Stress and Organizational Culture

Summary The relationship between social work and stress is a complexone which remains relatively under-explored. This paper examinesissues arising from a comparative study of stress in three localauthority social services departments. The main focus is on the human resource management issues underpinningthe experience of social work staff. In particular, the roleof organizational culture is explored and the notion of a ‘cultureof stress’ is introduced. This is a key aspect of thetheoretical account presented. It offers an explanation of theidentified differences amongst the three authorities studiedin terms of the subjective experience of common stressors. The paper concludes with a discussion of the major implicationsfor social work agencies in which such an organizational culturehas developed.     

Dying and Bereavement, Spirituality and Social Work in a Market Economy of Welfare

Correspondence to Margaret Lloyd, School of Social Work, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL Summary This paper examines the contribution of social work practiceto the care of people who are dying or bereaved. It considerscurrent challenges to traditional practice arising from societaland organizational change, reaffirming the importance of thesocial work role but arguing that, in order to face those challenges,social workers must broaden their perspective to incorporatea spiritual dimension. The paper draws on a research study conductedby the author.     

Client Careers and the Structure of a Probation and After-care Agency

Summary This paper describes the results of a research project in whichthe first year's work of a newly-established Probation CourtIntake and Assessment Team was monitored. The subsequent changesin the practices of the probation officers are analyzed in relationto client careers and organizational boundaries; some implicationsfor social work practice are discussed.     

Area Teams in Social Work Practice: A Programme for Research

Summary This paper critically examines assumptions underlying the beliefthat the organization of service delivery through a system ofarea teams has major advantages in the field of social work.It is generally felt that area teams are accompanied: (1) byimproved client access to service provision, (2) by a closeridentification with the local area on the part of social workers,(3) by decentralized organizational decision-making, and (4)by an increased sense of colleague support amongst professionalstaff. A review of some relevant literature casts doubt on thevalidity of these assumptions and reveals that the operationalacceptance of the area team principle has not been complementedby thorough investigations of organizational and other influenceson service delivery. In outline a programme of further researchis proposed. The paper attempts to broaden discussion on thissubject and place the basic philosophy of area teams for comparisonagainst a body of empirical research material.     

Cautionary Tales From Beginning Practitioners: The Fate of Personal Models of Social Work in Beginning Practice

Summary The relationship between professional education and beginningpractice is examined by considering whether the personal modelsof social work developed and reviewed by the individual duringsocial work education survived the transition from student toautonomous practitioner. Fifteen University of Queensland socialwork graduates were engaged in a task of making explicit theirpersonal models of social work, by way of repertory grid technique,in their first eight months of employment. The repertory gridwas used as a conversational tool to monitor the developmentof and changes in their personal models of social work. Thesocial workers were thus engaged in a process consciously reflectingon the meaning of, and the reasons for, these developments andchanges. Whilst the study found that personal models do survivethe transition to social work practice, it also highlightedareas of concern. On the whole graduates did not feel preparedfor work, and the initial period of practice was one of considerabledifficulty. Many experienced considerable difficulty in subsumingthe organizational context within their personal model of socialwork.     

Does Area Team Organization Make a Difference?

Correspondence to Roger Fuller, Senior Research Fellow, University of Stirling, Social Work Research Centre, Stirling FK94LA, Scotland Summary The paper describes early stages of a programme of researchdesigned to investigate the effects of different ways of organizingsocial work teams. Initially conceived as an attempt to studythe relative effectiveness of specialist and generic team organization,the focus has been broadened to encompass a range of wider andsometimes cross-cutting organizational variables. After a briefreview of attempts to specify organizational characteristicsand of the methodological problems they pose to the researcher,a preliminary study is reported. This compared services to theelderly delivered by teams exemplifying some of the more prominentorganizational types. The study tentatively identifies a numberof factors which distinguished between teams in social workactivities and in rudimentary measures of client outcome. Thedimensions of further work which would fill out these earlyfindings and explore further organizational effects are sketched.     

