Abstract
Among the many things I learnt from this 2017 translation of the ‘Social Workers’ Toolbox’ from Dutch is that its style is very different to the one that I have become used to in academic writing about UK social work. Hermann de Mönnink’s idiosyncratic and engaging style offers the impression that I was attending a series of personal tutorials with a practitioner of vast experience, wisdom and compassion. De Mönnink is a trauma and grief psychologist with a lifetime of training social workers, not only in the Netherlands but across the world, and this experience shapes his straightforward and jargon-free style. This style contributed to my pleasure in discovering this fairly lengthy book which is a huge compendium of approaches and practical techniques for working with people in troubling circumstances and distress.
The Netherlands context has resonance for the UK and there is considerable reference to international experience including Scotland’s ‘My World Triangle’.
‘The Social Workers’ Toolbox’ is founded on the author’s premise that the Sustainable Multimethod Social Work model offers the most ethical theoretical approach for promoting evidence-based practice and social justice. The Multimethod Social Work model should aim to help address the personal, social, economic and political needs of vulnerable people.
De Mönnink further develops his ideas through the ‘Person in Environment’ theory and he explains in detail the dynamic processes entailed in bio-psychosocial connections between a person’s needs, physical condition, individual coping and social support. The combined influence of these factors, he argues, determine an individual’s quality of life. The social worker is instrumental in providing techniques in partnership with the individual and the contextual structural factors in their lives to help improve their quality of life.
At the beginning, I found these ideas quite challenging, especially as the translation can be occasionally quirky, but quickly realised De Mönnink has reframed broad concepts which should be familiar to us all in creating his powerfully person centred model for ethical and critical practice. Theoretical discussion is followed by chapters which contain a plethora of practical techniques for direct application in social work practice.
These techniques are predominantly targeted at strengthening psychological factors which affect people’s quality of life, but De Mönnink does also attend to the crucial role of social workers in structural change, relating this to his PIE theory.
The book is structured into eight parts, each focussing on a group of methods which systematically address the complex context of social work practice and offer many accessible and practical suggestions for interventions. The author spells out why, what and how to use particular methods, and for those looking for very detailed exploration of specific techniques he offers references to further reading and research. There is discussion around structural methods and differing service delivery with de Mönnink drawing on international research and literature.
Some techniques may be rarely found in current UK mainstream social work settings, perhaps more so in residential, therapeutic or health services. Given the author’s practice background, these are predominantly oriented towards how social workers can assist with individual recovery from grief and loss. Very many techniques are discussed, but helpfully he offers indications, contraindications and pitfalls associated with their use.
As I read this book, the UK has experienced a series of major events which have presented unimaginable grief for individuals, families, communities and the whole of society, but we initially heard extremely little about the role of social work in the immediate aftermath. Reference to social work emerged with the unfolding responses to that trauma and its structural context. With this experience in the forefront of my mind, I found Chapter 25 on ‘Social Work and Grief Support’ extremely pertinent as I wondered how far the profession may have travelled from its early sensitivity to the complicated manifestations of loss in people’s lives.
The author states that ‘loss is an inextricable part of life’ and promotes the role of social work in supporting children and adults experiencing loss arising from migration, economic factors, dementia, death and disability. He illustrates this with examples of the role of social workers in post disaster recovery work and discusses techniques, for example, for those who have lost significant people in major events. If you can access this book and you and your colleagues, in whatever profession, are impacted by these events, perhaps at least read Chapter 25 but do read the book’s introduction to place it in context. In conclusion, overall, this book is an unusual and rare gem.