From douglas at publicsphereproject.org  Mon Nov  9 18:32:11 2015
From: douglas at publicsphereproject.org (Doug Schuler)
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2015 18:32:11 -0800
Subject: [Pattern-language] Patterns for Social Work
In-Reply-To: <CA+OeU=-38OhA-Peqdw2DX2mJ=SUeub9fnx7tyrGO3-ULTrSqAg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CA+OeU=-38OhA-Peqdw2DX2mJ=SUeub9fnx7tyrGO3-ULTrSqAg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <F1446BF5-A99C-4B33-83D3-C67675A62BCF@publicsphereproject.org>

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Alex! I'm seeing the need for this sort of thing all of the time. It seems like many *services* (notably education) are being stuffed into mechanistic strait jackets to the detriment of most people. (The exception being the people who are developing the systems, selling the software, running the companies, etc.) </rant>

I'm working with students right now who are looking at ways of improving the transition that incarcerated minors will make into the life outside prison. Your work seems very much related to theirs. (I've bcc'ed them —they might want to subscribe to this list!)

Although there's a methodology of sorts in my book (and hopefully worth a glance), it seems to me that jumping in with a few ideas and building on those seems, if not optimum, do-able. 

I'd first start with some (provisional) ideas (written down) that define the domain, purpose, audience, and expected results. 

I'd also think about grabbing patterns from the Liberating Voices book that seem to be relevant to some degree. These can be modified to fit the circumstances of your particular project. We made a list of 36 of the patterns that seem to be most amenable to adaptation but the following popped into my mind  as being  relevant: Community Inquiry, Anti-Racism, Memory and  Responsibility, Community Animators, Indigenous Media, the Good Life, Community Networks, Transparency, etc. 

Some of Alexander's Multi-Service Centers patterns may be relevant; also Group Works. We also have the beginnings of a Public Thinking and Public Health pattern language online that includes Wrap Around and others. 

Some possible patterns in your realm include Participatory Methodology, Critical Angle, Plurality of Approaches, Professional Repetoire, Qualitative Evaluation.

Finally, the division that Andy Dearden and I devised for the Liberating Voices book might help lay out a range of areas in which patterns were needed: Theory, Organizing Principles, Enabling Systems, Policy, Collaboration, Community and Organizational Building,Self Representation, Projects, and Tactics. 

— Doug




> On Oct 21, 2015, at 9:18 AM, Alexander Fink <finkx082 at umn.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> My first time posting to the listserv, so I hope I'm following proper protocol here...
> 
> TLDR; met Doug, excited about pattern languages, want to use them to open up thinking about possible practices in social work / youth work, could use your thinking, ideas, and experiences. thank you!
> 
> Full version:
> I met Doug in Limerick this summer and was really excited to be introduced to the pattern languages work he's done. I was especially enthusiastic about the pattern language cards. 
> 
> I'm a youth worker and social worker and most of the work I do involves community organizing with young people. I often find it challenging to communicate about this work in a professional context that speaks in terms of evidence-based practice, randomized clinical trials, and "gold standard" research. My work adopts a critical angle, challenging structural injustice. Not only do the models talked about in my professional context not work to accomplish the purposes I orient toward, the methodologies used to research their "evidence" often play into colonialist and racist anti-patterns that I believe typically do much more harm than good.
> 
> My professional context has several databases of so-called best practices like the Cochrane Collaborative <http://www.cochrane.org/> and the Campbell Collaboration <http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/lib/>. These are touted to represent the best of my profession's knowledge about practice. Unfortunately, though the profession claims to include the kind of work I do, this work doesn't show up anywhere in their register of "best practice". Several years ago a colleague challenged me to create a similar database for the kind of work that I do. I responded that, though an interesting challenge, it would have to look very different than a "database" - that's not how knowledge works for our kind of practice. Hence my excitement about the pattern languages cards - to me, they represent the beginning of the kind of database for critical social work / youth work practice that I'd like to see. Rather than prescriptive, they are descriptive. Rather than close down other possibilities, they open up conversation and possibility for further thinking, collaboration, and study. Rather than elevate a particular kind of knowledge over all others, they offer up multiple ways of knowing and engaging. 
> 
> I proposed to Doug that I'd like to explore the patterns with some of my colleagues that practice social work / youth work similarly to myself. I'm curious if anyone has any reflections on this, or experiences they could share. 
> 
> Thank you!
> Alex
>  
> Alex Fink
> alexfink.com
> 
>  
>  <http://alexfink.com/>
> Research Fellow
> Youth Studies, School of Social Work
> University of Minnesota
> 85 Peters Hall
> 1404 Gortner Avenue
> Saint Paul, MN 55108
> 
> Cell: 612-720-5549
> finkx082 at umn.edu <mailto:finkx082 at umn.edu>
> 
> Part of the legacy of people like Ella Baker and Septima Clark is a faith that ordinary people who learn to believe in themselves are capable of extraordinary acts, or better, of acts that seem extraordinary to us precisely because we have such an impoverished sense of the capabilities of ordinary people. - Charles Paine, 1995
> _______________________________________________
> Pattern-language mailing list
> Pattern-language at scn9.scn.org
> http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/pattern-language