An Interview: Constructing Reality

Summary This paper is concerned with the relevance of interactionistperspectives in sociology to social work practice. Crucial tothese perspectives are the ‘meanings’ that peoplegive to situations and the ways they interpret actions. Basically,they are grounded on the assumption that there is no such thingas a single social reality. There are many different constructionswhich depend on the identities of the different people involvedand on the context in which they occur. The paper is based ontape recorded excerpts from an interview between a client, MrsSmith, and a social worker, from a discussion about some aspectsof that interview between the social worker and the writer,and from a discussion about the case between the team leaderand the writer. This material suggests different interpretationsof the situation, information gained in the discussion withthe social worker providing new ideas about the original interview.The views of the different people involved indicate that itis helpful to take into account the organizational context ofthe interviews. It is also suggested that conceiving of interviewsas ways of constructing reality has implications for the studyof social work practice.     

Transactional Analysis: an Introduction to its Theory and Practice

Summary This article provides an outline of Transactional Analysis theory.It also explores some of the advantages and limitations of usingthis approach in social work, drawing mainly on material providedby the writer's work in a Health Centre, and her students' practicewhilst on placements.     

Allocating Blame in Social Work

Correspondence to Geraldine Macdonald, Applied Social Studies, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, Egham Hill, Surrey TW20 OEX. Summary This article takes issue with those who assume that the responsibilityfor bad outcomes in social work, such as child deaths, is appropriatelylaid at the feet of individual workers. It examines the philosophicalorigins of such arguments, some recent applications within socialwork literature and their appropriateness to the realities ofsocial work practice. The author argues that a morality of socialwork must recognize the social and organizational context inwhich it occurs.     

Social Workers who Move into Private Practice: The Impact of the Socio-economic Context

Summary This paper is based on a doctoral research project, conductedin New Zealand between 1993 and 1999, that considered factorsin the movement of social workers into private practice (vanHeugten, 1999). The study employed a qualitative methodologyin which 33 private practitioners were interviewed using semi-structuredquestionnaires. All respondents had at least a first professionalqualification in social work. The research grew from a realizationthat there had been an upsurge in private practice since themid-1980s, during a time of increasingly right wing governmentpolicies, and free market philosophies. These policies and philosophiesled to a radical restructuring of government and not-for-profitorganizations that employed social workers. Some workers respondedto the changes by seeking alternatives to organizational employment.Concurrently opportunities for private practice were createdby the availability of third party payments for counsellingof survivors of sexual abuse and parties to marital disputes.A similar pattern of confluence of expanding social work privatepractice and free market ideology has been noted in countriessuch as Great Britain and Australia. The implications of thismovement into private practice are considered in relation toprofessional social work associations.     

Gentlemen v. Players: Lay--Professional Relations in the Administration of Juvenile Justice

Summary The relationship between professional social workers and laypanel members in the Scottish children's hearing system is examined.We analyse the generation and containment of conflict in thecontext of the disposal of specific cases. Finally we suggestthe implications of our material for the status of social work,the accomplishment of juvenile justice, and the direction oforganisational research.     

Managing Human Services in a Market Environment: What Role for Social Workers?

Correspondence to Karen Healy, Department of Social Work, Social Policy and Sociology, Building A26, University of Sydney 2006, New South Wales, Australia. Summary International research suggests that the market reform of humanservices is leading to reduced opportunities for social workersto achieve organizational management positions. This paper exploresthe future of social workers as managers of human service organizations.It examines the tensions between the social justice principlesthat guide social work and the emerging contexts of social welfaremanagement. The exploration draws on in-depth interviews withthirty-four social welfare managers working in the non-profitsector in Australia. These managers were identified by theirpeers as progressive, that is, as championing social justicevalues such as access, equity and social inclusion. This paperwill report on their approaches to social welfare managementand their perceptions of the threats and opportunities for progressivemanagement practices in a climate of public sector reform. Thepaper will consider how social work educators can better prepareservice professionals for social welfare management positions.     

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.     

