Congrès de la Société Internationale d’Ergologie mai 2014 Produire des normes et intervenir dans la vie des autres : Savoirs et démocratie en travail Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 20141

Interpersonal Exchanges/trade in Social Work Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai 20142

 To intervene is to occur or to interrupt  To intervene in someone’s life is a usual duty for social workers  It consists in working directly with the user/subject, in order to transform a situation and solve a problem Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

 Each and every individual; like any human being is exposed to a set of norms  These norms constantly progress according to times and customs  The individual will adjust to his surrounding environment and make it his own‘s environment, he appropriates it as the norm, it’s a constant process of re-formating Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

 That a person should come to face a social worker is evidence that he encounters some form of difficulties and he needs technical aid  Does it mean that he meets difficulties in his normative process ?  Is he encountering difficulties adapting to his environment, its evolutions, changes, accidents ? Does he meet problems to adapt to his environment, to evolutions, to changes and accidents of life ?  Thus, isn’t social work a form of intervention designed to restore the subject‘s normative capacities ? Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

 Social work is the sum of professional actions geared at interrupting a condition in order to restore an individual’s autonomy  My work is based on two assumptions :  The person asking for help must be considered as an “enterprising subject” (someone with an enterprising mind)  There are value issues connected with the two protagonist’s attitudes Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

The “assisted entrepreneur”  Man is a social being. To live with others he has defined a set of rules. He has stated the rights and duties of each one towards everyone in order to make it possible for people to live together  Rights and duties are a moving network connecting people  The concept of duty comes always first before the notion of right  A democratic society is based on the idea of reciprocity, a circularity of rights and duties  I have rights and duties. I have rights because I have duties Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

Social work must not be considered as a mean to an end but as an end in itself Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

 In the performance of social work there are two ways to approach the person being “assisted”, as a subject or as an object  As an object, he becomes a means to accomplish a professional act  As a subject, his cooperation/involvement will be sought in a self constructive logic Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

 Astonishment  understanding a problem  self awareness as an “enterprising subject”  It is through participation, through implication, that human beings develop their normative abilities  To be autonomous, an individual needs to feel free and not to feel dependent  The social worker makes his work transitory when he works in order to make the other being aware of his abilities  Multiplying points of views : exchanging knowledge Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

Exchanging knowledge  To listen to the other person and to accept what he says, with the humility of one’s own knowledge  To be taught by others is to let oneself being enriched by some others ideas  Exchanging knowledge, is to institute a dialogue between “invested knowledges” and “instituted knowledges”  Building a shared vision requires that one adopts a welcoming attitude Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

 Accepting to have one’s certitudes being re-worked by another person’s values puts us in an “intellectual discomfort”, because to work with and face to face with some one else is to agree to be internally modified  Social work requires constant intellectual discomfort, constant self- interrogation Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

Relationship and attitude in social work  Professionalism is materialized by the dissymmetric relationship : assistant (the one who helps)/ assisted (the one who is helped)  Relational dissymmetry enables solicitude ( care /concern).  Other is not the object of the intervention but an active subject able to act for and by himself Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

 The attitude is symmetrical : no one having the right solution  Symetrical attitude means acknowledging every one‘s particularities Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

 The help relationship is efficient when everyone agrees on the notion of attitude based on reciprocity in the context of a dissymmetrical relationship  This interconnection allows mutual teachings  The two protagonist use their “corps-soi” (body-self”) Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

 Knowledge confrontation is evidence of the user’s implication  Personal investment is a life motion opposed to inertia Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

 The professional social worker has at his disposal two methodologies of actions  An individual help intervention targeted on a person and a social intervention linked to a community’s benefit  Social work carried out with groups allows users to participate more easily  Access to symetrical attitude is therefore facilitated Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

 The social work acts towards restoring the other person’s capabilities/autonomy  This could be what we may call democracy at work  Freedom to speak, on an equal plan to take part in the power to decide or/ and to do  That’s the way how mutual responsibility leads to solidarity Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai

Thank you for your attention Ingrid DROMARD-FOUCHECOURT- Congrès de la SIE- Sierre – Mai