Important Yet Ignored: Problems of 'Expertise' in Emergency Duty Social Work

Summary This paper deals with the important role that emergency dutyworkers play in respect of the variety of situations that arereferred to them outside of the normal working hours of socialservices departments. The first section presents some interimoutcomes of ongoing research suggesting that the variabilityof priorities and assessments made by such workers is even greaterthan might be intuitively expected. The paper questions whetherconventional expectations of social work assessment are applicablein circumstances that are radically different from day-timework. In the second section, the paper explores the evidentmoral dilemmas contained in these circumstances, highlightingthe need for workers to have internalized as ‘expert’as broad a grasp as possible of the diversity of values andmethods of social assessment, decision-making and intervention.The paper continues by considering the nature of expert methodssuitable for the demands of emergency duty work, the need forguidelines for professional judgement, and an appropriate genericframework.     

Social Work, Social Science and Practice Wisdom

Correspondence to Michael Sheppard, Department of Applied Social Science, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth PL4 8AA. Summary Social work has for some time had an ambiguous and ambivalentrelationship with its social science knowledge base. However,this has arisen, at least in part, because of the emphasis onthe outcome or product of social science rather than the processby which research is conducted. This paper, focusing on assessment,argues that an emphasis on process goes some way to closingthe gap between social science and social work, that the methodsused by social researchers are, in many respects, simply refinementsof the methodology of everyday life, and that social workers,when conducting assessments operate rather like practical qualitativeresearchers. Using Analytical Induction as an heuristic device,it proceeds to explore critical characteristics of good practicein social work assessments. It concludes that practice shouldbe characterized by critical awareness, involving imaginativedevelopment of alternative hypotheses, a sceptical attitudetowards case assessments and a principle of adopting hypothesesleast likely to be in error.     

Job Satisfaction and Organizational Structure: A Comparative Study of Nine Social Service Departments

Summary The authors investigated the relationship between aspects oforganizational structure and job satisfaction as experiencedby personnel employed in nine social service departments. Aftera series of unstructured interviews from 28 respondents in oneauthority, interview schedules were used for three distinctgroups of 603 respondents in nine organizations: those makingexecutive decisions, those making supervisory assessments andthose primarily concerned with client interaction. The bestpredictors of organizational structure were dimensions of centralizationand formalization which related significantly but negativelyto job satisfaction. The relevance of these findings is discussedin relation to the rapid growth of social services and the effectit has had on social workers and other employees.     

Working in Partnership in Child Protection: The Conflicts

Correspondence to Dr Margaret Bell, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, University of York, York, UK. Summary This article critically examines the work of twenty-two localauthority social workers undertaking child protection investigations.The findings suggest that, while the social workers were committedto being (and believed their practice to be) participative,the dual tasks of making risk assessments for the conferenceand working in partnership with the families concerned producedconflicts of interests and rights. The impact of these on socialworkers' engagement with family members, on their assessments,and on the decision making process is explored. It is concludedthat the difficulties identified limit opportunities for participativepractice, and that these difficulties are endemic to the presentsystem. It is argued that these findings point up the need fora more broadly based child-care service which more appropriatelymeets the families' welfare needs, and that the contradictorynature of the conference task should be addressed by clarifyingthe legal base of the intervention and developing other modelsof decision making. Some ways forward are suggested.     

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     

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.     

On Teaching and Applying the Law in Social Work: It is not that Simple

Summary The teaching of welfare law to social workers has recently beenthe subject of critical scrutiny. Concurrently the relationshipbetween social work practice and the law, the place that legislationshould occupy in daily working practice, has been openly debated.This paper, based on our teaching and practice experience anda small evaluation exercise, criticizes the principal positionstaken in the debate on that relationship. It also evaluatestwo approaches to teaching law to social workers. We argue thatteaching law to social workers and using legal knowledge andprovisions in practice is not as simple and straight-forwardas some commentators allege. Rather, we argue that, for socialworkers to learn and apply the law effectively, both teachinglaw and any subsequent application of this knowledge must beconsidered in a conceptual frame of practice dilemmas whichconfront every practitioner and create role conflict, uncertainty,ambiguity, and insecurity.     

