Practising social work

The chapter considers changes and developments in the content of social work education under the three headings of social science disciplines, understanding human development and relationships, and theories, approaches and methods for practice. At the start of the period under review, social science knowledge (primarily from sociology and social policy) and human development theories predominated, but as their research base and published literature have expanded, theories and methods for practice have become more prominent. The contribution to knowledge from research conducted by social workers themselves is acknowledged, as is the contribution made by experts by experience, both directly and through research interviews. The prominence of sequences on law for social workers is noted. The chapter concludes by asserting that the broad partnership of interests which should determine the content of the social work knowledge base is threatened by Government's much-expanded role, but that most social work programmes continue to ensure a balanced curriculum.

Social work with offenders

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.

From clients as fellow citizens to service users as co-producers of social work

Social work training remained the required pattern for probation officers for the first half of the last fifty years. With the abandonment of that link probation has gradually shifted its focus from ‘advise assist and befriend’ to surveillance and risk assessment. With that shift has come incoherence in management and organisation culminating in the disaster of Transforming Rehabilitation, the flagship reform introducing the private sector and payment by results. The policy on adult offenders is contrasted with the relative success of the Youth justice Board.Despite the absence of relationships from probation service publicity material, social work skills are required to engage with the issues of housing, employment and income security which blight lives of offenders after discharge.

Social work education: learning from the past?

The history of the regulation of the personal social services from 1970 onwards is described, contextualised and analysed. The various purposes and styles of inspection within regulatory systems are identified and discussed. The effects and contributions of competitive tendering of services, the Performance Assessment Framework, Joint Reviews, Best Value and Special Measures are noted. Adverse criticisms in the late 1980s of the Social Services Inspectorate, established in 1985, are contrasted with the high regard in which the Inspectorate was held by the late 1990s. The chapter then sets out the subsequent rapid changes to the regulatory structure in the years 2004-2010.The campaign for the registration of social workers, leading to the establishment in 2001 of the General Social Care Council, and its subsequent replacement first by the Health and Care Professions Council and then by Social Work England, is also discussed.The chapter compares unfavourably the experience in England, with its chronic institutional instability, with those of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, which have been characterised by more constructive partnerships.

Social services departments: success or failure?

Social Services departments, created after the 1970 Local Authority Social Services Act, survived for nearly half a century. Their ability to meet the vision set out in the Seebohm Report was compromised by curtailment of expansion after the financial crisis in 1975. Their reputation was damaged by a number of widely reported child deaths in which social work was seen as passive and ineffective. Severe criticism followed when they were viewed as over active as in Cleveland and Orkney. As a result social services were seen as toxic in deprived communities. Despite winning responsibility for community care in the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act, departments suffered, first, from the requirement to spend the bulk of transferred social security funds in the independent sector and secondly from the prolonged squeeze on local government spending. The potential of care management for innovation and empowering service users was never fully realised.

The impact of scandal and inquiries on social work and the personal social services

Following a summary of changes in the context of social work education in the last 50 years, the chapter discusses key issues which have shaped educational approaches: the nature of the profession; preparation for one role or for many; student selection and recruitment targets; where decision-making should lie; where responsibility for financing social work education should lie; and the relative importance in social work education of curriculum and programme content, underpinning of professional ethics and a focus on service users, education for anti-discriminatory practice and preparation for practice. Challenges now facing social work education are then discussed. Do higher education institutions and employers agree on what makes a good social worker? Can we and will we learn from evaluation? Are we sufficiently international? Among conclusions drawn are that social work still has a problem with its public image, that insufficient attention has been given to retaining social workers in practice by enabling quality relationship-based work to be practised under good supervision, and that it will be important to maintain programmes of initial education in strong research-based institutions.

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

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.

Continuity and change in the knowledge base for social work

This chapter draws on writer’s experiences as: a student ona postgraduate child care officer course in 1962; a child and family and then a generalist ‘patch’ social worker; a social work lecturer and researcher; a board member of the General Social Care Council (GSCC); and in the voluntary sector. References to key texts are woven into a commentary on the changing views between the 1950sand the late 2010s about necessary knowledge for social workers in the early stages of their career. Detailed knowledge needed for more specialist and supervisory roles is beyond the scope of this chapter.

The 1989 England and Wales Children Act: the high-water mark of progressive reform?

The 1989 Children Act is a widely admired piece of legislation. This chapter traces its genesis of the legislation and examines the value base of the legislation and its implications for social work practice. The political social and economic trends which have impacted on the implementation are analysed. Has the risk aversion which has led to increased numbers of ‘looked after’ children undermined the balance between family support and child protection reflected in the Act? The cuts in family support services have made it hard to realise the partnership with parents which was one of the key themes of the Act. There remains a hope that the vision and intentions of the legislation may yet be achieved

Social work in 1970

The chapter summarises the development of the idea of social work as a profession and describes the negotiations leading to the formation in 1970 of the British Association of Social Workers. It examines the considerations which led the Government to establish the Seebohm Committee on the personal social services, outlines the bold ambitions of the Committee's Report, published in 1968, and describes the only partially successful campaigns of the various associations of social workers, acting mainly through the Standing Conference of Organisations of Social Workers (SCOSW) and through the Seebohm Implementation Action Group, for their implementation in the Local Authority Social Services Act of 1970. The Act also established the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work, and the disagreements within SCOSW about whether the council should be accountable to Ministers are also considered.