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.

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 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.

scholarly journals ‘The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name’: The Role of Compassion in Social Work Practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (6) ◽  
pp. 1688-1705
Author(s):  
Denise Tanner
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Emotional Health ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Education Practice ◽  
Cognitive Components

Abstract The concept of compassion has little prominence in social work literature or in social work curricula, in contrast with those of nursing. This is despite compassion being a valued attribute of social workers from the perspectives of service users. This article considers the meaning of compassion, possible reasons for its absence from social work parlance and its potential contribution to social work practice. Whereas empathy is seen as comprising affective and cognitive components, compassion is defined in terms of affective and behavioural elements. More specifically, compassion is perceived as comprising both of ‘feelings for’ the person who is suffering and a desire to act to relieve the suffering. The desire to act is distinct from the act itself. Focusing primarily on the ‘desire to act’ component of compassion, the article suggests that the emotional health and mental well-being of social workers may be enhanced, rather than jeopardised, by acknowledging, facilitating and nourishing compassionate relationships with service users. It proposes that the emotional risks to social workers emanate not from the toll of feeling compassion for those in distress, but rather from a thwarting of their desire to act to alleviate suffering. It is argued that organisations have an important role in facilitating compassionate practice and possible avenues are considered to bring compassion into the fold of social work education, practice and research.

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.

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.

Radical Hope

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michal Krumer-Nevo
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Services ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Critical Social Work ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Impact

This book describes the new Poverty-Aware Paradigm (PAP), which was developed in Israel through intense involvement with the field of social work in various initiatives. The paradigm was adopted in 2014 by the Israeli Ministry of Welfare and Social Services as a leading paradigm for social workers in social services departments. The book draws from the rich experience of the implementation of the PAP in practice and connects examples of practice to theoretical ideas from radical/critical social work, critical poverty knowledge, and psychoanalysis. The PAP addresses poverty as a violation of human rights and emphasizes people’s ongoing efforts to resist poverty. In order to recognize these sometimes minor acts of resistance and advance their impact, social workers should establish close relationship with service users and stand by them. The book proposes combining relationship-based practice and rights-based practice as a means of bridging the gap between the emotional and material needs of service users. In addition to introducing the main concepts of the PAP, the book also contributes to the debate between conservative and cultural theories of poverty and structural theories, emphasizing the impact of a critical framework on this debate. The book consists of four parts. The first, “Transformation”, addresses the transformational nature of the paradigm. The second, “Recognition”, is based on current psychoanalytic developments and “translates” them into social work practice in order to deepen our understanding of relationship-based practice. The third, “Rights”, describes rights-based practice. The fourth, “Solidarity”, presents various ways in which solidarity might shape social workers’ practice. The book seeks to reaffirm social work’s core commitment to combating poverty and furthering social justice and to offer a solid theoretical conceptualization that is also eminently practical.

Recruiting and Engaging Men as Fathers in Social Work Practice

2014 ◽  
pp. 235-260
Author(s):  
Joseph Fleming ◽  
Andrew King ◽  
Tara Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Child Protection ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Engaging Men ◽  
Current Knowledge Base

Evidence in the research literature suggests that men are usually not engaged by social workers, particularly in child welfare and child protection settings. Mothers also tend to become the focus of intervention, even when there is growing evidence that men can take an active and important role in a child's development in addition to providing support to the mother and family. Whilst there have been some promising developments in including men in social work practice internationally, there remains a gap in the research regarding the engagement of men as fathers in Australia. Given the growing relevance of the topic of fathers, the purpose of this chapter is to add to the current knowledge base, to support social work students and practitioners to engage with men in their role as fathers, and to offer an evidence-based practice model that may assist social workers in their work with men as fathers.

scholarly journals Degrowth for transformational alternatives as radical social work practice

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-433
Author(s):  
Meredith C.F. Powers ◽  
Komalsingh Rambaree ◽  
Jef Peeters
Keyword(s):  
Social Work ◽  
Social Workers ◽  
Social Inequalities ◽  
Work Practice ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Social Work Practice ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Ecological Justice ◽  
The World

Historically, and in modern times, social workers have been culpable in perpetuating the very systems of oppression that we seek to eliminate. This happens as we are part of cultures and economies that operate out of the growth ideology. Acting in accordance with the growth ideology does not lead to the outcomes that we strive for as professional social workers. Rather, the growth ideology results in growing social inequalities and increasing ecological injustices around the world. Social work can, instead, embrace an ecosocial lens and promote degrowth approaches for transformational alternatives. Rather than reinforcing the existing systems of injustice and oppression, radical social work can take an activist role and bring about urgent and radical changes to promote ecological justice through social and ecological well-being. Examples from radical social work in local and international communities demonstrate the possibility of degrowth for transformational alternatives as radical social work practice.

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