Social care is starved of time to think, yet a project exploring philosophical learning suggests a remedy: slowing down to question and rediscover purpose.
This article was written by Dr Rebekah Howes, co-founder of Think Learning
The pressure to be curious and critical thinkers
Across health and social care, practitioners are repeatedly urged to be more professionally curious, more reflective, more able to question what they see. This is supported by recent safeguarding reviews which identify a lack of critical thinking as a contributing factor in serious incidents. But research also shows that ‘lack of curiosity’ is rarely an individual failing, but a systemic and organisational one, shaped by pressured workloads and the emotional demands of social care which erode the time and space needed for thinking. So, what supports and sustains critical thinking, not just in practice but as practice?
Philosophical learning
A recent pilot project with Barnardo’s explored whether a different kind of learning experience — philosophical learning — could help. The project grew from conversations across the sector in which practitioners, managers and learning leads described the same mismatch: a growing insistence on curiosity and critical thinking alongside cultures and workloads that make them extremely difficult to practise.
In the ancient world, philosophy was understood as a form of medicine for the mind. Living the ‘examined life’ meant thinking about and understanding the ideas which shape who we are and how we live well together. The Greek philosopher Socrates showed us that knowledge — new or old — is not a ready-made tool we acquire, but something that has to be worked on. He did this through questions and dialogue, by exposing the limits and fragility of what he and others claimed to know. This inevitably left people without the certainties they had become accustomed to.
From certainty to ‘educated uncertainty’
Modern philosophers such as Kant and Hegel reframed this kind of philosophical thinking as a movement from certainty to ‘educated uncertainty’, a form of questioning that does not empty us of knowledge but creates new meaning that can be carried into different situations and relationships.
In other words, exploring questions becomes the journey from knowing and not knowing to the deeper understanding and meaning that changes us. Educated uncertainty opens the path both to re-forming the meaning that our knowledge carries for us and to the ways in which it can be lived or applied in practice.
Creating space to think
The learning spaces in the pilot then were not ‘training’ in the usual sense. They offered structured time to slow down and think more deeply about what we do, to question what we know and to reflect on the human dimensions of our work. In doing so, they cultivated a kind of thinking that is curious and critical but also capable of restoring motivation, rediscovering meaning, and keeping communication and connection alive. Participants described these conversations as offering a rare opportunity to pause, and to think differently about what they know and do.
The ideas explored were not taught as abstract theories. Instead, through dialogue, supported by short readings and careful questioning, ideas became a lens through which practitioners could understand the experiences they were having. The absence of predefined learning outcomes made it possible to think more openly, and participants noted how this shift in understanding impacted their practice: pausing before acting, asking different questions, noticing emotional responses that might previously have gone unchecked. Others reported using notebooks to reflect on visits or talking more honestly with colleagues about the ethical dilemmas they face. Managers noticed ripple effects: fewer rushed decisions, an ability to find their way through uncertainty, and a greater willingness to do justice to the difficulties that are so much a part of social care.
Reconnecting with purpose and humanity
Perhaps the most striking outcome was the sense of reconnection. Participants spoke of rediscovering why they entered the profession. Others described recognising their own worth in ways that pressure and routine had obscured. In a sector where burnout and moral injury are increasingly reported, this reconnection with values, purpose and humanity is not a luxury, but essential.
Why thinking belongs in fast-paced work
The project suggests that slower thinking and learning has a necessary place in fast-paced work. Thinking supports practice not by adding more content but by deepening understanding and meaning. It also challenges the assumption that CPD must always focus on competence, compliance or technique. Sometimes what practitioners most need is time: time to think, to question, to understand, and to make sense of the struggles that shape their life and work.
As the sector calls for more professional curiosity and critical thinking, perhaps the real question is whether we are prepared to create the conditions that truly support them. What might change if thinking practice were treated as central to care, rather than an optional extra? And what could be possible if organisations recognised that philosophical learning, far from being abstract, may be one of the most practical resources we have?
Image: Ecliptic Graphic/UnSplash
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