Beyond the Surface
A Short Reflection
When we talk about "what works" in welfare services, we often find ourselves caught between two worlds. On one side, we have the world of measurable outcomes, standardized assessments, and statistical evidence. On the other, we have the deep, complex reality of human encounters, professional judgment, and contextual understanding. It's tempting to see these as opposing approaches, but I've come to understand them as different layers of the same reality.
Think of it like an iceberg. The visible part above water represents what we can directly observe and measure - the outcomes of our interventions, the documented assessments, the statistical patterns. But beneath the surface lies a vast complex of mechanisms and processes that make those surface patterns possible. This is what Thomas Brante1 calls the "stratified nature of reality," and it has profound implications for how we think about knowledge in welfare work.
I was struck recently by a metaphor from Nancy Cartwright2 about causal cakes. She suggests that successful interventions (in complex systems) are like recipes - they need all their ingredients to work, and each ingredient plays a necessary but insufficient role for causality. Just as a cake needs both flour, eggs and heat, successful welfare work needs both systematic knowledge, empathy and professional judgment to achieve its aims.
This isn't just philosophical musing. When we understand that reality operates at multiple levels, we can better appreciate why what works brilliantly in one context might fail in another. We can understand why professional judgment matters even in highly standardized processes, and why systematic approaches are valuable even in deeply personal encounters.
The balance is about developing sophisticated ways to combine different approaches to knowledge. This means creating systems that support professional judgment, recognizing that both the visible patterns and the deeper mechanisms matter.
What are your thoughts on this? How do you navigate between different forms of knowledge in your practice?
Brante, T (2014) Den professionella logiken. Liber.
Cartwright, N & Hardie, J. (2012) Evidence-Based Policy: A Practical Guide to Doing It Better. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
From a social constructionist view you could say that reality is a result of shared storytelling. I use to think about a quote from professor Stefan Morén, Umeå university. It goes something like this: we describe reality - but what reality? In social welfare services and especially in child protection casework, there’s a risk that social workers get stuck in what Johan describes here as the tip of the ice berg viewed from one single angle.