Social Work with Children and Families:
Challenges and Possibilities in the
Neo-Liberal World
Steve Rogowski*
Steve Rogowski (LLB, DipSW (CQSW), MA, Ph.D.) is a social worker with a local authority in
north-west England. He has over thirty-five years of practice experience, mainly with children
and families, this including a long-standing interest in youth offending. He has published in
these areas and is the author of Social Work: The Rise and Fall of a Profession? (Policy
Press, 2010).
*Correspondence to Steve Rogowski, Social Worker (Children and Families), Children’s
Services, Prospect House, Main Road, Oldham, OL9 6JY, UK. E-mail: steve.rogowski@
oldham.gov.uk
Abstract
The 1970s saw social work as the rising star of the human service professions in the UK.
Since then, the profession has been under attack from the media and politicians, this
coinciding with changed ideological, political, economic and social circumstances. Practitioners’
expertise and effectiveness were questioned and they were blamed for scandals,
notably in relation to abused children. There have been changes in their
organisation and practice whereby a profession based on knowledge, understanding
and skills has become a so-called profession with managers now dominating what practitioners
do. Relationship-based work has been transformed into a bureaucratic focus on
the assessment of risk and rationing of resources and services, together with a more controlling,
moral policing role. Focusing on developments in England in relation to children
and families, I argue that, although what remains is a limited version of social
work’s possibilities, there remains scope for a radical/critical practice that involves
working alongside users on the problems they face.
Keywords: Social work, children and families, neo-liberalism, deprofessionalisation,
managerialism, radical/critical practice
Accepted: July 2011
# The Author 2011. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of
The British Association of Social Workers. All rights reserved.
British Journal of Social Work (2012) 42, 921–940
doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcr129
Advance Access publication September 7, 2011
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Introduction
Social work’s roots lie in the socio-economic changes of the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries (see Payne, 2005b). But it was after the welfare state
was established during the post-war years of the social democratic consensus
that it peaked. It was a product of a collectivist era when the state played
a key role in ensuring the needs of citizens—health, housing, education,
employment, social security and social services. Social workers helped
provide the answer to remaining social problems in terms of direct work
with individuals, families, groups and communities, as well as advocating
and co-ordinating the work of other agencies to meet needs. Corresponding
with the ideological move to the right and neo-liberalism, completed by the
election of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister in 1979, the situation
altered.
The New Right employed classical liberal critiques of state action, applying
them to contemporary issues of economic and social policy, including
preferring market to public sector approaches to welfare (Rogowski,
2010). Social workers eventually felt the brunt of this changed climate. In
the late 1980s and 1990s, the introduction of care management led to deprofessionalisation
concerning work with adults. Social work’s decline accelerated
during the New Labour years, particularly concerning practice with
children and families. Despite talk of the ‘Third Way’, New Labour
largely continued with neo-liberalism—a comment that can be applied to
David Cameron’s Conservative-led coalition. Consequences include the
increased privatisation of, as well as the use of, the voluntary or third
sector in the provision of services, as well as social workers being controlled
by managers. Under New Labour, social work was largely sidelined and
often became subsumed under ‘social care’, and its central role in relation
to youth offending and mental health was taken away. Although a new
social work degree was introduced along with post-qualifying courses,
social work became ever more deprofessionalised and dominated by managerialism
and the ‘social work business’ (Harris, 2003). Admittedly, following
the Baby Peter tragedy (a baby who died at the hands of his
carers in 2007), there was a resurgence of interest in social work as the
Social Work Task Force/SWTF (2009) was established, a key recommendation
being the establishment of a College of Social Work. Subsequently,
the coalition government established a review of child protection to look at
the bureaucracy faced by social workers (Munro, 2011). But, at a time of
unprecedented public expenditure cuts, including the need to ensure that
any expenditure arising from social work intervention is controlled, it is
optimistic to expect too much.
In this paper, I pinpoint the ideological changes of the last thirty years
being at the root of the social work’s current crisis by focusing on some
of the changes affecting work with children and families, including youth
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offenders. Deprofessionalisation, managerialism and the ‘social work
business’ are critically discussed prior to arguing that the reduced possibilities
for a progressive, even radical/critical, practice need to be taken up.
