Researching social care for minority ethnic older people: implications of some Scottish research

Summary The paper explores issues raised by research on patterns ofwelfare and mutual care among older Pakistani people and theirfamilies, with particular reference to their use, or lack ofuse of social care services. Qualitative interviews were conductedwith (self-defined) minority ethnic older people, professionalsin statutory services and in minority-led community-based groups.The organization of services is discussed, with special referenceto issues of power and control, the role of the voluntary (non-profit)and statutory sectors, the debate regarding the possible needfor specialist versus generic services, and the role of minority-ledinitiatives. Secondly, issues of service staffing are examined,and the dangers of marginalizing minority services and staffreviewed, especially with reference to divisions of labour inservice provision and staff's own perspectives. Thirdly, themethodological implications of the work are explores, includingissues of linguistic and cultural communication and workingwith relatively powerless social groups, whose views are sought.Examining the views of professional social care workers is alsoproblematized, with reference to their gate-keeping role. Itis argued that user perspectives are essential to the developmentof appropriate services for minority ethnic groups. In conclusion,the need to raise these issues in other work is discussed.     

Public Attitudes to Problem Definition and Problem Solving: A Pilot Study

Summary An attempt is made to discover how people define their problemsand on what basis they decide when, and from where, to seekhelp. The focus is upon legal problems since the study formspart of a wider project concerned with the provision of legalservices. Ignorance and misinformation concerning the availabilityof both social and legal services, combined with apathy andresignation on the part of many who need help, are importantfactors determining the non-use of services. Nor can people'sneeds be neatly categorized as social or legal. The overlappingnature of their problems exists at a structural as well as anindividual level; many of the legal problems experienced byindividuals arise from inequalities in the social and economicstructure of society.     

The Supervision of Child Protection Work

Correspondence to Alan Rushton, Course Director, M.Sc. in Mental Health Social Work, Social Work Department, The Maudsley Hospital, 101 Denmark Hill, London, SE5 8AZ, UK Summary It has frequently been recommended that statutory child protectionservices in Great Britain need greater provision of specialistsupervision to support front line social workers. This qualitativestudy, based in social services departments in London, usedthe focus group method to explore the provision of supervisionby team managers in a very pressurized work environment. Thestudy highlights the difficulty of protecting adequate supervisiontime but shows how supervisors can use their skills to conductcase related discussion concerned with developing professionalskills. ‘Inquisitorial’ and ‘empathic-containing’functions are identified and an approach is proposed for combiningthem in training courses for child protection supervisors. Thepaper recommends that supervision training needs to be expanded,to be more precisely targeted, and that outcomes need to berigorously and appropriately assessed.     

Children in Need and their Families: Outcomes of Referral to Social Services

Jane Gibbons. Social Work Development Unit. University of East Anglia. Norwich NR4 7TJ. Summary The Children Act provides a clear remit to local authoritiesfor the provision of services to children in need and theirfamilies. Increased service provision needs to be supportedby evaluation of effectiveness. The paper describes an attemptto develop instruments for this purpose. In a sample of 122families containing children under 14 who were referred to socialservices departments, indicators of family needs, services receivedand their outcomes were used to examine whether services werematched to needs; and whether they had any effect on familyproblems in the short term.     

Exploring the 'Need' for Family Centres: The Perceptions of Social Workers and Their Importance for Planning

Correspondence to Ms J. R. Fells, Wooster Arms, The Walk, Islip, Oxon OX5 2SD. Summary This article follows Gilbert Smith in questioning the usefulnessof some traditional ways of regarding need, which rely mainlyon surveying potential client populations in order to decidewhat provision a social services department ought to make. Itdescribes a small study which examined in detail what socialworkers meant when they said that certain families ‘needed’a Family Centre, and which also looked at the subsequent historyof the department's contact with those families in the absenceof such a resource. It is, therefore, based on looking at whathappened to families when the Centre was not provided, and onanalysing social workers' perceptions of the need they encountered. It is argued that, despite its limitations, such an approachcan give useful indications, not only of what services shouldbe provided but as to the specific way they should be offered.In view of the role played by social workers in assessment for,and allocation of, services, it is suggested that a clearerunderstanding of their perceptions is essential to achieve effectiveservice utilization.     

