads to solidarity
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014
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Thank you for your attention
Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 2014