From social democracy to neo-liberalism
The social democratic consensus spanned most of the traditional Labour
and Conservative parties. This Keynesianism involved agreement on the
nationalisaton of major industries and planning their development so as
to eliminate the ‘boom and bust’ of capitalism, together with the state
needing to intervene to eliminate the causes of social inequities by creating
the welfare state. Social problems that remained were explained in terms of
an individual’s psychological make-up, which was susceptible to diagnosis
and treatment by, among others, social workers. Notions of solidarity premised
the view that the state could motivate national growth and well-being
by the encouragement of social responsibility and the mutuality of social
risk (George and Wilding, 1976).
As Labour and Conservative governments alternated into the 1970s,
differences between them amounted to a little more or less government
ownership and economic planning, with the welfare state remaining
accepted. Within this consensus, social work was to become established
as the Seebohm Report (1968) introduced local authority Social Services
Departments to provide community-based and family-orientated services.
However, this occurred as the consensus was to fall apart, culminating in
the election of Thatcher, the seeds of which were laid earlier in the world
economic crisis of 1973. Monetarism, the forerunner of today’s neoliberalism,
was the replacement of Keynesianism, a return to the freemarket
ideology that had been discarded since the 1930s Great Depression
(see Ferguson, 2008).
The New Right argued for a complete break with Keynesianism because
social democracy, including the welfare state and social work, was a major
part of the problem. The rise and now domination of neo-liberalism,
drawing on the work of Hayek and Friedman, is the result (see O’Brien
and Penna, 1998). This ideology/political philosophy is based on the
belief in individual freedom and of liberating individual entrepreneurial
skills within an institutional framework characterised by strong property
rights (Harvey, 2005). Its core idea is that free markets and free trade
best achieve human well-being, despite the fact that they lead to vast
increases in inequality along with anxiety and insecurity in many people’s
lives (Ferguson, 2008; Garrett, 2009b). Nevertheless, the New Right
achieved power utilising arguments about things such as the dependency
culture on the back of a too-generous welfare state, militant trade unions
holding employers and governments to ransom, and of there being a lack
of law and order. They were also against state intervention and wanted to
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reduce its activities, notably in the area of welfare, including self-serving
professions such as social work, which were seen as encouraging welfare
dependency.
As professional social work’s emergence coincided with economic difficulties,
together with a perceived growth in social disorder, this undermined
the economic and social pillars of welfarism and the political consensus that
supported it (Parton, 1996). For the left, it was seen as an element of class
control, preserving the status quo of capitalist societies by controlling and
regulating the working class (Bailey and Brake, 1975). However coherent
the arguments were, they often failed to develop constructive alternatives,
this unwittingly opening up a political space that was colonised by the New
Right, which saw Social Services Departments as costly and inefficient.
They wanted an increased emphasis on self-help, individual responsibility,
‘choice’ and freedom, as well as an extension of the commodification of
social relations.
Tony Blair’s general election victory in 1997 led many to believe major
change would take place in terms of political ideology, and economic and
social policy. However, the continuities were with the New Right and
many of New Labour policies simply ‘out Toried the Tories’ (Powell,
2000, pp. 54; also see Powell, 2009) by consolidating the Conservatives’
reforms so that social work was drawn deeper into managerial, marketorientated
ways of thinking and practising (Harris and White, 2009b).
Following the May 2010 General Election, we now have a coalition government
implementing savage public expenditure cuts and attempts to ‘get
more for less’ as the neo-liberal project continues.
Social work under the New Right, New Labour and the
Conservative-led coalition
The organisational and practice changes to social work over recent decades
have to be understood in terms of the aforementioned neo-liberal ideology/
political philosophy. The premiership years of Thatcher (1979–90) and
John Major (1990–97) saw a number of developments that impacted negatively.