Reconciling Cash and Care: Home Care Charges and Benefit Checks in Social Services

Correspondence to Pete Alcock, Health and Community Studies, Sheffield Hallam University, Collegiate Cresent, Sheffield S10 2BP Summary This article contains the report of a small research projecton the development of welfare rights checks for home care clientsin social services departments. Welfare rights take-up activityhas become an important feature of provision by local authoritysocial services departments, frequently targeted on particulargroups of clients known to experience problems in claiming fullbenefit entitlement. Users of home care services are such aclient group. Take-up work with home care clients is also, however,a product of the impact of community care policy changes andof financial pressures on local authority social services. Thesehave resulted in the introduction of charges for home care servicesby many authorities, and the use of rebates from such chargesto protect low income service users. Welfare rights work hasthus become an important feature of the reconciliation of thesenew charging policies with the continued service needs of poorhome care clients. The research examined a successful take-upinitiative, linked to home care charges, in Sheffield and contrastedthis with similar activities in other authorities throughoutthe UK. The conclusion is reached that levels of non-take-upof social security benefits are particularly low amongst homecare clients and that benefit checks can secure significantadditional income for them, which may also have the indirecteffect of increasing the income to social services departmentsfrom the charges for home care services.     

The Place of Fostering in Social Work

Summary To foster children is no longer regarded as the main objectiveof the child care services. However, fostering is once againa matter of social work and public debate. The paper explainsthat more types of children are now being assessed as requiringfostering at a time when social service departments are findingit difficult to expand their number of foster homes. This greaterdemand for foster homes coincides with recent researches whichhelp to clarify the nature of fostering. Accordingly, a distinctioncan be made between 'exclusive' and 'inclusive' fosterings.It is considered that a conflict exists between popularity ofexclusive fostering and research findings which stress the valueof inclusive fostering. Research is also identifying the contributionwhich social workers can make in the fostering field. But thedesired inputs of training, low caseloads and staff stabilitypose problems for social work management. Finally, the researchfindings discussed in the paper are used to argue that the forthcomingChildren Bill is not only based on false assumptions about thebehaviour of natural parents but will also promote exclusiverather than inclusive fosterings. A plea is made that childwelfare policy be seen in a larger context of social reform     

Ethnicity and Clients' Social Worker Preference: The Israeli Experience

Correspondence to Prof. E. D. Jaffe, Paul Baerwald School of Social Work, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mount Scopus, Jerusalem, Israel 91905. Summary Israel's society contains three large ethnic subgroups, oneof Western (Ashkenazi) origin, another from Middle-Eastern (Sephardi)background, and an Arab population group. Social stratificationalong ethnic lines is still common, particularly in the socialservices and human services professions. This article describes an empirical research study of how ethnicstereotypes among Ashkenazi and Sephardi Israeli welfare clientsaffect their preference for Ashkenazi or Sephardi social workhelpers, and compares their responses with other Israeli populationgroups. Using a projective test based on passport photos, itwas found that very clear ethnic preferences exist among bothAshkenazi and Sephardi respondents, and that Sephardi respondents,including Sephardi welfare clients, most often prefer to betreated by Ashkenazi social workers. The cross-cultural, cross-nationalimplications of these findings for ethnic relations, the socialservices and the social work profession are discussed.     

Early Recognition of and Responses to Dementia: Health Professionals' Views of Social Services' Role and Performance

Correspondence to Jill Manthorpe, Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King’s College London, 150 Stamford Street, London SE1 9NN, UK. E-mail: jill.manthorpe{at}kcl.ac.uk. Summary Increasing calls for early diagnosis of dementia look set toimpact on social services. This article explores some of theissues, drawing on a series of multi-professional dementia workshopsheld in the UK. The workshops identified a series of questionsthat need to be addressed by social services in the areas ofthe drivers for early assessment, ensuing expectations, problemsand advantages in involving social services, and the benefitsof early diagnosis for individuals and their families. The articlediscusses the implications for social services in light of thedata and notes a possible move to specialist services, withinor without the social services sector. Tensions between currentresource shortages and anticipated demands for services areidentified. The difficulty of meeting low level needs whileservices are targeted on those with high levels of need presentsa further challenge to service delivery.     

