Keyworkers Re-examined: Good practice, quality of care and empowerment in residential care of older people

Correspondence to Rosemary Bland, Department of Applied Social Science, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4LA, Scotland Summary Social work definitions of ‘good practice’ in residentialcare which were originally developed in work with children andyoung people have also been applied to residential settingsfor other user groups, including older people. However, anylink between such elements of practice and positive outcomesfor users has not always been demonstrated. The introductionof market principles and orientations into social welfare inthe 1980s re-defined the social work ‘client’ asa ‘consumer’ with the associated power to make choicesin the area of social care. The success with which such an approachcan be applied to services for people who are very often, notin a position to exercise much choice, is debatable. Alongsidethe notion of the ‘consumer’ or ‘user’of services has grown the ideology of ‘empowerment’of people who use social work services. Drawing on findingsfrom a recent study, this article explores the contributionof the keyworker role to good practice and the empowerment ofolder people living in residential homes. It concludes that,because their understanding of the concept and practice is largelyundeveloped, the role as currently interpreted is not consonantwith good practice and tends rather to reinforce the power ofstaff.     

Social Work Responses to New Labour' in Continental European Countries

Summary The re-emergence of a majority of centre-left governments incountries of the European Union was associated with the hopethat, after the neo-liberal attempts at its marginalizationand de-institutionalization, social work could regain a morevalued position in society. There are indeed indications thatthe growth of the profession continues and that social workis returning to a more explicit and official role in nationalsocial policies. However, this tends to be associated with anexpectation that social work would play its part in ‘activating’the recipients of welfare benefits in the context of the NewLeft project of shifting from social rights to social obligations.The practical and political effects of this new agenda are,however, modified greatly by the prevailing ‘welfare cultures’as well as the professional and academic discourses. This paperexplores the dilemmas and opportunities for the social professionsin Europe associated with the ‘pull’ to become incorporatedinto these new social policy agendas.     

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     

Informal Welfare, Social Work and the Sociology of Welfare

Summary This article seeks to inject some important but neglected considerationsinto discussions about the nature of informal welfare and thenotice social workers should take of it. Following a sketchof how both sociology and social policy have regarded informalwelfare, it is argued that a sociology of welfare which is sensitiveto the definitions held by participants indicates that socialworkers would be wise to seek to ‘tap’ informalwelfare very cautiously. It is also argued that such sociologyneeds to be accorded a more prominent place in social work trainingcourses.     

Government, Social Services Departments and the Health of Children and Young People: Which Way Forward?

Summary Despite the dearth of research into the health of children andyoung people in contact with or ‘looked after’ bylocal authorities, a series of official and quasi-official reportshave begun to raise awareness of this issue. There are goodreasons to believe that this group of children will be disadvantagedin terms of health as they are in other aspects of their lives.The evidence suggests that local authorities do not live upto the standards of ‘good parents’. Current notionsof good practice are critically appraised and the article concludesthat social work is unable to do more than mitigate the effectsof Government policies which affect health and social servicesand which have lead to widening social inequalities.     

Conceptualizing Community Social Work--a Response to Alan York

Summary This note takes further the task of conceptualizing communitysocial work begun by Alan York in his paper for the June 1984edition of this Journal. York's approach is criticised firstlyfor unhelpfully conflating ‘community work’ and‘community social work’ and, secondly, for developinga schema unable to satisfactorily theorise the range of communitywork approaches currently to be found within social work. Buildingupon York's suggestion that ‘dichotomous formulations’provide an appropriate way forward for analysing community practice,three, distinct, dichotomies are elaborated, and recommendedas a basis for locating and comparing current approaches tocommunity social work.     

Swimming with Dolphins: The Assessment Framework, New Labour and New Tools for Social Work with Children and Families

Correspondence to Dr Paul Michael Garrett, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. E-mail: paul.garrett{at}nottingham.ac.uk Summary Local authorities, in England, implemented the Framework forthe Assessment of Children in Need and their Families in April2001. The Framework is the first ‘official’ standardassessment model intended for use in the initial assessmentof all ‘children in need’ under Part 111, section17 of the 1989 Children Act. This new ‘conceptual map’needs to be understood in terms of previous policy documentsand earlier technologies of intervention related to child protectionand, more broadly, child welfare. However, it also needs tobe more expansively perceived, fixed and located as it relatesto other elements in New Labour's political ‘project’.The Framework's preoccupation with an ecological approach toassessments and with questionnaires and scales are likely tohave major implications for social work practice and for micro-engagementswith children and families.     

