Spirituality and Social Care

In this paper I discuss the main theoretical ideas in the book and the way in which the author applies them to social casework. I consider the relevance of these ideas to contemporary social work in terms of their contribution to the knowledge base of social work and social work methods. I argue that Kleinian ideas can make an important contribution to understanding the interpsychic and intrapsychic aspects of human experience with which social workers come into contact. I suggest that the author writes about the casework relationship with little regard to the social and political contexts in which social work is undertaken and that in contemporary social work, there needs to be a relationship between three different elements, namely: the client--as an individual within their social context; the emotional dynamics of the client-worker relationship; and the integration of theory, social policy and the legal framework.     

The Dutch “National” Curriculum Computer Applications for Schools of Social Work

Summary

This paper describes the current situation of computer education in the schools of social work in the Netherlands, new policy in curriculum development, and the development of a new comprehensive curriculum on computer applications. The basic philosophy of the curriculum and a firm relation to social work practice are discussed. To illustrate these developments, an outline of the curriculum for social casework is presented as a kind of status report.     

Social work in a multi-racial and multi-cultural environment

Abstract

Managing race and culture in social work is a matter of conceptualising and incorporating these dimensions in basic, sound casework, and in the structures of support and supervision which enable individual workers to provide this service.     

Vital Connections: Using Literature to Illustrate Social Work Issues

Abstract

This paper introduces a four stage teaching model which encourages students to use fiction as a source of mental imagery and insight into social work issues. Teachers can use the stages flexibly for different courses and levels of student expertise. The model has been developed by the authors during three years of formally implementing it in a range of undergraduate and graduate syllabi. The authors present this approach following detailed observation of the quality of written assignments, classroom interaction and student feedback. This is an exciting way of teaching traditional courses which generates a lively atmosphere for learning.

“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.”

T.S. Eliot

(“Little Gidding,” The Four Quartets)     

Being neither Pollyanna nor Henny Penny: Responding to McDonald and Jones

Abstract

This paper provides an account of the earliest contributions to family theory and practice by social workers, beginning in the late nineteenth century. The paper argues that the first widespread practice of ‘family work’ by the helping professions was carried out by social workers, primarily women, despite this being rarely acknowledged in the family therapy literature. An analysis of gender and its place in the development of professional status and the ownership of ideas is provided.

Summary

This paper has traced the place of the family in social work theory and practice since the beginnings of the profession, with a particular focus on theoretical developments in social work in the United States. A number of points have been argued. Firstly, there is significant historical evidence that social workers, most of them women, pioneered family work many decades before the term ‘family therapy’ was invented. This directly challenges the claim made by a number of family therapy historians that work with families was pioneered by psychiatrists in the 1950s and 1960s. It is argued here that this discrepancy is largely a result of differences in professional power and gender status.

Secondly, it is argued that the impact of psychoanalytic theory on social work was profound, not only in terms of how it might have distracted the profession from further developing its early family systems focus, but also in how its multidisciplinary practice tended to place social workers, again mostly women, in somewhat limited and prescribed positions.

In addition, it is argued that social work's emphasis on the family and family intervention has waxed and waned due to these concepts not appearing to fit neatly into divisions between fields of practice, such as casework, group work and Community development. While social work struggled with finding a place for the further development of family social work theory, the rapidly growing domain of family therapy quickly colonised this field of practice, giving little credit to the ground already laid by social workers.     

“Live Social Work”: How to Bring Life Back into Social Work

Abstract

In this article I discuss how professional social work can entail critical, reflexive work. This is accomplished by adapting the concept of “live sociology”. It is mainly an exploratory article, trying to raise suggestions that can be adopted and be further developed. I argue that people coming into contact with contemporary social work are sometimes reduced to being “dead” objects, as they are pinned down into static categories. The demand for developing evidence-based social work risks substantiating this tendency even further. In contrast, I claim that social work needs to move away from these kinds of explanations and instead turn towards developing “live social work”; that is to say, social work where everyday life, agency, and what people do in what context needs to be the focus, not what people are.     

