Capacity Building and the Reconception of Political Participation: A Role for Social Care Workers?

This paper explores a citizen-based approach to social workwhich may counter modern negative managerialist pressures onpractice. It links the discourse concerning the growth of userinvolvement in public policy with the discourse about participationin political activity and suggests a role for social workersin supporting service users in initiatives such as self-help,campaigning and community action which offer a new interpretationof community-based social work. By engaging in this activity,health and social care professionals can support people to participatein emerging forms of active and inclusive citizenship. Whileparticipation in traditional political activity such as votingand political party membership is declining in the UK, peoplein marginalized groups are finding ways to have their voicesheard about issues which directly concern them. Increasingly,groups such as disabled people, older people and mental healthservice users/survivors are taking part in activity which marksa shift of focus to include both self-help and campaigning.In contrast to their disillusion with traditional politicalactivity, people across a range of groups have gained strengthand encouragement from campaigning achievements. The paper drawson a national research study which offers fresh insights onthese issues as a basis for exploring participative approachesto social work practice.     

Advocacy for parents and carers involved with children's services: making a difference to working in partnership?

This paper explores findings from the evaluation of a scheme providing direct advocacy to parents where there were concerns about their ability to provide safe care for their children. The evaluation explored the views of service users, social workers and conference chairpersons and found general agreement that the advocacy scheme contributed positively to the process of working in partnership. This is of interest given research findings which suggest that working in partnership is particularly difficult in cases involving child protection issues. However, it is noted that there appears to be little political will to develop advocacy schemes for parents in the UK, and this is of concern given the lack of supports available to them to navigate a complex and often intimidating system.     

Social Work Practice in Conflict-Ridden Areas: Cultural Sensitivity Is Not Enough

This paper tries to raise awareness of the distortions thatviolent political conflict may introduce into social work practicewith members of the rival community, and proposes training guidelinesfor social workers to help reduce those distortions. The understandingof the impact of political conflict on practice is based onthe Israeli–Palestinian experience. The suggestions regardingwhat social workers should be aware of when practising in situationsof political conflict, however, and the training guidelinesthat are offered can apply to practice in other conflict-riddenareas worldwide.     

The nature and culture of social work with children and families in long‐term casework: Findings from a qualitative longitudinal study

Social work in the United Kingdom is preoccupied with what social workers cannot do due to having limited time to spend with service users. Yet remarkably little research has examined what social workers actually do, especially in long‐term relationships. This paper draws from an ethnographic study of two social work departments in England that spent 15 months observing practice and organizational life. Our findings show that social work some of the time has a significant amount of involvement with some service users and the dominant view that relationship‐based practice is rarely achieved is in need of some revision. However, families at one research site received a much more substantial, reliable overall service due to the additional input of family support workers and having a stable workforce who had their own desks and were co‐located with managers in small team offices. This generated a much more supportive, reflective culture for social workers and service users than at the second site, a large open plan “hot‐desking” office. Drawing on relational, systemic, and complexity theories, the paper shows how the nature of what social workers do and culture of practice are shaped by the interaction between available services, office designs, and practitioners', managers', and service users' experiences of relating together.     

The Post- and the Anti-: Analysing Change and Changing Analyses in Social Work

Correspondence to Dr Liz Lloyd, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, 7 Priory Road, Bristol BS8 1UA Summary This article considers some of the issues raised by criticsof postmodern analyses of social work. It analyses the waysin which social services departments have changed to a ‘post-fordist’organizational form and considers the implications for equalitypolicies and anti-oppressive practice. It challenges the viewthat preserving a more professional approach to social workoffers greater opportunities for anti-oppressive practice thanthe more deprofessionalized approach currently being developedand argues that social workers committed to the principles ofanti-oppressive practice can develop new tactics appropriateto the changing organizational context It also argues that postmodernistanalyses offer new insights into experiences of power, oppressionand inequality. In particular, it stresses the importance ofunderstanding the linkages between broader, political and economictrends and the experiences of individual social workers andservice users. Drawing on research in Avon Social Services, it considers theways in which race equality strategies in community care continueto reduce issues of race and racism to culture and identity.Reflecting critically on anti-oppressive and anti-racist actionit argues that the limitations placed on anti-oppressive practiceunder the postfordist context of community care are unlikelyto differ greatly from those felt under previous organizationalregimes.     

Bonding and Bridging Social Capital Development by Social Workers

ABSTRACT

Developing service users’ bonding and bridging social capital is an increasingly recognized role of social workers. A survey of 570 Chinese service users, sampled from 41 social service units in Hong Kong, provided data for the study. Results demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity in a confirmatory factor model about the measurement of bonding and bridging social capital development, mutuality, and assistance to the community. This evidence for the validity and usefulness of social capital development endorses social workers’ role in developing service users’ social capital. Further research needs to assess the generalizability of the present findings in other sociocultural settings.     

