Prior Criminality and Employment of Social Workers with Substantial Access to Children: A Decision Board Analysis

Correspondence to Joanne M Smith, Department of Social Policy and Social Work, 20 Portland Villas, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, Devon PL4 8AA Summary The central purpose of this research was to find the extentand circumstances of the influence which a criminal record hasupon appointment as a social worker with substantial, unsupervisedaccess to children. One would suppose that applicants with aconviction for indecently assaulting a child would never beappointed, but that those with other kinds of record would beappointed to the extent to which prior offences were relativelytrivial, distant in time and involved property rather than people.The reality was much less clear-cut. The study may be seen asa way of depicting the pattern and process of current practice.It has clear implications for the refinement of guidance toachieve nationally desired ends of child protection. This article will draw upon data gathered for a Ph.D., incorporatinginterviews with every social services department (SSD) in Englandand Wales. The study has yielded interesting findings relatingto (inconsistency in decision making across SSDs. The findingsfrom the first 64 interviews have been used for the article.Preliminary analysis suggests that the remaining interviewsshow similar patterns. The focus will be on possibly the mostsignificant finding of the research: that six SSDs in a decision-makingprocess relating to a number of fictitious candidates, revealedthat they would have agreed to employ one of the candidatesas a children and family social worker, despite knowledge ofthat candidate's conviction for indecently assaulting a child.     

THE COMMON POOL, BARGAINING, AND THE RULE OF CAPTURE

Firms producing from a single oilfield face the common-pool problem: how to divide production and profits among themselves. The rule of capture creates competition among them to produce the oil before anyone else does, and a tendency for overproduction. Private bargaining among the firms can avoid the wasteful production practices associated with the rule of capture and increase joint profits. This paper explores the structure and expected outcome of the common-pool problem, and demonstrates that smaller producers hold a bargaining advantage that is not easily overcome by larger producers or neutral arbitrators.     

POLLING ON THE ISSUES PUBLIC OPINION AND THE NUCLEAR FREEZE

Throughout the first term of the Reagan administration, thenuclear freeze movement headlined the news and scored numerouspolitical victories. Hundreds of state and local governments,as well as the U.S. House of Representatives, passed resolutionsin support of the freeze. Public opinion polls played a majorrole in the debate, as the media and freeze advocates citednumerous polls indicating overwhelming public support for theinitiative. Yet a comprehensive and detailed examination ofnational polls reveals that public support for the freeze cameheavily qualified. While Americans expressed strong supportfor the basic concept of a freeze, they expressed doubts aboutthe possibility of a verifiable and balanced freeze agreement.Furthermore, the public doubted that the Soviet Union genuinelydesired such an agreement. Most surprisingly, the public didnot pay much attention to the debate. Few Americans claimedto know or care much about the freeze initiative, and fewerstill felt positively toward the political activists behindthe freeze.     

House Effects and the Reproducibility of Survey Measurements: A Comparison of the 1980 GSS and the 1980 American National Election Study

This paper examines a collaborative experiment between the GeneralSocial Survey, National Opinion Research Center, and the AmericanNational Election Study, Center for Political Studies. Identicalitems were asked by both surveys, thereby permitting a testof reproducibility and house effects. Significant differenceswere found between the houses, with the largest and most systematicdifferences involving item nonresponse. Various explanationsfor the differences are examined and a general assessment ofthe importance of the differences is presented.     

ASSETS, SAVINGS AND LABOR SUPPLY

This paper examines the role of assets in labor supply functions. Although assets have frequently been used to measure the response of hours worked to non wage-related income, it is generally incorrect to include them in a labor supply equation. Using a simple life cycle model, working hours and assets are shown to be simultaneously determined by similar economic forces. Therefore, the correlation between them should not be accepted as evidence of a causal sequence from assets to market work. An empirical test of the life cycle implications for savings behavior is performed using data from the Survey of Economic Opportunity.     

Social Work and a Relatives Support Group in a Psychogeriatric Day Hospital: A Research Note

Summary During the course of an evaluative study of a new psychogeriatricday hospital we encountered the fact that amongst the staffthere is very widespread support, in general terms, for theimportance of offering a service to the relatives of patients.A Relatives Group, in which the social worker attached to thehospital plays a leading role, is a major component of thisservice. However, the Group remains comparatively self-contained,is organised somewhat separately from the main body of hospitalactivities, and in practice systematic liaison with relativeshas not formed any major part in the planning and design ofthe organisation as a whole. Apart from the Relatives SupportGroup, there are only a small number of occasions on which relativeshave any regular contact with hospital staff. In this note we shall summarise our research which describesthe nature of social events which are encompassed within theGroup meetings. The research concludes that the Relatives SupportGroup sustains an ideology of service to relatives while confiningmany of the practical tasks so entailed to an organisationallocale which limits the degree of ‘relatives disturbance’to the rest of the institution. An implication of this thesisfor social work in medicine is that, in so far as social workersplay a significant part in running such groups, their attemptsto introduce relatives in this way as significant consumersmay, ironically, serve only to limit the impact of this groupwithin the system of medical care.     

Social Service Teams and their Managers

Summary A study is reported of the perceived effectiveness of teamsof social workers and their managers. Prior studies are reviewedand shown to give disproportionate emphasis to the supervisionelement in the manager's task. It is shown that in the sampleof teams studied the correlates of perceived team effectivenesswere quite different in area teams from those found in socialwork teams. Social work teams required a manager who was primarilysupportive, whereas in area teams the manager's role was foundto be less important than were group process variables.     

The Introduction of Contracts in a Family Service Unit

Summary An article written by John Corden, in an earlier issue of thejournal, examined the application of the concept of contractin social work practice, drawing on the legal paradigm. Thispaper develops some of these ideas in a more specific way; itdescribes the way in which contracts were introduced betweenthe workers and clients of a Family Service Unit After settingout the context in which the idea was introduced, the differentfeatures of some contracts between workers and families arereported, along with the views of the different parties. Thismaterial is used to illustrate and develop some of the ideasdiscussed in the earlier paper.