Notes on Theory and Practice in Social Work: a Comparative View

Please address reprint requests to Robert van Krieken, Department of Social Work, University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia. Summary There are still a number of problems surrounding the relationshipbetween theories of social work practice and that practice itself.This paper examines the factors underlying those problems andemphasises their roots in the failure to examine the diversityof social work theories and practices. We refer to one attemptto resolve the problems—the distinction between ‘practicetheory’ and ‘theory of practice’—pointout some difficulties with it and suggest an alternative, three-folddistinction within theorising: between (a) materialist socialtheory, (b) strategic practice theory and (c) working concepts. As an example of how those distinctions can be used, we thenbriefly discuss the work of Oskar Negt and its introductioninto the Dutch welfare context, as it was the issues raisedby that which stimulated the ideas in this paper. We concludeby arguing that only this kind of perspective on theorisingcan produce ideas which are of real use to progressive socialwork practitioners.     

Learning from a Murri Way'

Summary Under the modernist project indigenous social welfare work approacheshave been silenced and relegated to the periphery as deficittheory and practice in the landscape of social work. This positioninghas promoted the belief that indigenous expertise and cultureis only of relevance for culturally-sensitive practice. Rejectingthis view, I utilize the findings of a study of intra-grouphelping amongst Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders—a‘Murri way’—to argue that social work theoryand practice has much to learn from indigenous peoples aboutthe interpersonal helping process. I call for recognition ofa space of possibility between indigenous and non-indigenouspractitioners that the indigenous telling creates. This is aspace in between these players who do not share a common understanding,a space where players may participate in a dance of difference(dialogue) to help map a common space of understanding.     

Discourses of Child Protection and Child Welfare

Correspondence to Gordon Jack, University of Exeter, Department of Social Work and Probation Studies, Amory Building, Rennes Drive, Exeter EX4 4RJ Summary The history and dominance of the discourse of child protectionand its influence over social work practice with children andfamilies is discussed in the light of recent research into theoperation of child protection systems in the UK and elsewhere.The often negative effects of current approaches on professionals,parents, and, particularly, children are highlighted. The issuesof confidentiality and empowerment appear to be of central importancefor current debates about the welfare of children and youngpeople. Three strategies for change are outlined and discussed. It isargued that a fundamental challenge to the child protectiondiscourse is required. Parallels are drawn with the changeswhich occurred in attitudes and responses towards football supporters,following the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. The dangers and shortcomings of the present reliance on a diseasemodel of ‘abuse’, with its focus on individual pathology,are analysed. Support is provided for the development of a newdiscourse, which acknowledges the social contexts within whichallegations of ‘abuse’ arise, and without whichsocial work will continue to be restricted to a procedurallydominated conservative orientation to child welfare.     

Ambiguities in Decision Making: Social Work's Response to 'Glue-Sniffing' in Scotland

Correspondence to Dr Elizabeth Jagger, Social Science Department, Park Campus, 1, Park Drive, Caledonian University, Glasgow G3 6LP Summary This paper examines how social workers make decisions aboutwhich cases of ‘glue-sniffing’ require intervention,in the context of a government policy which construes the problemprimarily within the arena of parental responsibility. Usingdata from interviews with social workers and research on ‘glue-sniffing’,it shows that social workers were frequently reluctant to dealwith cases. It explains that this has to do with factors suchas organizational priorities, lack of resources and, in particular,the ambiguous status of ‘glue-sniffing’ within theirown professional discourse. It concludes that the complex interplayof these factors means that government policy is not translatedinto practice in any simplistic manner.     

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.     

Care Management and Professional Autonomy: The Impact of Community Care Legislation on Social Work with Older People

Correspondene to Mark Lymbery, Centre for Social Work, School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. e-mail: Mark_Lymbery{at}nottingham.ac.uk Summary The 1990 National Health Service and Community Care Act appearedto herald a new dawn for social work with older people, whichhad previously been a relatively neglected and undervalued areaof social work practice. The legislation proposed a new rolefor social workers as ‘case managers’, with considerableautonomy and flexibility about the way in which the ‘casemanager’ responded to need. By the time community carepolicy was implemented, the role of ‘case manager’had been transformed into that of ‘care manager’,with a focus which emphasized procedural and managerial requirementsrather than a more flexible professional practice. This paper explores the extent to which this shift has substantivelyaltered the nature of social work practice with older people.It outlines key theories of professions and their applicabilityto social work, and critically analyses the impact of the ‘newmanagerialism’ within social services departments. Thepaper also examines the nature of social workers' practice witholder people following the impact of community care legislation,and concludes that the impact on the social work professionhas been to locate an increasing control of practice with socialwork managers, with potentially serious consequences for thecontinuation of a distinctive social work role in relation toservices for older people.     

The Trouble with Harry: Why the 'New Agenda of Life Politics' Fails to Convince

via e-mail: paul.garrett{at}nottingham.ac.uk Summary Harry Ferguson (2001), referring largely to Britain and Ireland,maintains that social work should be committed to a ‘newway of thinking’ which is rooted in ‘life politics’.This idea, uncritically grounded in the ideas of Anthony Giddensand Ulrich Beck, fails to convince because: the assertion thatwe are now living in a ‘post traditional order’is undermined by the resilience of key historical forms of regulationand control which continue, for example, to limit women's choicein the sphere of reproductive rights; identified changes inthe texture of family relations are not evidenced by research;the ‘life politics’ perspective places too greatan emphasis on human agency, choice and volition and not enoughon structural constraint; the structural location of the ‘lifepolitics’ proponents is not interrogated; the analysisis too stridently dismissive of the idea that ‘emancipatorypolitics’ should be social work's primary orientation.     

