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4 The Strengths of Rural Social Workers:
Perspectives on Managing Dual Relationships in Small Alaskan Communities HEIDI BROCIOUS, JACQUELINE EISENBERG, JENNY YORK, HELEN SHEPARD, SHARON CLAYTON, and BRITTANY VAN SICKLE Department of Social Work, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Juneau, Alaska Social workers are advised to avoid dual relationships; however, this recommendation is not realistic for rural social workers. Using qualitative analysis, this study examines the perspectives of 10 rural social workers in Alaska who are long-term members of their community. From the data, four themes emerged: (1) Rural social workers cannot avoid dual relationships, (2) Healthy dual relationships can have benefits for clients, (3) Social work and other professional education helps rural social workers manage complex situations, and (4) Rural social workers use complex critical thinking and have developed advanced skills to negotiate dual relationships. KEYWORDS strengths, ethics, dual relationships, rural practice Rural social workers are faced with ethical challenges related to dual relationships every day. The majority of research regarding dual relationships involves urban social work practice and recommends that social work professionals try to avoid the complexity of dual relationships with clients.
The National Association of Social Workers (NASW; 2008) Code of Ethics does not provide detailed guidance on how to manage dual relationships; rather, it suggests avoidance as the ideal method. Johner (2006) concluded that, “Whatever form dual relationships take, it is without question that most Address correspondence to Heidi Brocious, Department of Social Work, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Bill Ray Center 1101, Juneau, AK 99801. E-mail: [email protected] Journal of Family Social Work, 16:4–19, 2013 Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC ISSN: 1052-2158 print/1540-4072 online DOI: 10.1080/10522158.2012.745180 The Strengths of Rural Social Workers 5 dual relationships inherently violate the belief in the worth and dignity of all humans” (p. 4). Dual relationships provide some of the most complicated ethical challenges in social work (Daley & Hickman, 2011). Due to differing ethical interpretations of boundary transgressions in general, and dual rela- tionships in particular, the social worker is at risk of damaging his or her professional reputation. The difficulty of interpreting and applying ethical standards is described by Freud and Krug (2002): The call line had two unrelated cases in which a social worker applied to foster a child whom the social worker had clinically evaluated. In one case the social worker was fired “for transgressing clinical boundaries,” while the other situation worked out amicably and to everyone’s advantage.
(p. 478) The preference placed on avoiding dual relationships is not consistent with the strengths perspective that prevails in the field of social work.
Although existing literature often focuses on the negative aspects of dual relationships, little research has been done to identify possible strengths.
This study seeks to identify rural social workers’ approach to facing challenges, drawing boundaries, and being effective and ethical in a rural community in the context of dual relationships.
The unique geographic characteristics of Alaska provide an ideal environment to study the issues faced by rural social workers. Most rural Alaskan communities are isolated and are only accessible by air, sea, or vast single-road systems. Almost 15% of Alaska’s population is Alaska Native or American Indian (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). Outside of the main urban areas, the percentage of Alaska Natives is much higher, with some of the highest percentages of native populations in the United States (Ogunwole, 2002). Many rural communities consist of a majority of Alaska Natives (State of Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, 2010). Alaska is home to 231 recognized tribes, with most of these tribes representing individual rural communities ( Jaeger, 2004). Referrals in most rural Alaskan communities are not an option.
A common experience in rural Alaska is the itinerant social worker.
Because of the extremely small size of many communities, social workers often live in larger communities and travel on an itinerant basis to the smaller villages. This has long been a strategy for providing some level of social work or counseling service to rural and remote communities, but it is a problematic model for several reasons. First, itinerant social workers are often present in the community for only short periods of time, as little as one to two days per month. Second, it is common for a community to have a change in social worker as often as once per year (P. Harding, personal communication, April 12, 2012). Additionally, even when social workers live in the community, it is understood by locals that people who come from 6 H. Brocious et al.
