engaging with new ideas

[Guest guest]

Robyn

Thank you for all that information I enjoyed reading it immensely, I will

have to go away and inwardly digest it a bit, before I come back with

properly ordered thoughts. Do you think words like epistomology, (nature of

knowledge) paradigm ( a framework in which theory can be devloped in a

scientific way) will give me indigestion or might I be able to cope with

your help? Just reflecting on the broad church that reads Senate and

interpreting a little - forgive me for that. More seriously thank you for

taking the time to throw out some ideas for people to go away and think

about. I would love for some of the 'silent members' to respond - even if it

was to say I haven't a clue?help! ( how many 'members' are there now?)

Anyway hugely interesting Robyn I will comment soon

from Robyn: , Thank you for your engagement with these ideas. You

raise important

issues. Some of them have arisen as part of my own discovery process about

what

I am doing. Your response also made ask if there is similarity between

disenchanted practitioners, ‘whose commitment is entirely to their pay at

the

end of the month’, and discouraged (socially excluded even) clients. My

attempts to explain my thinking might help me get to the heart of what I

mean by

alongsideness as a way of being in practice and as enquiry in practice. I

would

like to have a go at thinking it through here. Practitioners concerned

about

‘their status or moving up in the hierarchy’, is also interesting but may

need

consideration elsewhere as it is different (although perhaps not hugely).

I also hear your points about the use of other theories for informing

practice,

that practitioners should read,

the amount of time this process takes and

fears practitioners have about exposing themselves in self study.

Great questions and I will try to think about them here. I also take your

point

about the need for the thesis to be available in manageable chunks and am

wondering about how I might do that. In the meantime, the ‘short tutorial’

you

request might be in the form of list discussion with anyone who wants to

join

in. We can talk about possibilities, emerging contradictions and solutions

such

as those you raise here, rather than attempting a definitive statement of

what

living theory action research is.

I write in the belief that this discussion space is where I can try out

ideas as

they come into my head in my process of finding new understanding about what

I

mean by alongsideness. I do it knowing that my ideas are open to critique

by

readers who are also thinking about what they know. I welcome responses.

This

introduces the first point I suppose, that practice knowledge is emergent

through experience and through dialogue with others. It is open to

(actually

searches for) contradictions that arise in new situations. In this way

meanings

grow and are transformed. [For those interested in this: The knowledge

generated is therefore dialectical in that it is capable of embracing

contradictions rather than being negated by them. It is also capable of

keeping

all the parts of the matter being researched and the whole in view at the

same

time. Here are major differences from usual research paradigms used in

health

care where the focus is specific and a contradiction negates a

theory being tested.]

I appreciate that you have already worked at gaining a great deal of

understanding about this approach . You are right about the increased

confidence it builds and the tentative nature of theories firmly held but

always

open to question and possible change. The developmental process of

knowledge

generation leads me to echo McNiff in saying that I am not claiming to

have

all the answers or to be a model of good practice. I am claiming to be

working

at improving and explaining my practice and the relevance of alongside

epistemology to health visiting, because I believe it has important social

benefits.

This is where the link struck me between discouraged clients and

disenchanted

health visitors. During the research process I became aware that people are

more likely to work at improving their lives (with me as HV) when they are

working on an agenda that is important to them. I learnt that I could trust

people’s agendas to be worth pursuing. I also realised that people thrive

and

can become open to the emotional needs of others when they experience their

own

needs being met. I came to see these emotional needs as the need to feel a

sense of belonging with others, a belief in one’s own competence, sense of

worth

and courage to handle whatever turns up. It dawned on me that people who

are

struggling, perhaps not behaving very well (or not bothering much) do not

need

respect, acceptance and self-determination less. In fact they need to

experience it more so they begin to feel better about themselves and in turn

feel able to offer the same for others while. This means that

effective relationships with people who are discouraged require my power to

be

minimised and me to work at creating mutually respectful relationships in a

spirit of enquiring together. I realised that families may need support to

enhance their self-worth before they can begin formulating their own

questions

about family relationships and improving their lives. This is a summary

of

thinking over several years I hope it makes sense.

The concerns discussed by Senate about disengaged HVs whose practice was

seen as

lacking and needing tough action in order to bring them into line sounded

familar. I saw a parallel between the problem managers perceived and the

concerns of professionals who feel blame towards discouraged families for

being

who they are - flawed (judged by professional standards) and in need of top

down

action to get them moving. Actually, what they really need is to

experience

respect for the value of their humanness (that they are worth our respectful

effort) and encouragement to value what they already know and do well so

they

feel able to look out beyond themselves, decide what their own priorities

are

and grow. In other words I have found people respond well to being trusted

to

move in a positive cooperative direction when the climate is encouraging

rather

being alienated and excluded from the pack (where do you draw the line for

exclusion?). I don’t know if all this makes sense. My current

experiences with colleagues in co-enquiry groups across our PCT lead me to

believe this holds true for practitioners as much as clients because it is

about

hat people need. It is quite hard summarising things I have rehearsed many

times in practice in a couple of paragraphs. If it is unclear I am willing

to

have another go.

To get my colleagues to join the co-enquiry groups I reassured them a

literature

search was not necessary to begin. You are right many do not want to read.

I

wanted them to look at what they already do well themselves and then to ask

how

they can do it in other places. This is where the contradictions in

practice

can become a focus for increased understanding and practice development but

the

contradiction has to be owned by the practitioners. It is not that I do

not

value research theories from other paradigms. I referenced 200 of them in

my

thesis. It is just that I wanted them to begin to value their own

knowledge

and avoid the treadmill conditioned response of looking for answers from

other

people in the first instance.

Fear of exposure from all that airy fairy naval gazing stuff. I understand

this

fear, it may be universal? I had it myself; recording in my journal

something

like ‘I am not going to look at myself but just at what I need to know and

how I

can improve what I am doing.’ Some living theorists manage to enquire with

less self absorption than I got in to but it is hard to see how relationship

centred practice such as health visiting can be explained from the point of

view

of only half the relationship. Researchers take responsibility for what

they

study and what depths they are willing to explore and explain publicly. Not

all

research is for a PhD. In education faculties students do enquiries in 12

week

modules. It is possible apparently. If you have been, thanks for reading.

Robyn

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