Organising: influences of the state, organisations and wider social policies
This chapter focuses on organisation. Organising social work falls into many different areas, and because social workers are employed in so many different kinds of organisation (statutory local authorities being only one kind) and different sectors (including health and education, as well as the social-care field), the chapter concentrates only on a few areas. It looks backwards and forwards across the 1990s to the present day, as well as on into the future, and also considers social work both internationally and in the UK. It considers some important areas of social work: the development of professional organisation(s), research conferences, and the further exploration of developments in social work/social care education. Finally, the chapter gives two specific English examples: the first links up social work/social care training, research, and related workshops and conferences in the 1990s; and the second explores how recent social work education has been organised via the UK government initiative of funded ‘teaching partnerships’.