“outside” are most often transient and do not plan to stay long term (Alaska School Counselor Association, 2007). This prohibits the community from investing in the itinerant social worker, and the social worker from develop- ing the trust of its members. Communities throughout Alaska have become used to a constant shifting of social work personnel as people move into the State for brief periods of time, then move out because of difficulties adjusting to the isolation, weather, or culture. Social workers from “outside” may not experience the complexities that come with multiple relationships, but any relationship that rural Alaskans forms with them is expected to be temporary (Kennedy, 2008).
The participants in this study represent a newer community response, where local paraprofessionals are supported to earn their social work degrees, reducing the need for itinerant workers and instead developing “home grown” social workers: practitioners that come from the community, know the community, and plan to stay long term. Even with a growing rural workforce, most of the participants have limited or no options for referring clients when dual relationships exist. Instead, these participants are forced to make choices and determine boundaries that allow them to serve their clients and maintain ethical standards that can support long-term efficacy in their communities. Through in-depth interviews, this study examines the perspec- tives and experiences of 10 rural social workers and identifies strengths-based themes to describe how they are successfully negotiating the challenge of dual relationships.
A small number of articles have identified the frequency with which rural social workers face dual relationships. Gregory (2005) contended that “personal and professional role boundaries are a constant reality in the lives of this cohort. Rural practitioners’ lives are a continuous negotiation and renegotiation of boundaries, the properties of which change according to the situation” (p. 261) and further, “the boundaries are not only elastic, but fluid and permeable” (p. 269). The existence of boundary issues and dual relationships are a given, but resources for navigating these ethical mine- fields are at best ambiguous. Freud and Krug (2002) noted that the rules are subject to interpretation and its subsequent application rests on the discre- tion of individuals. The Code of Ethics can be confusing to social workers who turn to it as a guide. In addressing limitations, Freud and Krug stated “the Code of Ethics often cannot be used as a guide to ethical practice because of the limitations inherent in any rulebook (p. 477). This places the burden of ethical decision making on the practitioner.
The NASW (2008) noted that building on strengths is a central tenet of the profession. This perspective, however, is most often used to look for strengths in clients who might otherwise be viewed as only having deficits.
In this study, we apply the strengths perspective to the client and the practitioner, asking the question, “What are the positive outcomes of dual relationships in rural communities?” and “What resources have developed as The Strengths of Rural Social Workers 7 a result?” By shifting the conversation, we hope to illuminate how dual relationships are successfully negotiated for the benefit of clients and, further, how avoidance of these relationships may not always be necessary or beneficial. METHOD The purpose of this research study was to explore the phenomena of ethical challenges unique to social workers who live and work in rural Alaskan communities—specifically, those challenges related to dual relationships. A qualitative phenomenological approach was used for this study with a focus on lived experiences and perspectives (Creswell, 2007). Semistructured interviews were used to gain a deeper understanding of the rural social workers’ experiences and perspectives.
Reflexivity is a critical part of managing research bias and establishing trustworthiness in qualitative findings. For this research, the authors discussed their status as insiders, based on the commonalities of a shared profession and a shared state of residence. Insider research refers to when researchers are also members of the population they study (Kanuha, 2000): the researcher shares an identity, language, and experiential base with the study partici- pants (Asselin, 2003). The authors’ status as insiders may have contributed to a high level of trust and acceptance by the participants toward the research- ers; it also influenced the researchers’ view of the data. Awareness and discussion of shared perspectives as insiders was discussed during work and coding sessions.
Member checking involves corroborating the research findings by seek- ing feedback from the research participants (Creswell & Miller, 2000; Padgett, 2008). In this research, member checking was used; participants were informed that they would be given the first draft of the paper and asked for feedback, clarification, and any concerns about confidentiality. Edits to the paper were subsequently made.
Recruitment & Data Analysis Based on the research design, a purposive sampling method was used to identify social workers in Alaskan communities with a population of 10,000 or fewer. Participants were identified and recruited through two e-mail list servs, as well as through snowball sampling. Informed consent was obtained for all participants. Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval was obtained for this study through the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Each interview was recorded and then transcribed. Once the data was transcribed, all research- ers participated in an initial coding session of the first transcript, where a basic set of codes were developed. Each remaining transcript was then 8 H. Brocious et al.
assigned to two researchers to code individually. This coding was later reviewed as a group to check for consistency. Additional codes were added later as needed. From the initial codes, four themes were derived from the data.
