Minimising Coerciveness in Coercion: A Case Study of Social Work Powers under the Victorian Mental Health Act

The balance between care and control in mental health social work is one of constant tension. In the State of Victoria, Australia, the Mental Health Act 2014 gives coercive powers to social workers employed by public mental health services. These include the power to decide if a person needs to be assessed by a psychiatrist, to “take” a person using bodily restraint, to enter premises, and to search and seize a person’s belongings. This paper applies a doctrinal analysis to examine the law, then argues that the use of these powers by social workers, where safe, may be less restrictive than when they are used by police or paramedics. The exercise of these powers may be less traumatic and stigmatising to the people who are subject to them, and social workers may be both legally and ethically obligated to use coercion when appropriate.

IMPLICATIONS

• More social work literature on the coercive powers under mental health legislation is needed as well as more guidance on using these powers for social workers in practice.

• In some circumstances, these coercive powers may be better exercised by social workers than by other professionals.

• Social workers should carefully consider their legal and ethical obligations to use these powers in some circumstances.

     

CORPORATE FRAME FAILURE AND THE EROSION OF ELITE LEGITIMACY

Extant research on official frames centers on state campaigns, yet nonstate entities also utilize their own official frames. We extend the existing social movement literature by examining the unsuccessful framing efforts of a uranium mill in Cañon City, Colorado. Despite a history of environmental contamination and resultant health problems, the corporation deployed an official frame to reestablish the company's legitimacy and justify their actions following the controversy. Our data included newspaper coverage, archival documents, in‐depth interviews, and direct observation. Findings highlight critical factors that can undermine corporate official frames, and show that failed framing efforts can ultimately erode elite legitimacy.     

Metropolitan Planning and the Phenomenon of Reurbanisation: The Example of Liverpool

This paper considers the process and dynamics of reurbanisation and its implications for metropolitan planning. After brief consideration of reurbanisation trends in the UK, through a case study of the city of Liverpool in North West England, the paper explores how these recent trends of population regrowth and changing patterns of housing production (including purpose-built student accommodation) have affected the social structure of the city and what are the implications for planning policy? The paper concludes that population regrowth has been associated with increased spatial social segregation but is likely to continue and will shape future metropolitan planning.     

New bottles for new wine: Julian Huxley,biology and sociology in Britain

Although sociologists in Britain have debated the nature of their field's relationship with biology since the late nineteenth century, interest in the full range of responses has only grown in recent years. This paper contributes to the spirit of historical revisionism by turning to the work of the biologist and first director of UNESCO, Julian Huxley (1887–1975). Paying particular attention to the doctrine he called ‘scientific humanism’ and his ideas about a biosocial agenda separate from the priorities of biology itself, the paper uses historical tools to address a concern that has frequently cast a shadow over debates about biosocial science: does it interfere with the progressive agenda sociologists have traditionally seen themselves as contributing to? The paper argues that Huxley's work is evidence that biosocial science is compatible with progressive goals and that recent developments in biology mean it may be the ideal time to reconsider long-standing attitudes.     

The end of an era? The resignation of Iain Duncan Smith,Conservatism and social security benefits for disabled people

Iain Duncan Smith resigned as the UK’s Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in March 2016. While not invisible from the debate following his resignation, the fact that changes to social security policy for disabled people were central to Duncan Smith’s time as Secretary of State and central to his (at least public) reasons for resignation was lost in a focus on the internal machinations of the UK’s Conservative Party. In this short article, Duncan Smith’s resignation is used to examine the location of additional cost social security benefits for disabled people in Conservative thinking in contemporary Britain.     

Informed Consent with Children and Young People in Social Research: Is There Scope for Innovation?

Over 20 years of research has enhanced our understanding about the methodological and ethical benefits and challenges of involving children and young people in research. Concurrently, the increasing bureaucratisation of research ethics governance within UK universities has reified expectations about the methods used to gain informed consent for research participation. This paper explores how social researchers in the UK are navigating this tension and whether there is any scope for innovation through the use of technologies in how children and young people provide informed consent to take part in research. We conclude there is a need for the co‐creation of research information with children and young people and greater transparency by sharing creative solutions.     

Social Work Training or Social Work Education? An Approach to Curriculum Design

Population ageing, economic circumstances and human behaviour are placing social welfare systems under great strain. In England, extensive reform of the social work profession is taking place. Training curricula are being redesigned in the context of new standards of competence for social workers—the Professional Capabilities Framework (PCF). Students must be equipped on qualifying to address an extensive range of human problems, presenting major challenges to educators. Critical theory suggests an approach to tackle one such challenge—selecting the essential content required for areas of particular practice. Teaching on social work with older people is used to illustrate this. Habermas' theory of cognitive interests highlights the different professional roles served by the social work knowledge base—instrumental, interpretive and emancipatory. Howe's application of sociological theory distinguished four social work roles corresponding to these. It is suggested that curriculum design decisions must enable practitioners to operate in each. When preparing students to work with older people, educators therefore need to include interpretive and emancipatory perspectives, and not construct social work purely as an instrumental response to problems older people present. This approach provides one useful rationale for curriculum design decisions, which is applicable to other areas of practice, and to contexts outside England.     

Telling the Story of Stepfamily Beginnings: The Relationship between Young-adult Stepchildren's Stepfamily Origin Stories and their Satisfaction with the Stepfamily

The current study adopts a narrative perspective in examining the content of 80 stepchildren's stepfamily origin stories. Results reveal five types of stepfamily origin stories: Sudden, Dark-sided, Ambivalent, Idealized, and Incremental. Results support the hypothesis that story type would predict differences in family satisfaction; stepchildren who described their stepfamily origins as Idealized were more satisfied than those whose origins were Dark-sided or Sudden. Overall, participants framed their stepfamily identity more positively when their stepfamily beginnings were characterized by closeness, friendship, and even expected ups and downs, rather than when they were left out of the process of negotiating or forming the stepfamily and when the beginnings were tainted by issues they considered to be dark. Stepparents or practitioners may benefit from these findings by examining the means by which stepparents may involve stepchildren in the process of stepfamily courtship, facilitate closeness, and set up realistic expectations for negotiating stepfamily life.     

Political influence across generations: partisanship and candidate evaluations in the 2008 election

Recent scholarship in political socialization has moved beyond traditional transmission models of parent-driven socialization to consider alternative pathways, like trickle-up socialization and its predictors. However, these studies have paid less attention to the diverse ways in which parents and children develop discrete political orientations, especially during a competitive presidential campaign. In this study, we examine various pathways through which influence occurs across generations in terms of partisanship and candidate evaluations. Our results suggest that while harmonious attitudes remain the norm, there are substantial opportunities for youth to demonstrate their independence, particularly when gaining perspectives from schools and digital media sources. Our findings indicate the importance of exploring how youth and their parents come to understand politics and the forces that shape youth socialization.