As alluded to, there was the introduction of care management for
work with older people (see Philips, 1996), together with the removal of
the social work qualification for probation (see Harris, 1996). The introduction
of the Diploma of Social Work (DipSW) in 1989 allowed employers to
shape social work education in their own interests (see Webb, 1996). The
1989 Children Act, despite its preventative and partnership ethos, confirmed
a move from child welfare to child protection (Otway, 1996). No
longer was child abuse a medico-social problem, with doctors and social
workers the key professionals; instead, it was a socio-legal issue, with the
police and courts taking an increasing role. Social workers became
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investigators, with parents becoming objects of enquiry; the move was from
therapy and welfare to surveillance and control (Howe, 1992).
Then, there was social work’s 1980s success in relation to youth offending
by diversion from the youth justice system and developing alternatives to
incarceration (Thorpe et al., 1980; Pitts, 1988; Blagg and Smith, 1989; Farrington
and Langan, 1992). This was a key factor in the (then) reduction
in youth crime and was arguably the most significant ever evidenced-based
social work achievement. However, this was totally ignored, as, from 1991
onwards, ‘populist punitiveness’ (Bottoms, 1995) emerged. Politicians of all
parties became increasingly punitive in their pronouncements and the 1991
Criminal Justice Act introduced court orders not to help young people who
had social problems and had offended, but instead offering punishment and
control in the community (Stewart et al., 1994).
Perhaps surprisingly, under New Labour, social work fared even worse
(Jordan, 2001). The 2000 Care Standards Act resulted in the Central
Council for the Education and Training in Social Work being replaced by
the General Social Care Council to regulate social work training and the
social work and care workforce. The Social Care Institute for Excellence
was established to identify and disseminate evidence-based practice, with
the demise of the National Institute of Social Work (NISW) subsequently
occurring. The obvious question is why the use of the word ‘care’ and the
absence of ‘social work’ in these changes? Perhaps it showed the disdain
with which New Labour held social work as well as the continued desire
to cleanse and remove any oppositional possibilities to the neo-liberal
project.
New agencies, including statutorily enforced partnerships and quangos,
were created, all impacting negatively on social work. One example,
together with the New Labour emphasis on inter-professional working,
was the creation of Youth Offending Teams (see below). Then there was
social work’s absence from any real role in relation to Sure Start and the
Children’s Fund, preventative initiatives for younger and older children
and their families, respectively. However, as in other areas of the public services,
the overall result was work that was once the preserve of highly
trained professionals, was increasingly carried out by less qualified
support, outreach and other staff. Rather than this being done to ease the
pressure on overworked social workers, the public were increasingly
having to put up with cut-price services (Rogowski, 2010).
Significant changes followed the Victoria Climbie´ Inquiry (Laming,
2003) into the death of a young girl who died of injuries inflicted by her
carers. Every Child Matters (Department for Education and Skills, 2004)
led to the 2004 Children Act, aimed at transforming children’s services
and ensuring every child had the support they needed, though offending
and asylum-seeking children were largely conspicuous by their absence in
such deliberations. The act sought to enhance the integration of health, education,
social services/care and others, to avoid professionals working and
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thinking within a so-called bunker-like mentality in their ‘own’ departments.
This led to demise of Social Services Departments in 2006, with
local government no longer providing a safe, supportive environment for
the practice of social work. Indeed, one way forward was the establishment
of pilot social work practices for looked after children (see Le Grand, 2007),
with the coalition government now looking to extend this to social work
with adults.
Despite the foregoing, many see two current developments as having
positive possibilities, these being the beginnings of a College of Social
Work and the Munro recommendations (Munro, 2011). Regarding the
former, it is argued that a college would give a voice for, and raise the
status of, social work, though one has only to recall that the British Association
of Social Workers have had serious misgivings as to whether it will be
genuinely independent of government. This is an important point, given
that it is not long ago that NISW, which in some ways provided a similar
role, was wound up. Then again, Munro argues that cutting bureaucracy
will enable social workers to spend time with families, focusing on the
needs of children, in turn allowing more scope to exercise professional judgement.