Nothing to give at all

Abstract

Adlerian psychology has been publicly neglected for many years but has been used covertly in many modern psychologies. Social work theory owes much to Adler's philosophy and many social workers probably unknowingly use it — in whatever guise — as their starting-point. But if Individual Psychology is their spring-board, the casework relationship may be their life-raft — to the detriment of creative and therapeutic work with people. Adler's ideas and social work theory are of value only in so far as they are expressed in the relationship of the worker with the client. For the most part, certainly in statutory agencies, other demands make it difficult for workers to operate from anything other than a defensive position. Therapeutic community practice, in contrast, reflects both Adlerian psychology and the best of social work theory: an egalitarian approach springing from a commitment to self-determination for both clients and workers.     

Recognising Strategy and Tactics in Constructing and Working with Involuntary Social Work Clients

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on the author’s academic work on working with involuntary clients, which began with a knowledge exchange project in Scotland. I reflect back on this work and use it as a way to explore subsequent reflections on the field. These move beyond consideration of the skills required to undertake such work through locating the category of involuntary clients within wider, yet contradictory, governmental discourses on client engagement. These are identified as the strategy that sets the context for such work. But the strategy is enacted through the day-to-day tactics of social workers on the ground; such tactics, enacted in everyday encounters, are constitutive of effective but also ineffective engagement with clients. The discussion goes on to problematise the distinction between voluntary and involuntary clients and to suggest that effective social work practice, whatever the nature of that involvement, requires that clients are recognised at an ethical and relational level.

IMPLICATIONS

• The term involuntary client(s) cannot be taken for granted but is constructed and needs to be understood in particular and often contradictory policy and professional contexts.

• Effective but also ineffective ways of working with involuntary clients go beyond the acquisition or demonstration of particular skills but are embodied in the everyday relational practices of social workers.

• Ethical engagement with involuntary clients proceeds from a sense of mutual recognition.

     

Teddy Bears: Facilitators of Love,Friendship and Therapy

Abstract

An edited version of a paper delivered to the Scottish branch of the Group for the Advancement of Psychodynamics and Psychotherapy in Social Work, Edinburgh, Winter 1976.

After finishing her degree in Social Science in Dublin Una McCluskey took her professional training at Edinburgh University (1971), specialising in psychiatric social work. She worked for a number of years in a Department of Child and Family Psychiatry, where she was the Principal Social Worker, and was involved in the Innovation of the in-patient treatment of whole families. She worked with Barnardo's in Edinburgh, and went as a lecturer to York University in 1978. Interests have always lain in the marriage of psychodynamic and systemic thinking and the application of these ideas to working with individuals, families and organisations.     

The systems' approach and social work methods

Many social work courses are now using ‘system theory’, or as I prefer to call it, ‘a systems' approach’, in teaching social work method on a unitary basis. Most social work techers recognise that the systems' approach is not enough on its own and that traditional methods have a place in practice. What is not clear is how these methods relate to the systems' approach.

In this article the relationship between the systems' approach and various methods and theories of intervention is explored in a number of different ways. Firstly, there is an examination of the relationship of various client, target and action systems. Secondly. Lippitt's analysis of the ‘diagnostic orientations’ of change agents is discussed and related to strategies aimed at changing the goals and the power structures of target systems. Then certain counselling and casework methods are considered in relation to Lippitt's analysis, leading on to a brief comment on methods of intervention based on systems' theory. Finally, an educational strategy for presenting this approach is discussed.     

Social work and technology: Challenges for social workers in practice: A case study

Abstract

Social Work is just beginning to consider the full impact of technology on practice. In this paper the experience of social workers working in Centrelink, the Australian Government's service delivery organisation, is explored in the context of Centrelink's increased reliance on technology to deliver its services to six million Australians. The results of a survey that indicated nearly one half of Centrelink's social workers have received no formal training in how to use the technologies they rely so heavily on in their work are considered, as is the role of the social workers who are working as a part of Centrelink's call centre network. It is argued that social workers need to be careful not to confuse means and ends when it comes to utilising technology as a part of their practice.     

