Social Work and Social Justice in Northern Ireland: Towards a New Occupational Space

Correspondence to: Dr John Pinkerton, School of Social Work, Queens University Belfast, 7 Lennoxvale, Belfast BT9 5BY, Northern Ireland. E-mail j.pinkerton{at}qub.ac.uk Summary This article considers the concept of social justice by referenceto the experience of social work in Northern Ireland duringthe past forty years of communal, paramilitary and state violence.It notes the contested nature of the concept and its chequeredhistory within the professional ideology of social work generallyand its absence as a significant explanatory and motivationalconcept for social workers in Northern Ireland to date. It arguesthat in the emerging post-conflict situation social work asa profession needs to operationalize a view of social justicethat acknowledges social and cultural diversity in order toredefine the profession itself and direct its relationship toboth the state and civil society.     

Social Work and the News Media: A Hopeless Case?

Correspondence to Meryl Aldridge, Department of Social Policy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham NG7 2RD. Summary The belief that the profession gets unusually poor news mediatreatment is entrenched among social workers. As a result, thesocial work press regularly prints articles discussing the issueand suggesting solutions. This paper outlines the main sociologicalapproaches to theorizing about the media and locates the majorityof the profession's own accounts of its coverage within an idealist/pluralistmodel. Examples of positive presentation of social work arethen considered, but it is argued that many of these come fromlocal media. Approving items in the national press have beenlinked mainly with disasters and with the work of voluntaryagencies. Given the search for profit in a consumption-led society,it is unlikely that national news media, particularly the press,will fully endorse social work as it delivers state welfare.Attempts by social work agencies and professional institutionsto re-educate the media can have only limited success and shouldbe more carefully targeted.     

Social Work Tomorrow: Towards a Critical Understanding of Technology in Social Work

Correspondence to Bob Sapey, Department of Social Work, University of Central Lancashire, Preston PR1 2HE Summary This paper makes use of theoretical ideas that have been developedto understand the impact of new technology on organizationsand applies them to its use within social work agencies. Thesedeveloping theories employ ideas that are familiar to socialworkers—organization theory, decision making theory, andcommunication theory. The paper therefore argues that socialworkers are in a good position to understand and influence theuse of computers within welfare agencies and do not need tobe inhibited by a lack of technological knowledge. It is furtherargued that, unless social workers do become involved in theways in which new technologies are used within organizations,they will fail to influence its impact upon their clients andmay further fail to control the way in which computers affectthe nature of social work itself in the future.     

Reflexive Modernity and Social Work in Ireland: A Response to Powell

Summary The aim of this article is respond to some of the issues addressedby Powell (1998). It focuses on his consideration of the roleand task of social work within a changing society. I argue that,before postulations about the future role of social work inIreland can be made, consideration of its current nature andthe form of its discourses are necessary. I then go on to critiquePowell's analysis of social work in the context of conceptssuch as empowerment, participation and prevention and arguethat, by failing to consider the necessarily regulatory andcentralized nature of much of Irish social work currently, suchan analysis remains merely rhetorical. Powell's reference tothe Irish Association of Social Workers' Code of Ethics (1995)as evidence of social work entering a period of reflexive modernityis also examined. The article concludes with a call for a moveaway from utopian speculation within Irish social work discoursetowards a more realistic and constructive analysis of both thefuture potential and the limitations of Irish social work, givenits spatial and discursive constraints.     

Social Work Values: The Moral Core of the Profession

Correspondence to Cynthia Bisman, Graduate School of Social Work and Social Research, Bryn Mawr, PA 19010, USA. E-mail: cbisman{at}ada.brynmawr.edu Summary This paper argues that an emphasis on the profession’sknowledge base has come at the expense of attention to socialwork's values and mission. The discussion examines the relativeimportance of knowledge, values and skills in an effort to understandthe shifting emphases of the profession within a social andhistorical context. The consequences of these shifts for theprofession and for its relationship to society are also considered.Concepts from the intellectual struggles of social work andfrom an interdisciplinary perspective suggest ways to groundthe profession’s skills and knowledge in its values ofhuman dignity, service to humanity and social justice. At itscore, social work must respond to the moral imperative of caringfor the neediest among us. This entails re-claiming and buildingon the commitment of early social workers ‘to work withforces that make for progress . . . to forward the advance ofthe . . . common people’ (Richmond, 1899, p. 151). Thepaper concludes that for social work to have a future, the professionmust take pride in its moral core, define its contemporary meaningand work for the social welfare in ways that are relevant toboth social workers and non-social workers.     