A New Approach to Community Care for the Elderly

Summary Organisations can absorb successfully only a few fundamentalinnovations within a short period of time. It is therefore importantfor the designers of innovations to ensure that they directlyand substantially contribute to solving important problems,and for agencies to concentrate their innovative activity onthose that do so contribute. The first aim of this paper isto analyse the policy context so as to clarify the nature ofthe problems that make innovation in the care of the elderlyimperative and show how features of the Community Care Projectcontribute to their solution. The second aim is to provide somepreliminary evidence of the success of the scheme. The analysisof data for seventy persons in the experimental and controlgroups shows that the experimental group fared better in a numberof important ways; and that the gains appear to have been madeat no extra cost to the social services department. Therefore,it is concluded, the adoption of the scheme may contribute tothe technical progress needed in the provision of social serviceto the elderly with needs at or above the margin for residentialcare.     

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.     

Informal, Voluntary and Statutory Services: The Complex Relationship

Summary The argument of this paper is that equitable social care caneventuate only with the acceptance of a greater role for publicsector services. In debates about the development of socialcare, politicians in industrial societies who stress the virtuesof family care are either unaware of the costs to families ofproviding that care, or are cynically expecting a major shiftin social provision and social resources, with the result thatthose least able to provide adequately will find greater burdensthrust upon them. Responses to the exclusions experienced bypeople in the 1980s will require greater state interventionbecause families may have the willingness, but not the capacityto provide the high level care required by dependent relativesand because the voluntary sector is too diffuse and diverseto plan, develop and deliver the bulk of the services.     

Post-Fordism, the welfare state and the personal social services: a comparison of Australia and Britain

Summary The Post-Fordist welfare state thesis locates contemporary socialwelfare change within a wider analysis of the transformationof capitalist accumulation regimes. Whilst this analysis isuseful in directing attention to macro socio-economic change,it has for the most part contained three shortcomings. First,the Post-Fordist thesis has overemphasized the role of historical'breaks' in the development of social welfare as it purportedlypasses from Fordism to Post-Fordism. Second, the thesis hasassumed a degree of convergence between welfare states as aresult of global economic forces. In doing so, it has underemphasizedthe mediating impact of existing institutional arrangementswithin nations. Third, the thesis has assumed, rather than demonstrated,the specific changes which are alleged to be taking place invarious fields of social welfare. As a consequence, aspectsof continuity in social welfare have been neglected. These threelacunae are addressed through a comparative analysis of developmentsin the personal social services in Australia and Britain. Servicesto older people are employed as the specific context of comparisonin relation to three dimensions of measuring transformationalong a Post-Fordist trajectory: a shift from a unitary economyto a mixed economy of service provision; changes in the modelof service delivery and consumption; and strengthening the governancefunction of the central state. This comparative analysis suggeststhe need for refinement of the Post-Fordist welfare state thesisconcerning the restructuring of social welfare and its impacton the personal social services.     

Sponsored Places: The Use of Independent Day-Care Services to Support Children in Need

Correspondence to: Dr June Statham, Project Director, Thomas Coram Research Unit, 27-28 Woburn Square, London WC1H OAA Summary The implementation of the Children Act 1989, with its emphasison family support through the provision of non-stigmatizinglocal services and on local authorities working in partnershipwith voluntary and private service providers, has given a newfocus to the use of independent day-care services to supportchildren in need and their families. This article uses datafrom research in England and Wales on the implementation ofthe Children Act as it affects early years services, to considerthe extent of sponsored day-care, the circumstances in whichit is used, and the issues it raises for local authorities,independent day-care providers and the children themselves.     