Participants The 10 participants represented nine different small Alaskan communities ranging in size from approximately 100 to just under 10,000 community members. All of the participants were long-term members of their communi- ties before earning their social work degrees. The ethnicities of the partici- pants were Alaska Native, White, and Asian, with the majority of respondents being Alaska Native. Names and other identifying information, including specifics about ethnicity, were altered or excluded to protect participant confidentiality. FINDINGS Four themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews: (1) rural realities:
Rural social workers cannot avoid dual relationships; (2) Healthy dual rela- tionships can have benefits for clients; (3) Social work and other professional education and training helps rural social workers manage complex situations they will encounter in practice; and (4) Rural social workers use complex critical thinking and have developed advanced skills to negotiate dual relationships.
Theme 1: Rural Realities: Rural Social Workers Cannot Avoid Dual Relationships All of the study participants indicated that they deal with some form of dual relationship on a daily basis. These dual relationships may take differ- ent forms; they may be service relationships where a client is also one’s mechanic or grocery store clerk. Relationships may overlap into areas of the social worker’s personal life, such as the social worker having his or her own child share an elementary class with a client’s child. Social workers also reported frequent overlap in their social lives, such as attending the same small community celebrations, events, or activities as clients. These events are not occasional but occur on a regular basis for the participants in this study. In rural communities, it seems there is no chance to avoid dual relationships when a community has one church, one mechanic, and one school. For social workers who live in the community, it is more common to have a dual relationship with a client than not: “So the short answer is, yes, pretty much if I left my house I would encounter a client, The Strengths of Rural Social Workers 9 just going to the store, post office, driving down the road, that sort of thing” (Michelle).
Most participants indicated that their clients know where they live, and how to reach them after working hours. Clients may have known the social workers while they were growing up, or be close to extended members of their family. In some instances, the impacts of these dualities were more complex than simply seeing a client in multiple settings and overlapped into more intricate relationships. One participant, a recovering alcoholic, said that she had to stop going to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings; her presence at AA wasn’t supportive to the clients that she was recommending attend nor was it helpful to her: I just remember one of the parents of the kids I was working with, she turned and looked at me and she said, “oh, Ms. Kayla, what are you doing here?” and I knew she felt that I was checking up on her, which, because she had told me she had been going to AA meetings. I never even gave it a thought that I might run into her there, you know. And, so I told her that I am a recovering alcoholic. Of course, neither of us felt real free to share, you know, at that meeting. So I decided at that point that that would not be a source of support that I would use in the com- munity. (Kayla) Another example of this complexity is that in many communities famil- ial relationships are omnipresent. It is common for residents to be related to a significant portion of the local population, especially in tribal communities.
Social workers are faced with the prospect of providing services to members of their extended families:
There are times that it was a distant relative, and it got to the point where we actually attended the tribal court hearing, and I told our attorney that this is a second cousin of mine, and I just want to disclose it so the whole party knows, everybody involved knows this, and so it was disclosed in the tribal court hearing and everybody agreed that they felt that I could be impartial in representing both [parents] as a caseworker. So you know, and then outside of the office, there isn’t necessarily a solid relationship, an acknowledgement that you know you are family, if you happen to be at a funeral together. (Naomi) Theme 2: Healthy Dual Relationships Can Be Beneficial to Clients Not only are rural social workers unable to avoid dual relationships, but also many felt there were benefits to their clients as a result of the interwoven relationships within their communities. Participants pointed to cultural com- petence (an understanding of the history and rhythms of the community and deep knowledge of the community’s traditions, beliefs, and behaviors) as a 10 H. Brocious et al.
possible healthy outcome of dual relationships. They also reported increased trust (clients knowing who they are and where they come from, plus a long- term commitment to the community) as a possible benefit.
