scholarly journals From Snapshots of Practice to a Movie: Researching Long-Term Social Work and Child Protection by Getting as Close as Possible to Practice and Organisational Life

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (6) ◽  
pp. 1706-1723
Author(s):  
Harry Ferguson ◽  
Jadwiga Leigh ◽  
Tarsem Singh Cooner ◽  
Liz Beddoe ◽  
Tom Disney ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Work Teams ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Longitudinal Approach ◽  
Staff Supervision

Abstract Research into social work and child protection has begun to observe practice to find out what social workers actually do, however, no such ethnographic research has been done into long-term practice. This article outlines and analyses the methods used in a study of long-term social work and child protection practice. Researchers spent fifteen months embedded in two social work departments observing organisational practices, culture and staff supervision. We also regularly observed social worker’s encounters with children and families in a sample of thirty cases for up to a year, doing up to twenty-one observations of practice in the same cases. Family members were also interviewed up to 3 times during that time. This article argues that a methodology that gets as close as possible to practitioners and managers as they are doing the work and that takes a longitudinal approach can provide deep insights into what social work practice is, how helpful relationships with service users are established and sustained over time, or not, and the influence of organisations. The challenges and ethical dilemmas involved in doing long-term research that gets so close to social work teams, casework and service users for up to a year are considered.

scholarly journals Embodied Social Work Practice Within Risk Society

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 673-691 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Smeeton ◽  
Patrick O’Connor
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Extreme Risk

This paper critically discusses the limitations of theorising social work from psychological and sociological perspectives and argues that phenomenology offers more opportunity to understand the embodied experiences of service users and social workers themselves. The paper argues that psychology and sociology have a limited analysis of being-in-the-world, which ought to be social work’s primary consideration. The paper offers an overview of the sociology of risk before embarking on an extensive description and discussion of Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology applied to the lived experience of child protection social workers working within risk society. The argument is put that phenomenology is a useful tool for understanding the lived experience of social work practitioners. Findings: The authors conclude that embodied social work practice containing fear and anxiety can be thought of as akin to taking part in extreme risk sports and that this is an unhealthy experience that is likely to skew decision-making and adversely affect the lives of social workers and service users. Applications: The authors argue that phenomenology can enhance understanding of practice and decision-making and offers insights into the lived experience of social workers. Phenomenology is useful for helping social workers negotiate risk-saturated environments, through a focus on meaning.

scholarly journals Hostile relationships in social work practice: anxiety, hate and conflict in long-term work with involuntary service users

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-19
Author(s):  
Harry Ferguson ◽  
Tom Disney ◽  
Lisa Warwick ◽  
Jadwiga Leigh ◽  
Tarsem Singh Cooner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Service Users

scholarly journals Digital social work: Conceptualising a hybrid anticipatory practice

2021 ◽  
pp. 147332502110036
Author(s):  
Sarah Pink ◽  
Harry Ferguson ◽  
Laura Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
New Concepts

While the use of digital media and technologies has impacted social work for several years, the Covid-19 pandemic and need for physical distancing dramatically accelerated the systematic use of video calls and other digital practices to interact with service users. This article draws from our research into child protection to show how digital social work was used during the pandemic, critically analyse the policy responses, and make new concepts drawn from digital and design anthropology available to the profession to help it make sense of these developments. While policy responses downgraded digital practices to at best a last resort, we argue that the digital is now an inevitable and necessary element of social work practice, which must be understood as a hybrid practice that integrates digital practices such as video calls and face-to-face interactions. Moving forward, hybrid digital social work should be a future-ready element of practice, designed to accommodate uncertainties as they arise and sensitive to the improvisatory practice of social workers.

scholarly journals Regulation and inspection of social work: costly distraction or stimulus to improve?

Social Work ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 37-58
Author(s):  
David N. Jones
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Psychiatric Hospitals ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Experiential Knowledge ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Safety Considerations ◽  
Work Method

Has social work practice changed so much in the last fifty years that it is no longer recognisable as social work? This question is discussed and illustrated by accounts of personal experience. There has been a retrograde move from theory-based to policy-based practice, with accompanying proceduralisation, and a concentration in child and family social work on child protection, with a similar narrowing-down of work with adults to assessment. Foregrounding of safety considerations in descriptions of what social workers do has accompanied increasing numbers of care orders and formal admissions to psychiatric hospitals. On the other hand, more, although by no means enough, attention is now paid to the experiential knowledge of service users. There have been various positive developments in social work method, perhaps as reactions to the perception that previous methods were too much influenced by psychoanalytic theory. These include task-centred practice, which both requires and engenders a collaborative user-worker relationship. In the C21st there has been a shift from a deficit-based to a strengths-based approach. What has remained constant is the commitment of so many social workers to practise in accordance with the values of their profession. Whether or not collective activity and campaigning can form part of practice itself, they are greatly needed.

