Getting involved: an anthropological and auto-ethnographic journey

2020 ◽  
pp. 9-20
Author(s):  
Linda Bell
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Anthropology ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Critical Reflections

This chapter explains the author's positioning and how anthropologists try to work from an outsider perspective. It includes some ideas about different theoretical perspectives about social work. The chapter's reflexive positioning from the perspective of an anthropologist is fundamental to this book. Hence, it argues the approach is in keeping with recent methodological and theoretical approaches to social anthropology. It provides some auto-ethnographic background relating to longitudinal work with social workers and social work educators in the United Kingdom (UK). This, in turn, opens up room for some critical reflections. Finally, this chapter addresses the issue of social work ‘voice’ and representation.

Reconfiguring professional autonomy? The case of social work in the UK

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Chandler ◽  
Elisabeth Berg ◽  
Marion Ellison ◽  
Jim Barry
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Professional Practice ◽  
Professional Autonomy ◽  
The Third ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Uk

This chapter discusses the contemporary position of social work in the United Kingdom, and in particular the challenges to what is seen as a managerial-technicist version of social work. The chapter begins with focus on the situation from the 1990s to the present day in which this version of social work takes root and flourishes. The discussion then concentrates on three different routes away from a managerial-technicist social work: the first, reconfiguring professional practice in the direction of evaluation in practice, the second ‘reclaiming social work’ on the Hackney relationship-based model and the third ‘reclaiming social work’ in a more radical, highly politicised way. Special attention is devoted to a discussion about how much autonomy the social workers have in different models, but also what kind of autonomy and for what purpose.

Adult Safeguarding

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel Hall
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Careful Consideration ◽  
Support Needs ◽  
Work Activity ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Care And Support ◽  
Partnership Approach ◽  
Vulnerable Adults

Safeguarding is an area of social work activity concerned with the care and protection of children or adults who have care and support needs and who may be at risk of abuse or neglect. This is a major concern for social workers who usually have prime responsibility for ensuring as far as possible that the vulnerable clients they work with are protected. People’s ability to keep themselves safe is partly determined by their individual circumstances, and this may change at different stages in their life, so it is important that safeguarding is always considered in relation to the wishes of the person concerned. Effective safeguarding depends on a careful consideration of the factors involved and will almost always involve a multi-agency partnership approach. This article will primarily examine the situation regarding safeguarding vulnerable adults in the United Kingdom.

scholarly journals PREVENT, safeguarding and the common-sensing of social work in the United Kingdom

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
pp. 18-28
Author(s):  
David McKendrick ◽  
Jo Finch
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Counter Terrorism ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Uk

INTRODUCTION: The Counter-Terrorism and Security Act (2015) passed in the United Kingdom (UK) made it mandatory for social workers, as well as a wide range of caring professionals, to work within the PREVENT policy, originally introduced in 2002, as one strand of the UK’s overall counter-terrorism policy.METHOD: The paper offers a theoretical account of how complex issues, like terrorism, that understandably impact on the safety and security of countries, are reduced to a series of assertions, claims and panics that centre on the notion of common sense.IMPLICATIONS: We theorise the concept of common sense and argue that such rhetorical devices have become part of the narrative that surrounds the PREVENT agenda in the UK, which co-opts social workers (and other public servants) into an increasingly securitised environment within the state. In other words, the appeal to common sense stifles critical debate, makes it hard to raise concerns and positions debates in a binary manner. We use the example of how there has been a decisive linking of traditional safeguarding social work practice with counter-terrorism activity.CONCLUSIONS: We posit that linkages such as this serve to advance a more closed society, resulting in a “chilling” of free speech, an increase in surveillance and the unchecked advancement of a neoliberal political agenda which promotes economic considerations over issues of social justice. This we argue, has implications for not only the UK, but for other countries where social workers are increasingly being tasked with counter-terrorism activities.

What is Human? Reading Social Idealism against the Reality of Blackman and Azaria

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 365-391
Author(s):  
Ka Lok Yip
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Dominant Focus ◽  
Structural Power ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
The Relationship

This article explores the oscillation between individualism and holism and between voluntarism and determinism underlying Philip Allott’s philosophy of social idealism and attributes it to an under-analysis of the relationship between human agency, culture, and structure. Drawing on different social theoretical perspectives and philosophical approaches, it examines this aspect of social idealism through the lens of two recent cases, Alexander Blackman in the United Kingdom and Elor Azaria in Israel. It argues that a dominant focus on either the individuals or their context is necessarily reductionist while collapsing the two risks obscuring causality and responsibility and relegating their apportionment to those in possession of cultural and structural power. Only by differentiating between the relative degrees of human freedom and constraints in different situations, can the limits to human agency become recognisable, comprehensible, and therefore amenable to being tackled, transformed, and potentially overcome.

The pre-history of health psychology in the United Kingdom: From natural science and psychoanalysis to social science, social cognition and beyond

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 472-491 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Murray
Keyword(s):  
Health Psychology ◽  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Cognition ◽  
Social Science ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Natural Science ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Uk

Health psychology formally came of age in the United Kingdom in the 1980s, but it was prefigured by much discussion about challenges to the dominance of biomedicine in healthcare and debates. This articles focuses on what could be termed the pre-history of health psychology in the UK. This was the period in the earlier 20th century when psychological approaches were dominated by psychoanalysis which was followed by behaviourism and then cognitivism. Review of this pre-history provides the backdrop for the rise of health psychology in the UK and also reveals the tensions between the different theoretical perspectives.

