First Principles of Practice Research

Correspondence to Bruce A. Thyer, Ph.D., School of Social Work, The University of Georgia, Athens, G A 30602, USA. Summary Critics of applying conventional quantitative research methodsto the problems of social work practice research have ignoredthe considerable progress which has been achieved during thepast decade in scientifically documenting the effectivenessof social services. A set of First Principles of Practice Researchis outlined for use by researchers in the design and conductof practice research, and for use by the consumers of researchto evaluate the methodological rigour of practice experiments.The advocates of qualitative research are urged to provide theprofession with similar positive examples of research on theoutcomes of social work practice, and to develop explicit guide-linesfor the conduct of qualitative studies.     

Aspects of Social Work on a Cancer Research and Treatment Unit in a London Teaching Hospital

Summary With the rapid growth of technology and science in society today,an increasingly large number of people are becoming patientsin specialized research and treatment units. The reorganizationof social work support to the health service is upon us, andgreat care must be taken to ensure that this important groupof clients will receive the social work help it needs. The paper is based on work in a cancer unit in a London teachinghospital and seeks to illustrate ways in which the work is specialized     

1998 Human Rights Act: Social Work's New Benchmark

Summary The 1998 Human Rights Act makes the European Convention on HumanRights directly enforceable by the United Kingdom's courts andtribunals. This represents a major constitutional change andwill allow statute law and common law to be assessed, or reassessed,according to the rights laid down in the Convention. This hasmany implications for social work policy makers, managers andpractitioners. It will require the Convention rights to be atthe heart of social work practice. The ability of service usersto challenge decisions by social services departments will nolonger be dependent upon the traditional approach to judicialreview. Compliance with the Convention will now feature in legalchallenges. It is essential that the practice of social workembraces the principles outlined in the Convention. In manyrespects, they are rights that practitioners and others recognizeas being basic expectations of service users, and making themdirectly enforceable can only be for the good. However, we shouldnot underestimate the effect that the legislation will have.This article outlines the legal effects of the 1998 Human RightsAct and illustrates them by reference to examples from socialwork practice.     

Social Workers' Attitudes to Lesbian Clients

Correspondence to Karen Hardman, Department of Applied Social Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX Summary Within British social work there is no model of good practicefor working with lesbian clients. As a prelude to the establishmentof such a model, this paper attempts to ascertain social workers'attitudes to lesbians using a thirty-item attitude (Likert)scale. The implications of social workers' attitudes for practicewith lesbian clients are considered from responses to case vignettes.     

Explanation and Education in Social Work

Summary Social work education has to confront the problem of workingwith students in developing an understanding of the range ofexplanations that exist in the social sciences and the differentbases of these explanations. One pedagogic approach is to explorea map of categories of explanation based upon different conceptionsof the nature of social science knowledge itself. Such a map,outlined in the paper, would distinguish between physical scienceparadigms and human science paradigms and identify the differentimplications for social work of the various viewpoints. Theteacher cannot remain neutral with regard to explanation inthe social sciences; the author therefore indicates that hisown account is based on a marxist perspective     

Gender, Ethnicity and Vulnerability in Young Women in Local Authority Care

Correspondence to Sue Lees, University of North London, 9 Northolme Road, London N2 2VZ, UK. E-mail: S.Lees{at}unl.ac.uk Summary This paper analyses the impact of gender and ethnicity, takentogether, on the experience of being looked after away fromhome. It presents the findings from a study of young women,aged over 12, who came into care in one local authority between1990 and 1999. It reports that the over-representation of youngblack women in care is associated with the greater tendencyof African-Caribbean and mixed heritage young women to run awayfrom home rather than put up with abusive relationships; thelack of cross-generational support resulting from migrationand the effects of poverty and racism which place added strainon family relationships. The implications of these findingsfor social work practice are considered.     

Towards the Use and Development of Games for Social Work Practice

Summary This paper reviews games that may be of use to social workersin their work with individuals, couples, families and groups.A typology of games is presented, which categorizes games accordingto their structure and their function. Games are seen as eitherunstructured or structured, and as stressing either cognitiveor behavioural goals. Selected games are presented in more detailas examples and others are presented in brief in an annotatedbibliography. Issues relating to designing games are discussedas well as issues in applying games to social work practice.     

