Relationship-based practice (RBP) works best when our workplaces adopt the key principles in their everyday operations. When this happens, kaimahi-rangatahi interactions are supported by the whole organisation. This includes operational and management practices (as well as policy and funding matters). It helps the mahi if there is consistency between kaimahi practices and the principles and practices of workplaces. This helps keep kaimahi and rangatahi safe. To achieve this, workplaces need to develop policies and procedures that document how relationship-based practice principles are implemented in their work. These can then be included in induction processes so that all kaimahi are aware of how RBP is implemented across all levels of the organisation (see What is relationship-based practice).
Relationship-based practice (RBP) works best when our workplaces adopt the key principles in their everyday operations. One way to do this is to use the PARTH in practice reflection sheets as part of policy reviews and strategic planning activities.
Finding your fit with RBP
Resources (see PARTH in practice reflection sheets) that help with an organisation-wide way of working are included in this kete. Implementation will bring challenges which include aligning funding, policy, operational and organisational practices, with the principles of RBP (Cooper, 2018; Fairtlough, 2018). For example, funders often do not understand the need for time at the beginning of mahi to build the relationship, and pressure can come on kaimahi to jump straight into problem solving. Also, organisations will need to be able to fund things such as kai, transport and other resources to support the mahi. Funders may not realise how important, for instance, sharing kai is to building relationships. Inside the organisation, management will need to develop plans and policies that make these sorts of activities safe. This provides transparency for kaimahi, so they know how the organisation supports RBP.
Another set of issues that need to be addressed by organisations are risk aversion and managerialist approaches (Cooper, 2018; Fairtlough, 2018). These can make it hard for kaimahi to be flexible and adaptable – things that are important to RBP (see Adaptability and being flexible & the PARTH in practice reflection sheet for adaptability). A highly risk-averse approach can put the organisation and its needs ahead of the rangatahi. While organisations do need to survive, risk management and accountability frameworks can make it harder for kaimahi to use RBP in their mahi. These approaches can make it hard for kaimahi to adapt and respond to context and to work in culturally responsive ways:
"Funding, policy and management do not yet allow for development of a new sense of responsibility within organisations so that interventions and decision-making is purposeful, needs-oriented and resource-efficient; and the importance of staff at all levels understanding the connections between local and particular decisions and processes and wider organisational purposes, constraints and possibilities. The new culture of ‘accountability’ for practice (if this extends beyond just ensuring that backs are covered to embrace an authentic sense of complex responsibility to different stakeholders) compares well with the unfocused but worthy, values saturated culture of the ‘old days’" (Cooper, 2018, 276).
Funding systems can also create competition between organisations. This makes it harder for kaimahi to collaborate across services and use open practices that support RBP. Internal operational systems can mean that kaimahi are changed at short notice, and rangatahi are referred between organisations with little or no transition support (Munford & Sanders, 2016; 2015). These things are not consistent with RBP and would need to be addressed in policies.
There are challenges in getting management and organisational processes to support RBP while keeping everyone safe. However, Cooper (2018, 276) says there are ways of getting a balance between management needs and RBP practice: “it does not follow from this that every aspect of organisational functioning, including subjectivities of staff, become saturated only with business principles. Yet it is precisely this category of mistake that is perpetrated by the survivalist mentalities of so many managers in social work organisations.”
Managers can avoid becoming trapped in these ‘survivalist mentalities’. This includes building a clear understanding of the “specific organisational conditions in which you operate” (Cooper, 2018, 277). This involves three steps:
From this we can be specific about how relationship-based practice fits within our organisational cultures. Some questions we can ask are included below. While we do this, we keep focused on the rangatahi we serve (see PARTH in practice reflection sheets).
Questions we can ask to work out how RBP can fit in our organisation:
Operationalising RBP
This kete contains a number of resources that can help you to embed RBP into everyday mahi. Organisations can also support RBP by considering three major areas of operation:
"As we have written elsewhere, while labels have an administrative utility, it is through their usage that individuality and ordinariness are compromised, and ‘thick’ lives reduced to ‘thin’ descriptions (Kohli 2006). Here, mechanical and technical categorisations simultaneously displace as well as attempt to respond to people’s more wayward organic lives in ways that fit whatever limited resources are thought to be on offer" (Kohli & Dutton, 2018, 81).
1. Supporting front line practice
McMahon (2018) suggests that for kaimahi to be effective ‘containers’ for intense rangatahi emotions, they also need to be “held” safely by their organisations. Leadership and management need to provide effective, regular and meaningful for containing the impact of this work so that kaimahi can return to the field and continue to absorb the impact of rangatahi experiences, presenting their coping self, and holding their traumatic self back until kaimahi return to the workplace. Clearly, critical reflection, supervision and coaching practices are key here (see Critical reflection).
"These externally determined guidelines (professional codes of ethics and ethical guidelines) are both necessary and helpful for the practitioner, and they set the broad parameters within which all practice must be conducted, although they do not tell the whole story. There is also inevitably a more immediate and contingent set of decisions to be made in every situation, and these have to be operated at a much more personal level, which is why our opening questions remain always pertinent: how do I ‘relate’ interpersonally with this service-user and how should I ‘manage’ this relationship, for example, how much of myself should I disclose or actively draw upon – and how much control do I really have over self-disclosure" (Ward, 2018, 56).
