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 Workers and Child Welfare

Correspondence to Dr Gunvor Andersson, Lund University, School of Social Work, Box 23, 22100 Lund, Sweden. Summary What problems do social workers at social services offices haveto face in their child welfare work? How do they handle theproblems, and how important is the relation between the socialworker and the child's parents? The research project includes189 child welfare cases with 0–3-year-old children inten local communities in Sweden. The article shows that thesocial work can be categorized into four different types ofwork, where the work done, as well as the relation between thesocial worker and the child's parents, differ. (1) The socialworker is mediating help and support and has a positive contactwith the child's parents. (2) The social worker is exercisingcontrol and authority and has a negative contact with the child'sparents. (3) The social worker is doing treatment-oriented workand has a personal involvement and a relation to the parentsthat is important for the family and not exchangeable. (4) Thesocial worker is solely engaged in investigatory work with norelation to the child's parents, rather a neutral contact. Inthe categorization the concepts contact and relation are differentiated.Only in the treatment-oriented category, encompassing aboutone-fifth of the children, can one speak of a relation. In allcategories there are elements of both help and control, butdifferent ways of handling this doubleness.     

Worker Participation and the Social Service Agency

Summary Is there real sharing of decision-making responsibility withinsocial service agencies? What hope is there for participationby the consumer of services if the agency worker nearest andmost relevant to him has little voice or leverage within theorganization? This paper examines the notion of worker participationwithin the context of the social services department and theprobation service, noting the imperfections of the ‘publicmandate’ behind the authority structure of these organizations.Above all it looks for continuity between the values socialservice agencies publicly represent and the values in theirday-to-day dealings with their own staff and clients. Currenttrade union proposals for worker representation at committeelevel are considered, and Dutch experience in extending theworkers' council from the industrial to the social welfare sphereis presented as one alternative model.     

Guide-lines for Social Workers in Coping with Violent Clients

Correspondence to Sally Johnson, 66, Church Street, Fordingbridge, Hants SP6 2BE Summary How does it happen that the well-intentioned efforts of localauthority social services departments to offer guidance to theirsocial worker employees in coping with violent clients actuallyresult in declarations that violence is inevitable and in theexpectation that the social worker on the ground will manageit? This paper discusses the problem of violence against socialworkers and the response of four local authority social servicesdepartments as expressed in guide-lines issued to staff. Thefirst part of the paper examines the background of news eventsand theories of aggression against which the guide-lines wereproduced. The second part discusses the response of the localauthority social services departments as employers to the problemsof assessing risk and coping with violence and its aftermath.     

Social Gerontology and Social Work

Summary This paper reviews developments in the study of ageing as anindividual and social experience and it considers recent studiesof practical services for the elderly. In so doing it aims tohighlight the ways in which social work skills and helping techniquescan be developed. It also relates the findings of studies ofservice delivery to the elderly to the development of futurepolicy.     

Social Work and Criminal Justice in Scotland: Developments in Policy and Practice

Correspondence to Dr Gill Mclvor, Social Work Research Centre, Department of Applied Social Science, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland. Summary In the last five years major changes have occurred in the provisionof social work services to the Scottish criminal justice system.The present article charts recent developments in statutoryand voluntary community-based social work services to offenders,locating them in the context of contemporary penal policy. Thecontribution of social work at various points in the criminaljustice process is discussed with particular reference to theintroduction of national standards and full central fundingof statutory social work services. The new funding arrangementshave, it is suggested, provided an impetus to the developmentof statutory services but at the expense both of services notcurrently subject to the 100 per cent funding mechanism andof increased central government control. The article concludesby outlining the challenges to be faced by social work departmentsover the next few years, including an ever-widening remit andthe uncertainties surrounding local government re-organization.     

The Operation of Economic 'Laws' within Social Work: A Critical Appraisal

Summary In planning and administering social work services, economictheory has had a strong impact in recent years. The authorsexamine the application of economic theory, in particular pricingtheory (as used by Judge and others), to social work services.They conclude that there is an ideological function in applyingmicroeconomic theory to social work and that there are seriouslimitations in the contribution that such economic theory canmake to resolving social problems.     