C ULTURAL COMPETENCE Cultural knowledge is extremely important to effective practice in rural Alaska, and many communities have historically been disempowered and disaffected by non-native professionals coming into their communities and providing services in culturally insensitive ways (Kennedy, 2008). This need for cultural knowledge was emphasized by most participants: Without any kind of cultural competence and having knowledge of the culture that they are going to deal with, I think you are setting them up for failure. (Michelle) I do a lot of community work to promote healing through cultural activities and that is the biggest part of my work, because it’s like mass healing, rather than one on one work. (Elsie) [When new social workers] are in the community now, they moved here for their position, so as they are getting familiar with the community, the way the community functions, I can definitely see where there is a big gap. (Naomi) It might not necessarily be each client that you have all this knowl- edge about, but it helps that you live with the people. You’re part of the people. I see that as a benefit. (Anna) The social workers interviewed for this study were clear that practice in rural Alaska, without a cultural understanding of the specific community, would be ineffective. They were also clear that to acquire this knowledge to the level they have, overlapping relationships with clients will exist. This is a tradeoff, from their perspective, whereas dual relationships are not without risks, the benefits of cultural and community knowledge almost always outweigh these risks.
T RUST As described earlier, a common experience in rural Alaska is the itinerant social worker or helper. Because of the extremely small size of many com- munities, social workers often live in larger communities and travel on an itinerant basis to the smaller villages. This prohibits the community from investing in the itinerant social worker, and the social worker from developing the trust of community members: The community knows that I keep things confidential and they have to be able to trust you. That’s a big area. If people can’t trust you, then, you know, you might as well find another job. But, even in a small commu- nity like this, I, the first few year in this job, it was like, people were still The Strengths of Rural Social Workers 11 not coming in as often as I would like to see. You know, it took time for them to trust me enough to come in, and have sessions. Even as a com- munity member, and even if they knew that I was trustworthy in matters of confidentiality. I saw testing, I guess you would call it, by the commu- nity. Before, you know, it’s like, now we’re seeing, clients coming more frequently, which wasn’t true in the beginning. (Anna) Theme 3: Social Work and Other Professional Education Make Rural Practice Easier to Negotiate All participants in this study earned their social work degrees using some model of distance education. Many commented on the impact having a class cohort has had on their ability to manage ethical issues. The participants felt that when academic programs invest in strong peer cohorts, rural social workers may increase their use of supervision and experience a concurrent decrease in their sense of professional isolation.
Participants were included in this study if they had lived in their community prior to earning their social work degree, as this would likely provide a different and more complex experience of dual relationships than for social workers who moved to the community for their job. All but one of the participants were already working in the field prior to earning their social work degrees. Of these nine, all indicated marked improvement in the qual- ity of their work as a result of their educational experience. A commonly identified benefit of their formal education was increased knowledge about ethical practice and managing confidentiality: I can tell you that I was judgey and that I would know stuff and I wouldn’t be mindful in my own head how I used that information with a client. [before my university education] I didn’t have the skills to be able to self-reflect or talk to someone, or to have good supervision to know how to deal with that. (Mia) Participants felt that their formal education either prepared them well for practice or improved their competency if they were already working in the field. Forming peer relationships and learning the value of using professional and peer supervision were also discussed by many participants as an impor- tant way in which they found support to practice effectively in rural communities: I was able to be a part of a [school] cohort, so that was my support system that I had built across the state, so I have a big wide web of little resources and friends all over the state. And you know with just the touch of a button or little emails to check in with one of them to say “hey, can you just share with me or what is your opinion about this” and so that is how, having those references and having people in my life that are having similar situations, that is what has helped me figure out how to deal with certain things.
(Michelle) 12 H. Brocious et al.
According to participants, focus on the practice of ethics in rural communities specifically was helpful in preparing them for work in the field. They reported that ongoing training directed at negotiating confidentiality with clients has helped them manage relationships in a way that protects the clients, while allowing the service provider to continue to practice effectively in a rural community. Offering these educational opportunities has also increased the effective use of supervision and has helped the rural social worker utilize the resources and knowledge of other experienced individuals.