Organization and Professionalism: The Social Work Agenda in the 1990s

Dr R. Hugman. Dept. of Applied Social Science. Cartmel College. Lancaster University. Lancaster LAI 4YL. Summary The professionalization of social work in the UK during thiscentury has led to an occupational unity, but one in which therehas been continued struggle over the form and content of professionalism.This paper summarizes the key points of developments in thelast two decades, in which debates between professionalism andanti-professionalism and between specialization and localizationcan be discerned. Further changes in the welfare state haveprovided the impetus for continuing developments which, it isargued, integrate aspects from opposing sides of the previousdebates. The failure of social work to address issues of genderand of racism is considered, and related to the possibilitiesof greater service user participation. The implications forsocial work professionalism are outlined.     

The Cognitive Interview--A Useful Tool for Social Workers?

Correspondence to Helen L. Westcott, Public Policy Department, NSPCC, 67 Saffron Hill, London EC1N 8RS. Summary Interviewing techniques embodied in the Cognitive Interview(CI) are introduced with a view to assessing their potentialfor interviews conducted with child abuse victims. The techniquesare summarized and literature pertaining to their developmentpresented. Two studies examining use of the CI with child witnessesare discussed, before the general applicability of the CI forsocial work interviews with abused children is assessed. Itis concluded that the CI does offer possibilities, but thatfurther research into the CI which is more specifically designedwithin the social work context is-needed.     

The Social Work Task in an Acute Psychiatric In-Patient Unit

Summary This paper reports the results of monitoring all admissionsfrom a prescribed geographical area to an acute psychiatricin-patient unit for a six month period. Members of the hospitalsocial work department assessed all admissions and selectedapproximately one-half of these for high social work input Demographicdata for the whole subject group is examined and compared tothe high input group. The case review system outlined by Goldbergand Fruin (1976) is used to describe the clients' social problemson admission, as well as the social work task, in terms of practicalservices and other social worker activities. These findingsare compared to those of Goldberg et al. (1977) who examinedthe social work task in an area office social services departmentintake team. Despite differences in demographic profiles ofthe two groups and consequently differing social problems, thesocial work task in both settings was found to be similar. Inboth studies 53% of clients were offered some practical (althoughdifferent service) and the most common social work activitieswere found to be assessment, information and advice, and mobilizingresources.     

Social Work for Social Fitness

Summary Social work has lost the perspective of social relationshipsas ends in themselves, and has become predominantly an impersonal,individualistic technology. Several interpersonal dimensionsare outlined to help fill this social value vacuum, and it issuggested that these can be held together by the concept ofsocial fitness. This is defined as the mutual development ofthe individual and his total network to a fullness of identitywhich is an end in itself and does not depend on the achievementof any other objectives. The kind of power produced by thisfitness is distinguished from power of the impersonal kind,and its meaning for social workers is discussed in relationto material need. Finally, the future development of socialwork is considered briefly in terms of promoting social fitnessthrough work with various kinds of social networks.     

Dreadful Moments: Existential Thoughts on Doing Social Work

Summary Dreadful moments often happen in social work. This is when theordinary, reliable, taken-for-granted world is called into questionby a calamitous or hopeless situation. In order to respond thesocial worker has to relocate himself after momentarily plunginginto a vortex of trouble that destroyed the client's and, fora short time, his own sense of relatedness. Existentialism,which focusses on the whole structure of personal and interpersonalbeing and the necessity to act in the knowledge of freedom andresponsibility, does help with this relocation. Two cases, basedon actual social work, are reconstructed dramatically in orderto illustrate the positive use of the idea of dreadful moments.These are ideal-typical examples of successful social work whichcould be a model for a general phenomenological-existentialperspective in social work in which the author is at presentengaged.     

