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Relationship-based practice has become a dominant theory through which what goes on between social workers and service users is understood. However, the presence of a relationship explains little and much more critical attention needs to be given to the kinds of relationships involved in social work. This paper is based on an ethnographic study of long-term social work that spent 15 months observing practice and organisational life, a key aim of which was to find out how social workers establish and sustain long-term relationships with children and parents in child protection cases. The paper introduces into the social work literature the concept of a ‘holding relationship’, which was present in several of the cases we studied, especially where therapeutic change occurred. It shows in detail how a ‘holding relationship’ involved social workers being reliable, immersing themselves in the service user’s day-to-day existence, getting physically and emotionally close to them, and practicing critically by taking account of power and inequalities and using good authority. The concept of a ‘holding relationship’ draws on psycho-dynamic and sociological theory to provide new ways of thinking that can help make sense of the practical and emotional relating involved in social work and promote the development of such helpful relationships.

Limited research demonstrates that social workers have been using social media to gain another view of service-users’ lives through observing their Facebook pages. While it is known that such practices occur, no empirical research has shown how Facebook is actually used in casework with families and under what circumstances. This article uniquely fills this gap by drawing on an ethnographic study of child protection social work practice in England that involved 15 months of participant observation at two sites. Our findings show that the use of Facebook by social workers was commonplace in risk assessments and on-going casework and took two forms. Some social workers proactively initiated searches of service users’ Facebook sites, a practice prevalent in literature on the use of social media in social work. But we also found that some used Facebook because they were unwillingly ‘drawn into’ acting on information that was presented to them by others, an aspect of social media use that is not covered in the literature. Some social workers were clearly opposed to any usage. This article employs a framework of two opposing ethical positions to describe what we observed: Kantian, where such use was seen by practitioners as invasive of privacy and unethical; and Utilitarian, where it was justified as ethically defensible because it helped to keep children safe. Given our unique research insights, we argue that social work must pause to consider the ethical implications of these practices in depth, before they become even more institutionalised.