Prison Welfare and Voluntary After Care

Summary Some findings of a survey into the experiences of men releasedfrom prison are reported, where they relate to their use ofprison welfare and after care services. These are discussedin the context of issues such as through-care, rate of take-up,and the factors which may be influential in determining whethera man makes use of after care on release from prison. It isproposed that for more isolated men the probation service shouldadopt a ‘reaching-out’ strategy.     

Social Work Responses to New Labour' in Continental European Countries

Summary The re-emergence of a majority of centre-left governments incountries of the European Union was associated with the hopethat, after the neo-liberal attempts at its marginalizationand de-institutionalization, social work could regain a morevalued position in society. There are indeed indications thatthe growth of the profession continues and that social workis returning to a more explicit and official role in nationalsocial policies. However, this tends to be associated with anexpectation that social work would play its part in ‘activating’the recipients of welfare benefits in the context of the NewLeft project of shifting from social rights to social obligations.The practical and political effects of this new agenda are,however, modified greatly by the prevailing ‘welfare cultures’as well as the professional and academic discourses. This paperexplores the dilemmas and opportunities for the social professionsin Europe associated with the ‘pull’ to become incorporatedinto these new social policy agendas.     

Informal Welfare, Social Work and the Sociology of Welfare

Summary This article seeks to inject some important but neglected considerationsinto discussions about the nature of informal welfare and thenotice social workers should take of it. Following a sketchof how both sociology and social policy have regarded informalwelfare, it is argued that a sociology of welfare which is sensitiveto the definitions held by participants indicates that socialworkers would be wise to seek to ‘tap’ informalwelfare very cautiously. It is also argued that such sociologyneeds to be accorded a more prominent place in social work trainingcourses.     

Social Inquiry Reports in One Juvenile Court: An Examination

Summary The paper begins by briefly outlining the current debate overthe usage of social inquiry reports in the juvenile court, particularlywith regard to the effect that their recommendations can haveupon the lives of young people appearing in that court. It thendiscusses the findings of research carried out by the authorinto the social inquiry reports presented to one juvenile court.In particular it examines the contents and format of these reports,the effect that concepts of ‘welfare’ and ‘justice’have upon the recommendations of these reports, and the differencesthat exist in the reports presented by the probation and socialservices. It concludes that there is a pressing need for a revisionin the presentation of these reports to the court as no consistentstandard of information is being offered. It also argues thatit is time to reassess the role of treatment in the juvenilejustice system, in the light of this and other recent research,and to separate more clearly the components of welfare and justicewithin this system.     

Some Implications of Legal Approaches to Welfare Rights

Summary Legal reforms to welfare systems are analysed as either involving‘legalization’, the formulation of rules, or ‘judicialization’,the improvement of procedures. The implications of these typesof reform for the supplementary benefits system are examined.It is suggested that there are likely to be severe drawbacksto ‘legalization’ which does not involve, in effectthe elimination of selectivity. Judicialization, on the otherhand, is seen to offer needed procedural reforms, but it issuggested that there has been a failure to recognize the inherentlimitations of innovations of this kind, where the poor mayneed so much more than merely the guarantee of a fair hearing     

The State of Welfare

Summary The word ‘welfare’ is difficult to define becauseit combines within it a range of ideologies and actions. Twoconclusions are drawn from this: first, that social servicesshould be regarded as contributors to, but not providers ofwelfare; second, that the study of social work and social administrationshould be concerned not only with the relationship of ‘service’to ‘need’ but also with societal movements and pressureswhich determine the emergence of both. The article reviews theprofessed values of the welfare state, particularly ‘socialequality’ and the problems associated with its achievement,namely public attitudes, and the discontinuity between intentionand practice in the welfare services. The implications for socialwork education and practice are considered.     

