1. Empowerment: social workers’ representations and practices Carla Pinto ISCSP/CAPP Social Work and Social Development: action and impact Stockholm, 8-12 july 2012 Project Health, Risk and Governmentalization PTDC/SAU-ESA/101309/2008

2. TEMÁTICA  The term empowerment is now almost omnipresent in social work literature  It is a value, a policy and technical principle of action and a methodology of social work  Nevertheless this concept is plural and multidimensional, and also ambiguous, controversial and differently understood and experienced  This ambiguity helps the general use and abuse of the term Defining empowerment

3. TEMÁTICA  Process of recognition, creation and use of resources and skills, by individuals, groups and communities, in themselves and in their environment, that translates to an increase of power – psychological, social, cultural, political and economic – that allows these subjects to increase the effective exercise of citizenship Defining empowerment

4. TEMÁTICA... implies the recognition of the existence of power differentials in societies and an axiological valuation of these differentials... implies the real possibility of changing power imbalances, whether on an individual or collective level Defining empowerment

5. TEMÁTICA  Complementarity of skills of the actors - redefinition of professional practices  Emphasis on action and acting together  Preferred action with marginalized and excluded populations  Action at different levels and dimensions of analysis Defining empowerment

6. Objectives How do social workers represent empowerment? How do social workers practice empowerment? – obstacles for empowerment practices? – convergences and divergences: authenticity representations and practices theoretical/academic and social workers’ representations and practices of empowerment

7. Method Non probabilistic sample of social workers Semi-structured interviews based on a script, applied liberally - a total of 37 interviews were carried out Diversity of gender, age, type of work organization and thematic areas of intervention Qualitative analysis techniques: simplified content analysis (Poirier et alli, 1995)

8. Characterization of interviwees 32 women and 5 men Average age : 32.8 years, with a minimum age of 24 and a maximum of 56 years old average of years of professional experience in social work: 8 years, with a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 21 years

9. Concept of empowerment valued by participants as an important concept recent contact with the concept (from late 1990’s) mostly viewed as a goal and as a process, more than as a theoretical model or philosophy of practice social workers’ conceptions of empowerment connected to their practice settings, namely type of agency, clients and aims of intervention

10. Representations and practices of empowerment Important concept, Personal and interpersonal but diffult to apply Interventions Capacitation Consciousness Autonomy, self-determination Accountability, Freedom To give power Participate, citizenship Access to resources, to connect Micro Intervention Socio-educational actions Information, advice social work process Participation Institutional articulation and between agencies Major constraints: Micro and Meso level EMPOWERMENT REPRESENTATIONS Dynamic interaction between PRACTICES

11. Authenticity of a concept Convergences: the representations and practices of empowerment among social workers are in large majority convergent – individual empowerment, in a context of great individualization of interventions Differences: – happen between professionals and academic-theoretical knowledge about the empowerment – Gap, more or less assumed, from social, political and structural processes – De-politicizing and des-empowerment of empowerment

12. Some implications… Greater importance of elements closer to a contextualized and located practice, in construction of professional action – Relational proximity context: more power and (but) biggest weaknesses – Proximity as a trap for the autonomous individuals project

13. Some implications… The need for vocational training, initial and life-long learning, to promote: – a different attitude for further integration micro- meso-macro practice – a much closer relationship between academia and practitioners

14. Some implications… The paradigm shift that we are facing requires, more than ever, individuals as political agents The need to “re-socialise” and "re-politicise" social problems and social needs, and consequently, social work The need for a professional practice that evidences a greater balance and integration of “micro-meso-macro” practice

15. Thank you for your attention! Feel free to contact cpinto@iscsp.utl.pt Social Work and Social Development: action and impact Stockholm, 8-12 july 2012