In particular, the Hackney reclaiming social work model is enthusiastically
referred to (Munro, 2011, pp. 151–66), notwithstanding it is
based on a management model developed by business consultants. There
is also a call for ‘more determined and robust management’ (Munro,
2011, pp. 5), but, given that many of the problems confronting social
work have resulted from such imported private sector management
styles, many remain to be convinced that practitioners will see a positive
difference in day-to-day practice.
Social work practice with children and families
When it comes to the actuality of social work practice with children and
families, New Labour’s ‘modernisation’ and ‘transformation’ agenda (see
Garrett, 2003) amounted to the increased proceduralisation, bureaucratisation
and control of the social work task (Lymbery and Butler, 2004). For
example, there is the increased documentation needed for looked after children
and those subject to child protection plans. Then there was the introduction
of the assessment framework and the ‘electronic turn’ (Garrett,
2003, 2005).
The standardised assessment framework (Department of Health et al.,
2000) aimed to move social work from focusing solely on child protection,
instead introducing an initial assessment for all children in need aimed at
developing an increased emphasis on family support. For complex and/or
child protection cases, more in-depth core assessments were required. In
essence, the assessment changes were an attempt to define out the indeterminacy,
uncertainty and ambiguity in practice by introducing a
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‘techno-rationalist’ method (Cleaver and Walker, 2004). Such an approach,
however, fails to capture the fact that people’s social problems can often be
messy and not amenable to simplistic solutions (Smith, 2004). It also leads
to an over-focus on information gathering, this coming at the expense of
genuinely meeting the needs of children and families. The overall result
is that practice largely consists of processing and classification rather than
direct work with children and families (Allen and Stanley, 2011).
Admittedly, child protection should be located in the broader context of
effective and comprehensive support for children and families at the neighbourhood
and community levels—arguably something that the framework
attempted (see Lonne et al., 2008). However, a key criticism is that it had an
uncritical acceptance of current economic and social arrangements, these
being the unquestioned foundation for familial dynamics and interpersonal
relationships (Garrett, 2009b). Initially, there was some flexibility for social
workers to address this in that they could use their own narrative to describe
and explain the reality of the problems and difficulties facing children and
families but this was reduced by the aforementioned ‘electronic turn’.
Finally, following completion of the assessment forms, unless there are
child protection concerns, in many cases, little actually occurs in terms of
help and support. Often, families are simply told their parenting is ‘good
enough’, perhaps with advice about other agencies (Rogowski, 2009).
Such assessment processes, underpinned by the functional objective to
manage risk and police the socially marginalised, seem to be used to
screen out some needs, redefine them as someone else’s problem, or say
they were insufficiently serious to warrant intervention (Smith, 2008).
Furthermore, perhaps all governments have now given up thinking that
social workers should work preventatively with children and families.
This is because, in 2006, the Common Assessment Framework (CAF)
was introduced so teachers, health visitors, children centre staff and
others could use the framework to improve multidisciplinary working and
provide preventative help to children. A key problem, however, is that
the assessment aspect of the tool, like social work assessments, predominates
rather than the provision of any additional services. As a result,
many teachers and health visitors, for example, see it simply as a bureaucratic
burden to be avoided. More fundamentally, social workers should
be wary about encouraging this process because there is a real danger of
hastening the demise of a social work identity. After all, essentially,
CAFs are about what traditional, preventative social work consisted of,
and a time when services were actually provided.
The ‘electronic turn’ utilises information and communication technologies
(ICTs) that are increasingly fulfilling a crucial role in terms of technologising
and marketising the public sector (Harris, 2003). The need for
efficiency, effective targeting and ensuring the requirements of ‘customers’
dominate rather than those of service providers are the arguments put
forward for the changes. But the Integrated Children’s System shows how
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disastrous the unthinking introduction of ICTs can be, with social workers
having to spend most of their time simply in-putting data that the computer
requires (Hall et al., 2008; White et al., 2010). How can social workers be
expected to protect children when they are prevented from spending significant
time with them or their families because of having to devote most of
their time to the computer?