Social Work: Gender, Care and Justice

Correspondence to: Joan Orme, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, Lilybank House, Bute Gardens, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8RT, UK. Summary This article, in examining gender and justice, seeks to examinethe relationship between feminist theory and social work. Specificallyit reviews writings on social work ethics and suggests thatlittle attention has been paid to feminist scholarship thatresonates with social work practice. Focusing primarily on communitycare, it demonstrates how debates within feminism have becomemore complex and have problematized understandings of both careand justice. It argues that for social work it is unhelpfulto dichotomize justice and care; we should aspire to just socialwork practice.     

Beyond Retroduction? -- Hermeneutics, Reflexivity and Social Work Practice

Correspondence to Susan White, University of Manchester, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, Williamson Building, Oxford Road, Manchester Summary Over the last three decades qualitative research methodologieshave been in the ascent within social science. Yet social workevaluation studies have tended to be quantitative in nature,conventially relying upon the generation of criteria againstwhich interventions are retrospectively judged. The generationof such criteria inevitably depends upon pre-suppositions, whichin themselves go unresearched. As a consequence the .sense makingactivities on which social work interventions depend are renderedimmune from critical analysis. This reflects a broader tendencyfor social work to cling to naive realist epistemologies, whichare arguably obsolete within the interpretive paradigm in whichits activity is properly located. By examining the debates withininterpretive social science, this paper argues for an approachto social work assessment which avoids the pitfalls of naiveobjectivism and the nihilism of anarchic relativism, whilstretaining creativity, imagination and hope.     

A Reflection of The Rising Spectre of Conservatism: Motivational Accounts of Social Work Students

Summary It has recently been argued that the increasing conservatismof Western society is reflected in those entering social work.Pearson, however, has argued that social work recruits by theirchoice of occupation are politically deviant. In this papermotivational accounts of social work students and intendingpsychologists are examined in light of the emerging politicaltrends. Social work students were more concerned with personalgrowth, and later in training with effecting social change,than the intending psychologist. An examination of motivationalaccounts revealed two groups of social work students. The traditionalbase of the profession was represented by a subgroup who wishedto help others and/or effect social change. A second group ofstudents, concerned with the benefits that could accrue to selfthrough social work practice, was also identified. It is consideredthis privatization reflects the dominant ideological trend beinggiven personal meaning by the student.     

Tackling Inequalities in Physical Health: A New Objective for Social Work

Correspondence to Eileen McLeod, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK. Summary We argue that tackling the impact of social inequality on physicalhealth should become a central objective of social work andintrinsic to the development of anti-oppressive practice. Thisis on three grounds. First, the suffering embodied in inequalityin physical health should be a cause of concern to social workers,as a pervasive social problem. Secondly, awareness of socialwork's complicity in contributing to such a problem, throughits historical role in implementing state policies, needs toinform assessment of social work outcomes. Nevertheless, thirdly,social work—not confined to health care settings—whichredresses social disadvantage and tackles its consequences forphysical well-being can contribute to greater equity in health.Indicative examples of such practice are provided in relationto health maintenance, living with ill health and terminal illness.Finally, consideration is given to the current wider politicalcontext in which social work addressing health inequalitiesis embedded and to the need for complementary organizational,professional and political initiatives to buttress its development.     

Social Networks and Social Service Workers

Correspondence to Peter Sharkey, School of Law, Social Work and Social Policy, Liverpool Polytechnic, 98 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, L3 5UZ. Summary ‘Networks’ is a word often used in the discussionof social work practice and within social services departments.It was a word which was central to the Barclay Report (1982)and important within the more recently published Griffiths Report(1988) on community care. It is a word also known to sociologistsand anthropologists through the development of ‘networkanalysis’. There is, however, a fairly wide gap betweenits use within social work and its use within social science.This article tries to explore this gap and the ways in whichsocial science ideas might have some use and relevance to socialservice workers. It does this by using some illustrative datafrom a study done of the personal networks of thirty elderlypeople who were all clients of a social service district office.     