Beyond Social Constructionism: Critical Realism and Social Work

Summary Theories within the social and psychological sciences continueto shape social work practice. However, recent debates withinthese sciences on the shortcomings of ‘social constructionism’,and the attempt to overcome them through a critical realistposition, have so far failed to capture social work's attention.This paper provides a critical overview of these theoreticaldebates, highlighting the shortcomings of social constructionismfor social work. The critical realist challenge to social constructionism,as articulated by the British philosopher Roy Bhaskar, is consideredand its relevance to social work formulated in terms of a returnto ‘depth’ in practice.     

Group Work in Intermediate Treatment

Summary This article is concerned with the development of group workin a specialist intermediate treatment project. Using the techniqueof participant observation the author describes the use madeof groups over a six-month period with young people, all ofwhom presented problems of disturbance and/or delinquency. Thepractice portrayed is not ‘model’ but illustrativeof the dilemmas of practitioners beginning to work with groupsof young people for the first time. The evidence of the studypoints to the difficulties that an over-simplified view of participationand democracy can create, and indicates the need for group workersto define their purpose and objectives and to establish a contractor working agreement with group members. In relation to thedebate about ‘talking’ and ‘doing’ inintermediate treatment, it is suggested that a model of groupwork practice that distinguishes between ‘activity asan end in itself’, ‘activity as a means to an end’,and ‘focussed discussion’ may be helpful to groupworkers in conceptualizing the totality of their task. Socialwork with groups is still more talked about than practised.This article describes the attempts of a newly established teamof intermediate treatment workers to practise group work withyoung adolescents whose behaviour and social circumstances wereregarded as problematic. As a part-time researcher attachedto the project team, the author had access through participantobservation to groups over a six-month period and he also hadthe opportunity of listening to group workers discussing theirwork at review meetings.     

Technicality and Indeterminacy in Probation Practice: A Case Study

Correspondence to Department of Law, Crookesmoor Building, Conduit Road, Sheffield S10 1FL, UK. E-mail: g.j.robinson{at}sheffield.ac.uk Summary ‘Technicality’ is a theoretical construct which,in the context of professional practice, refers to those aspectsof the work which can be prescribed, ‘programmed’or subject to routine practices. This paper considers the purportedrise of technicality in probation practice, with particularreference to the relationship between increasing technicalityand perceptions of ‘professionalism’. The paperpresents a case study of one ‘technical’ initiativein the probation context: namely, a structured risk/needs assessmentinstrument. The case study examined the implementation of thisinstrument in two area probation services, with a view to establishingits impact both on the exercise of professional judgement (‘indeterminacy’),and on perceptions of professionalism among users and theirmanagers. On the basis of the case study it is argued that,contrary to many recent commentaries, neither significant reductionsin indeterminacy nor an inevitable process of deprofessionalizationcan be automatically ‘read off’ from attempts tointroduce greater structure and/or standardization to socialwork and probation practice. The tentative conclusion of thispaper is that the professional future lies not in a wholesalerejection of technicality, but rather in achieving a positive,workable balance between technical and indeterminate aspectsof practice.     

'Low Key Practices' in Social Work. Towards a Socio-historical Method

Summary In this article a ‘socio-historical’ method of analysisand intervention in social work will be developed, illustratedby an example drawn from social work with families, the programknown in France as Action Educative en Milieu Ouvert. Our purposeis to support and encourage what we call ‘low key practices’,which refers to practices in which social workers within theexisting structures of so-called ‘individual social work’attempt to explain the social struggle taking place in the situationsthey are dealing with.     

The Victorian Ethical Foundations of Social Work in England--Continuity and Contradiction

Correspondence to Bill Forsythe, Dean of Academic Partnerships, 261, Northcote House, University of Exeter, Exeter EX4 4QJ, UK. E-mail: W.J.Forsythe{at}exeter.ac.uk Summary In this article we argue that during the Victorian era certainethical foundations of best practice were identified and werecentral to the work of particular individuals. We also arguethat there was a strongly discriminatory moralistic basis tosocial policy and mainstream charitable intervention that militatedagainst these ethical foundations. We suggest that this contradictionis replicated in New Labour's ‘Third Way’ and thatwe need to heed the tradition of social inclusion espoused bysome of the Victorian practitioners discussed if we genuinelymean to put into practice the ideas of social worth and communityespoused by New Labour rather than return to the Victorian distinctionbetween the ‘respectable’ or ‘deserving’poor and the ‘pauper’.