Children and young people with a hidden disability: an examination of the social work role

Summary There has been little research attention paid to the natureand extent of social work intervention with children and youngpeople with invisible impairments. The recent study describedhere found that children and young people with a hidden andstigmatizing impairment received a social work service whichwas at a minimal level. The children and young people were affectedby physically induced incontinence, and described how they facedan environment which created particular tensions. Their parentsconcurred with this overall picture and reported unmet needs.Recommendations are made about social services input, but itis recognized that the level of social services interventionavailable to these families may, in part, be a reflection ofa low priority assigned to disabled children generally. It isargued that, although such an assignment is a common picturein recent research about social services provision to disabledchildren, a change in priorities is needed which recognizesthe importance of coherent support to disabled children as ameans of improving their environment and thereby reducing families'stress levels and the likelihood of abuse or rejection.     

More than Two Decades of Changing Ethnic Attitudes in the Netherlands

This article uses data from three studies to examine changing reactions toward ethnic minority groups in the Netherlands (1979–2002). Using realistic conflict theory, Study 1 focuses on support for discrimination of immigrant groups in general. The findings indicate that this support is more widespread in times of high levels of immigration, when the unemployment level has recently risen strongly, and among cohorts that grew to maturity in times of large immigration waves or high unemployment rates. Studies 2 and 3 focus on changing feelings toward different ethnic out-groups in an ideological context (2001–2004) marked by a shift from multiculturalism toward assimilation. Study 2 showed that the shift toward assimilation negatively affected Dutch participants' feelings toward Islamic outgroups, but not to other minority groups. Study 3 used an experimental design, and the results showed that ethnic attitudes are more negative in an assimilation compared to a multicultural context. It is concluded that the structural and ideological social context is important for understanding people's changing reactions .     

Crossing Boundaries: An Exercise in Partnership Provision

Correspondence to Bill Whyte, Department of Social Work, University of Edinburgh, Adam Ferguson Building, George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LL Summary The international movement to develop school enhancement strategiesin secondary schools recognizes the important relationship betweenschool, family, and community as a crucial medium for assistingdisadvantaged children (Crowson and Boyd, 1993). These childrenare equally the responsibility of social work and other publicservices. Many local authorities in Scotland throughout the1980s established what have become known as ‘youth strategies’to improve formal co-operation between education and socialwork, health and police services. This was an attempt to ensureearly identification of young people's difficulties in the expectationof promoting social welfare, enhancing educational attainment,and preventing, among other things, school absent-eeism andthe difficulties associated with school failure. In recent years,the ambition of such strategies has been to focus on primary-agedchildren and their families, as a preventive and protectiveapproach to the damaging effects of multiple disadvantage. Thispaper reports on an innovative project which was establishedto assist pre-school children experiencing multiple disadvantageto make a successful transition from home to primary school.The importance of good collaborative service provision is highlighted, together with an exploration of parents as educators,the provision of social services in an educational settiog.and issues of multi-disciplinary provision.     

Identification of and Responses to Problem Drinking Amongst Social Services Users

Correspondence to Alan Lawson, Research Officer, Department of Social Services, London Borough of Hounslow, Civic Centre, Lampton Road, Hounslow, Middlesex TW 3 4DN. Summary The NHS and Community Care Act (1990) has required local authoritiesto plan for social care aspects of services for alcohol misusers.Research was therefore commissioned by senior managers of theLondon Borough of Hounslow's Social Services Department to investigatethe effect of alcohol misuse amongst Social Services users onthe work of the Department. Research methods are summarizedand the main findings and their implications are discussed.The importance of relevant training was highlighted, in particularin relation to the identification and assessment of alcoholproblems and to child protection issues.     

The Social Work Role in Assisted Conception

¹ Eric Blyth, The University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK. Summary The provision of assisted conception has become a major industryin most industrialized countries, buttressed by powerful professionaland commercial interests. Assisted conception has significantimplications not only for those directly involved or affected,but also for wider society. The paper summarizes the contributionsocial work has made to the debate and to service development,especially in the UK. The author argues that the ethical valuesunderpinning social work, and the Knowledge and skills possessedby social workers, provide both an opportunity and a mandatefor social workers to influence the development of assistedconception services, in particular to ensure that the humanimplications of providing children for people who are involuntarilychildless are not subordinated to the pursuit of technical efficacy.