Spirituality and Social Work

Social work training has long emphasised the importance of evidence-based practice and the role of spirituality in the lives of service users has tended to be sidelined. Yet it is clear that many people begin to explore their spirituality precisely at times when they are trying to make sense of difficult life circumstances or experiences and may come into contact with social workers. In recent years, there has been an increasing understanding that in order to be relevant to the lives of people they work with, social workers need to go beyond their material needs, but there is little understanding of how spirituality can be sensitively incorporated into practice, especially when either practitioners or service users have no religious affiliation or no shared religious background. In this pathbreaking volume Beth Crisp offers social workers ideas of beginning conversations in which spiritual values and beliefs may surface, allowing service users to respond from their own framework and to begin to discuss the specific religious practices and beliefs which are important to them. She considers spirituality as an aspect of lived experience, a perspective that she argues breaks down any mystique and suspicion of the language of spirituality by using language and experiences with which most people can identify. Such a framework allows exploration of issues that emerge at different stages in the lifespan. Most literature on spirituality within social work refers to to the elderly, to those who are sick or have been bereaved, yet, as Crisp points out, research with young adults suggests that the majority claim spirituality to be important to them despite their lack of identification with formal religions.