Being settled and unsettled : an IPA study exploring residential social workers' perceptions of relationships with young people in one children's home

This study rectifies such a gap by focusing on residential social workers' perceptions of relationships with the children in their care within a number of enabling and constraining psycho-social factors. It adopts a detailed case study of seven residential social workers in one children’s home in Northern Ireland.

An innovative refinement of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis is used to gain richly descriptive accounts through initial interviews, a focus group and follow-up interviews. An original approach to reflexivity and auditing is applied in the study to create transparency throughout the entire process. The findings capture the emotional and cognitive complexity of the phenomenological experience of these relationships within settling and unsettling cycles.