Listening for Meaning

• Main Author: Janet L. Clark
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Windsor 2019-04-01
• Series: Critical Social Work
• Online Access: https://ojs.uwindsor.ca/index.php/csw/article/view/5771

The need to attend to the spiritual and religious dimensions of a person’s worldview and frame of reference is an axiom of spiritually-sensitive practice, but practice models and processes for facilitating this kind of integrative understanding are few. This paper addresses this gap. Reported are findings from an interpretive study that utilized a novel method of in-depth reflective inquiry to access and analyze the experienced knowledge of frontline practitioners regarding ways of understanding the meanings, and the source of meanings, that people use to interpret their experiential reality. What emerged in the analysis was not a toolbox of assessment techniques, but rather an integrative model for spiritually and culturally sensitive practice – a model grounded in interwoven capacities to navigate complexity, to inquire reflexively, to think critically, and to engage interpretively in an inductive, improvisational and dialogical process of co-creating space for shared understanding of meanings that people use to interpret the world and their place in it.