Care Management and Professional Autonomy: The Impact of Community Care Legislation on Social Work with Older People

Correspondene to Mark Lymbery, Centre for Social Work, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. e-mail: Mark_Lymbery{at}nottingham.ac.uk Summary The 1990 National Health Service and Community Care Act appearedto herald a new dawn for social work with older people, whichhad previously been a relatively neglected and undervalued areaof social work practice. The legislation proposed a new rolefor social workers as ‘case managers’, with considerableautonomy and flexibility about the way in which the ‘casemanager’ responded to need. By the time community carepolicy was implemented, the role of ‘case manager’had been transformed into that of ‘care manager’,with a focus which emphasized procedural and managerial requirementsrather than a more flexible professional practice. This paper explores the extent to which this shift has substantivelyaltered the nature of social work practice with older people.It outlines key theories of professions and their applicabilityto social work, and critically analyses the impact of the ‘newmanagerialism’ within social services departments. Thepaper also examines the nature of social workers' practice witholder people following the impact of community care legislation,and concludes that the impact on the social work professionhas been to locate an increasing control of practice with socialwork managers, with potentially serious consequences for thecontinuation of a distinctive social work role in relation toservices for older people.     

Practice Validity, Reflexivity and Knowledge for Social Work

Correspondence to Professor Michael Sheppard, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, Devon PL4 8AA, UK Summary In the last few years there have been significant developmentsin conceptualizing the role and nature of knowledge in socialwork. This has been based on a fundamental review of epistemological,ethical and theoretical facets of social work and its knowledgebase. Amongst some of the most significant developments havebeen the emergence of new concepts (for social work) such asprocess knowledge, reflexivity and a range of ideas relatingto hypotheses. In a recent article, Susan White (1997) soughtto critique some of my ideas on this matter. This article representsa response to her paper; one which uses the opportunity to drawout wider issues for a general theory of social work knowledge.In particular, it focuses on three key dimensions: the centralityof the concept of practice validity, the importance of a conceptof reflexivity which is not simply transferred from the disciplineof sociology but which has a social work-specific meaning, andthe dangers of an unrestrained relativism.     

The Professional Standing of Work with Elderly Persons among Social Work Trainees

Correspondence to Dr Howard Litwin, Paul Baerwald School of Social Work, The Hebrew University, Mount Scopus, 91905, Jerusalem, Israel. Summary A random sample of 93 students of social work in Israel werequeried regarding their perception of the professional standingof work with older people. The general ranking given by traineesto this field of practice was moderate to low. Relatively positiveevaluation of the status of gerontological practice, however,was found to be explained by: (1) a traditional view of therole of the elder in society; (2) the perception that peersattribute prestige to such work; and (3) having had a fieldpracticum in the area of ageing; and was inversely related tounderstanding of work with elderly persons as mainly indirectintervention. The implications of these findings for the promotionof social work practice with elderly people in an ageing societyare discussed.     

Social Work and the 'Missionary Zeal to Whip the Heathen Along the Path of Righteousness'

Correspondence to Amon Bar-On, Department of Social Work, University of Botswana, Private Bag 0022, Gaborone, Botswana. Summary Ever since Western forms of social work were first importedto Africa, a serious debate has been raging on whether theyfit the African context Most of this debate has concentrated,however, on the techniques of Western social work as opposedto the ends to which they are put, which, being underpinnedby Western values, are essentially alien to African culture.Applying Western social work in Africa can be viewed, therefore,as continuing the work of the missionaries who sought to remakeAfricans in their own image. Following a summary of the argumentswhy Africa might require a form of social work of its own, thisarticle explores the chances of such indigenization and concludesthat it might be nigh impossible unless research involving reflectivelearning by African social workers with their clients is placedat the centre of social work practice.     

Contract or Con Trick?

Correspondence to Stewart A. Collins, Senior Lecturer in Social Work, Queen's College, 1 Park Drive, Glasgow G3 6LP. Summary This paper consists of a critical examination of the contractapproach in social work. It argues that contract work is onefacet of the consumerist movement which has become increasinglyinfluential in social work in recent years. We are in favourof of constructing more equal and more open work relationshipswith clients. But we also maintain that the claims made on behalfof the contract approach in these respects are extravagant anduntenable. We develop our case by using critical material fromthe field of social work. In the second half of our paper weargue that contract work cannot be fully understood unless itis linked to wider social and economic relations in society.We introduce a number of themes from the areas of sociologyand philosophy to substantiate this point.     

