Current Volume: Volume 5 (2025)

Introduction

Welcome to the latest issue of the Journal of Social Care. This issue contains the usual mix of articles by practitioners, academics and students, and also includes a collection of short articles from health and social care colleagues in a number of European countries, as well as two book reviews. In the first article in this issue, the centrality of emotional labour to social care work is explored in John Bowe’s article titled ‘Recognising the unseen: Emotional labour in teenage and adolescent care’. The relationship between emotional labour, worker well-being and burnout are examined by investigating the impact of emotional labour on the quality of care provided to vulnerable young people. The extent to which there is a tension between professional/administrative demands and emotional engagement and authenticity features strongly in this article. Emotions are similarly at the core of the second article in this issue. In their article titled ‘Transitioning to adulthood from a life in care: An important milestone for young people’, Kate Cooley, Professor Margaret Linehan and Judith Butler examine the particular challenges for care leavers, who often transition out of care into independent life, often with little support. The article examines this ‘care cliff’ through semi-structured interviews with 15 care experienced individuals. It discusses the challenges, opportunities and often mixed emotions that accompany the transition out of care. In the third article in this issue Delores Crerar introduces the ‘The 6-frame model: Transforming supervision with creative interprofessional methodologies’. This article provides a detailed discussion of the underpinnings of supervision, as well as illustrating the development and refinement of the 6-frame model. Throughout the article, the importance of supervision is highlighted, especially the necessity that supervision be open and focused on alliance building between the supervisor and supervisee. The final article, by Deborah Murphy, explores the very common, but often undiscussed practice of therapeutic lying. A review of the literature, this article is titled ‘Is therapeutic lying ethically justifiable if it leads to improved care?’ and it illustrates the extent of the practice, how it is used, the debates that have arisen, and the challenges and opportunities. More importantly perhaps, the article highlights that in spite of widespread use there appears little or no appetite for open discussion of the topic among regulators, professional bodies or management of care organisations. This silence both inhibits a thoughtful and person-centred approach to the practice, as well as placing care staff in an unenviable position. This issue also contains two book reviews of ‘Social care practice placement: An essential guide’ authored by A. de Roiste, J. McHugh and A. Prendergast, and ‘Navigating family estrangement: A therapist’s guide to working with alienated adult children’ authored by K. Melvin. Both books will be of particular interest to students, practitioners and academics in social care and beyond. In a slightly different vein than previous issues, this issue also includes a collection of short articles from across Europe that explore the topic of social and health systems under pressure. Contained in this collection are articles from Belgium, Greece, Germany, Italy, Spain, Finland, France, Northern Ireland and Ireland, and the contributing authors come from both practice and education backgrounds. As can be seen from these articles, in spite of the different histories, languages, cultural traditions and influences, or socio-economic and demographic profiles in each of the countries, there are more similarities in the drivers and challenges than there are differences. Clearly, an overriding influence of such commonality in challenges is the manner in which private equity is increasingly colonising areas of social provision, whether in healthcare, housing, education or welfare. Regrettably, many governments are facilitating this colonisation and the transfer of public wealth into private hands, which increasingly concentrates that wealth into fewer and fewer hands, driving inequality. As many of the articles note, increasing inequality is often compounded by recruitment and retention challenges for health and social care workforces. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising then that the European Federation of Educators in Social Education (FESET) have themed their upcoming conference in Strasbourg, in November, 2025, as ‘Under pressure: Social education in disruption’. An overview of the conference by FESET president Aoife Prendergast can be found within this issue, along with a link to book a place, and details of the conference programme. In a national context, there is also a save the date flyer highlighting the Disability Special Interest Group’s upcoming conference, which also takes place in November of this year. In light of such national and international events, as well as the closing of the grand-parenting period of the social care workers register, it is clear that November will be a very busy month for many in social care. Martin Reviewers. The Journal of Social Care relies completely on the good will, effort and dedication of reviewers’ who give their time and expertise freely, and whose efforts often largely go unnoticed. The Editorial Board would therefore like to thank most sincerely all the journal’s reviewers, especially those who contributed to the publication of this issue. If you are currently registered as a reviewer, please can you login to your journal account and ensure your contact email address is correct. Thank you. If you wish to act as a reviewer for the journal please forward your CV to the editor.