As for youth offending, New Labour’s flagship 1998 Crime and Disorder
Act continued with ‘popular punitiveness’; this eventually widened to
include anti-social behaviour, essentially the criminalising of nuisance
(Squires, 2008). This ‘get tough’ approach is carried out by Youth Offending
Teams (YOTs), the effect being correctional early intervention, deterrence
and punishment, with the well-established policies and practices of
the 1980s being abandoned (Goldson, 2000). Current coalition proposals
to rebrand anti-social behaviour orders are unlikely to alter the get-tough
response to youth offenders, nor will it alter the fact that practitioner discretion
and autonomy have been eroded as managerial bureaucracy and
targets continue to dominate.
Another concern with YOTs, as with social workers working too
closely with the police in child protection, is the blurring of roles, resulting
in social workers losing their professional identity. The unified identity
of YOT practitioner has emerged, with the role and influence of
social workers diminishing, along with the emphasis on the young
person’s wider social and economic context. In many youth justice
texts (e.g. Smith, 2007; Stephenson et al., 2007), social work is barely
mentioned, indicating that, whereas social work was pivotal to dealing
with youth offending, this is no longer the case. The most obvious manifestation
of this is that services for young people in trouble have been
separated from mainstream children and families social work services
(Goldson, 2007). What remains of social work is increasingly tied to a
system primarily concerned with the management of risk by controlling
the behaviour of young people who represent a threat to the wider community
(Smith, 2008).
Deprofessionalisation, managerialism and the social work
business
The recent changes to social work’s organisation and practice have
amounted to deprofessionalisation because the overriding concerns have
been with encouraging managerialism and the ‘social work business’.
Although professionalism can be attacked from the political left (see
Simpkin, 1983), a more enduring attack on professional or ‘producer
power’ came from the New Right (George and Wilding, 1994), this being
taken up by New Labour arguing that public services, including social
work, had to become ‘modernised’ and responsible to the ‘consumer’. At
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a rhetorical level, this meant increased professionalism, significant developments
being the introduction of the social work BA degree, along with
social workers having to register with the General Social Care Council.
On the other hand, the pre-occupation continues to be ensuring a reliable
and compliant workforce who will simply work at the will of employers
through managers (Dominelli, 2009; Ferguson and Woodward, 2009).
Essentially, the degree focuses on the practical knowledge social workers
require (Department of Health, 2002) to the exclusion of the knowledge
to be gleaned so as to combat social injustice. While academics welcomed
the move to a graduate profession, they were certainly less enthused
about the degree’s increased reliance on ‘mechanistic skills’ and a ‘competence
model of education’ (Orme et al., 2009). Further, despite the emphasis
on continuing professional development, the preoccupation with ‘competence’
is an example of it being a governmental tool for the regulatory
control of professionals (Eraut, 1994).
Managerialism and the ‘social work business’ (see, e.g. Clarke and
Newman, 1997; Clarke, 1998; Harris, 2003; Evans, 2009; Rogowski, 2010,
2011) have transformed the way welfare organisations carry out government
policy—a change reflecting the move away from administering of
public services to their management (Harris and White, 2009b). It
stemmed from the neo-liberal ideology that the market was superior to
the state and that public services needed to be managed much like the
private sector. Public services, including social work, had to become more
like businesses, functioning in a context as market-like as possible. The
rhetoric referred to ‘empowerment’, ‘choice’ and ‘needs-led assessment’
but the consequence of these developments on practice was far-reaching.
Social work was taken ‘away from approaches that were therapeutic or
which stressed the importance of casework, let alone anything more
radical or progressive’ (Harris, 2003, pp. 66). Moreover, the move to the
managerial ‘social work business’ is anathema to social work values and
its commitment to social justice and social change.
The changes outlined have had a negative impact on practice, simply
because ‘modernising agendas had served to undo good practice’ (Doyle
and Kennedy, 2009, pp. 51). Such agendas aim to quantify and justify
service outcomes, often resulting in the policing function dominating practice
objectives at the expense of other priorities, including the real needs of
users (Stepney, 2006). Social workers are often so busy at ‘getting (the
current) the job’ done that they are in danger of losing sight of what and
who they are, including their professional uniqueness and style of intervention.
The ‘modernising’ developments often simply lead to social workers
having to work their way through a maze of new rules and procedures
while simultaneously adhering to deadlines and targets to achieve organisational
performance indicators.
