Hard to reach and impossible to help: working at the rough end of social care

摘要

The following paper is a reflection on the process of working with 'Joe' who had a range of difficulties. Throughout our 10 months of working together my sole aim was to assist him in remaining alive and having a good quality of life. However, in hindsight the work we did together was ultimately preparing him to fulfil his wish of dying peaceful and sober, which he achieved. I would like to share the journey Joe and I experienced and the impact his death had on me as a worker and how I managed this. I was employed as the mental health worker at the service, providing crisis intervention support to clients as well as assisting them to integrate back into services and society. Throughout this account I will also try and highlight that although I used a variety of psychosocial interventions with Joe, his process of 'recovery' didn't quite 'fit' many theoretical models. I feel that primarily the therapeutic relationship we established acted as a catalyst for enhancing his self-esteem and self-worth, which in turn helped him to make changes in his life.