Our goal is to avoid letting ‘thin’ descriptions become the models that shape our practice because this reduces rangatahi lives to a sameness that is not accurate. It can also lead to judgemental responses - seeing the ‘sameness’ in the ‘thin’ accounts, stops kaimahi from seeking to understand the genuineness of each rangatahi story. Using ‘thin’ stories as the working model desensitises us to human suffering. This makes it easier for us to dismiss the effects of this suffering. It can also lead to organisations making harsher judgements about entitlements and supports than would be the case if the ‘thicker’, richer story were heard (see Understanding and working with resistance; Curiosity and uncertainty; Recognition and shame; Rangatahi are the centre).
"So, in delineating what ‘we’ think of ‘them’ and what ‘they’ think of ‘us’, an intricate dance comes into being, shaped by mutual preconceptions, needs, expectations and positions. It has a few variant steps, depending on the context within which each step takes place, yet it requires us to listen to what is said, what is obliquely referred to, and what remains in silence as refugees open and close their narrative accounts in their exchanges with perceived helpers" (Kohli & Dutton, 2018, 81).
"This is most likely to take place in an organisational culture that values reflection and supports practitioners to ‘stay with’ difficult feelings rather than seeing them as inherently problematic and to be avoided" (Turney, 2012, 156).
2. Internal staff management practices
Stretching boundaries is often talked about in RBP. Sometimes we call this ‘going above and beyond’ what kaimahi roles require. This is risky for kaimahi if the employer does not:
- have processes in place to ensure that this type of work is recognised and managed safely for everyone, and
- create processes so that kaimahi can tell managers/leaders when they do these things (de Boer & Coady, 2007).
Cooper talks about the need for a “recovery of a capacity to preserve organisational space for thinking and reflecting on working relationships and ‘relatedness’ among ourselves as the central tool of effective practice and organisational health” (Cooper, 2018, 276) (see Critical reflection).
Kohli and Dutton (2018) encourage organisations to include questions about kaimahi skills and abilities as part of assessment and case allocation processes. They suggest asking, how is the kaimahi located in relation to the rangatahi, whānau, and community domains? Just like we encourage kaimahi to learn the ‘back story’ of rangatahi so they understand rangatahi experiences and context, it is important for organisations to do the same with kaimahi so their experiences, skills and knowledge are fully utilised in their support of rangatahi.
Another factor to consider is organisational hiring practices. Do these emphasise willingness and experience in safely going above and beyond, and willingness to advocate for clients beyond the narrow mandate of the job (de Boer & Coady, 2007)? We can include questions in job interviews where kaimahi can tell us about their scope of practice and how and why this leads to effective change when working with rangatahi. Part of this involves defining a rangatahi-centred approach to power sharing that de-escalates situations (see Rangatahi are the centre; Power). We can ask for examples where they have discovered new facets of themselves as kaimahi, where they shared control and decision making with rangatahi and where they advocated inside their organisations for resources and supports (Ross, Buglione, & Safford-Farquharson, 2011). At the core of these questions is asking how they use critical reflection in their practice (see Critical reflection).
Turney (2012) talks about the importance of emotions in practice, including organisational practices. She recommends organisations and managers recognise and define how they create meaningful opportunities for kaimahi to deal with their emotional responses to the work (see Working with challenging emotions). This will promote safer workplaces and more effective interventions:
3. Advocacy at the young person, organisation and the policy level
A key way for kaimahi to build relationships with rangatahi involves doing practical tasks as well as individual and group advocacy (for example, writing letters of support, assisting with access to additional services, raising issues in the public domain that have a general relevance for all service users) (see PARTH in practice reflection sheets - Action; Agency). Kaimahi need organisational support so that they are not left out on a limb when they advocate.
A ‘distributed leadership’ model is helpful for organisations wanting to take an organisation- wide approach to RBP (Fairtlough, 2018). This means that all staff are responsible for the shape and culture of the organisation; aspects of decision-making are delegated to individuals, groups and teams using a transparent accountability framework. This transparent but delegated approach to decision-making works well in complex services such as child protection where long ‘chains of command’ can make decision making slow, unresponsive and inflexible. These approaches are most effective when there is enough time for critical reflection within teams and for kaimahi with their supervisors/coaches.
Here are some ways leaders can help create a workplace that supports RBP:
How do I use these ideas in my mahi?
Our organisation facilitates groups for rangatahi and we also work individually with rangatahi on a range of issues such as mental health support, employment preparation, parenting support. Our manager encourages us to have regular meetings to reflect on our practice and to identify how we promote relational practice throughout the agency. We do this in our programme teams and we also come together a couple of times a year to do this as a whole agency. Our manager encourages our teams to meet at least once a month to reflect on our relational practice and the key factors that contribute to this. These discussions then feed into our yearly meetings.