Then again, when it comes to social work with youth offenders, the influence
of managerialism is apparent in the ASSET form. Though aimed at
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assisting decision making in practice, often it is simply a management tool
to improve information gathering (Smith, 2007; Whyte, 2009). Such prescriptive
form-filling along within a managerial and business ethos has led
to the ‘zombification’ of social workers in youth justice (Pitts, 2001).
Radical/critical possibilities
In many ways, social workers have ‘been turned into unreflective peopleprocessors
by waves of managerialism over the last 30 years and, more
recently, by the intertwining of managerialism with New Labour’s modernisation
agenda’ (White, 2009, pp. 129). Such a situation is likely to continue
under the coalition government, despite talk of reducing social work
bureaucracy. This is because a major neo-liberal concern is with marketisation,
reducing public expenditure and controlling social workers. If intervention
occurs, it is supposed to be evidence-based but, as stated, in most
cases, unless there are child protection concerns, little is offered. Interventions
that do occur are usually of a controlling, authoritarian nature,
amounting to users being told to change their behaviour and lifestyles or
face the consequences, with losing one’s children being possible.
Despite the foregoing, there are those from a radical/critical perspective
who manage to retain a sense of optimism: Garrett (2003, 2009b) focuses on
the remaking or transforming of social work with children and families; Ferguson
(2008; Ferguson and Woodward, 2009) wants to reclaim social work
together with reasserting a radical approach; and Jordan (2007, 2008, 2010)
looks at social work and well-being.
Remaking and transforming social work
Garrett (2003, 2009b) provides a critical account of the changes afflicting
social work with children and families as a result of neo-liberal rationality.
However, although neo-liberalism is the dominant ‘common sense’ or
ideology, it contains flaws and inconsistencies and, thus, there are opportunities.
For instance, whereas the role of the state is to produce conditions
conducive to neo-liberalism, included are spaces for potential opposition.
Often, neo-liberals falter because they must engage with ingrained cultures
that, because they are not in tune with neo-liberal ‘common sense’, generate
resistance. Social workers often have a loyalty to the practices and norms of
their discipline as well as what amounts to the forced-upon practices and
norms of the market. The resulting tension between a value base reflected
in a humanistic code of ethics can lead to opposition to the privatising of
services, together with the development of counter strategies. Garrett
(2009b) goes on to refer to Gramsci’s notion of ‘hegemony’, with the
emphasis on words and discursive struggle being linked to more orthodox
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politics based on groups such as political parties, trade unions, professional
associations and social groups, where it is possible to create counterhegemonic
strategies aimed at social change.
At a less theoretical level, the London borough of Haringey’s case of
Baby Peter opened up spaces for a more progressive debate about social
work for children and families (Garrett, 2009a). First, attention began to
be focused on Ofsted, which had previously approved of services there. It
had relied too much on quantitative data, on how many forms had been
filled in within the specified timescale, and not enough on the underlying
of quality of service provision. Second, there was an increased public awareness
about the electronic recording system social workers were forced to
use, including the inordinate amount of social work time spent on computers.
As indicated earlier, and despite my element of cynicism, Munro
(2011) advocates reducing social work bureaucracy. Third, there was a
more sensible debate about what could and could not be achieved by
social workers, namely that, although generally, the child protection
system works well (Smith, 2004; Pritchard and Williams, 2010), risk and
child deaths cannot be totally eliminated. Fourth, attention was focused
on how neo-liberal policies, reflected in unfilled vacancies, agency staff
and high staff turnover, were impacting on the ability of social workers to
deliver effective services. The subsequent SWTF report (2009) echoed
much of the foregoing, thereby calling into question New Labour’s ‘modernisation’
agenda.
Reclaiming social work
Ferguson (2008; Ferguson and Woodward, 2009) has similar concerns relating
to the dominance of neo-liberalism, how it has changed social work, why
the profession should be reclaimed and why a radical/critical practice still
retains its relevance. He takes serious issue with developments effecting
social work as a result of managerialism, competition and marketisation.
