Contract or Con Trick? A Reply to Rojek and Collins

Correspondence should be sent to Leeds Family Service Unit, 15 Lavender Walk, Leeds 9, Yorkshire. Summary In this paper we identify some major misconceptions in a paperwhich appeared earlier in this journal. We argue that contractwork has been misunderstood and that contracts can be used effectivelyand without dishonesty. In particular, the point is made thatcontracts are a practical working concept which offers a meansof discussing and resolving clashes in perspective and of modifyingthe unequal power balance between clients and social workers.     

"Contract" and Admission to Old People's Homes

Summary Various authors have recently recommended that residents inOld People's Homes should have ‘contracts’. Thisarticle begins by discussing the nature of contracts in general,and the circumstances under which contracts are or are not feltto be appropriate. The nature of Old People's Homes is discussed, and it is shownthat, under what would be considered good practice, there arefew reasons why Homes should not offer contracts. A final sectionputs forward some advantages which contracts might bring.     

Tracing the contours of postmodern social work

Summary Postmodern ideas and the ferment of debate generated by themcontinue to influence and challenge social work policy and practice.Recent discourses within the social science literature haverarely acknowledged earlier contributions concerning the developmentof social work in the context of the debate between modernistand postmodernist epistemology. This paper examines some ofthe links between earlier and more contemporary ideas, and inso doing highlights their complementary nature and the potentialcontributions they offer to the shape and texture of socialwork in the future as it seeks to define itself in a postmodernworld. Examining these debates in this way enables them to beperceived as helpful resources for social workers to draw upon,rather than choices from which to exclude. It is therefore possibleto begin to map the contours of changing practice as it evolveswhilst understanding something of its origins, traditions andconnections. This paper concludes by recommending a broaderintellectual panorama and less allegiance to opposing theoreticalpositions by social work policy makers and practitioners whofeel constrained to choose between either postmodernist or modernistepistemology.     

Community Work: Social Realities and Ethical Dilemmas

Summary This article reviews the contributions of sociology and politicalsciences to the understanding of communities and relates theseto some of the key problems facing community workers. It suggeststhat an effective assessment of some of the ethical dilemmasfacing community workers must be based upon a cool appraisalof those urban social structures which are commonly and largelymisleadingly regarded as communities     

Abortion: With Particular Reference to the Developing Role of Counselling

Summary This paper suggests that counselling is a rapidly expandingfield in which professional and para-professional workers mightcombine to produce an effective service, given appropriate selectionand training procedures. Initially these are seen as being providedby professionally qualified social workers with relevant experience.The author has used her own social work experience in abortioncounselling to exemplify the article and to discuss some ofthe existing problems for workers and clients alike.     

Huntington's Chorea and the Young Person at Risk

Correspondence should be sent to J. R. Korer, Mental Health Research Unit, Manchester University, Department of Psychiatry, Stopford Building, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PT. Summary Social workers increasingly find themselves involved with familiesin which one or more individuals suffer from genetic disease.Huntington's chorea is such a condition and has serious implicationsfor other individuals, both in the nuclear and extended family.This paper explores some of the likely responses of young peoplein such families and how they can best be helped. A social workerneeds to be aware of the differing responses to varying degreesof risk and how young people in the situation can be advisedand helped. It follows on from an earlier study (Korer and Fitzsimmons,1985) which looked more specifically at family life within thesefamilies.     

Communication in Care and Coercion: Institutional Interactions between Family Supervisors and Parents

Summary In this study the interaction of 51 videotaped professionalcommunications between Dutch family supervisors and parentsof children under family supervision were analysed. Family supervisionlies at the interface of care and control. This is evident inthe communication of professional child welfare workers withtheir clients for whom they have to clarify their rights. Theanalysis shows some of the strategies used by Dutch family supervisorsin cases of formal decisions and other interactions where theyanticipate confrontation with the client. In this way, familysupervisors separate their caring from their repressive functions.Nevertheless care and control were found to be successfullyintegrated in some communications.     

Comparative Hypothesis Assessment and Quasi Triangulation as Process Knowledge Assessment Strategies in Social Work Practice

Summary Despite a debate lasting some decades, there has been littleor no clear resolution about the way knowledge may be relatedto practice. To a considerable degree this is because of anassumption that knowledge is ‘knowledge as product’:given knowledge, researched and applied to practice. In recentyears, the concept of ‘knowledge as process’ hasemerged, focusing on knowledge of rigorous ways to think aboutpractice situations. This has generated a focus on hypothesisgeneration, testing and falsification, as well as lessons tobe learned from rigorous methods of qualitative analysis insocial research. Rigorous social workers, it has been suggested,would behave like ‘practical qualitative researchers ofthe individual instant’. However, there is little empiricalresearch on the matter. This paper evaluates process knowledgeforms used by social workers. It presents findings that socialworkers vary considerably in the extent to which they develophypotheses about the whole case, or aspects of it, in the depthwith which they analyse cases, and the systematic way they pursuean information gathering strategy. The paper concludes thatthere is clear evidence of social workers behaving as practicalqualitative researchers, but the rigour with which they do sovaries, with fundamental implications for the training process,and the extent to which rigorous strategies, along the linesof research methodology, should be taught.     