Turning the ship around: reflections on changing a nation’s social work practice system in the interests of children and families

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 197-201 ◽  
Author(s):  
Isabelle Trowler
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Design Methodology ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Political Environment ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Work System ◽  
The Social

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to reflect on progress and lessons in improving the social work system in England in the interests of children and families. Design/methodology/approach Based on an interview with the author by Michael Little (one of the Guest Editors of this edition). Findings Social work is best placed to lead the child protection system given its ability to manage risks in a challenging social and political environment. However, there is a need to address common concerns about the system, for instance to give social workers more autonomy, and to improve the quality in the workforce, especially at the senior level. The best authorities are practice focused, led by practitioners who are part of a stable team, and do well at a systems level. Originality/value Offers the perspective of the Chief Social Worker for Children in England on the process of reforming the social work system for children and families.

scholarly journals Place and the uncanny in child protection social work: Exploring findings from an ethnographic study

2016 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dharman Jeyasingham
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Space And Place ◽  
Service Users ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
The Town

This article presents findings from an ethnographic study of child protection social workers in Britain, which explored social workers’ experiences of and practices in space and place. It draws on data from interviews with practitioners and observations that were carried out as social workers moved around the places (the town, estates, streets and areas around service users’ homes) where they worked. It focuses on the significance of a particular affective experience, the uncanny, which social workers evoked in many of their accounts of these places. The article introduces recent conceptualisations of space, affect and the uncanny before going on to consider data from the interviews. The following themes are explored: the relationships between the intimate spaces of service users’ homes and the neighbourhoods in which they were located; social workers’ accounts of feeling vulnerable in public and open spaces; social workers’ experiences of feeling unsettled by apparently mundane features of neighbourhood spaces. The article draws on critical engagements with the uncanny to consider its significance for child protection social work practice in Britain and its consequences in terms of social workers’ potential to work in emplaced and locally sensitive ways.

scholarly journals Child Protection Social Work in COVID-19

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 27-30
Author(s):  
Sarah Pink ◽  
Harry Ferguson ◽  
Laura Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Family Relationships ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Applied Anthropology ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Distance Work

This article brings together digital anthropology and social work scholarship to create an applied anthropology of everyday digital intimacy. Child protection social work involves home visits in the intimate spaces of others, where modes of sensorial and affective engagement combine with professional awareness and standards to constitute sensitive understandings of children’s well-being and family relationships. In the COVID-19 pandemic, social work practice has shifted, partly, to distance work where social workers engage digitally with service users in their homes while seeking to constitute similarly effective modes of intimacy and understanding. We bring practice examples from our study of social work and child protection during COVID-19 together with anthropologies of digital intimacy to examine implications for new modes of digital social work practice.

Purchasing Power and Self-Determination: Social Worker Perspectives

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Bailey ◽  
Debbie Plath ◽  
Alankaar Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Purchasing Power ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Management Approaches

Abstract The international policy trend towards personalised budgets, which is designed to offer people with disabilities purchasing power to choose services that suit them, is exemplified in the Australian National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). This article examines how the ‘purchasing power’ afforded to service users through individualised budgets impacts on social work practice and the choice and self-determination of NDIS service users. Social workers’ views were sought on the alignment between the NDIS principles of choice and control and social work principles of participation and self-determination and how their social work practice has changed in order to facilitate client access to supports through NDIS budgets and meaningful participation in decision-making. A survey was completed by forty-five social workers, and in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with five of these participants. The findings identify how social workers have responded to the shortfalls of the NDIS by the following: interpreting information for clients; assisting service users to navigate complex service provision systems; supporting clients through goal setting, decision-making and implementation of action plans; and adopting case management approaches. The incorporation of social work services into the NDIS service model is proposed in order to facilitate meaningful choice and self-determination associated with purchasing power.

scholarly journals Containment: Exploring the concept of agency in children’s statutory encounters with social workers

Childhood ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 98-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Morrison ◽  
Viviene Cree ◽  
Gillian Ruch ◽  
Karen Michelle Winter ◽  
Mark Hadfield ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Theoretical Understanding ◽  
Children’S Agency

This article examines children’s agency in their interactions with social workers during statutory encounters in a child protection context. It draws from a UK-wide ethnographic study. It finds that much of social workers’ responses to children’s agency in this context are best understood as a form of ‘containment’. In doing so, it offers an original and significant contribution to the theoretical understanding of children’s agency, as well as its application in social work practice.

scholarly journals Social work with offenders

Social Work ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 173-190
Author(s):  
Terry Bamford
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Child Care ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Children And Families ◽  
Monitoring And Surveillance ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Preparatory Work

It is often assumed that child care legislation is a response to scandals and inquiries from the 1948 Children Act to the Children Act 2004. This chapter looks in detail at the preparatory work preceding legislation and demonstrates that the impact of scandals has been greater on securing parliamentary time than it has in shaping legislation. The impact has been greatest on social work practice. Attention and activity have been skewed away from direct work to provide assistance and help towards risk assessment and risk management. There has been a consequent emphasis on the monitoring and surveillance of families and individuals. This shift is true in mental health as well as child care. It is timely to consider whether this shift in practice has made children and families safer.

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