The Supervision of Child Protection Work

Correspondence to Alan Rushton, Course Director, M.Sc. in Mental Health Social Work, Social Work Department, The Maudsley Hospital, 101 Denmark Hill, London, SE5 8AZ, UK Summary It has frequently been recommended that statutory child protectionservices in Great Britain need greater provision of specialistsupervision to support front line social workers. This qualitativestudy, based in social services departments in London, usedthe focus group method to explore the provision of supervisionby team managers in a very pressurized work environment. Thestudy highlights the difficulty of protecting adequate supervisiontime but shows how supervisors can use their skills to conductcase related discussion concerned with developing professionalskills. ‘Inquisitorial’ and ‘empathic-containing’functions are identified and an approach is proposed for combiningthem in training courses for child protection supervisors. Thepaper recommends that supervision training needs to be expanded,to be more precisely targeted, and that outcomes need to berigorously and appropriately assessed.     

The assessment relationship: interactions between social workers and parents in child protection assessments

Summary This paper is concerned with a relatively unresearched areaof child protection practice: the comprehensive assessment.The study comprises qualitative research of social workers conductingthese assessments. Sixteen assessments are analysed in detail.It is noted that these assessments, like many other in-depthsocial work assessments, are mainly based on verbal interactions.Some of the core evidence cited by social workers as formingthe basis of their assessment decisions is based on verbal interactionbetween social workers and parents. Such verbal interactionsare viewed as being inextricably intertwined with the socialworker-client relationship. A particular aspect of the relationship,the ability to agree a plausible explanation for the familysituation, is highlighted as particularly important in determiningthe outcome of the assessment. The possible implications ofthese findings for assessment practices are outlined.     

The Side Effects of Intervention?

Summary Are families worrying too much about ordinary, everyday difficultiesor are we trying too hard to help, resulting in a kind of systemsoverdose? Through the use of two case examples, the authorsexplore these questions, concluding that social work and otheragencies might be in danger of over-reacting, thereby addingto a family's difficulties. Strategies for change at the familylevel and within the welfare network are discussed.     

The African-Centred Worldview: Developing a Paradigm for Social Work

Correspondence to Mekada J. Graham, c/o 97 Acton Lane, London NW10 8UT, UK. E-mail: mekadag{at}yahoo.com Summary This article raises concerns about the ethnocentric nature ofexisting paradigms within the social sciences that form thebasis for social work theory and practice with black familiesand children. In addition, it highlights the theoretical deficitswithin existing social work models that do not reflect the worldviewsof diverse communities in British society. Can existing socialwork models continue to express ethnocentric value systems asthe universal way to explain human behaviour in the light ofgrowing demands for pluralism not only between groups but alsobetween epistemologies and worldviews? The author argues foran alternative paradigm that is grounded in the cultural andhistorical reality of the black experience. A broad base of information and discussion of the African-centredworldview and the development of African-centred perspectivesin social work is explored. African-centred perspectives insocial work challenge the profession to express its core principlesof equality, social justice and self-determination in embracingalternative worldviews and paradigms as legitimate and validbases for social work theory and practice.     

Open Records: The Client's Right to Partnership

Summary Many Social Services Departments have opened their files totheir clients or intend to do so. This reflects the incomingtide of concern about citizens' rights and client participation,but what effect might the opening of records have on the practiceof social work? The paper summarizes the findings of a small scale study inwhich a team of social workers opened their case recording toa selected number of clients. The workers’ and clients‘views of this process are described, along with the implicationsfor practice. The study suggests that a focus on shared recordingcan begin to alter the kind of work done by the social worker,helping to promote a partnership between the worker and theclient. Finally, the paper argues that a policy of client access enforcedonly as a right is prone to sabotage or a fall into disuse.A seven point training programme is outlined in order to helpsocial workers use Open Records as an opportunity to promotea partnership in their work with clients.     

Identification of and Responses to Problem Drinking Amongst Social Services Users

Correspondence to Alan Lawson, Research Officer, Department of Social Services, London Borough of Hounslow, Civic Centre, Lampton Road, Hounslow, Middlesex TW 3 4DN. Summary The NHS and Community Care Act (1990) has required local authoritiesto plan for social care aspects of services for alcohol misusers.Research was therefore commissioned by senior managers of theLondon Borough of Hounslow's Social Services Department to investigatethe effect of alcohol misuse amongst Social Services users onthe work of the Department. Research methods are summarizedand the main findings and their implications are discussed.The importance of relevant training was highlighted, in particularin relation to the identification and assessment of alcoholproblems and to child protection issues.