Tackling Inequalities in Physical Health: A New Objective for Social Work

Correspondence to Eileen McLeod, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK. Summary We argue that tackling the impact of social inequality on physicalhealth should become a central objective of social work andintrinsic to the development of anti-oppressive practice. Thisis on three grounds. First, the suffering embodied in inequalityin physical health should be a cause of concern to social workers,as a pervasive social problem. Secondly, awareness of socialwork's complicity in contributing to such a problem, throughits historical role in implementing state policies, needs toinform assessment of social work outcomes. Nevertheless, thirdly,social work—not confined to health care settings—whichredresses social disadvantage and tackles its consequences forphysical well-being can contribute to greater equity in health.Indicative examples of such practice are provided in relationto health maintenance, living with ill health and terminal illness.Finally, consideration is given to the current wider politicalcontext in which social work addressing health inequalitiesis embedded and to the need for complementary organizational,professional and political initiatives to buttress its development.     

Social Work at the Crossroads

Summary The contribution of social work to society has always been contested.Social workers work with some of the most psychologically damagedand socially disadvantaged people, and are susceptible to publicdevaluing of the services they provide. Indeed, social workhas been subjected to an ever-increasing volume of public debateand criticism, and its claims to professional status are underthreat. Recent years have seen a constant attack on its valuesand principles, which has taken place at political, organizationaland professional levels. Social work practice has been subjectedto increased managerial control and social workers' levels ofautonomy have been reduced. This has created a sense of crisis,which has been experienced particularly within social servicesdepartments (SSDs), the main source of employment for socialworkers. The paper will argue that its survival as a recognizableprofessional activity is dependent on the extent to which itcan redefine its role within society, and re-establish clarityabout its overall purpose and function.     

Medicalization of Social Workers in Mental Health Services in Hong Kong

Correspondence to Dr Kam-shing Yip, Associate Professor, Department of Applied Social Studies, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong. E-mail: ssksyip{at}polyu.edu.hk Summary Medical dominance is a crucial problem in social work practicein mental health services. This paper is an examination of theresponse of social workers to medical dominance in mental healthservices in Hong Kong. To explore the process and the effectsof medicalization of social workers, sixty-three social workersin various areas of mental health service settings were interviewed.Their reaction and daily performance in facing medical dominancewere analysed and evaluated. The findings show that facing medicaldominance was a common occurrence for social workers in variousmental health services in Hong Kong. Conflict existed betweenthe rationalization of medical knowledge by medical professionals,and social work rationalization of social work knowledge bysocial workers. The process of medicalization consisted of fivestages: ignorance of medical dominance, confronting medicaldominance, compromise with medical dominance, acceptance ofmedical dominance and internalization of medical dominance.The findings also show that medicalization was influenced bythe organizational and team context.     

Social Work and Child-centred Family Court Mediation

Correspondence to Dr Greg Mantle, APU, Ashby House, Floor 2, Brook Street, Chelmsford CM1 1UH, UK. E-mail G.J.Mantle{at}apu.ac.uk Summary In April 2001, the Children and Family Court Advisory SupportService (CAFCASS) became responsible for family court work,including the provision of mediation services. Family courtmediation offers a gateway for social work with children andfamilies whose needs are largely left untouched by current services,and could thereby play an important part within the broaderextension of prevention, early intervention, parenting and supportservices recommended by government. Over the past two decades,mediation has become a popular approach to reducing conflictand resolving disputes in a wide range of inter-personal, communityand organizational settings. Given the professional interestthat social workers have in helping their clients achieve moreharmonious lives, the space for mediation would appear considerableand yet the connections between mediation and social work are,as yet, insufficiently mapped and analysed, in terms of boththeory and practice. This paper draws on literature and recentresearch to review the relationship between family court mediationand social work.     

On the Relevance of Informal Social Networks to Social Work Intervention

Summary Taking as its starting point the Barclay Committee's definitionof community in terms of local informal networks, this papersets out to cull some relevant material from the literatureof social networks and to use it to demonstrate the appropriatenessof orienting social work practice to the community. In suggestingan emphasis on supporting rather than supplanting existing informalcaring systems, it is made dear that, if motivated by parsimonysuch an approach risks irresponsibly increasing distress andsocial costs.     

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.     

Literature and the Therapeutic Imagination

Summary The therapeutic imagination is closely related to the literaryimagination and is concerned with similar issues of the relationshipof the self to society. The study of literature needs to bean integral part of social work education if workers are tobe helped to confront the dilemmas faced by the social worksensibility.