The Effect of Work Experience on the Self-Concept and Anxiety Level of the Social Work Graduate Student

Summary It has been assumed by some leading social work educators thatstudents in professional training display unproductive or evencounter-productive anxiety in field-learning situations. Ithas been further suggested that this excess anxiety has ledto a certain amount of threat to the ego which could resultin problems in work performance. This paper tells of an investigationinto the impact of previous work experience on the manifestanxiety level and self-concept of a set of graduate social workstudents in a mid-western university in the United States. Datawere gathered using widely used tests, the Taylor Manifest AnxietyScale and the Tennessee Self Concept Scale. Contrary to thehypothesis, prior work experience did not act as an inhibitorof anxiety nor as a support to self-concept. No significantdifference on test scores was found between those students withwork experience and those with no work experience. The writeris unable to satisfyingly account for the lack of significancein these findings. An unexpected by-product of this researchwas the finding that manifest anxiety levels and self-conceptscores of social work graduate students in either category werenot different from those found in other occupational populations.This suggests, tentatively of course, that social work studentsmay not have higher anxiety levels as some of the literaturehas led us to expect. It may be the anxiety that social workeducators see in students in the field is quite within normallimits, that it does not threaten students' self-concepts, andthat it does not inhibit learning     

Constructivism in Social Work: Towards a Participative Practice Viability

Summary Social work has traditionally drawn upon an expansive rangeof social science research and theorizing as its claim upona ‘knowledge base’. Recent debates have exploredthe need for the profession to develop its own theory of socialwork knowledge arising from practice. This paper seeks to extendthe boundaries of these ideas through an operational and epistemologicalelaboration and critique of Sheppard's (1995a; 1998) notionof a practice paradigm. In an examination of the contributionof constructivism and the seminal work of George Kelly's (1955)Psychology of Personal Constructs, arguments are put forwardfor social work practice to focus upon the co-construction ofviable working relationships with service users as the basisfor an anti-oppressive and participative professionalism. Itargues that the sterile philosophical dichotomies between objectivism/realism-subjectivism/interpretivismand the equally unhelpful social work division between practice-theoryshould be integrated within a situated, participatory, constructivistapproach to knowledge creation in social work practice and continuingprofessional development.     

Modernity, Postmodernity and Social Work

Correspondence to Prof. David Howe, School of Social Work, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ. Summary For so long in search of a common base, there are early signsthat social work's intellectual outlook is fragmenting. Theunity that was once sought in both theory and practice as wellas policy and organziation is being abandoned. A child of modernity,social work now finds itself in a postmodern world, uncertainwhether or not there are any deep and unwavering principleswhich define the essence of its character and hold it togertheras a cohernt enterprise. The article outlines some of the characteristics of modernityand postmodernity, relating them to the rise of social work,its formation within modern society, and its current conditionin what many observers believe is a postmodern world. Thereare three ‘visions’ within which people look toleam the ’truth‘ of things, including matters offact and matters of value: those centred in God's word (revelation);those centred in the minds of men and women (reason); and thosede-centred and dispersed withing language, meaning and culture(relativism).     

Value Bases in Social Work Education

Correspondence to Elisabeth Lynn, Lecturer in Social Work, Centre for Applied Social Studies, 9th Floor, Chemistry Tower, University of Wales Bangor, Bangor, Gwynedd LL57 2UW, UK. Summary In this paper the two values of social justice and personalcaring are identified as key ideologies within social work education.Their presence is traced within a historical ebb and flow oftheory and practice and it is argued that this dialectic isembedded in social and individual systems. Based on fieldworkresearch with social work lecturers and practice teachers, itis argued that anti-oppressive social work needs a reflexivetheory/practice model to provide an understanding of how structuralpower affects all aspects of an individual. This demands a workingsynthesis of the two values of Personal Canng and Social Justicewithin an understanding of a multiple approach.     

Cognitive-Behavioural Social Work with Children

Correspondence to: Dr Tammie Ronen, The Bob Shapell School of Social Work, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv, Tel-Aviv 69978, Israel Summary The paper aims to explore the complex and important links betweeninterventions with children, cognitive therapy, and social work.Although children comprise about half of the referrals to socialwork services, they do not generally receive direct treatmentin these settings. Social workers are involved with childrenin the roles of mediator or counsellor and as the supervisorwho is concerned with the placement of the child in appropriatesettings. When the need for direct therapeutic interventionarises, children are usually referred to educational or clinicalpsychologists. Social work as a profession has been foundedupon a psychodynamic approach; however, social workers havealways been concerned with effective treatments, the definitionof clear goals, and the clarification of client needs. Thesefeatures link social work to cognitive-behavioural therapy.Cognitive therapy, although not frequently used with children,is presented in this paper as a means for conducting directinterventions with children which fulfil social work's basictargets and needs.