Theme 4: Rural Social Workers Use Complex Critical Thinking and Have Developed Advanced Skills to Negotiate Dual Relationships Rural practice adds a layer of complexity to social work ethics, and partici- pants in this study appear to have developed advanced critical thinking skills in implementing the NASW Code of Ethics as a result. Rural social workers negotiate the shades of grey on a daily basis and describe their ethical deci- sion-making process in a variety of complex scenarios. Several common experiences in rural communities provided opportunities for participants to demonstrate their advanced critical thinking, including knowing the client’s history, wearing different hats (role distinction), dealing with confidentiality, managing gossip, and negotiating gift giving.
K NOWING THE CLIENT’S HISTORY Important skills that rural social workers acquire are the ability to critically and carefully examine personal bias in relation to the intimate knowledge of the community, and to deal with the personal knowledge about the lives of their clients: “It’s kind of like a juror, [I] kind of have to say, can you look at this without any bias, and I think that is something that you have to develop, it comes with maturity of being in the profession that you are in” (Naomi). Intimate knowledge of the lives and histories of their clients places an additional burden upon the rural social worker. They must carefully consider which information will be utilized, and which information will be disre- garded to assess and support clients. Although social workers cannot erase prior knowledge that is attained through familiarity, they must develop skills to manage that information appropriately and not impact clients in negative ways:
I usually, if it’s something really major, I’ll bring it up and just ask the person. But there is a lot that is just hearsay and rumor and whatnot, and I don’t bother with a lot of that. In assessments and things like that, I just go with what the client tells me. If I know the person really well and I know something different, then I’ll bring it up and go from there, but if they absolutely refuse to admit whatever, then that is where it’s at. (Elsie) The Strengths of Rural Social Workers 13 As noted earlier, many social workers who are long-term residents of their communities are also related to many community members. For social workers in this circumstance, it was important to make the distinction between close family and extended family. Participants were clear that it was not helpful to act as a social worker for close family, but that working with extended family was a different and often unavoidable matter. The degree to which these fine distinctions are made, and the process the social workers used to make these distinctions, is a clear example of the level of critical thinking rural social workers must use when applying ethics and managing personal bias.
I have many relatives here in the community and when they are too close, I’ll ask to have another counselor come in. If I’m too closely related to the family, I will give them to the other counselor because of the conflict of interest. If it was a relative that wasn’t that close, I would let them know, let them understand that there is, I am a professional right now, this is not … the relationship is different kind of relationship, I have to know that I have a different role in our conversation rather than being related. (Lori) The rural social workers interviewed for this study generally did not have the option to refer clients when cases of personal bias presented them- selves. In these instances, the social workers pushed themselves profession- ally and personally, practicing the skills of self-awareness and self-reflection to manage these relationships with the best interests of the clients in mind.
R OLE DISTINCTION “WEARING DIFFERENT HATS” Social workers in this study often discussed the concept of “wearing different hats” to describe how they managed their different roles in the community.
This metaphor appears to be used to clarify what they and the clients can expect in different situations. Participants talked about taking off one hat and putting on another when they are in the process of switching roles in the community. For example, they described asking themselves, “What hat am I wearing now?” If it is their “social worker hat,” one set of interactions and behaviors is appropriate. If it is their “parent hat,” another set of behaviors and interactions must occur. Participants found that they need to be exceptionally clear with themselves what hat they are wearing, and that wearing these dif- ferent hats requires ongoing communication and education of their clients: As you probably know, living in a small community you wear different hats and you have different contacts so for different situations or with different people that I kind of turned to for support. (Allison) You know, it’s not uncommon that we change different hats when we leave this place [the office]. When I leave my work and I see my clients here, we change a different hat and put something else on. (Michelle) 14 H. Brocious et al.