Parenting with Learning Difficulties: Lessons for Practitioners

Correspondence to Dr Tim Booth, Department of Sociological Studies, University of Sheffield, Western Bank, Sheffield S10 2TN. Summary Parents with learning difficulties form an underserved needsgroup whose numbers are steadily increasing and are likely tocontinue to do so as a result of deinstitutionalization, communitycare and the acceptance of ‘ordinary life’ principlesas a basis for service provision. This article reviews the researchliterature on parenting by people with learning difficultiesin order to draw out the lessons for practitioners and to assistthem in developing a clearer view of their aims and approachwhen working with these families. Case vignettes from an ongoingstudy of mothers and fathers with learning difficulties areused to illustrate the common themes. The authors conclude thatservice providers still have much to learn about how best theycan secure and uphold the citizenship rights of these parentsas well as protect the welfare of their children.     

The Influence of Performance Measurement on Child Welfare Policy and Practice

Correspondence to Clare Tilbury, School of Social Work and Applied Human Sciences, University of Queensland Q 4072, Australia. E-mail: c.tilbury{at}social.uq.edu.au Summary The increasing use of performance measurement in child welfarepromises to have significant consequences. Performance indicatorsare not neutral or merely technical—they represent viewpointsand values that may influence policy and practice. This three-partarticle examines how this may occur. The first part outlinesa theoretical approach to understanding the policy significanceof performance indicators. As they become part of the frameworkwithin which policy debates occur, indicators may frame policyissues, create boundaries around options for solutions, definestandards for evaluating results, and set the terms of publicdiscourse. The second part discusses the background to the developmentof performance measurement in child welfare in Britain, theUSA and Australia, locating it as integral to contemporary approachesto public sector management. The third part examines the performanceindicators used in these jurisdictions-aspects of performancemeasured, underlying assumptions about ‘good’ performance,and how they construct child welfare. Existing indicators narrowlyconstruct child welfare in terms of investigations and out-of-homecare, whereas the child welfare literature suggests a broaderapproach with more attention to family support. The articleargues that there is space to negotiate on the new managerialistterrain, developing an approach to performance measurement thatcontributes to better services and outcomes for children andfamilies.     

Working in Partnership in Child Protection: The Conflicts

Correspondence to Dr Margaret Bell, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, York, UK. Summary This article critically examines the work of twenty-two localauthority social workers undertaking child protection investigations.The findings suggest that, while the social workers were committedto being (and believed their practice to be) participative,the dual tasks of making risk assessments for the conferenceand working in partnership with the families concerned producedconflicts of interests and rights. The impact of these on socialworkers' engagement with family members, on their assessments,and on the decision making process is explored. It is concludedthat the difficulties identified limit opportunities for participativepractice, and that these difficulties are endemic to the presentsystem. It is argued that these findings point up the need fora more broadly based child-care service which more appropriatelymeets the families' welfare needs, and that the contradictorynature of the conference task should be addressed by clarifyingthe legal base of the intervention and developing other modelsof decision making. Some ways forward are suggested.     

An Unacceptable Role for Social Work: Implementing Immigration Policy

Correspondence to Dr Beth Humphries, Department of Applied Social Science, Lancaster University, Cartmel College, Lancaster, LA1 4YL. E-mail: b.humphries{at}lancaster.ac.uk Summary Social work has always had a role in policing the boundariesof welfare, and under New Labour there has been a decisive shiftto an increasingly narrow and negative practice. This articletakes social work’s involvement in internal immigrationcontrols as an example of the profession’s complicityin implementing social policies that are degrading and inhuman.It argues that social work has adopted a reactionary and uncriticalview of policy, and asks whether there might be a more progressivefuture for the profession.     

Discourses of Child Protection and Child Welfare

Correspondence to Gordon Jack, University of Exeter, Department of Social Work and Probation Studies, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4RJ Summary The history and dominance of the discourse of child protectionand its influence over social work practice with children andfamilies is discussed in the light of recent research into theoperation of child protection systems in the UK and elsewhere.The often negative effects of current approaches on professionals,parents, and, particularly, children are highlighted. The issuesof confidentiality and empowerment appear to be of central importancefor current debates about the welfare of children and youngpeople. Three strategies for change are outlined and discussed. It isargued that a fundamental challenge to the child protectiondiscourse is required. Parallels are drawn with the changeswhich occurred in attitudes and responses towards football supporters,following the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. The dangers and shortcomings of the present reliance on a diseasemodel of ‘abuse’, with its focus on individual pathology,are analysed. Support is provided for the development of a newdiscourse, which acknowledges the social contexts within whichallegations of ‘abuse’ arise, and without whichsocial work will continue to be restricted to a procedurallydominated conservative orientation to child welfare.     