Trust and confidence: possibilities for social work in 'high modernity'

Summary Those who argue that social work has become 'postmodern' alsosuggest that the demise of foundational knowledge must introduceuncertainty and ambiguity into social worker-service user interactions.Furthermore, if the basis for probability calculations is fatallyflawed, then a dependence on risk assessment and risk managementcan no longer be tenable. Under these conditions Parton (1998)suggests that social work must re-discover trust between Government,managers and social workers and between social workers and serviceusers. In this paper I argue that Parton's analysis of trustis radically incomplete and that a more detailed understandingof the relationship between trust and confidence indicates thevery limited possibilities for trust to re-emerge or to surviveunder current conditions. While I attempt to persuade the readerthat trust is necessary for social work, it is evident thatGovernment prefers confidence to trust. This means that trustcan only be practised at the margins of social work, where itis relatively invisible and does not pose a threat to the pre-eminentconcern with confidence.     

Changing Social Work Roles in Family Centres: A Social Psychological Analysis

Correspondence to Dr R.J. Brown, Institute of Social and Applied Psychology, The University, Canterbury, Kent, CT2 7LZ. Summary This article reports a longitudinal study of field and residentialsocial workers' perceptions of each other in the first ten monthsafter the introduction of a new children and families policyby a large social services department. 1 A central element ofthis policy was the setting up of Family Centres designed tofacilitate closer co-operation between field and residentialstaff. Data was collected from two interviews ten months apartwith 52 field and residential social workers based in two divisionsin the county. Mutual role perceptions indicated a consensusover the traditional division of labour between field and residentialworkers with field workers being seen as having superior skillsin counselling, crisis intervention and case responsibility,whilst residential workers were regarded as better at providingbasic care for and developing close relationships with childrenin care. On only three role dimensions (engendering trust withclients, accuracy in assessments, and preparation work) wasthere any disagreement between the two groups. None of theserole perceptions changed perceptibly over the course of thestudy. However, the social workers' perceived outcomes fromtheir work (for example, pay, training opportunities, promotionprospects, etc.) changed markedly over the ten month period,and varied between the two divisions. In one division evidenceof a changed and more egalitarian relationship between the fieldand residential staff was visible; in the other, both groupsseemed to show a decline in morale and no real change in thetraditional status difference between the groups was apparent.These findings are interpreted in the light of social psychologicaltheories of intergroup relations, and some policy implicationsare discussed.     

Case Finding and Screening for Social Work in Acute General Hospitals

Paul Bywaters, Senior Lecturer, Department of Social Science and Policy Studies, Coventry Polytechnic, Priory St., Coventry, CVI 5FB. Summary Since the first appointment of a ‘Lady Almoner’social workers in hospitals have complained about the problemof obtaining referrals appropriate to their skills and knowledge,and sufficiently early in the patient's stay to allow for effectiveintervention. Often, due to shortage of staff, workers haveto rely on referrals from other staff, patients and carers.But where social workers find their own cases, a wider rangeof problems and patients are selected. In the United Statesduring the past twenty years there has been a rapid spread ofscreening at the point of admission or pre-admission, to identifyhigh risk patients for social work assessment. The evidencefor the effectiveness of this approach to case finding is examined.     

A Qualitative Study of Social Work Assessment in Cases of Alleged Child Abuse

Correspondence to Dr Dorothy Scott, School of Social Work, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Victoria, Australia 3052. Summary While there has been considerable theorizing about how socialworkers think and act, there has been relatively little researchin this area. In the study reported in this paper, in-depthinterviews and observations of practice were used to explorethe process of assessment undertaken by Australian social workersin a hospital specialist service and in a statutory child protectionservice. Using a semi-longitudinal approach which ‘shadowed’10 families (17 allegedly abused children), highly detaileddata were collected from 42 observations of practice and 123interviews with 12 hospital social workers and 15 child protectionworkers on how their assessments evolved over the life of thesecases. While there were some individual differences betweenpractitioners within each organization, of greater significancewere the marked differences between the two groups in the variablesto which they attended. Both groups tended to adopt a proceduralizedmodel of practice which narrowed the range of factorsconsideredin assessment.     