Commonality and Diversity in Feminist Social Work

Correspondence to Vicky White, Department of Applied Social Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL. Summary The relationship between feminist social workers and women serviceusers is a central concern in the feminist social work literature.The literature's discussion of feminist social worker/womanservice user relationships, along the dimensions of commonalityand diversity, is compared with the experiences and understandingsof feminist social workers who participated in a small-scalequalitative study. Two main themes are considered: first, commonalityin feminist social worker/woman service user relationships;secondly, diversity amongst women service users. Issues forfuture work are drawn out of the discussion of these themes:the problematic nature of feminist social worker/woman serviceuser commonality; the impact of social divisions other thangender on women service users' lives; the importance of unpackinggeneralizations about both women service users and feministsocial workers; the need to explore the intersections of thestatutory context and feminist social work identities. It isargued that in addressing these issues future work would beenriched if greater prominence were given to feminist practitioners'perspectives, experiences and understandings.     

Voices From the Front Line: State Social Workers and New Labour

Summary The article explores the condition of state social work in Englandtoday. It is based on interviews with experienced social workersemployed by local authority social services departments acrossthe north of England. These front line state social workersprovide a penetrating insight into the diverse ways in whichtheir work has been transformed and degraded and the mannerin which the needs of clients have been largely ignored. Fromtheir perspective, the election of a Labour government in 1997proved to be a massive disappointment and many social workersreported that it has further undermined state social work practice,workers and clients. The paper seeks to offer an explanationby noting the neo-liberalism of Labour's social policy and thedire consequences which flow from New Labour's fixation withwaged work as the principal solution to social exclusion andpoverty. Above all, it seeks to provide an opportunity for theviews of front-line state social workers to be heard.     

The Social Worker as 'Bad Object'

Correspondence to Dr Marguerite Valentine, 56 Osbaldeston Road, London N16 7DR Summary A ‘bad object’ has been defined as an ‘objectwhom the subject hates or fears, who is experienced as malevolent.A bad object may be either an internal or an external object’(Rycroft, 1988, p. 100). This paper explores the circumstancesin which public fears and anxieties over child abuse becomeprojected into the social worker. It discusses how social workersintroject these feelings, become a ‘bad object’,and how social services departments have developed a numberof strategies which defend against feelings of blame and responsibility.The exploration is derived from my own experiences and observations,and applies Kleinian psychoanalytic theory to studies of institutionaldefences.     

Differing Conceptions of a Child's Needs: Some Implications for Social Work with West African Children and their Parents

Summary The 1975 Children Act implies an increased statutory involvementof local authority social workers with West African childrenwho are fostered, and with their parents. The Act gives a newurgency to the need for a greater understanding of West Africanculture if effective social work help is to be given and suchwork should help to prevent legal disputes concerning the custodyof these foster children. A general discussion of variablesthat influence child-training is followed by a more specificconsideration of West African and British approaches. Importantdifferences are noted and areas of possible misunderstandingindicated. The mediating role that the social worker could playin this cross-cultural fostering is emphasized. Attention isdrawn to limitations in our present knowledge and the need forfurther research is stressed. Not only would this have practicalvalue but, it is suggested, it could increase our knowledgeof socialization processes in general.     

An Interactionist View of the Social Work Interview

Summary The paper considers the relevance of the five sub-branches ofthe interactionist perspective to the social work interviewand suggests a model incorporating all five. Such a model illustrateshow conflict between the social worker and the client may ariseand the author tentatively suggests how such conflict may beresolved     

Social Work Influence on Juvenile Court Disposals

Summary A study was made of the contents of 120 social enquiry reportswritten by social workers in relation to a sample of 50 juvenileoffenders. The criterion for inclusion in the sample was thatthe offender was subject to a supervision order made during1977, in one social services department. The analysis of the contents of the reports indicated that thesocial workers, with their own individual differences of emphasis,adhered closely to the intended welfare values of the 1969 Act;they worked for, with and on behalf of the offenders and theirfamilies; their recommendations, particularly when argued withconviction, were listened to and acted upon by the magistrates. It appeared that there might be significant decision pointsin the career of a juvenile offender: the first court appearance,when either a welfare measure or deterrent measure might beused; and the later stage where a boy of 14+ years faced thecourt following a number of convictions and the failure of previousmeasures. At both points it seemed to be the social worker recommendationwhich was influential, and which could therefore have a significanteffect on the direction of a child's future.     