Swimming with Dolphins: The Assessment Framework, New Labour and New Tools for Social Work with Children and Families

Correspondence to Dr Paul Michael Garrett, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. E-mail: paul.garrett{at}nottingham.ac.uk Summary Local authorities, in England, implemented the Framework forthe Assessment of Children in Need and their Families in April2001. The Framework is the first ‘official’ standardassessment model intended for use in the initial assessmentof all ‘children in need’ under Part 111, section17 of the 1989 Children Act. This new ‘conceptual map’needs to be understood in terms of previous policy documentsand earlier technologies of intervention related to child protectionand, more broadly, child welfare. However, it also needs tobe more expansively perceived, fixed and located as it relatesto other elements in New Labour's political ‘project’.The Framework's preoccupation with an ecological approach toassessments and with questionnaires and scales are likely tohave major implications for social work practice and for micro-engagementswith children and families.     

Perceptions of Stigma and User Involvement in Child Welfare Services

Correspondence to Dr E. M. Scholte, Department of Social and Behavioural Sciences/Centre for Research on Youth Welfare, University of Leiden, PO Box 9555, 2300 RB Leiden, The Netherlands. Summary This paper explores the perceptions of social disqualificationor ‘stigma’ that service users attributed to publicchild welfare services in random samples of service users takenfrom the Netherlands, a part of Spain (Catalonia) and a partof the United Kingdom (Wales). It was found that, in all threesamples, foster and residential care invoked the greatest senseof stigma, while the health related and the preventive familyservices were perceived as the least stigmatizing types of publicwelfare services. Comparative analysis further revealed thata positive attitude towards the use of public welfare services,a perception of supportive or non-stigmatizing social normsregarding the use of such services, and a perception of publicwelfare services as helpful correlated in all three sampleswith higher levels of user satisfaction and involvement in theservices. It was further found that, in the British and Spanishsamples, a positive attitude towards public welfare services,as well as a perception of public welfare services as helpfulfor their recipients, were the predominating factors promotinghigher levels of satisfactory user involvement in the services,while, in the Dutch sample, a perception of supportive socialnorms was the factor that most promoted satisfactory user involvement.     

Learning from a Murri Way'

Summary Under the modernist project indigenous social welfare work approacheshave been silenced and relegated to the periphery as deficittheory and practice in the landscape of social work. This positioninghas promoted the belief that indigenous expertise and cultureis only of relevance for culturally-sensitive practice. Rejectingthis view, I utilize the findings of a study of intra-grouphelping amongst Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders—a‘Murri way’—to argue that social work theoryand practice has much to learn from indigenous peoples aboutthe interpersonal helping process. I call for recognition ofa space of possibility between indigenous and non-indigenouspractitioners that the indigenous telling creates. This is aspace in between these players who do not share a common understanding,a space where players may participate in a dance of difference(dialogue) to help map a common space of understanding.     

A Revisionist History of Intermediate Treatment

Correspondence to John Pratt, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zeland. Summary This paper examines and challenges the view that intermediatetreatment for young offenders in England and Wales has alwaysbeen intended as an alternative to custody provision. It arguesthat its origin and subsequent development have to be understoodwithin what was the prevailing welfare discourse at the timeof the 1969 Children and Young Persons Act. It traces some ofthe processes involved in the change that has since taken place,characterized by a move from ‘welfare’ to ‘justice’talk, and suggests that it was only then that the conceptualspace for intermediate treatment to operate as an alternativeto custody was established. Finally, it examines some of thecritical issues raised by these changes in policy and discourse.     