Surviving incest: Feminist theory and practice

Abstract

In the last few years it has become inescapably clear that incest is relatively common and that it is mainly young girls who suffer this violence from men in their families. This article is based on in-depth interviews with Icelandic and English incest survivors. The material is analysed from a feminist perspective. My understanding of the experience and the effects of incest on the survivors lives, and opens new possibilities for social workers working with them. Consciousness-raising, the women's strength and resistance on the one hand, and equality and validation of their experiences on the other, are the basis of the work. Finally, I maintain that feminist theories and practice open new and timely possibilities for better social work practice generally.     

Social Work and Criminal Justice

SUMMARY

We shall begin with the principal, and complicated, conclusion: Regrettably, the social work profession has largely abandoned the criminal justice field. That is not to say that social workers are not employed in criminal justice settings. Certainly they are. Significant numbers of social workers earn their living as probation and parole officers, caseworkers in public defender offices, counselors in correctional institutions and halfway houses, and so on. As a profession, however, social work no longer has a major presence in the criminal justice field (Gibelman and Schervish, 1993). Relatively few social workers embark on their professional education with the aim of employment in the criminal justice field. Virtually no courses in social work education programs focus explicitly or comprehensively on criminal justice (Knox and Roberts, 2002; McNeece and Roberts, 1997). Workshops offered at professional conferences or continuing education seminars rarely focus on criminal justice issues per se. And, relatively little serious scholarship on criminal justice issues is authored by social workers.

Interestingly, this has not always been the state of affairs. Earlier in the profession's history, social workers were much more visible and vocal participants in dialogue, debate, research, and practice related to criminal justice. Ideally-in light of social work's unique perspectives on practice and social problems, and the profession's noble value base-the profession will reclaim its preoccupation with criminal justice. As Sarri (2001) concludes with respect to social workers' involvement in the juvenile justice system in particular:

Thirty years ago, social workers were in leadership positions in juvenile justice in the majority of states. In the 1980s, a gradual decline began in agencies and in social work education for practice in juvenile justice. Some have suggested that the decline was at least partially due to professional resistance to working in coercive settings with involuntary clients. However, given the millions of people now caught up in the criminal justice system who are not receiving the social services they desperately need, it is a priority that social work return to a more central role in criminal justice. (p. 453)     

A (not so) simple dialogue activity

ABSTRACT

This article explores the research on peer-to-peer dialogue in higher education, including the innovative practice of intergroup dialogue and other practices such as nonviolent communication and contemplative listening. I then describe an activity I do with my community college students, in a context where lack of time and other resources do not allow a more resource-intensive dialogue practice. I ask them to experience dialogue with several free, easily available resources, including nonviolent communication, contemplative practice, and public radio podcasts from On Being, then have a conversation outside of class in which they mostly practice deeply listening to someone with different political beliefs than they have. They may make a brief attempt at dialogue or nonviolent communication. I discuss how my activity may accomplish some of the goals of intergroup dialogue and be useful where students are learning about diversity and inequality across social divides, including in social work education and sustainability education. I nest this activity in a course that involves some contemplative practice, to explore how both sustainability education and the social justice component of social work may benefit from contemplative practice. Finally, I detail some other resources about hope and despair that support this activity.     

Milford Redefined: A Model of Initial and Advanced Generalist Social Work

Abstract

Social work has long sought a conceptual framework to describe its most basic approach to service delivery: generalist social work practice. A milestone in that process was the series of Milford conferences in the 1920s during which the elements of “generic casework” were first identified. This article presents a model that advances and clarifies the concepts of generalist social work as viewed at the beginning of the 1990s. Generalist social work at both the initial and advanced levels involves a way of viewing practice. It is a perspective that focuses on the interface between systems, on a client-centered and problem-focused philosophy, and on an openness to multiple theories and approaches for improving people's well-being. Practice at the initial level requires a set of competencies necessary to provide services consistent with the understanding derived from the perspective. Advanced generalist social work represents increased complexity in the learning process and greater breadth and depth of exploration in a generalist perspective rather than a uniquely different perspective from the generalist approach.     

Introduction

Abstract

The author shares some practice experience and personal reflection on her introduction to working with people with disabilities. Recognizing that the construct of “disability” is in the eye of the beholder, she shares an outline for one approach to an introductory course in working with people with physical, cognitive and developmental, and psychiatric disabilities. Common themes in practice and service delivery are discussed, as well as the unique role social workers can play in interagency collaboration.