Calling Social Work

New Labour has promoted the use of information and communicationtechnology. Call centres are a key development in this strategyand are now in use for accessing social services. In officialpolicy, the use of call centres is presented as an aspect ofattempts to change the relationship between service users andthe purchasers and providers of services. In contrast, we suggestthat the use of call centres in social care does little to shiftthe balance of power. Call centres bring together four dimensionsof New Labour discourse: learning from the private sector, cuttingcosts, technology and consumerism. Three issues emerge fromtheir development: the undermining of social work’s senseof place; the circumscribing of service user participation;the rationalization of social workers. The call centre servesas a signifier of what, it is claimed, the combination of NewLabour’s consumerism and technology can achieve. Thissignification disguises call centres’ properties of efficiency,calculability, predictability and control. Contrary to the rhetoricthat accompanies them, call centres may be curtailing serviceuser participation, as well as delimiting the social work role.Accordingly, their use has important, but as yet largely unresearched,implications for service users and social workers.     

Challenges and dilemmas working with high‐conflict families in child protection casework

Social workers within child protection services report that families marked by high levels of conflict between separated parents are among the most challenging cases to handle. Few studies however have focussed on how social workers themselves experience and meet with parents involved in hostile martial interactions. This article reports on a qualitative study involving 31 social workers and provides an analysis of their experiences and dilemmas in working with such families. Findings demonstrate that social workers struggle to find ways to help high‐conflict families and often find themselves at an impasse. Parents involved in such conflict are highly resistant to change, and social workers struggle to engage with them over concerns about their children. Furthermore, findings suggest that social workers lack organizationally allotted time to assist the parents. I conclude by discussing ways in which emotional support, empowering interventions, and strength‐based approaches enable social workers to manage relationships with high‐conflict families. More research on this topic is needed to support and promote better practices for social workers to be more effective in assisting high‐conflict families.     

Mental Health and the Asian Communities: A Local Survey

Correspondence to Barbara Hatfield, Lecturer in Psychiatric Social work, Department of Psychiatry, 12th Floor, Mathematics Building, Manchester University, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL Summary The survey of people from the Asian communities in ‘Milltown’included people who used mental health services, family membersof service users, and members of the Asian general public. Personaland social stresses of the group were explored, as were theirperceptions of the ‘causes’ of mental ill-healthand appropriate responses. Although most people saw family andsocial stress as central, a religious dimension was also prominent,in terms both of causes and treatment of mental ill-health.There was no evidence of rejection of mainstream services becauseof a choice on the part of Asian families or communities tobe self-servicing. A range of issues identified by respondentssurrounded the cultural acceptability of services in ‘Milltown’to Asian people. A lack of knowledge of service availabilitywas also apparent, with a heavy reliance upon GP services formental health care in the community. The findings of the surveyare compared with similar studies, where available, which focuson indigenous white British service users. Some findings arecommon; other issues are specific to this Asian group.     

Implementation of Active User Principle: Learning from the Czech Social Services Reform

ABSTRACT

The active user principle introduced in Czech social services by the new Act on Social Services (2007) was expected to induce change of the prevalent paternalistic nature of social service provision. This study examines the relationship between clients and social service workers in social service facilities designed for people without shelter. From 2001 to 2008, instrumental case studies were examined from three different shelter facilities using qualitative interviews (with 17 members of staff) and document analysis. The findings indicated that neither the frontline workers nor the managers could always understand how to implement this principle. Response patterns and the effect it had on recipients are examined. These findings imply that such a profound change needs to be supported with proper explanation, professional training, and practical application skills. Directions for further application and future research are suggested.     

Bringing the social back: rethinking the declension narrative of twentieth-century US labour history

Recently historians have produced several important synthetic works explaining the decline of labour. Much of the scholarship advancing or supporting declension narratives of US labour are national studies grounded in political and urban history. In declension narratives, national business, political and labour leaders emerge as the primary actors, while pushing rank-and-file workers to the side. Declension narratives also neglect serious analyses of race and class formation, gender, radicalism and workers’ agency. This article argues for an approach that integrates more social history concerns into twentieth-century US labour history without forsaking the most illuminating contributions of declension narratives. Such a model illuminates and interrogates workers’ agency in response to political and economic transformations after 1945. An approach integrating social history would contextualize the construction of solidarity and identity formation in political and economic transformations such as deindustrialization, the rise of the retail and also the service economy. Rather than explain the history of US labour from a national perspective, the approach would also feature local studies. This article suggests that, by incorporating some or all of the aforementioned points, scholars of US labour history could deepen or challenge declension narratives that either marginalize workers or reduce them to passive victims.     

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.     

The Changing Nature and Context of Social Work Research

Summary Social work research is constantly diversifying and expandingand this article explores its changing nature; including changesto epistemology and practice; and the critical influence ofthe wider economic, political, theoretical and practice changesoccurring to social work itself. The author discusses a numberof issues facing social work research: the enduring conflictsof ways of knowing, doing and valuing social work research;the role of practitioners as researchers; and the challengeto empower service users as self-determining researchers.     

Data collection: are social workers reliable?