Distress among Children whose Separated or Divorced Parents cannot Agree Arrangements for Them

Correspondence to Ann Buchanan, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Oxford, Barnett House, Wellington Square, Oxford OX1 2ER, UK. E-mail: ann.buchanan{at}socres.ox.ac.uk Summary This paper, based on a larger study of children and their parentswho were subjects of a welfare report for the court followingparental separation and divorce, highlights the very high levelsof distress amongst the children involved. As measured by theStrength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), 52 per cent ofboys and 48 per cent of girls had significant adjustment problemsimmediately after the proceedings and a year later, 62 per centof boys and 32 per cent of girls were still maladjusted. Childrenwere more likely to have problems where parents were also distressedand where there was domestic violence. These findings suggestthat these children should be considered ‘children inneed’ under the 1989 Children Act. and that preventiveservices need to be developed to help parents resolve the arrangementsfor the children without going to court.     

Welfare, Society and the Social Worker

Summary This article attempts to locate some common stereotyped transactionsbetween social workers and their clients as elements in theproduction of distinctive welfare identities. By comparing thisprocess to that of a rite of passage, the client is found tobe like a ritual subject frozen in the moment of transitionbetween social categories and thereby denied a place in society.An opposition is accordingly presumed to exist between Welfareand Society. The matrix of stereotyped expectations which derivesfrom this opposition is shown often to intrude on the relationshipbetween social worker and client, constituting a pressure toresolve the tensions produced by anomaly through the impositionof a welfare identity on the client. In this respect, the specialvulnerability of marginal groups is noted and a brief discussionthen follows of the characteristic qualities of ascribed welfareidentity. Through Welfare, Society is found to displace imaginativelyits sense of entropy beyond the moral community. But the essentiallink between Welfare and Society remains and increasing socialdisorder brings the paradoxical feature of this strategy tothe fore. The preservation of the social order requires increasingconcentrations of entropy to be symbolically located in Welfareand as a result Welfare comes to take on the aspect of a threateningand subversive entity. In conclusion, it is suggested that behindthe apparent ‘crisis’ in social work lies a crisisin the management of social entropy.     

The Trouble with Access: a Study of Divorcing Families

Summary This paper explores issues concerning access between non-custodialparents and children following marital breakdown. The literatureconcerning access is reviewed, with reference particularly tothe problem of evaluating the possible benefits of a clean breakbetween non-custodial parent and the children at the time ofseparation. The findings of a research study, in which probationofficers reported on issues concerning custody and access in65 cases on which they were preparing welfare reports, are reported.The study highlights the generally problematic nature of access,discusses the behaviour problems exhibited by the children atthe time of the breakdown, and points to the importance of outsidehelp at an early stage in the divorce process.     

Risk, Advanced Liberalism and Child Welfare: The Need to Rediscover Uncertainty and Ambiguity

Correspondence to Professor Nigel Parton, School of Human and Health Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield HD1 3DH. Summary The purpose of this paper is to analyse and reflect upon thecurrent state of child welfare policy and practice and how thishas changed over recent times. In the process it aims to makea contribution to the current debates on ‘the refocusingof children's services’. A central part of the argumentis that new strategies have emerged which do not have as theircentral focus either meeting the needs of children or respondingto child abuse, but the assessment and management of risk. Inselecting such a focus, such developments are in danger of overlookinga central characteristic of policy and practice in terms ofthe pervasiveness of uncertainty and ambiguity. Not only dothese characteristics need to be reorganized, but they needto be built on in order to take our thinking and practices forward.     

Parental Rights Assumptions, The Passage of Time and 'Natural Justice': The Use of Section 3(1)(d) of the Child Care Act 1980

Summary This paper reports a study carried out in two Social ServicesDepartments, of 63 children in care under Section 2 of the ChildCare Act 1980, in respect of whom parental rights had been assumedunder Section 3 on the ground that they had been in Section2 care for three years or more. Some of the arguments put inthe debate about ‘natural justice’ in relation toparental rights assumptions are briefly considered in the introduction;recent changes in such assumptions are then outlined. The studyand its main findings are then presented, with reference tothe findings of other studies of parental rights resolutionswhere appropriate, Finally, the implications of the study forthe ‘natural justice’ debate are discussed. Theauthor's main conclusion is that the existing procedure is anomalousalthough Departments' use of it may be acrupulously careful.The grounds for assuming rights should be revised and the procedureshould be carried out by a family court.