Models of Assessment in Social Work

Summary The provision of a social work service depends significantlyupon assessment of the social situation of clients as determinedby social workers. It is argued that the social worker's ‘understanding’of the social situation is framed within a particular way ofthinking about cause and effect. Three different models of suchthinking are used in practice. They are identified as the linearmodel, systems analysis and the management model. The originsand attributes of each model are described and related to thesocial, economic and political environments which have influencedtheir separate developments. The value base underlying eachmodel is explored. Issues relating to the present position ofsocial work are clarified.     

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.     

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.     

Theory and Practice in Long Term Social Work: a Case-Study of Practice with Social Services Department Clients

Summary This study is based on empirical research into the practiceof 14 social services department social workers with 42 of theirlong term clients. The findings suggest that, contrary to expectation,this type of social work practice is not characterised by aproblem solving approach, but rather by a concern for the containmentof problems and the maintenance of stability. This leads toa restricted form of social work practice which is not linkedto any particular method of intervention. Reasons for this theory-practicehiatus are suggested along with a discussion of the issues surroundingtraining for long term social work of this kind in the future.     

Voices From the Front Line: State Social Workers and New Labour

Summary The article explores the condition of state social work in Englandtoday. It is based on interviews with experienced social workersemployed by local authority social services departments acrossthe north of England. These front line state social workersprovide a penetrating insight into the diverse ways in whichtheir work has been transformed and degraded and the mannerin which the needs of clients have been largely ignored. Fromtheir perspective, the election of a Labour government in 1997proved to be a massive disappointment and many social workersreported that it has further undermined state social work practice,workers and clients. The paper seeks to offer an explanationby noting the neo-liberalism of Labour's social policy and thedire consequences which flow from New Labour's fixation withwaged work as the principal solution to social exclusion andpoverty. Above all, it seeks to provide an opportunity for theviews of front-line state social workers to be heard.     

Self-determination: Lessons to be Learned from Social Work Practice in India

Correspondence to Dr F. K. Ejaz Research Associate Applied Research Institute Menorah Park Center for the Aging 27100 Cedar Road, Beachwood, OH 44122 USA. Summary Self-determination is a controversial principle in social workpractice. On the one hand it is accepted as being central tosocial work and stems from the broader philosophical issuesof autonomy and respect for the individual. On the other hand,there are many doubts about its implications for practice. Thisarticle examines how the Western social work principle of self-determinationis influenced by cultural beliefs and expectations in India. Twenty-six social workers participated in a qualitative studyon the influence of culture on casework practice in Bombay,India. Open-ended questions and case studies were used to examinehow culture specific problems were handled and how workers interpretedand used some of the principles of social work practice. Social workers believed that Indian clients expected to be guidedin a therapeutic relationship. Further, clients were generallyapathetic and fatalistic about circumstances in their lives.Indian social workers came across as being maestros at bridgingeast-west differences. They subtly fulfilled social and culturalexpectations and at the same time enabled clients to assumeenough autonomy to handle their own problems.     

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.     

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.     

Social Work, the State and the University

Summary Some aspects of the triangular relationship between the state,the university and social work are explored. Is it appropriatefor social work to be taught in a university? What are the implicationsof the fact that well over 90% of social workers are employedby the state? And what above all, is the nature of the relationshipbetween critical analysis as the corner-stone of scholarshipand the need to prepare the social work student to functioneffectively in the real world? It is argued that the respectiveattitudes of higher education and government towards socialwork are influenced by the nature of social work's relationshipwith sociology, but that this in turn has not been fruitfulfor practice development.