Specialism, Genericism and Others: Does it Make a Difference? A Study of Social Work Services to Elderly People

Correspondence should be addressed to Roger Fuller, Social Work Research Centre, University of Stirling, Stirling, FK9 4LA Summary A previous paper published in this journal (Fuller and Petch,1991) described a preliminary feasibility study designed toinvestigate the effects of organizing social work teams alongspecialist or generic lines. The main study which developedfrom this work is here reported. The study, using modified casereview forms, compares the way samples of referrals of elderlypeople (n=1232) were dealt with at initial assessment and forup to a year subsequently by 15 social work teams of contrastingorganizational approach. The latter include specialist and genericteams, and comparisons are also drawn with teams adopting aself-styled community social work approach. Although the organizationalagenda has moved on since the study began, the issues are ofcontinuing relevance for the implementation of community care,particularly in view of its growing focus on specialist services.While not arguing that there is any one optimal model of teamorganization, the paper sets out some of the measurable consequencesof opting for the various models; in particular, it emergesthat the strengths of specialization are more clearly apparentin certain aspects of their engage ment with clients than inothers and at certain stages of that engagement than at others.