In one of our monthly meetings our youth team decided to explore two key areas. The first was how we inducted new kaimahi into our work and supported them to understand relational practice and the second was how we could more effectively receive feedback from rangatahi on our mahi.
In terms of the induction processes, while we felt that on the whole these worked well, they could be improved by having more active involvement from kaimahi from across the agency. This could help new kaimahi understand the integrated approach we use in our mahi. We also thought that more mahi could be done in helping new kaimahi understand our critical reflection processes and how these occurred in different ways. For example, our team approach in supporting rangatahi enabled many informal opportunities for reflecting on our mahi, such as being available for each other at the end of the day to have a quick catch up on how the day had worked out, to talk about any challenges that arose, but also to celebrate the achievements.
On the second topic we talked about how we could provide more opportunities for rangatahi to provide feedback on our support processes. We all did this individually as rangatahi left the agency. We thought it would be useful to widen the scope of this feedback. Rangatahi may wish to make comment on other agency processes, such as how we welcomed them to the agency, how they were provided with information about our agency and other things that were important to them. As we had whole agency meetings a couple of times a year we decided to discuss with our manager how we might provide an opportunity for rangatahi who used our services to come to a meeting to share kai and to provide feedback on the agency in a safe environment. We would be creative in how we ran this event so that rangatahi felt safe and comfortable and were given a range of ways to provide feedback. We realised this would be a challenge as we had to manage issues of confidentiality for the rangatahi, but we would offer this as an opportunity for rangatahi who would like to participate in such an event. Our manager and kaimahi from other programmes could join us at this event.
We also discussed the importance of encouraging new kaimahi to set up formal supervision/coaching on an individual basis so they could reflect on how they were using relational practices. Similarly, we need to encourage them to also attend our group reflection meetings.
Here are some places to look for more information
- Cooper, A. (2018). What future? Organisational forms, relationship-based social work practice and the changing world order. In G. Ruch, D. Turney & A. Ward (Eds). Relationship-based social work: Getting to the heart of practice (2nd Ed). (pp 237-255). Jessica Kingsley, London.
- de Boer, C. & Coady, N. (2007). Good helping relationships in child welfare: Learning from stories of success. Child and Family Social Work, 12, 32-42. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2206.2006.00438.x
- Fairtlough, A. (2018). Professional leadership for relationship-based practice. In G. Ruch, D. Turney & A. Ward (Eds). Relationship-based social work: Getting to the heart of practice (2nd Ed). (pp 147-164). Jessica Kingsley, London.
- Kohli, R. & Dutton, J. (2018). Brief encounters. In G. Ruch, D. Turney & A. Ward (Eds). Relationship-based social work: Getting to the heart of practice. (2nd Ed). (pp 77-93), Jessica Kingsley, London.
- Munford, R., & Sanders, J. R. (2016). Understanding service engagement: Young people's experience of service use. Journal of Social Work, 16, 3, 283-302. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468017315569676
- Munford, R., & Sanders, J. (2015). Young people's search for agency: Making sense of their experiences and taking control. Qualitative Social Work, 14, 5, 616-633. https://doi:10.1177/1473325014565149
- McMahon, L. (2018). Long-term complex relationships. . In G. Ruch, D. Turney & A. Ward (Eds). Relationship-based social work: Getting to the heart of practice (2nd Ed). (pp 147-164). Jessica Kingsley, London.
- Ross, L., Buglione, S. & Safford-Farquharson, J. (2011). Training the wizards: A model for building self-efficacy and peer networks among urban youth workers. Child & Youth Services, 32, 3, 200-223. https://doi.org/10.1080/0145935X.2011.605310
- Sanders, J., & Munford, R. (2010). Working with families: Strengths-based approaches. Dunmore, New Zealand.
- Turney, D. (2012). A relationship-based approach to engaging involuntary clients: The contribution of recognition theory. Child and Family Social Work, 17 149-159. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2206.2012.00830.x
- Ward, M. (2018). The use of self in relationship-based practice. In G. Ruch, D. Turney & A. Ward (Eds). Relationship-based social work: Getting to the heart of practice (2nd Ed). (pp 55- 74). Jessica Kingsley, London.
We thank the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment for funding the research that created this resource (MAUX2006).
This resource was developed by Professor Jackie Sanders. It was refined with input from Donna MacNicol, Te Aroha Noa Community Services, Justina Webster, Dr Linda Liebenberg, Professor Robyn Munford, Dr Jayne Mercier, Davinia Abbott and the team at Dingwall Trust Launch Programme
Citation: Sanders, J. with MacNicol, D., Webster, J., Munford, R. Liebenberg, L., Mercier, J., Abbott, D. and the Dingwall Trust Launch Team (2023). Relationship based practice in organisations. Relational Resources for Change, https://youthsay.co.nz/rbp-theories/relationship-based-practice-in-organisations/
CC BY-NC-ND Licensed using Creative Commons Licensing. Relational Resources for Change Project. You are welcome to use this resource individually, in your teams and in supervision/coaching/critical reflection, you should acknowledge the source using the above citation. You may not change this document, use it to develop your own external training, or for commercial purposes (e.g by charging a fee).
