Marion van Hattum
Professor in Key Factors in Youth Care.
What is the best way to empower social workers? Marion van Hattum is professor of the Research Group for Key Factors in Youth Care. and focuses on the alliances between clients and social workers. She contributes to the development of knowledge, professionalisation and effectiveness of social workers and organisations in the field of youth support.
Marion van Hattum attaches great value to strong alliances: good co-operation between social workers and their clients. Her research group distinguishes between two types of alliances, namely task alliance and personal alliance.
- Task alliance is the result of the efforts of the professional to reach an agreement with clients and other involved parties on the aim and approach of the care.
- Personal alliance concerns the emotional relationship, or ‘click’, that is developed during the co-operation between the client and the social worker.
Research has shown that social workers are effective when they are able to combine good personal alliances with good task alliances and to maintain these with diverse clients. The creation of such a fertile working relationship is a strong predictor of positive results in youth care.
Self-reflection leads to development
Self-reflection plays an important role in starting, building up and maintaining working relationships. Van Hattum: ‘Empowering social workers - that makes me happy. These people do valuable work and they can certainly be proud of that. At the same time I want to challenge social workers to get the best out of themselves. What are their strengths?’ At the same time, Marion asks the question: what can they improve to be of better service to their clients? And how can they demonstrate this to others? Marion van Hattum helps to answer these questions by listening carefully to social workers, answering questions and giving feedback. ‘By guiding them in their change process in an open way. Learning and developing - that’s what it’s all about!’
Consciously mapping and monitoring alliances
Research has shown that social workers often overestimate themselves when it comes to their own judgement of the quality of alliances. Moreover, their estimation often differs from that of the clients. Clients’ judgements of alliances and their feedback is often more reliable. The research conducted by van Hattum aims to consciously map and monitor alliances. This is a condition for adapting alliances and thus being able to work effectively.
Research and education
Where possible, students participate in the projects carried out by this research group. Van Hattum also involves professionals and institutions in practice-based research. In this way they strive to make research and development a structural part of professional practice and thereby increase the ability of professionals and organisations to work on improving their quality in an inspiring manner. All involved parties have a stake in this, the clients in particular. The research results also flow back to the courses in which Marion van Hattum plays a role.
Projects
- Stronger together