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Patrick Ayre looks at new research that warns against the disadvantages of not working in partnership effectively with depressed mothers.

Over the past decade, effective partnership between social workers and parents in the field of child and family social work has come to be recognised as being of crucial importance to successful practice. However, a close look at the research that has informed our thinking during this period suggests that we have paid much more attention to one side of this partnership than to the other.

Very useful work has been done on demonstrating those characteristics of social workers and their employing agencies that most effectively promote partnership¹. Much less time has been spent looking at specific factors that may affect the capacity of individual parents to play a full and active part and at how we can be responsive to these. Recent research by Michael Sheppard of the University of Plymouth goes some way towards redressing this imbalance by studying a group of parents who may potentially suffer serious disadvantage in the field of partnership unless we attend carefully to their unique needs.

In choosing his subject, Sheppard invites us to acknowledge that women are predominantly the primary care givers of children and that this is overwhelmingly the case in families receiving social work intervention. He further reminds us that research has suggested that well over a third of these mothers are likely to be depressed but that social workers often fail to identify this.

What we know about depression in general suggests that it may be difficult for those experiencing it to participate as full partners in complex and stressful interactions such as those which tend to characterise child and family social work. By analysing the partnership process in some detail, this study helps us to identify which aspects of process are likely to present the most pressing problems and to consider how best we can respond.

Compared with mothers not suffering depression, Sheppard found that depressed women scored significantly worse with respect to their motivation and confidence, more often feeling unsure of themselves and finding it "hard to summon the energy to say much" at meetings and conferences. As a result, they felt that they participated far less. Indeed over a quarter felt that they took little or no part in most of the decisions made. Problems were likely to be particularly complex in situations where children were felt to be at risk.

What, then, can we learn about the response required in these most difficult circumstances? At the most basic level, Sheppard points out that a greater level of sensitivity to the mother's state of mind is required. He notes that depressed people react particularly strongly and negatively to criticism and that self-blame, pessimism and helplessness are widespread features of these cases. He suggests that it is crucial that social workers continually strive to identify positive aspects of parenting to counteract the explicit and implicit criticism associated with their involvement with the family.

However, in many cases, even this may not be enough to promote effective partnership. For many of these mothers, the negative thoughts they have about themselves are deeply locked into their social and psychological functioning. In these cases, a mother's potential to become truly an actor rather than a prop in the drama of her own life may only be realised by the kind of skilled intervention, using cognitive methods, which few social workers now have the time to contemplate.

- M Sheppard, "Depressed Mothers' Experience of Partnership in Child and Family Care", British Journal of Social Work, Vol 32, 2002

Patrick Ayre is senior lecturer, Department of Applied Social Studies, University of Luton.

References

- M William, Parents, Children and Social Workers: Working in Partnership under the Children Act, Ashgate, 1997