Teaching Gender in Social Work - MailChimp

As we can see, the aim of Bojana Christova was to instruct visiting
nurses on how to create a space of trust and security with the mothers, while
preserving their authority as powerful professional women who were different
from “ordinary” women even in terms of their outfits. Emotional communication
was regulated. Female emotional closeness, empathy and friendship were
required, but so too were professionalism, distance and control.
This balance was a precondition for successful home visiting practice.
The first generation of visiting nurses came from the middle and lower-middle
class, which was especially affected in the post-war crisis years. The personal
documents of nurses concerning their personal and family situation, indicate
that they found it difficult to take care of their families alongside their professional
work. It was important to encourage them, in their professional status as
women responsible for the health and welfare of young mothers and babies.
The case study includes such questions as:
1. Analyse the recommendations of Bojana Chrostova to the visiting
nurses in Bulgaria.
2. Why did the home visits of visiting nurses need to have rules?
3. What were the similarities to the recommendations for home
visiting practices in Victorian England?
4. How did visiting nurses establish their authority in the course
of home visits?
5. How did they establish relationships of trust with the visited
mothers and women?
Female Teachers – Advisors: Penetrating Homes in Villages
In the second half of the 1920s, many child health units were opened in urban
areas. Their biopolitical measures – to reduce infant mortality and “help people
to live” 15 – made them important social institutions for the urban poor. In comparison
to the urban space, the lack of health units and other health and social
institutions in rural areas was obvious. How could homes in villages be visited
if there were an insufficient number of doctors and nurses? Who could be the
agent who was close to the young mothers and able to visit homes and talk to
15
Michel Foucalt, Trjabva da zashtitavame obshtestvoto (We have to defend society), (Sofia: LIK, 2003).
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