Reflections on a Life in Social Work: A Personal & Professional Memoir

Preface by Professor Phyllida Parsloe & Sara Glennie Shevenell. Foreword by Professor Harry Ferguson. Olive Stevenson is one of the foremost social work educators of her generation; an inspiring tutor, a compelling lecturer and an inquiring and persistent researcher. For more than fifty years she taught hundreds of social workers at the Universities of Bristol, Oxford, Keele and Liverpool and latterly the University of Nottingham, and inspired many others throughher work. Her professional life spanned the years during which the role and task of social work was vigorously debated. This memoir knits together many disparate parts of a life spent in public service and reflects honestly on some key questions for the author and for the profession: What early influences shaped an enduring commitment to social work?; What role did class and religion play in shaping a personal and public morality?; How did major events such as the Maria Colwell Inquiry (1973) shape public attitude and public policy in relation to child protection?; Who and what influenced the profession s ambivalent engagement with psychoanalytic ideas? With characteristic candour and clarity, Olive tackles these questions and more in a book that will be of interest to practicing social workers, social work educators and anyone interested in understanding the story behind the headlines that are, too often, deeply critical of the motives and practice of social workers.

A memoir is a rare thing in social work. The profession has a short memory and rarely celebrates its heroes. Olive Stevenson is undoubtedly one of social work's heroes. She is a front-line witness to the major changes that have run through social work as the political tides have raced this way and that. We hear first hand what it was like to manage and practise, observe and analyse, teach and research - in a children's home, a clinic, a Children's Department, a Commission, a university. And we are treated to an insider's view of being a member of the Maria Colwell Inquiry, a landmark event in the history of British child care. But the book is much more than an historical account, as valuable and insightful as this is. Olive reflects, with extraordinary candour and honesty, on her own life, her family and feelings, her roles and relationships. So we gradually become aware, that she was changed by social work every bit as much as it was changed by her. The result is a book that is as inspiring as it is unusual, a joy to read, and a beautiful reminder of the importance of the relationship, the reflective self, and the gifted mind in the practice of social work. --David Howe, Emeritus Prefessor of Social Work, University of East Anglia

I am privileged, as one of those who started their social work career as a student of Olive Stevenson, to commend this book to the present generation of social workers and their colleagues in the helping services. Readers are invited into the personal and professional life of a social worker and educator whose 'academic brilliance and humanity' (Harry Ferguson, in his insightful introductory chapter) have, through her teaching and publications, impacted on so many people of all ages who have found themselves in need of social care services. Running through this memoir is the clearly articulated theme. Relationship-based helping, adapted from its roots in psychoanalysis by the early social work practitioners, remains central to effective practice. There is no contradiction between this over-arching approach, and the sensitive alleviation of material disadvantage and the skilled use of cognitive-behavioural and other therapeutic methods. But the daily challenge for social workers is, as Olive puts it, 'how best, in seeking to help others, to use one's mind and one's feelings together'. --June Thoburn, Emeritus Professor of Social Work, University of East Anglia --June Thoburn, Emeritus Professor of Social Work, University of East Anglia

I am privileged, as one of those who started their social work career as a student of Olive Stevenson, to commend this book to the present generation of social workers and their colleagues in the helping services. Readers are invited into the personal and professional life of a social worker and educator whose 'academic brilliance and humanity' (Harry Ferguson, in his insightful introductory chapter) have, through her teaching and publications, impacted on so many people of all ages who have found themselves in need of social care services. Running through this memoir is the clearly articulated theme. Relationship-based helping, adapted from its roots in psychoanalysis by the early social work practitioners, remains central to effective practice. There is no contradiction between this over-arching approach, and the sensitive alleviation of material disadvantage and the skilled use of cognitive-behavioural and other therapeutic methods. But the daily challenge for social workers is, as Olive puts it, 'how best, in seeking to help others, to use one's mind and one's feelings together'. --June Thoburn, Emeritus Professor of Social Work, University of East Anglia