Social workers are required to collect a considerable amount of personal information about clients and their families which may be unrelated to direct clinical work. Administrators often use this for the purpose of payment, service documentation, agency planning, and accountability. The worker's concern about the appropriateness of collecting this data may result in poor compliance or even falsification of information. In a survey of Minnesota social workers, noncompliance with data collection requirements was substantial. The authors also found a significant degree of conflict about privacy and confidentiality issues. These findings suggest a basis of concern for those who must rely on accurate data for administrative planning.     

Practitioner Research: Evidence or Critique?

In this paper, I revisit some of the origins and more recentdirections in practitioner research in social work, seeing itas a phenomenon that—rather than being special or narrowlyassociated with social work—manifests a pervasive clusterof concerns about good professional practice in contemporarysociety. Drawing on some general conclusions of a recent studyof practitioner inquiry, I indicate ways in which the widersystems of which it is a part frequently hamstring the potentialof such research to operate as more than a fringe operation—a‘street market’ version of mainstream research.I outline four ways in which social workers, service users,agency managers, academics, government departments and universitiesshould work to a transformative agenda for practitioner research—transformativefor both practice and research. This will involve refashioningthe interface between the methodology and methods of practiceand research; generating practitioner research capacity; recognizingthe subtlety and critical potential of a genuinely ‘practical’agenda in practitioner research; and rescuing practitioner researchfrom a simply technical information-providing function, thatby-passes the challenge to promoting critical practice.     

Perception of job satisfaction, service effectiveness and burnout among Arab social workers in Israel

Over the past three decades, the topics of job satisfaction and burnout have become a major focus of interest in research and professional training in the field of social work. However, there is a serious lack of studies focusing on these issues in the context of Arab social workers in Israel. This paper presents the results obtained from a subsample of Arab participants in a national study of Israeli social workers. It focuses on the correlations between several career outcomes and organizational conditions such as role characteristics, work conditions, job mastery, and power. Challenge at work and job mastery were found to be the most significant and consistent predictors of the outcome results. The implications of the results are also discussed.     

Risk, Mental Disorder and Social Work Practice: A Gendered Landscape

Whilst the importance of gender for social work practice, riskand mental health has been recognized theoretically for sometime, few attempts have been made to explore this area empirically.This paper presents findings from a mixed-methods study of socialwork practice in relation to mental health service users perceivedto be ‘high-risk’. Findings suggest, first, thatthe concept ‘high-risk’ was gendered because theprimary focus in social work practice was on the risks posedby male service users to others. Second, female social workersin the present study were found to have more female serviceusers from their caseloads who had been defined as ‘high-risk’compared with their male counterparts. The paper goes on toexplore this apparent congruence between female social workersand female service users and highlights how the management ofrisk could be considered gendered because it reflects a worker’s(perceived) capacity in cultural terms to ‘decode’the nature of the risks that their clients face as genderedsubjects. The paper demonstrates how the intersections betweenrisk, mental disorder and social work practice can thereforebe understood as a gendered landscape. It concludes by highlightingthe implications of these findings for social work practiceand research.     

Catch 22--Black Workers' Role in Equal Opportunities for Black Service Users

Correspondence to: Beverley Prevatt Goldstein, BECON, 4a Callerton Place, Newcastle, NE4 5NQ, UK. Summary This paper is based on the findings of a qualitative study ofblack social care workers (28) in white-led organizations, largelyin the north east of England. This study sought to assess theextent to which the practice of employing black workers to promoteequal opportunities for black service users led to additionalstress for black workers and to identify the contradictionsin this employment practice. It explored the expectations blackworkers held of themselves and perceived others to hold of themvis-à-vis the promotion of equal opportunities, the levelsof stress of black workers, and the black workers' perceptionsof their working conditions. This paper summarizes the findingsof the study, largely through the respondents own words, andanalyses how this approach to equal opportunities for blackservice users may contribute to negative working conditionsand high stress levels for black workers. It concludes thatin order to reduce the stress of black workers and provide abetter service for all, organizations need to move towards askills based rather than a ‘race’ based ethos andto constantly challenge the homogenization, interpersonal andinstitutional racism experienced by many black workers.     

Social work with African refugee children and their families

This article explores the issues and dilemmas that arise when social workers attempt to work with African refugee and asylum seeking children and their families. There is a complex interplay between social workers’ skills and knowledge in this area and the prevailing social attitudes towards these groups of service users. By initially setting the context of mass movement of peoples from situations of danger in their countries of origin, the discussion highlights the key issues and shows the tensions of practice intervention in this area. Drawing on a small‐scale research study with social workers and discussions with immigration officers and workers in voluntary agencies working with refugees and asylum seekers, the article draws some conclusions about the lessons that can be learnt in order to improve practice.     

Dual Relationships: Personal and Professional Boundaries in Rural Social Work

Social workers in rural areas often live and work in the communitiesthat they serve. Consequently, they may have, or later develop,dual relationships with service users. These ‘out of hours’connections raise some complex issues about how social workersconduct their practice and comport themselves socially withinthe wider community. This paper reviews the notion of dual relationshipsand assesses the schema proposed for assessing their ethicalprobity. Its conclusion is that the practical realities of ruralpractice challenge absolutist conceptions of confidentialityand undermine assumptions of objectivity and neutrality in professionalstance.