Transcript The Future of Social Work

The Future of Social Work
Defining and Refining the Roles and Tasks of Social
Work in the 21st Century and The Social Work
Taskforce
Nigel Horner – Deputy Head of School of Health and
Social Care
The Session
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Locating Social Work’s Life expectancy
Can we do anything about it?
What’s on the Horizon?
Understanding Social Work as a Role, and as a
Profession
The Link with Health: Les Liaisons Dangereuses
The Future Agenda
Other models: Holland and Russia
The Radical Critique: RSA and UK
Have we been here before?
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“……..towards answering the question about the
future role of social work in welfare. The
approach I have taken flows from some very
quick study of the futurology of social work……
For those of you who are interested, the fare
ranges from prophets of doom and disaster, the
annihilation of the social worker, the absolute
end of the social work profession, to statements
of confidence and commitment and prestige in all
kinds of areas”
(David Green, Australian Social Work, 1979)
Can We Do Anything About It? Is this
inevitable?
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“Here is Edward Bear…………….coming
downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the
back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It
is, as far he knows, the only way of coming
downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there
really is another way, if only he could stop
bumping for a moment and think of it”
A A Milne, 1926:1
Roles and Tasks of Social Work in
England (GSCC, 2007)
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Generated by GSCC, with SCIE, SfC,
CWDC, CSCI and OfSTED
We believe that social workers share a distinct
set of knowledge, skills and values which are
vital to helping improve community well being
and enhancing the opportunities of
marginalized and excluded people and groups
Core Features of Social Work
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Social work is a world-wide profession with a
common core
It has explicit values and principles which inform
professional judgements on need, risk etc:
It has an expanding knowledge base for practice,
integrating research, practitioner and user expertise
It applies “social model” approaches to understand
barriers to fulfilled lives
Roles and Tasks
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It operates in a collaborative way with individuals,
families and groups, and is not a clinical activity;
It operates with people in situations of complexity,
uncertainty, risk, stress, trauma, threatened or
conflicting interests, and major life change; and
These core roles and tasks are deployed in a
diversity of settings
Social work is done with the individual, not to or for
Taskforce findings
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Our vision for social work is a profession:
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confident about its values, purpose and identity;
working in partnership with people who use its services, so that they can take
control of
their situation and improve the outcome;
working cohesively with other professions and agencies in the best interests of
people in
need of support;
demonstrating its impact and effectiveness and, therefore, its value to the public;
committed to continuous improvement, with the training and resources it needs to
be
effective and a vigorous culture of professional development;
understood and supported by employers, educators, government, other
professionals and
the wider public; and
well led at every level: in frontline practice; in influencing the shape and priorities of
local
services; in setting and maintaining the highest possible standards within the
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Taskforce Themes
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Theme one: We have been told that social workers feel they do not have
enough time to devote directly to the people they want to help. They feel
overstretched by staff shortages and tied up in bureaucracy.
Theme two: We have been told that social workers feel very frustrated by
some of the tools and support they are given to do their jobs.
Theme three: We have been told that new social workers are often not
properly prepared for the demands of the job and that the education
system does not effectively support ongoing development and
specialisation.
Theme four: We have been told that the social workers do not feel that
their profession speaks with a strong national voice or is well supported at
national level.
Theme five: We have been told that systems for managing the
performance of social workers are not driving quality first and foremost.
Theme six: We have been told that the social workers feel that their
profession is undervalued, poorly understood and under continuous media
attack. This is making it hard for them to do their jobs and hard to attract
people into the profession.
Social Work Taskforce: Interim Report 2009
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Recommendations from the report include:
• The creation of a national college for social
work Based on the "royal college" model in medicine or Occupational
Therapy, the national college would speak to the media about the
profession, represent frontline professionals in policy debates and develop
practice and training standards.
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Greater partnership between employers and educators
for the improvement of social work education
Assuring the quality of entrants to the profession, and CPD culture
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• Clearer career and progression structure Rewarding
frontline expertise as with Senior Teachers, Clinical Psychologists etc:
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• A much more sophisticated understanding of supply
and demand National Workforce Planning issues
Securing the resources social workers need to be
effective Time, Technology, Supervision, Training, Research
The NHS Workforce Plan
The Skills Escalator is the primary vehicle for the Workforce
Strategy in the NHS Plan
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1. Workforce Planning
2. Pay structures
3. Regulation
4. Education and Training
 Its objective is to develop a coherent and integrated Escalator
across Health and Social Care. The Children’s Workforce
Strategy has parallel objectives
The NHS Skills Escalator Framework
………………..a very brief summary
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LEVELS
QUALIFICATIONS
Consultant
Higher degrees
Expert Registered Practitioner
Degrees
Skilled Assistant
NVQs and Higher NVQs
Cadet/ Starter
Entry Level Orientation
The Future Agenda
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Occupational Standards for Practitioners……but not
“profession” specific?
So if w define a level of competence for particular
mental health role, who can do it? Medic?