The rural social workers then use the idea of hats to help clients set boundar- ies outside the office: I learned to do that with every client. I’d tell them when they come in, “When I see you out there, I cannot discuss anything to protect your confidentiality.” So that was what I had to learn to do from the very beginning, what to tell the client. Because, you know, in a small community, everybody is really close and thinks it’s okay to talk about anything. (Betty) By setting boundaries based on the situation and the best interests of clients, and consistently maintaining those boundaries in public situations, rural social workers demonstrate increased skills in ethics management and display a complex thinking process about how best to negotiate the dual relationships they inevitably encounter. It is this level of expertise they have developed that can be considered for future study in effective management of dual relationships.
C ONFIDENTIALITY Managing concerns and expectations around confidentiality are among the most common ethical situations negotiated by rural social workers. Study participants commonly reported the following situations: protecting their clients confidentiality, demonstrating their high commitment to keeping information to themselves, and protecting clients even when clients do not protect themselves: I learned pretty quickly to be very clear about that it was confidential, very clear about confidentiality and then also I started to try to set really good boundaries about, I wouldn’t approach them in public unless it was inappropriate not to say hello. And if somebody tried to talk to me out- side of the office about things, too, I would try to direct them back to a confidential way, like coming to my office, or calling me on the phone, that type of thing. I tried to still protect our confidentiality even if they weren’t protecting their confidentiality. (Allison) But when you’re out in the community and stuff, because of close personal relationships you have with people, you don’t feel like they protect their own confidentiality very well. (Elsie) The rural social workers in this study developed a system for dealing with these encounters that involved discussing what may happen during a public encounter in initial sessions. This was followed by ongoing efforts in public settings to remind clients of their rights to confidentiality and maintaining boundaries to protect the clients’ interests even if the client did not. The Strengths of Rural Social Workers 15 MANAGING GOSSIP In small communities, there is little that happens that does not eventually become common knowledge. Professionals who have lived in the commu- nity long-term are not immune to learning secondhand information.
Additionally, concerned family members may independently seek the social worker out to share information without the client’s permission. The end result is that a rural social worker often has extensive information about a client that did not come through the professional–client relationship. Again, this is a dual relationship issue that is rarely faced by the urban social worker and takes critical thinking and thoughtful bias management to nego- tiate the situation in an ethical way. These rural social workers were intensely focused on the best interests of their clients in every ethical challenge they faced.
Participants in the study reported different ways of managing gossip.
Some social workers try to block it from their minds, letting their clients tell their own stories; others find that gossip must not be ignored and must be discussed with the client when it is a serious matter or involves harmful allegations. Many use critical thinking skills to determine which informa- tion they will acknowledge and address, whereas other information will not be addressed unless brought up by their client. Mia felt that it was important to listen to some gossip in order to be a first line of defense. She stated: So, say we were worried about some, or the gossip around the village was you know so and so was getting drunk or so and so did this and it was someone under 18, so I might say, well, I’m going to do youth activity and I’ll make sure to contact that person and really reach out to them to get them there, and then the [Village police officer] might say, well from my angle, this person needs to do community service, but I’ll make an effort to make sure they get there … and we all tried to coordinate to form a safety net under that person. She also felt that it was important to ensure that prior knowledge of a client’s history did not color her perception of her client: It makes you biased and you have to try not to be biased even if you know, even if you think you know their story, you have to try to kind of, I want to say scrub it out of your mind, because, it is important to meet someone and let them tell their own story and not walk in there with your misconceptions or preconceived notions because everybody sees things differently and experiences something differently. (Mia) Allen took a common sense approach to the subject of utilizing gossip.
He felt that there were times when hearsay needed to be taken seriously, and 16 H. Brocious et al.
other times that gossip was simply not beneficial and should be left to the clients to bring up on their own if they wanted to address it. Allen stated, If the client is willing to talk about it, or your situation [is] like somebody is being threatened like it’s a sexual abuse or a child abuse, then I’ll go ahead and address that because somebody’s life is being endangered.
But if it’s a hearsay that I don’t think is going to be beneficial, then you know, I let the person I’m working with bring it up.
Michelle looked at hearsay as a potential indicator of trouble that should never be avoided. Her stance was that ignoring gossip in rural towns was potentially detrimental:
I think that you do more damage if you don’t talk about the issues and you don’t address it like we should be, as social workers, that is one of our primary responsibilities is to help service everybody. When you intentionally ignore things, like underage drinking or vandalism, and you keep saying “well that’s that families’ business,” you don’t pay attention because it doesn’t directly involve you, you are just as guilty as the one that is committing the crime. That is how I look at it.
