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Listening to children and young people is for social workers a legal requirement, it is also believed to lead to better outcomes and is increasingly promoted in policy. The practice of listening is, however, rarely straightforward, and this is particularly the case with socially excluded groups. As a result, the voices of the marginalized are less likely to be heard. In this paper the author draws on interview data from a research study into communication between social workers and looked-after children for the light it sheds on why effective dialogue with disaffected young people can be hard to achieve. It is argued that much that appears unsuccessful in an interaction can be understood in terms of power plays, with young people resisting the adult's agenda and trying to impose their own. True listening to disaffected young people requires time, so that a trusting relationship can be developed. It also demands an acceptance that the adult agenda may be flawed and a willingness to consider alternative possibilities. This can challenge the preconceptions, not just of individual workers, but of agencies and of national policy-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alison McLeod describes a research project that explored the effectiveness of communication between social workers and young people in care. Interviews with young people revealed that, even though their social workers had described making significant efforts to listen to them, the young people did not feel their voices were heard. It is argued that this contradiction arises because the adults and the children understood something different by the term 'listening'. The adults saw it more in terms of paying respectful attention to what the young people had to say. The young people, in contrast, felt that listening was demonstrated by delivering services that accorded with their expressed wishes. The two also had different conceptions of the social worker's role. While the adults regarded emotional support and therapeutic intervention as key elements of the social work role, few young people shared this view. Although they appreciated reliable social worker availability, what they valued most was practical support combined with promotion of their self-determination. The implications of these findings for childcare social work are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]