Psychologist? Social Worker? OT? Mental Health
Nurse? Psychotherapist? Counsellor?
This is a battle between post modern employers and
traditional / feudal guilds………..and where does the
service user fit?
Professional Autonomy?
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Employers shape the roles social workers undertake,
but
How the prescribed roles are undertaken can either
be prescribed as a “technical activity” or will be an
individual professional responsibility, by
accountability to the regulator and the person
receiving the service
There is tension between the need for greater clarity
in defining roles and tasks, and to maintaining the
holistic, person – centred and flexible basis for social
work relationships with individuals, their families
and carers
What Roles and Tasks should be reserved
for registered Social Workers?
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A registered and experienced social worker should always
be involved in safeguarding the well being of, and assessing,
planning and managing delivery of any intervention of
service required, for children, adults and families:
In need of protection or safeguarding/ in danger of
exploitation or significant harm;
Likely to cause significant harm to themselves or other
people;
Unable to exercise mental capacity or provide informed
consent;
Whose future home, care or custody arrangements are
disputed
The Intellectual Attributes?
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Braye and Preston –Shoot (2004) argue that social
workers should not only be competent technicians,
who are good fixers, but also critical thinkers – well
rounded professionals with knowledge, judgement
and wisdom to address strategy issues.
In other words, Social Workers need rational –
technical skills within the given status quo, and the
capabilities arising from a post modernist critique to
“think outside the box”, to make creative links, to
embrace flexibility, flux and uncertainty.
The Epochs of Social Work
Practice
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Service provision has been dominated by the
following successive models:
Welfarism – social democratic paternalism
Professionalism – emphasising expertise and professional
authority
Consumerism – focusing on the service user and the
customer
Managerialism – privileging managerialist sand
economic/business concerns
Participationism – stressing more equal partnerships
between service users, carers and service providers
Epochs and Knowledge
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The knowledge base is clearest in the
Professionalism phase, because it is one – way – top
– down, and imposed;
“to understand social work, therefore, we must
understand how knowledge is validated within the
profession” (Askeland and Payne, 2001)
BUT….most social work “knowledge” about service
users applies equally to teachers, psychologists,
doctors, nurses etc:
It is the “knowledge about practice” that is
distinctive to Social Work, and therefore it is a
“practice discipline”
Russia and Holland
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Boat repairs and Social Work
practice: a case example from
Amsterdam
Knowing the neighbourhood and
supported living in the community: a
case example from Nizhni Novgorod
The Big Picture
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“Social work bases its methodology on a
systematic body of evidence-based
knowledge derived from research and
practice evaluation, including local and
indigenous knowledge specific to its
context.” (IFSW News, 2/2000).
SOCIAL WORK MANIFESTO: A STATEMENT BY THE FINAL YEAR
STUDENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND, SOUTH
AFRICA. October 2009
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We entered the social work profession because of a commitment to social justice, in
order to challenge poverty and discrimination and to bring about positive change. We
did not enter social work to be care managers, supervisors of service users or
dispensers of community punishment. We did not enter social work to maintain the
status quo. We chose social work because we wanted to make a positive contribution to
the lives of the poor and oppressed.
Today social work is shaped by managerialism; fragmentation of services; financial
restrictions; lack of resources, bureaucracy and unmanageable workloads. Clientworker relationships are characterized by control and supervision rather than care. We
find ourselves in difficult working conditions, being office-bound due to bureaucratic
and administrative demands and unable to work with service users in the way that we
believe is right. And so as social workers we leave the profession disillusioned and
demotivated.
We believe that there is an alternative. Social workers need to be active and involved in
social movements. Social workers must be engaged in anti-capitalist efforts. We want to
return to a focus on grassroots empowerment of those that are poor and oppressed.
Values that should be held include solidarity, accountability, participation, justice,
liberty, diversity and equality.
We need to organize ourselves collectively. We need to be conscientised and we need to
be willing to challenge the structures that contribute to the failure of social work to
achieve its vision. The vision of social work for a better society must be defended.
Social, Work After Baby “P”: Iain Ferguson and Michael
Lavalette (April 2009) (www.socialworkfuture.org)
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“Managerialism is primarily concerned with bringing the values and practices of
private sector management (in reality a wholly idealised and inaccurate version of
these practices) into the public sector in general, and social work and social care
in particular. Managers, operating within the parameters of “economy, efficiency
and effectiveness”, were depicted by the Audit Commission as the “Bolsheviks” of
the managerial revolution, which would revitalise what was seen as a “failing
profession”. They would do this by: putting in place a strategic vision (usually in
the form of a mission statement); introducing common values, which in practice
means identification with the organisation, rather than with core social work
values; refashioning clients as “customers” and emphasising “customer care”, in
reality complaints procedures; an emphasis on “performance review”, through
inspectorates such as Ofsted; much tighter budgetary procedures, based on the
view that efficient management, not increased resources, is the key to quality
services; and “clear leadership”, or in other words, stronger managerial
structures”
See “Social Work and Social Justice: A Manifesto for a New Engaged Practice”