All of the responses demonstrate nuanced critical thinking skills, self- reflection, and common sense in regard to the use of secondary knowledge with their clients. All study participants seemed to consider that there were instances when gossip needed to be ignored, and instances when gossip needed to be addressed and utilized.
G IFTS Gift giving, bartering, and simple sharing is also a way of life in many rural Alaskan communities. People share food as a matter of course. The proceeds of a bountiful day on the water, for example, can result in gifts of fish to all people in the village. In many communities, to keep the proceeds of a hunt- ing or fishing expedition for yourself is seen as a shameful act (Condon, Collings, & Wenzel, 1995). Many of the social workers that we interviewed were faced at one point or another with a gift from a grateful client. There are settings and times when gifts are accepted to ensure that cultural tradi- tions are acknowledged or respected, that people are not offended or humil- iated, or that one does not give the appearance of being standoffish and aloof. We don’t, in our culture, this is an area where it is so important to know the culture that you’re going into, and I know in the code of ethics it says you shouldn’t accept gifts from clients and stuff, but in this com- munity, we’re a, I guess you would call it collective community, where The Strengths of Rural Social Workers 17 people share, especially when it comes to food. And people share what they get from when they go out hunting or stuff, and it would be an insult if, you know, did not receive that. It would cause, I think, more harm than good. Because, see, motive is different, if that makes sense.
Because in certain communities it would not be proper to say, you know, when someone brings you some food, it wouldn’t be proper to say “no I can’t because of the code of ethics.” It would just cause more, um, it wouldn’t help. (Lori) Recognizing that acceptance of certain items because of the cultural nuances did not mean that participants accepted all gifts. Instead, they thought deeply about the meaning and intent of the gift, within the culture of the community, and responded in the way that would be most beneficial to the client: I also kind of like look at what is the item they are giving me. If it is a lot more than what it is, then I will tell them I cannot take it. I can take this much, but … so it’s more like where I think it’s not really like kind of like seeming like they have some other underlying reason for doing that.
(Allen) For participants in this study, a culturally sensitive approach to receiving gifts from clients was warranted, rather than a blanket rejection. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS As a central tenet of the social work profession, the strengths perspective can be instructive, not just for working with clients, but also in negotiating ethical dilemmas. This article examines how the strengths perspective can be used to discuss ethical challenges faced and managed by rural social work profes- sionals. As noted, four themes were elicited from the data. These themes provide a realistic and positive frame for learning more about how rural social workers use their skills effectively. The previous focus of research on the negative impacts of dual relationships offers little value to the rural social worker: What benefit is there in recommending avoidance when this is impossible? Participants in this study were able to use the benefits that come with being familiar in the community (e.g., increased trust and community and cultural awareness), while carefully balancing the associated risks by keeping their clients’ best interests as their central focus. Participants were disciplined in their practice of using supervision. To this end they continued to use the network of support systems they had developed in their profes- sional education. The participants’ commitment to applying the intent of the NASW Code of Ethics allowed them to independently evaluate each situation and respond in ways most beneficial to the people they work with. 18 H. Brocious et al. Future research needs to focus on the nuanced aspects of this issue; specifically, what are the professional decision-making steps to managing a dual relationship specific to a rural setting? Legitimizing this reality in the profession will allow rural social workers more opportunity to share their knowledge and skills as well as to continue to grow in their abilities and get support when needed. The strengths perspective dictates that we look for the positive aspects of complex issues and utilize resources rather than focus on limitations. This approach can be applied to rural social work and can result in stronger and more effective professional practice. Limitations There are several limitations to the study that may impede its transferability to other rural social workers. First, as is the case with many in-depth inter- view based studies, the sample size is small and not necessarily representa- tive of the population. The unique culture and geography of Alaska, different than other rural areas, may also limit the transferability of the study findings.
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