Social Work's Evolution in the United Kingdom: A Study of Community Care and Social Control

2009 ◽  
Vol 90 (3) ◽  
pp. 336-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. David Harrison
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Social Policy ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Community Care ◽  
Social Changes ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Model Of Practice

Community social work was a model of practice that was advocated by many roughly from the late 1970s through the 1980s, in the United Kingdom. The approach faded as the field of social work and social services changed drastically in subsequent years. This study conducted in 2006 and 2007, follows up a 1984 study of community social work advocates to learn how the same people understood the changes that occurred over more than 20 years. A total of 9 of the original 30 participants discussed the important role of social policy and social changes that appear to have led toward more individualized, mechanistic, and often control-oriented services.

Beyond the Code of Ethics, Part II: Dual Relationships Revisited

2002 ◽  
Vol 83 (5) ◽  
pp. 483-492 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sophie Freud ◽  
Stefan Krug
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Code Of Ethics ◽  
Legal Protection ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Dual Relationships ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
Social Work Practitioners

The authors, both social work educators, serve on an ethics call line committee that provides insights on how the provisions of the (United States) National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics (NASW, 1996) interface with the ethical dilemmas encountered by the social work community. In this paper, the authors highlight aspects of social work practice that they consider ethical, yet not easily accommodated by the provisions of the current Code. They also question the 1996 introduction of the concept of dual relationships into the Code and suggest that the Code adopt the less ambiguous term of boundary violations. Also recognized by the authors is the need for clear boundaries for the protection of clients against temptations that might arise in a fiduciary relationship, and for the legal protection of social workers. But, the authors argue, social work practitioners in certain settings, with particular populations, and in certain roles, inevitably face multiple relationships as an integral aspect of their work. The authors conclude that social work's adoption of the psychoanalytic constrains of anonymity, neutrality, and abstinence has detoured the profession from its original double focus on individuals and their society.

Still doing what we do: Defining social work in the 21st century

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Staniforth ◽  
Christa Fouché ◽  
Michael O'Brien
Keyword(s):  
Social Change ◽  
Social Work ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Professional Organizations ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
Aotearoa New Zealand ◽  
Indigenous Perspectives ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Work Education

• Summary: Members of the Aotearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers (ANZASW) were asked to provide their definition of social work. Over 300 responses were analysed thematically in order to determine if practitioner views corresponded to recent shifts in social work education and theory which emphasized the importance of social change, strengths based perspectives and the importance of local and indigenous contexts. • Findings: The findings demonstrate that while there was some recognition of social change and strengths-based perspectives in the definitions of social work provided, that those working in the field remain focused on ‘helping individuals, families and groups’ engage in change. Respondents did not, for the most part, acknowledge local or indigenous perspectives in their definitions. • Applications: Results from this study may be useful for social work professional organizations, and social work educators, students and future researchers who are interested in the definition of social work and its scopes of practice.

scholarly journals What Social Workers Should Know About Ethics: Understanding and Resolving Ethical Dilemmas

10.18060/124 ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elaine P. Congress
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Code Of Ethics ◽  
Ethical Dilemmas ◽  
Sexual Relationships ◽  
Dual Relationships ◽  
Personal Agency ◽  
Social Work Educators ◽  
Social Work Practitioners

Recognizing ethical issues and dilemmas that arise in professional practice is crucial for social work practitioners, educators, and students. After a discussion about the limited, although growing, literature on social work ethics, the ten main tenets form the most current NASW Code of Ethics are presented. These topics include limits to confidentiality, confidentiality and technology, confidentiality in family and group work, managed care, cultural competence, dual relationships, sexual relationships, impairment and incompetence of colleagues, application to administrators and relevance to social work educators. In addition to understanding the Code of Ethics, social workers can use the ETHIC model of decision making for resolving ethical dilemmas. This easy to use five step process includes examining personal, agency, client, and professional values, thinking about ethical standards and relevant laws, hypothesizing about consequences, identifying the most vulnerable, and consulting with supervisors and colleagues. A case example involving confidentiality, HIV/AIDS and family therapy demonstrates how social workers can use the ETHIC model.

Shame and Social Work

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Young People ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Theoretical Approaches ◽  
The Poor ◽  
Full Participation ◽  
Painful Experience

This book aims to approach the phenomenon of shame, especially in the context of social work. It explores the profoundly damaging experience of shame on the identities and potential of many service users, who, through, for example, the stigmatised experiences of poverty or abuse, are silenced within and disconnected from full participation in societies and communities. The book considers shame as a social, moral, and politically generated phenomenon, but equally focuses on the powerful, painful experience of each individual subjected to shaming. Having set out key contextual issues and theoretical approaches to understand shame, the book turns its attention to service users, more specifically young people and the poor. Finally, it offers examples of shame in relation to how social workers experience this in organisations and through, for example, human mistakes and limitations. In relation to shamed social workers and shamed service users, attention is given to how it might be possible to begin to address this painful state.

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