Organizational Research and Social Work: Issues in Application Illustrated from the Case of Organic and Mechanistic Systems of Management

Summary An increasing number of social workers are concerning themselveswith the organizational context of social work and with theapplication of organizational research material to their sphere.This article focuses upon a particular industrial study andcritically examines the recommendations by three writers, ofthe introduction in social services departments of an organizationalform identified in the study. As well as suggesting some implicationsof the study for social work, the discussion illustrates thekinds of issues and complexities which can arise in the applicationof such material     

The Resource Worker Project: Evaluating a Specialist Social Work Service for Severely Disabled Children and their Families

Please address reprint requests and correspondence to Caroline Glendinning at the Social Policy Research Unit, University of York, Heslington, York Y01 5DD. Summary Accumulated research evidence revealed the continued fragmentationof support services for families caring for a severely disabledchild; while parents themselves repeatedly reported the lackof a comprehensive source of information and advice. The resourceworker project was designed to assess whether the levels andcoherence of services to the families of severely disabled childrencould be improved through the intervention of specialist socialworkers. The activities of the social workers were extensivelydocumented and multiple methods of data collection were usedto evaluate their intervention, in comparison with a matchedgroup of families who continued to receive the normal genericservices. According to a number of ‘outcome’ measures—forexample families' use of services, facilities and professionalexpertise; the incidence and severity of stress among parents;the mental and physical well-being of various family members—changesoccurring as a result of the intervention were, apparently,neither large scale nor consistent. Nevertheless parents werevirtually unanimous in their positive and enthusiastic appreciationof the help and support they had received. The implicationsof these findings for the evaluation of social work interventionare discussed; and attention is drawn to the importance of evaluatingintervention of this kind, as the long term support of familieswith severely dependent members is likely to place increasingdemands on social work and social services resources in thefuture.     

Social Work and General Medical Practice: Personal Accounts of Three-year Attachment

Summary In the area of social worker-general practitioner collaborationmuch has been written about conflict of roles, differing functions,avenues of accountability, and problems of distributing scarceresources. This paper suggests that if the two professions areto work more comfortably with one another, then it is imperativethat both also share the despair, hopelessness, anxiety andanger that are the occupational hazards of each. Ways are suggestedin which doctor and social worker can look at the pain theirpatients are suffering to the benefit of the patient and theiro working relationship.     

Social Work As The Privatized Solution of Public Ills

Summary This paper takes the motivation of the social work recruit asthe point of departure for an exploration of some aspects ofthe low-key politics of social work. Attempting to cut paststereotypical and occupationally agreed conceptions of why socialworkers enter their occupation, it suggests that the socialwork recruit's choice is most usefully understood as an attemptedsolution to central cultural problems in advanced capitalistsocieties, and it directs attention to the moral-political rootsof social work. While the choice of social work as a careerrepresents for some a sort of primitive political rebellion,the implications of this 'rebellion' are not grasped, and itbecomes the privatized solution of a privileged minority     

Reconciling Cash and Care: Home Care Charges and Benefit Checks in Social Services

Correspondence to Pete Alcock, Health and Community Studies, Sheffield Hallam University, Collegiate Cresent, Sheffield S10 2BP Summary This article contains the report of a small research projecton the development of welfare rights checks for home care clientsin social services departments. Welfare rights take-up activityhas become an important feature of provision by local authoritysocial services departments, frequently targeted on particulargroups of clients known to experience problems in claiming fullbenefit entitlement. Users of home care services are such aclient group. Take-up work with home care clients is also, however,a product of the impact of community care policy changes andof financial pressures on local authority social services. Thesehave resulted in the introduction of charges for home care servicesby many authorities, and the use of rebates from such chargesto protect low income service users. Welfare rights work hasthus become an important feature of the reconciliation of thesenew charging policies with the continued service needs of poorhome care clients. The research examined a successful take-upinitiative, linked to home care charges, in Sheffield and contrastedthis with similar activities in other authorities throughoutthe UK. The conclusion is reached that levels of non-take-upof social security benefits are particularly low amongst homecare clients and that benefit checks can secure significantadditional income for them, which may also have the indirecteffect of increasing the income to social services departmentsfrom the charges for home care services.     

Intermediate Treatment and Adolescents' Perceptions of Social Workers

Summary This paper reports an exploratory study of perceptions of socialworkers. Information was obtained from adolescents involvedin intermediate treatment activity groups, their parents, andtheir caseworkers. The respondents were asked to complete acard-sort of adjectives which might describe the social workers.The results suggest that adolescents may have much more positiveperceptions of their social workers than either the parentsor social workers anticipated. Parents were also found to havepositive perceptions of their social workers, especially iftheir social worker also attended the activity groups with theiradolescent. Some of the variables which were seen to have influencedthe perceptions of the social workers are discussed.