Social Work Interviews: Techniques and Dynamics
Interviews in Social Work: Addressing Loneliness and Marginalization
Respondents give their eyes and the rest of their senses to the social worker, who will make use of their performances so as to tackle the issues raised. Suppose you want to tackle the problem of loneliness and marginalization of the elderly in a neighborhood of a town, and we do not have much information on the sociocultural context and spatial characteristics. We will connect with residents of this age to give us information on life in the neighborhood, existing social relations, the facilities for communication and interaction, spatial difficulties, possible constraints on the apathy of the elderly, or the attribution of responsibility.
The information produced through these open, exploratory interviews serves as a starting point for the construction or design of other practices, such as a survey, participant observation, or the whole of a participatory action research. It may even be a reference for the development of other interviews, as targeted in a later phase.
Interviews About Habits and Practices
Such interviews are the natural sphere of application of the methodology of cases, and particularly on those that are addressed in marginal situations, such as drug abuse, school failure, and crime.
Given the delicacy of the issues addressed, such interviews should never take place in the primordial stage of the relationship between the social worker and the person aided. It is desirable that the professional has “broken the ice” in previous meetings, having established a rapport right to reach a deal with completeness, a practice radically opposed to what has legitimized the social norm. It requires, therefore, great tact and much experience of the interviewer to obtain reliable information on locations and times for these practices, as well as peers and the reasons therefor. However, it is essential to make a thorough investigation in order to build knowledge about the social context surrounding the problem and establish the best ways out of such behavior.
Group Interview (Focus Group)
All interviews to which we referred previously are carried out individually. Now we will concentrate on a separate case, the group interview, which has its origin in the focused interview, coined by Merton and Kendall in the forties in an article already legendary in the field of methodology, which was based on studies carried out on political propaganda during the Second World War. In this type of interview of individual character, the respondent was exposed to a specific situation, such as viewing an advertisement, hearing a radio program, or experiencing a social event. The researchers had previously undergone this situation in mind, and analyzed later, its possible purpose established, they help drug addicts, etc. Recreational groups, rehabilitative, therapeutic, educational, healing, and awareness of new methods to bear problems.
The practitioner can intervene in the diverse group form, for example, driving dynamics, specific experiences (changing roles, activities), exposure to video recordings in order to change stereotypes, etc. Nor is it negligible that there have been people who have suffered a collective trauma (attacks, earthquakes, floods). Thus, one possible tool for analyzing the effects and contrasting the hypothesis that the social worker himself could have concocted about that situation is the group interview. In the same way, critical assessments emerge, emotional reactions and, ultimately, a variety of interpretations of the event or dynamic set-up.
Dynamics of the Interview
All in-depth interviews are different. In each, a communication is established between two people in different social, cultural, spatial, and temporal scales. Even when given the case of a new encounter with the same combination of interviewer-interviewee, going so far as to treat the same subject, the situation, different in time and space, may produce a new discourse, thanks to the previous differential. The lack of standardization of the instrument facilitates the introduction of new perspectives and nuances that may not be consciously considered by the interviewee in the previous encounter.