Valuing and transgressing

This chapter explores social work values. These values, such as promoting social justice, are considered key to this occupational group. Many of the chapter's interviewees seem to share similar values; however, these values sometimes seem to vary culturally and geographically. International social work espouses additional values by placing an emphasis on globalisation and international development. In addition, the chapter is concerned with what happens when social workers fail to live up to their professional standards, and what sanctions may be applied. Here, the chapter draws upon published research as well as data from the author's own studies into recent, publicly available material on social workers' processes of deregistration and other sanctions. The chapter ends with a look ahead to the imminent establishment of the new social work regulator for England, Social Work England.

Time and change: UK social work and comparative European welfare policies since 1990

This chapter gives a brief contextual background history to ‘social work’. It emphasises the years after 1990. This period encompasses many policy and political changes and theoretical developments in the UK and internationally, which affect social work practice and education. This is the time period encapsulating the author's involvement with social workers and social work education. The chapter presents some comparative geographical locations partly to reflect aspects of this involvement with social work and contacts with social work and social workers in those places, as well as to reflect different kinds of welfare regimes and to indicate some different kinds of welfare professionals.

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’.

Getting involved: an anthropological and auto-ethnographic journey

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.

Changing: the future – social work in wider society

This chapter reflects on why social work and social workers continue to be relevant to society on local, national, and international levels. It suggests how the process of looking back across the past 30 years demonstrates how much has changed and will continue to change. However, the chapter contends that this in itself indicates a form of continuity. Although some observers may continue to predict the demise of real social work, the core activities of the occupation, involving a tension between caring or controlling, have, it seems, always existed. Yet, the value of compassion, in whatever setting, is what social workers always seem to want to exemplify and to encourage in themselves and others by working alongside people.

Knowing and evidencing: building a research base, mapping and modelling

This chapter considers policies and strategies underpinning social work research and evidence-based or evidence-informed practice. It also looks at how social workers say they generate knowledge or evidence and disseminate it to others; the dissemination of research is principally via publications such as journals, and through conferences. Professional and occupational groups may be expected to develop their own knowledge base(s) that will often be situated within specific epistemological frameworks, though the nature of such frameworks is often contested. This chapter explores how, within social work and social care, theoretical models and methods of gathering evidence from practice are explained and used. Social work, though emphasising the social, may be expected to draw upon an eclectic range of social and clinical sciences, with issues of disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity being identified as an important aspect of how knowledge of different kinds, although contested, can be applied to social work practice and research. The chapter also provides examples of how social workers have explained what evidence looks like to them and how they have attempted to work with evidence and research in their practice.

Identifying

This chapter explores issues of identity for social workers, including how far there may be multiple or overlapping identities within social work, for example, practitioner/educator, when working with other professionals or in different sectors. It reveals issues with defining the collective form of social work identity, which has implications for individual practitioners. The chapter attempts to demonstrate how social workers may be identifying with their clients/service users empathetically, while simultaneously accounting for themselves in various ways. Incorporating this approach can provide a more detailed examination of social workers' views about working with people, including ‘their’ ‘clients’/‘service users’ (the use of language, including labels, being a salient point here), but also, in some cases, as part of their work as educators, with social work students. The chapter ends with my some personal reflections on the author's identity as an ‘outsider’ to social work.

Symbolising: cultural representations in theory and in practice

This chapter explores some ideas relating to symbols and what can be termed ‘cultural representation’ in social work. Exploring symbolism and cultural representation is an important aspect of anthropological enquiry. The chapter offers some personal reflections about symbolism, cultural representation, and social work. It includes recent developments such as materialism and the use of objects, as well as the ontological turn in anthropology. It also draws together some examples, using issues drawn from previous chapters, relating to a few key symbols that (in keeping with the uncertainties of social work) are characterised by ambivalence, in particular: ‘family’, professionalism, and work placements, being relevant to ambiguous, liminal spaces between education and the workplace as part of a rite of passage into professional social work.

Relating and partnering: social workers, clients/service users and other professionals

This chapter explores what some of the social workers being interviewed say about relationships and partnerships, and how they explain the significance of these concepts to social work. It also illustrates ‘relating’ and ‘partnering’ in practice. There is already a great deal of discussion about relationships, partnership, and collaboration between social workers, other professionals, and their clients/service users. Relationship-based practice is an important development, especially in UK-based social work, which has become particularly important as a counter to managerialist tendencies in policy and practice. This chapter discusses what social workers say about relationship work with clients/service users and with other professionals, and draws upon aspects such as attitudes towards stereotyping in relation to professionals and links between partnership/collaboration and organisations, using some original research examples.

Growing: experiencing social work education and socialisation

This chapter explores the views of some social workers and social work students about socialisation into their profession. It also provides some background about this concept from an anthropological perspective. The chapter begins with what social workers think they should learn and sets this against epistemological background material describing some key frameworks for social work theory and practice. Reflecting on examples and interviews with social workers and others, the chapter reveals that the often-stated attempt to ‘link theory and practice’ in social work education is much more complicated than it first appears. To set the stage for the next chapter, an experience relating to personal interaction and the use of self is described.