Conclusion: social work and the making of social policy – lessons learned

The concluding chapter draws on the results of the different contributions and considers their specific or generalisable character. It sums up how knowledge of the influence of diverse social work actors within different stages of the policy cycle adds to existing research, and which research questions are still pending.

Social workers implementing social assistance in Spain: reshaping poverty in a familialistic welfare state

This case study analyses some of the processes that are restructuring public social assistance in the inequality regime that emerges from the recent economic recession in Spain. It shows how social workers turn what could be an inefficient public program into an active social policy through a cognitive, normative and emotional approach. A highly qualified and vocational workforce compensates meagre institutional support and lack of opportunities by instilling in the new poor new knowledge, abilities and attitudes to access basic informal resources from the local context. However, social workers’ agency could eventually contribute to confine clients within the material and symbolic limits of an expanding grey zone with scarce opportunities and diminished well-being, between inclusion and exclusion. This research is based on semi-structured interviews (17) and focus groups (8).

Social work academia and social policy in Israel: on the role of social work academics in the policy process

This study contributes to research on policy practice by enriching our knowledge about the forms that the policy engagement of social work academics takes, the dynamics of this engagement, and the factors associated with it. The study is based on structured interviews with 24 faculty members from schools of social work in Israel, all of whom are actively involved in policy formulation. The findings of the study reveal that participants are motivated by ideology and values to engage in policy and that they do so despite their perception that there is a lack of institutional support for this type of activity. The participants report that they successfully manage to combine their policy-related activities with teaching and research. The study also indicates that the social policy formulation process in Israel offers specific opportunities for the policy engagement of social work faculty.

Systemic barriers to effective implementation of child protection reform in Israel

This chapter presents a qualitative study that was conducted to investigate the implementation and outcomes of recent child protection reform in Israel. Using the ‘systems approach’ as conceptual framework allowed to understand the impact of the working conditions on every-day child protection practices. The key finding of the research – that the reform’s aims of strengthening practice and improving the safety and well-being of vulnerable children have not been entirely achieved – is explained by the organisational working environment and culture acting as barriers to the expected change. Findings touch on in particular: heavy workloads and an organisational culture that seeks opportunities to shortcut procedures and processes; inadequate professional supervision and support; insufficient training and qualifications; and lack of strong organisational leadership. It is concluded that organisations’ underlying problems need to be resolved if effective delivery of services for children and families is to be achieved.

Social policy and welfare movements ‘from below’: the Social Work Action Network (SWAN) in the UK

Mainstream policy analysis tends to underplay the role of collective action and social struggles from below in influencing the political and ideological environment in which social policy agendas emerge. This chapter addresses this lacuna through an account of a social movement organisation, the Social Work Action Network (SWAN), and its involvement in campaigns to oppose neoliberal mental health and welfare policy reforms. The chapter examines SWAN’s primary modes of political intervention: ideological, agitational and grassroots campaigning which are underpinned by a strategy of cross-sectional alliance building that seeks to integrate the demands of diverse constituencies including practitioners and service users. We conclude that, while the network’s interventions may not have led directly to specific policy shifts, these strategic orientations have nonetheless strengthened challenges to service cuts and restrictions at both ideological and practical levels whilst simultaneously prefiguring elements of the inclusive, democratic and egalitarian welfare futures SWAN seeks to promote.

Social work as policy innovator: challenges and possibilities in the UK

This chapter provides a brief overview of recent and current developments in social work policy activism in the UK. It reflects on the ‘radical social work’ tradition, and the relationship between policy work and professionalism in social work. Drawing on examples of organisation around key campaigns, the chapter makes the case for policy-oriented practice, as integral to all aspects of social work. In this respect, the distinction between ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ practice is redrawn, in order to demonstrate that both are equally infused with a policy dimension. It is impossible to undertake ‘policy-free’ practice; and the impact of policy and structures on service users has to be factored in to all aspects of social work intervention.

Social workers’ collective policy practice in times of austerity: Italy and Spain compared1

Although political responsibility lays at the core of social professions, until recently it has only been weakly exerted. Effectively acting for social justice in a context shaped by neomanagerialism, economic crisis and (permanent) austerity has become crucial for the profession, the users and democracy but is particularly difficult. Based on a critical policy theoretical framework, this chapter illustrates and interprets the features of social workers’ policy practice in Italy and Spain in the austerity age. Against deactivation hypotheses, social workers’ potential in affecting welfare politics is enriched in both countries through the action of collective bodies from within the profession. Beyond flat visions of social workers’ policy practice, the analysis also shows that different mobilisation paths exist. The peculiar interactions between the political opportunities’ structure and the characteristics of professional bodies (political culture, resources, skills) in the medium term can account for the divergence. These interactions seem to be pushing social workers’ policy practice towards particularistic/professional or universal/political achievements.

‘A little more humanity’: placement officers in Germany between social work and social policy

By definition, no social work is supposed to be carried out in the labour administration. However, what do German placement officers reveal about the implementation of social policy when they describe their activity as social work? Classical research studies on public employment service (PES) as well as our own empirical research reveal the following: while it emerged from earlier studies that placement officers described themselves as ‘social workers’ in order to lend greater meaning to their activities, interviews conducted with today's placement officers indicate their criticism as well: dysfunctional effects of an organisational means of achieving the social policy goals set by the Hartz labour-market reforms (2003-05) are specified – including the welfare-to-work principle being made unnecessarily stricter, thereby increasing the risk of the unemployed becoming ‘genuine’ social work cases.

Social reform in the US: lessons from the Progressive Era

This chapter examines, using a historical approach, two lines of research regarding the Progressive Era in the Unites States. The first approach concerns the relationship between social work and social policy. In the first section, the article describes the main features of and lessons from the involvement of social work pioneers in social work and social reform in the context of the public and social policies process. The second dimension analysed focuses more specifically on the methods and strategies adopted by the Settlement Movement, but also by some Charity Organization Societies’ leaders and other social reformers. Both of these approaches also concern the policy formulation and decision-making processes conceptualised and adopted by social reformers in the Progressive Era.

Layering, social risks and manufactured uncertainties in social work in Poland1

This chapter shows the latent functions and perverse effects of activation policy, conditionality, and related governance reforms implemented on a local level in Poland from the perspective of social workers. The chapter focuses on the consequences of layering processes within welfare state institutions, and how these processes shape the structure of social assistance and affect social work. The analysis is based on qualitative data collected from in-depth interviews with social workers that cover their experiences with the implementation of activation measures that have been modified and adjusted to local realities. The research confirms that orientation toward poverty management is strengthened by the pillarization of organizational structures and financial mechanisms, and that the reforms generate dysfunctions and strengthens uncertainties for both beneficiaries and social workers.