Social Work with Transgender People

This is summary of the podcast recording :

Julie Fish

•The starting point is inclusive social work education, that case studies include the lives of trans people, that there are inclusive environments in social care settings, that the representation, the approaches, recognise trans people. •When we’re thinking about models of social work practice or models of assessing parenting or children in need, that we use assessment tools that are relevant to trans people’s lives. •That if you are a practitioner and you make a mistake that you acknowledge it and learn from it, and that you critically reflect on some of the discourses that you hear in society and that you interrogate the views of others, especially when they’re transphobic but at other times too, rather than accepting them as true.

Matty Donaldson •I think training’s really important, but I think people have to buy into really good quality training. They need to give themselves a full day and then they also need to give themselves space to go away and reflect on what they’re going to do with what they’ve just learnt in that training, and put some of the things they’ve learnt into action. •I often say that if you’re good at working with young people you’re probably pretty good at working with trans young people, because a lot of the skills are transferable in terms of listening to them, respecting them, letting them lead conversations, and giving them space to talk about themselves. That’s really important, not to just forget all that when you’re working with a trans young person, because you feel like it’s a completely different set of skills. So asking them what name they want to use, asking them what pronouns they want to use, and respecting that and giving them the space if they want to explore gender to do that. If they’re not interested, they’re not interested.