Some Implications of an Integrated Model of Social Work for Theory and Practice

Summary This paper is an attempt to assess the significance of the introductioninto this country of an ‘integrated’ or ‘unitary’approach to social work. An attempt is made to clarify the relationshipbetween paradigms, theories and models. The author claims thatan integrated approach to social work may represent a shiftfrom a predominantly individualistic conceptual model of practiceto an interactionist one. These conceptual models are comparedand critiques of the integrated model are examined. The questionis posed: is it possible to have an integrated model of practicewithout an integrated theory? Some suggestions are made concerningthe essential characteristics of such a theory and the possiblecontribution of sociology to its development Finally, some implicationsof the model for practice and for social work education arediscussed.     

Some thoughts on the relationship between theory and practice in and for social work

Summary The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of the disciplineof social work and to argue that perhaps its central and uniquecharacteristic is the way theory and practice are closely interrelated.In doing so it suggests it is important to locate social workin its particular social, political and historical contextsand to identify some of the key factors which have influencednot only its development but its forms. Social work is identifiedas being essentially ambiguous, complex and uncertain such thatits major strengths are in terms of its ability to improve dialogue,understanding and interpretation, rather than simply be concernedwith legislating and acting with authority. In this sense ithas the potential to make a significant contribution to thecontemporary social sciences more generally.     

A Defence Against the Public? Aspects of Intake in a Social Services Department

Summary This paper looks at certain aspects of a social services department'sduty and intake systems in the light of the theory of institutionaldefence. This theory, which has to do with the way that organisationsdeal with anxiety provoking events, is described, and a numberof ‘defences’ are identified and discussed.     

Evangelical Christianity, Secular Humanism, and the Genesis of British Social Work

Correspondence to Dr Graham Bowpitt, Department of Social Sciences, The Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham NG1 4BU, UK. E-mail: graham.bowpitt{at}ntu.ac.uk Summary This paper is a reappraisal of the Christian origins of socialwork and, as such, is a contribution to writing the profession'shistory. It examines the competing ideological roots of theconcept of ‘social work’ which emerged in late nineteenth-centuryBritain, and the extent to which they are derived from the Christiancharitable tradition or its secular transformation. Two featuresof early social work are examined in particular depth: its moralpurpose in relation to the Evangelical belief in charity asan instrument of spiritual revival; and its rational methodsin relation to secular beliefs about the possibility of personaland social change. Much of the paper focuses on the ideological and institutionalrelationship between the emerging activity of social work andEvangelical revivalism which formed the context for most latenineteenth-century philanthropy. The crisis of faith experiencedby Victorian intellectuals is a significant motif throughoutthis period. This is not an attempt to rewrite the history of social work,but to re-examine neglected features in its origins: EvangelicalChristianity and its secular humanist transformation. In doingso, it is hoped to throw light on the recent revival of interestin the importance of religion to social work.     

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.     

A Political Critique of Kantian Ethics in Social Work

Correspondence to Stephen A. Webb, Department of Social Work, University of Dundee, DD1 4HN. Summary This paper addresses the Kantian theory of the subject whichis found in contemporary social work discourse on ethics andvalues. It is argued here that the Kantian idea of persons as(i) rational, (ii) autonomous, and (iii) ends-in-themselvesis wholly inadequate to the social work doctrine of ‘respectfor persons’. To show this, we counterpose a Foucauldianview of history, moral codes and theory of the person, and themeaning this can have in the social worker-client relation.This alternative reading claims that social work is essentiallya political practice which is constructed by various discursiveand institutional strategies of power. Therefore, it is suggestedthat social work needs a political reading of its own discourse.To this end we outline a Foucauldian micro-political analysisof the social work ‘subject’ or person as a pointwithin a field of discursive-knowledge based strategies.     

Some Questions About the Reverse Tariff

Summary The modified version of the reverse tariff theory, developedby Pauline Hardiker, claims that a matrix combining risk andneed is implicit in the recommendations made to courts by probationofficers. This version of the theory is criticized on threecounts. (i) A number of counter-examples are examined: someof them imply factors other than risk and need which probationofficers take into account; others illustrate types of recommendationwhich, relative to the theory, have an anomalous form; (ii)it is suggested that, in any event, Hardiker does not have anadequate theory of how ‘need’ and ‘risk’are combined; (iii) it is argued that, given the evidence onwhich it is based, the reverse tariff model cannot have thestatus which Hardiker appears to claim for it.     

The Social Environment--A Model for Exploring Service Interventions with Mentally Handicapped Adults

Summary Using a model derived from systems theory, the needs of mentallyhandicapped adults are examined. Interventions are generatedwhich have implications for social workers in implementing normalizationprinciples.     

Professional Values and Ethics in Social Work: Reconsidering Postmodernism?

Correspondence to Professor Richard Hugman, School of Social Work, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia. E-mail: r.hugman{at}unsw.edu.au Summary The ‘postmodern turn’ in social theory has raisedquestions for understanding the social world. The implicationsof these debates for social work values and ethics are the centralfocus of this article. The implications of a postmodern viewof social work are examined and compared with criticisms ofpostmodern theory. It is argued that a critical considerationof postmodern insights may assist social work to examine thediverse, provisional and uncertain nature of all aspects ofour world, including knowledge and skills, values and ethics.Such an approach strengthens the case for a discursive modelof ethics.     