Social Workers and Supervision Orders: A Case of Occupational Uncertainty

Summary A distinctive feature of the supervision order is that it canbe administered either by the Probation Service or by the LocalAuthority Social Services Department. An examination of the case files on a large sample of boys (N=971)aged 14–16 placed on supervision orders for criminal offencesreveals a number of differences between the way in which workersin the two agencies approach the task of supervision. The findingssuggest that social workers are in some respects less professionallysecure and certain as to their purpose in performing their supervisorytask than are probation officers. This is accounted for by locatingtheir practice in a number of intersecting contexts, includingan occupational ambivalence over the exercise of authority anda lack of clarity in relation to the role of welfare in thecontext of juridical requirements     

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.     

Problems in the Perinatal Prediction of Child Abuse

Summary The aim of this paper is to consider and comment criticallyupon the recommendation by some eminent authorities that effortsbe made to design and implement procedures to predict the abuseof children. My view is that this move toward prediction—‘sponsored’largely by American paediatricians—is less of a new departurethan an extension of the dominant conceptual tradition wherebychild abuse is seen as analogous to a disease. However, in spiteof its basis in a medical model, it is clear that the idea thatthe abuse of children can be accurately predicted has greatappeal for many social workers. I shall argue, however, thatserious obstacles stand in the way of prediction; that theseobstacles are insufficiently appreciated by the advocates ofprediction; and that—consequently—social workers(and others) should temper with scepticism their enthusiasmfor these developments.     

Career Patterns of Qualified Social Workers: Discussion of a Recent Survey

Summary The article presents some of the findings of a recent surveyon the career paths of qualified social workers. The factorsinfluencing career progression, and particularly moves intomanagement, axe explored. Wastage rates and the relationshipbetween job characteristics and people's decision to leave socialwork are also discussed. Finally, the article looks at levelsof job satisfaction among social workers.     

Child Abuse, Social Anxiety and Welfare

Summary This article attempts to locate the ‘moral panic’concerning child abuse within the context of broader changesin the material conditions and ideological forces in Britainin the early 1970s. It argues that the development of a senseof social anxiety amongst certain sections of the populationand the appeal of the New Right were crucial in the processof establishing the problem as the major issue for social workers.As a consequence social workers have been constrained into amore punitive and interventive relationship with children andfamilies, particularly the poor. The analysis illustrates thatthe way social workers experience role conflict and tensionin this area of their work reflects much wider historical andcultural confusions and contradictions.     

Feminism and Social work: Resistance or Dialogue?

Summary This paper seeks to explore some of the factors underpinningsocial work's apparent resistance to feminism and to dilineateways in which a more active relationship might benefit socialwork's women consumers. It argues that, by marginalizing feminism,social work has perpetuated individualistic explanations andresponses to women's specific needs and problems. Finally, insuggesting some practical strategies for making use of feministideas and experiences, particular consideration is given tosome of the contradictions which may be engendered for thosesocial workers who are actively endeavouring to integrate feministperspectives into their practice.     

A Role for Anyone? A Description of Social Work with the Elderly in Two Area Offices

Summary This article analyses information from Case Review Forms completedby social workers on 199 allocated elderly clients. These peoplewere very frail, most were considered to be ‘at risk’and to require regular, reliable and frequent care. The questionof the client moving to a tafer setting arose in two-thirdsof the cases, concerning which there was often some dispute.It is argued that social workers require a high level of professionalskill in dealing with clients, and others involved, faced withsuch questions and that this requirement will remain with thedevelopment of ‘community social work’.     

Social Workers' Orientations: an Action Perspective

Summary The established sociological approach to social workers' orientationshas led to a restricted picture of the day-to-day conduct ofsocial workers. Adopting a different perspective, the work discussedhere resulted in an ideal typology of eight orientations. Thearticle describes these types and refers briefly to some propositionsand conclusions that arise.     

Interaction Between Field and Residential Social Workers

Summary This paper is based upon collaborative project work with a socialservices department aimed at improving interaction and collaborationbetween field and residential social workers. It describes theprinciples upon which it was agreed that interaction shoulddevelop. These include notions of case-accountable staff, acollateral model of interaction between staff and the idea ofone party being identified as a prime care agent. Based on theseprinciples it sets out a model arrangement for clients enteringresidential care which recognizes the need for precision aboutthe nature of key decisions that need to be taken with clientsand the way these decisions should be taken.     

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     

Social Work in the Welfare Network: Negotiating Daily Practice

Summary Interactions with other organisations and occupations in thewelfare network form an indispensable part of contemporary socialwork practice. Yet attempts at collaboration between socialworkers and others are beset by obstacles which create instabilityand potential disorder. The usual organisational responses tosuch problems are of limited relevance. Even so, day-to-daycollaboration is accomplished. This is explained and analysedas a negotiated order which is underpinned by interdependencebut framed by inequality of power and authority. The negotiativedevices of social workers are discussed and some implicationsof the analysis for social work education are identified.     

Primary and Secondary Social Services

Summary Against a background of discontent with some aspects of currentorganization of SSDs, a number of criteria for good organizationdesign are offered. Central to these is a questioning of currentassumptions that social workers should normally provide theirservices from generic area offices. In its place a notion ofPrimary (as being those which do demand local neighbourhooddelivery) and Secondary services (as being those which requirea specialized, more concentrated delivery, often in collaborationwith other disciplines) is offered. Detailed suggestions abouthow such a model would look in relation to different clientconditions are made.