Editorial

The proposal for this special edition arose from the conference, Beyond Belief: Exploring the Impact of Religion and Belief on Practice held at the University of Bradford in September 2011. The conference recognised that in many parts of the world social work is practised in richly diverse, multi-ethnic and multi-faith societies; societies in which religious, spiritual and other beliefs are of crucial importance to many and play some role in shaping the worldview of most (Furness and Gilligan, 2010). These are amongst the reasons why all social workers need to develop a working knowledge and understanding of the religious and spiritual beliefs and practices of those who use their services, regardless of specialism or setting. Without relevant knowledge and understanding of such matters, social workers cannot adequately perform their duties nor meet their professional responsibilities. Practitioners will only be competent to engage with people if they also engage with all important aspects of people’s lives, including relevant religious, spiritual and other beliefs. These will, of course, be of no significance to some but for others such beliefs will play a major part in causing the difficulties they face. For some, religious and spiritual beliefs are a crucial part of any solution, while for others they may significantly heighten and/or ameliorate the impact of the difficulties they face (Furness and Gilligan, 2010).

Many writers (Bullis,1996; Becvar, 1998; Canda and Furman, 1999; Lindsay, 2002; Nash and Stewart, 2002; Coholic, 2003; Henery, 2003; Moody, 2005; Moss, 2005; Hodge, 2005; 2007; Derezotes, 2006; Coates et al., 2007; Holloway, 2007; Gray, 2008; Crisp, 2008; 2010; Mathews, 2009) have made important contributions to research and thinking about the relationship between both religious and non-religious ‘spirituality’ and social work. However, there is still little to suggest that such issues are given sufficient priority in the education and training of social workers and much to suggest that discussion of religion in particular had, at least until recently, declined. Even in countries such as the USA, where social workers have sometimes appeared more sympathetic to religious or spiritually sensitive interventions than their colleagues in countries such as the United Kingdom (Sheridan and Amato-von Hemert, 1999; Gilligan and Furness, 2006), studies conducted at the end of the last century suggest that around two thirds of social work students reported that they received very little input related to religion and spirituality during their professional training (Derezotes, 1995; Sheridan and Amato-von Hemert, 1999).

At the same time, those who advocate more attention to these issues in social work also note that there is no obvious consensus about the extent or means by which they should be included in either practice or training (Sheridan and Amato-von Hemert, 1999; Gilbert, 2000; Praglin, 2003). There is no agreement about how to actually achieve ‘spiritually-competent’ social work practice; in part because of differing perspectives regarding whether such practice can and should be offering religious and spiritual interventions or whether it should be careful to restrict itself to taking account of religion and spiritually where these are significant to particular service users. This is a dichotomy which in turn reflects divergent types of and attitudes to religious and spiritual beliefs (Furness and Gilligan, 2010) and which highlights the advisability of social workers recognising that professional development cannot be separated from the influence of context and culture, and of habits, including religious and spiritual beliefs (Boud et al., 1993; Bourdieu, 1977).

The articles included in this edition offer particular perspectives on a wide range of potentially significant issues. Bhagwan highlights that, as elsewhere, little has yet been achieved in South Africa to interweave religious and spiritual threads into social work education; Crisp explores how different relationships between faith-based organisations and professional social work practice have emerged in Australia and Sweden; Dossett argues that wariness by professionals of twelve step programmes on grounds of their religious/spiritual dimension may benefit from reconsideration; Gray et al. suggests that an ecospiritual perspective will help social workers to recognize that human interests are inextricably bound with planetary well-being; Melville-Wiseman offers an approach to resolving a religious and sexuality based schism amongst UK social work students and how this mirrors current religion and sexuality based tensions in wider society; Neagoe explores how Christian social workers in Romania can deal with dilemmas arising from tensions between their spiritual and their professional values; Scourfield et al. present evidence from a study of Muslim families in Wales which challenges social work’s emphasis on liberal Western notion of an individualised spirituality rather than formal religion; Whiting uses the biography of the Gandhian Doris Lester to argue that contemporary discussions of spirituality in social work can be enriched by narratives that bring out how the complicated relationship between faith and practice has been worked out across generations, while Worland highlights the importance of developing culturally competent, spiritually sensitive responses into social work practice when working with people who have experienced displacement and subsequent trauma in Burma.

It is clearly impossible for nine articles to provide comprehensive coverage of the multifarious issues which arise for social work at the interface between professional practice, individual and collective beliefs in particular contexts. However, what they all do is to reinforce the fact that social workers need to know if and how religious and spiritual beliefs are significant to the particular individual, household, group or community they are currently seeking to help and need to recognise the potential impact of their reactions to people who espouse beliefs which differ from their own.

Social workers need to be particularly alert to the risk that they may devalue, or even demonise, the belief systems of others, whilst continuing to view their own beliefs or lack of beliefs as ‘normal’ or even as superior (Weaver, 2008). Instead, they need to create opportunities that allow individuals to express and use any beliefs they have and to explore any difficulties or fears that arise from them. To do so, requires them to be self-aware and reflexive about their own beliefs and their responses to beliefs of others; to recognise service-users’ expertise about their own needs and beliefs and to listen to what they say about these; to actively seek-out relevant information and advice about what is unfamiliar to them; to give service users real opportunities to discuss their religious and spiritual beliefs and the strengths, difficulties and needs which arise from them.