Responding to Youth Crime in Scotland

Correspondence to Bill Whyte, Director, Criminal Justice Social Work Development Centre for Scotland, School of Social and Political Studies, University of Edinburgh, Flat 1FR, 31 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LJ. E-mail: B.Whyte{at}ed.ac.uk Summary Scotland’s Children’s Hearings deal with young peoplewho offend within an integrated system dealing also with youngpeople in need of care and protection, on the assumption thatthe difficulties of both groups have similar roots in multiplesocial disadvantage and social adversity (Whyte, 1998a). A government-fundedstudy, one of the first since the system’s inception in1971, was commissioned to examine the social characteristicsof over 1,000 children and young people referred for offenceand nonoffence reasons. This paper describes the characteristicsof 465 of the young people who were referred specifically foroffending. It provides the first ‘official’ datain twenty-five years on young people in the system. The studyfound that most of those referred for offending had characteristicsstrikingly similar to those referred for nonoffence reasons,as predicted when the system was first established, and similarto those present in the general literature on young offendersfrom other jurisdictions. The study poses fundamental questionstaken up by the Scottish Executive’s review of youth crimeon how best to design systems and develop social interventionsthat can address offending and social disadvantage in an integratedway.     

Disability and Social Work: Applications from Poststructuralism, Postmodernism and Feminism

Correspondence to Barabara Fawcett, Department of Applied Social Studies, University of Bradford, Bradford, West Yorkshire BD7 1DP, UK. Summary In this article it is argued that poststructural and postmodernperspectives have something useful to offer social work, providedthese orientations are informed by the ‘social criticalpower of feminism’ (Fraser and Nicholson, 1993, p. 428).A case study is used to consider the utility of applying feministpoststructural and postmodern perspectives. It is contendedthat these orientations not only serve to link practice to theoryin a different way and to open up new avenues for exploration,but can also be seen to make a contribution to the debate aboutthe current constitution of social work.     

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     

Themes and Continuities in Radical and Traditional Social Work

Summary Traditional and radical social work are amongst the principalcombatants in the paradigm-crisis that is alleged to characterisecontemporary social work. In considering the way in which thesetwo theoretical stances approach one of social work's centralproblems—the relationships between the person and society—itis argued that what is revealed is as much overlap as disagreement.This is in part through the subdued radicalism of a traditionalapproach which struggles to comprehend the effects of societyon clients' lives, and in part because radicalism is incorporatedinto prevailing ways of thinking through having to answer thesame questions as social work orthodoxy. It is because of thisthat Marxist social work is shown to be inevitably compromised,though this is not to deny the important contribution of radicalismin providing more satisfactory answers to crucial social workproblems.     

Social Conflict: Implications for Casework Practice

Summary The concept of social conflict is examined in terms of its usefulnessin refining and extending social casework theory. Attentionis given to the influence of the homeostatic approach to caseworkpractice versus an approach utilizing a conflict orientation.Primary emphasis is given to Coser's sociological theory ofconflict in an effort to discover heuristic concepts which areconsidered to be applicable in the practice of social casework.Specifically, seven of Coser's original sixteen propositionsrelated to conflict theory have been selected for analysis.It is concluded that a conflict orientation would serve to clarifythe functional aspects of conflict as they relate to the dyadiccasework relationship     

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.     

The Impact of the First Term of the New Labour Government on Social Work in Britain: The Interface between Education Policy and Social Work

Summary This paper considers how far the New Labour educational policyrepresents a clear shift in focus from the policies of the Conservativeadministrations of the 1980s and 1990s. As in other areas ofsocial policy, the paper concludes that current government policyowes as much—if not more—to ‘New Right’ideology than to that of the ‘Old Left’. With anew emphasis on social inclusion, the paper considers the contributionof, and implications for, contemporary developments in educationpolicy and practice for child and family social work in general,and education social work in particular.     

The Changing Conditions of Social Work Research

Summary This paper seeks to make a contribution to the current debateabout the changing nature and purpose of social work research.It identifies several approaches to social work research evidentin the UK and further afield and, in particular, examines differentways of engaging with research participants in the researchprocess. The changing role and relations of research arisingfrom the use of more inclusive practices are then considered;first in terms of the relevance of research for practice, andsecondly, in relation to knowledge claims in the developmentof social work theory and practice. With the ever-growing developmentsin information and communication technologies, where Westernideas and initiatives continue to dominate in relation to bothmodels of social work and research approaches, an argument ismade for dialogue throughout the research process, the centralityof negotiating skills and reflexivity, and a more creative useof conventional research skills. Dialogue, in the form outlinedhere, provides a means of encouraging a ‘connectedness’between research, practice and theory, at all levels—theparticular location where the research takes place, the widernational context and the international or global stage.     

Social Work as Uncommon Sense

Summary Social work needs to resist pressures to identify itself solelyat a superficial level of common sense responses to social problems.It has to go beyond this to recognize its use of ‘uncommonsense’ as the means by which social workers cross therelationship gap and respond to their client's needs. The importanceof doing this in the early stages of relationship, as in crisisintervention, are considered, and stress is placed on holdingtogether both the explicit task-related aspect of the relationship,and the less obvious emotional interchange. By means of theiruncommon sense, social workers are enabled to reflect for, andshare with clients their areas of pain, in such a way as torender them more tolerable.     

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.