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This article explores the role of silence in a workplace responsible for supporting vulnerable families. The research is based on the assumption that organisational silence exists and investigates how it influences social work practices and affects professionals. Social workers manage a dual role: enforcing institutional authority while building trusting, respectful relationships with families. The project was conducted in a Danish municipality of 50,000 inhabitants, examining how silence shapes work dynamics.
The study concludes that collaboration between management and staff is vital for cultivating openness, trust, and courage. It found a lack of shared goals, weak communication, poor emotional alignment, and absence of containment. These issues contribute to dysfunctional mirroring, emotional strain, and basic assumption behaviour. Though several initiatives were introduced, they lacked genuine staff support, leading to miscommunication and resistance.
The project underscores the need to understand the radical disruptions in routines and expectations within organisational life. It reveals how both conscious and unconscious emotions can create a barrier between management and employees, reducing dialogue and engagement quality. Intense emotions increase anxiety, making it harder to accept accurate information and causing distorted perceptions—ultimately affecting the quality of care provided to vulnerable families.