Power

Today, we are talking about power, and I want to start with a simple question.

When was the last time that you noticed power? Maybe your first thought is the police or politics and government, maybe the courts, maybe your manager or a social worker, a doctor, someone who can make decisions about another person's life.

And yes, that is power, but I think the more interesting question is this: how often do we experience power without even calling it power? Think about being the only person in a meeting who does not understand the language being used, and think about sitting in a room where everyone else seems to have read the report before you arrived.

Think about being told that you are non-compliant because you disagree, and think about a professional saying, "We need to manage the risk," and not being entirely sure whether anyone has asked you what you think the risk actually is.

Think about being a parent in a meeting about your child, surrounded by professionals, and think about being an older person whose family start answering questions directed at you.

Think about lying in a hospital bed, waiting for someone else to decide what is happening next.

Think about living with a disability that means people speak over you, for you, or about you.

Think about needing support from a system that holds the power to decide, and then think about what it means when that system says no.

Power is not only about force.

It is not always somebody standing over another person and telling them what to do.

Sometimes power is loud, but sometimes it is incredibly quiet.

And in social work, if we are not willing to talk honestly about power, I think we risk pretending that we are all entering the relationship as equals, when very often we are not.

And I include myself in that because I work in adult social care, and I work in a hospital environment, and I know that the moment I walk into a conversation wearing the invisible label of professional, I carry a kind of power with me, even if I'm trying to be kind, even if I'm listening and genuinely want to help.

My role can give me access to information.

It can give my words a different kind of weight.

I may understand systems that the person sitting in front of me does not, and I may know what is happening next when they do not.

I may have access to meetings and records and decisions that they simply cannot access.

But that does not mean I am a bad person.

It does not mean that every professional relationship is oppressive.

But it does mean that I have to be honest about the fact that good intentions do not make power disappear, and I think this is where we need to begin.

So what actually is power? In the simplest possible terms, power is about the ability to influence what happens.

It's the ability to affect decisions, to influence people, control resources, shape the rules, to decide what counts as important, to determine whose voice is heard, and sometimes whose voice is not.

Power can come from a, an official position.

A social worker may have power because of their role.

A doctor may have power because of their medical expertise.