Douglas Schuler
douglas at publicsphereproject.org <mailto:douglas at publicsphereproject.org>
Twitter: @doug_schuler

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Creating the World Citizen Parliament
     http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament <http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament>
     
Liberating Voices!  A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) 
     http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv <http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/>

Liberating Voices!  A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book)         
 http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 <http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601>










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From douglas at publicsphereproject.org  Mon Nov  9 18:39:16 2015
From: douglas at publicsphereproject.org (Doug Schuler)
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 2015 18:39:16 -0800
Subject: [Pattern-language] Patterns for Social Work
In-Reply-To: <CA+OeU=-38OhA-Peqdw2DX2mJ=SUeub9fnx7tyrGO3-ULTrSqAg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CA+OeU=-38OhA-Peqdw2DX2mJ=SUeub9fnx7tyrGO3-ULTrSqAg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CC7F4FE1-C3F0-49F8-AA03-75577782DE3E@publicsphereproject.org>

1. I neglected (I think) to say that the pattern language needs a title (provisional at first). Yours sounds like Critical Social Work. (imo)

2. Please let us know if there are domains out there where people want to focus. We have some new people — and others who haven't let us know what they're up to in the pattern language world in quite awhile. 

Thanks!




> On Oct 21, 2015, at 9:18 AM, Alexander Fink <finkx082 at umn.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> My first time posting to the listserv, so I hope I'm following proper protocol here...
> 
> TLDR; met Doug, excited about pattern languages, want to use them to open up thinking about possible practices in social work / youth work, could use your thinking, ideas, and experiences. thank you!
> 
> Full version:
> I met Doug in Limerick this summer and was really excited to be introduced to the pattern languages work he's done. I was especially enthusiastic about the pattern language cards. 
> 
> I'm a youth worker and social worker and most of the work I do involves community organizing with young people. I often find it challenging to communicate about this work in a professional context that speaks in terms of evidence-based practice, randomized clinical trials, and "gold standard" research. My work adopts a critical angle, challenging structural injustice. Not only do the models talked about in my professional context not work to accomplish the purposes I orient toward, the methodologies used to research their "evidence" often play into colonialist and racist anti-patterns that I believe typically do much more harm than good.
> 
> My professional context has several databases of so-called best practices like the Cochrane Collaborative <http://www.cochrane.org/> and the Campbell Collaboration <http://www.campbellcollaboration.org/lib/>. These are touted to represent the best of my profession's knowledge about practice. Unfortunately, though the profession claims to include the kind of work I do, this work doesn't show up anywhere in their register of "best practice". Several years ago a colleague challenged me to create a similar database for the kind of work that I do. I responded that, though an interesting challenge, it would have to look very different than a "database" - that's not how knowledge works for our kind of practice. Hence my excitement about the pattern languages cards - to me, they represent the beginning of the kind of database for critical social work / youth work practice that I'd like to see. Rather than prescriptive, they are descriptive. Rather than close down other possibilities, they open up conversation and possibility for further thinking, collaboration, and study. Rather than elevate a particular kind of knowledge over all others, they offer up multiple ways of knowing and engaging. 
> 
> I proposed to Doug that I'd like to explore the patterns with some of my colleagues that practice social work / youth work similarly to myself. I'm curious if anyone has any reflections on this, or experiences they could share. 
> 
> Thank you!
> Alex
>  
> Alex Fink
> alexfink.com
> 
>  
>  <http://alexfink.com/>
> Research Fellow
> Youth Studies, School of Social Work
> University of Minnesota
> 85 Peters Hall
> 1404 Gortner Avenue
> Saint Paul, MN 55108
> 
> Cell: 612-720-5549
> finkx082 at umn.edu <mailto:finkx082 at umn.edu>
> 
> Part of the legacy of people like Ella Baker and Septima Clark is a faith that ordinary people who learn to believe in themselves are capable of extraordinary acts, or better, of acts that seem extraordinary to us precisely because we have such an impoverished sense of the capabilities of ordinary people. - Charles Paine, 1995
> _______________________________________________
> Pattern-language mailing list
> Pattern-language at scn9.scn.org
> http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/pattern-language

Douglas Schuler
douglas at publicsphereproject.org <mailto:douglas at publicsphereproject.org>
Twitter: @doug_schuler

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Public Sphere Project
     http://www.publicsphereproject.org/ <http://www.publicsphereproject.org/>
Mailing list ~ Collective Intelligence for the Common Good
      http://scn9.scn.org/mailman/listinfo/ci4cg-announce
    
Creating the World Citizen Parliament
     http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament <http://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/may-june-2013/creating-the-world-citizen-parliament>
     
Liberating Voices!  A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (project) 
     http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/lv <http://www.publicsphereproject.org/patterns/>

Liberating Voices!  A Pattern Language for Communication Revolution (book)         
 http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601 <http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11601>










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