A Pencil and Unconditional Positive Regard

We always go out to the reception area to call the client in. I make use of all the customer service skills I've ever learnt in my short life, to welcome him (or her) once he has acknowledged his identity, and then walk a little in front to lead the client to my desk. He follows hesitantly, clutching his documents and hope. The corridor is narrow, so that I cannot walk beside him. This is the best compromise I can find, the first of the many in our interaction.

I use these few moments to take a breath and to strongly resist the urge to weep. Not a trace of anything except unconditional positive regard shows in my face and demeanor, as I invite him to sit, before I take my own seat behind the desk. No social worker weeps where you can see it - it is not polite to the client.

(I mentally clutch at my social work theories the way the client holds his documents. The desk between us provides a focus for my terribly confused feelings at this point - I may not be able to give the client full financial assistance and this desk will enable separation at the end of the appointment without hard feelings. I know that our money does not fall from the sky and to give one family what they ask for may result in deprivation for another family even more needy yet whose only reason for deprivation was that I saw them just a little bit later. So there are rules, government rules, agency rules. I have to suspend my disbelief in the wisdom of the State in deciding precisely those rules.

Those of you who have read my previous posts would know that I dislike systems without transparency but in this instance I do not know where to go to find the demographics breakdown of how much was given to each family under which circumstances. I do not know if such demographics data even exists, whether busy fatigued social workers have taken the time to code their information in formal research studies. I do not know anything at all except some rules.

If things continue in this way I will become a mindless tool of the State. One of my tutors said it well, a long time ago, "You either become an agent of change or you become a changed agent." I must discover or I shall go mad.)

We begin the conversation with our client, eliciting information we need to assess their requirements. From what we can observe during the interview, we know if clients are evading our questions, and we will ask further. Nonetheless, we do not finalize our assessment of the client's honesty except in the final instance where we use a pencil to sign the form to decide how much additional financial assistance to give, on top of what is given according to the rules. There are clients who lie about their finances and their family relationships, and you will know it. They tell you these while sitting across the desk from you, expecting you to bestow the funds that they deserve as a right. But you can only trust them to give you the truth, in those gray areas (which I cannot reveal here lest it inspire others to practise them :) ).

There are all these borderline instances where the clients know the system so well and it simply breaks my heart to give them the benefit of the doubt, although I do and I know that I should. Because you know that if their families had put just a little bit more effort into salvaging their family relationships, there would be a bit more State funds for the person who sat across from you with sad, sad eyes, giving you his documents, answering your questions and talking with you, trying to gracefully ask for some help while being the sole caregiver and financial provider for his grandchildren. And this grandfather would always be the one to say, "Money doesn't fall from the sky, I know. I can manage with the [present assistance I have from elsewhere], and my grandchildren [incidentally still preschoolers] are obedient and smart. We simply have [astronomical sum!] in [organizations'] arrears, is all. We will be fine. It is only the arrears that worry me, we cannot have our [et cetera basic necessities] cut off, the children need to eat."

Our clients' dignity steadies us, but it worries me too. The social workers would know, because we spend the time to talk with them, but taken at face value their claims to be able to get by with only a little bit of assistance are not really viable.

So the pencil strikes as we sign the form, where we give as much as we can give. We have some discretion in our additional recommendations. :) and we hand back the client's documents to him after photocopying them, and we send him out. Where unconditional positive regard meets pencil, the pencil has the final say, sorry. No matter how much we want to treat you well by liking you personally, that liking does not automatically translate into assistance because assistance is a public good, shared in common. (Maybe some would find this unconditional positive regard a bit vacuous, then. You are entitled to your opinion on that. We try to make the client feel comfortable during the conversation.) The ending of this interaction is somewhat businesslike - client gets his assistance, and we do not get weird power kicks from the client thanking us profusely for the State's temporary relief of his woes. It is unnecessary to prolong the leavetaking, although some thanks are customarily exchanged.

And we go out to call the next person in.