The increased bureaucracy, being care managers and rationers of resources,
and ever more having to be the moral police, all contribute to a profound
sense of dissatisfaction among social workers. However, with this dissatisfaction,
the seeds of resistance are sown, this being fuelled and strengthened
by the emergence of two types of social movements—social welfare and
anti-globalisation/capitalist. Social welfare movements such as disability
and mental health users have challenged traditional models of social
work and ways of delivering services while also being at the forefront of
resisting attempts to reduce welfare spending. The anti-globalisation movement
is against the neo-liberal concern with the unrestricted accumulation
of wealth and exploitation of people and the planet, while also reflecting
social work values of respect and social justice. Such factors together with
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a re-engagement with a radical/critical practice provide social work with
‘resources for hope’ (Batsleer and Humphries, 2000).
Radical/critical practice itself draws on Marxist thought and critical
theory more generally (see Fook, 2002), with problems confronting
people seen as social and structural rather than individual, and arising
from class, race, gender and other oppressions (Rogowski, 2008). The
focus is on political action and social change, while simultaneously addressing
the immediate needs of individuals. It involves anti-racist/sexist and
anti-oppressive/discriminatory perspectives along with empowerment and
advocacy (Payne, 2005a). It is about a better world simply because it is
impossible to envisage an inclusionary neo-liberal/capitalist world.
Although group and community-orientated strategies of the past (see, for
example, chapter 3 in Rogowski, 2010) are often no longer available,
social workers can pursue:
radical ideas in practice . . . in their individual work with service users,
through the relationships they build with them, the attention they pay to
their needs and rights and in their own personal recognition of the oppression
and discrimination they face (Ferguson and Woodward, 2009, pp. 75).
Social work, welfare and well-being
Jordan (2007, 2008, 2010), never comfortable with the market mentality of
neo-liberalism, eschews the perspective of accountants, managers and government
ministers, re-emphasising social work concerns with relationships
and feelings that are not vague, woolly concepts. He argues that social
work sits well with a happiness and well-being agenda that sees a future
consisting of environmental awareness, a revival of respect and mutuality
among ethnic diversity, and a vision of our collective quality of life. A
concern for happiness and well-being is also at odds with New Labour’s
over-regulation of welfare and social relations, even to the extent of
social work being a tool of oppression (Jordan, 2010). During my life,
we have witnessed a move from a collectivist welfare state to a competitive
individualist society in which everyone takes responsibility for themselves.
If individuals cannot do this, they are increasingly dealt with in authoritarian
ways. What have been lost are collective measures for social protection,
which have been sacrificed in order to achieve the goals of more
flexible market-orientated systems and people. This may have helped
the UK to adapt to the demands of globalisation, but it has also led to a
diminution in qualities such as mutual respect, acceptance and consideration
of others.
Social work is far more than the neo-liberal preoccupation of being
able to deliver services to individuals whose well-being is taken to lie in
a choice of alternative suppliers or as offering interventions to target
specific behaviours. This implies that services are one-off experiences
that can be consumed one after another and overlooks the value
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generated by the ‘interpersonal economy’ (Jordan, 2007). Rather, social
work comprises interactions involving emotions such as empathy, trust
and respect, these being the mechanisms that produce much of the
value of social work.
Practice examples
When considering the work of Garrett, Ferguson and Jordan, some overburdened
practitioners argue that, at a theoretical level, their views are
all well and good, but how do you implement such ideas in day-to-day practice?
This arises because there can be a gap between radical/critical theory
and the practice. Even so, I maintain that there are opportunities and these
need to be utilised. In particular, it is important to avoid seeing social work
in terms of simply moral policing, the social control aspect, with instead
more emphasis being given to the caring side of social work—one that is
concerned with social justice.
Nowadays, radical/critical practice may have to amount to ‘quiet challenges’
and resistance to managerial and business-orientated discourses
and practices (White, 2009), and a number of examples spring to mind.
For instance, one can mystify or conceal knowledge of users in order to
acquire resources, this amounting to the manipulation of knowledge and
information on their behalf. Or, again, one could delay or exaggerate paperwork
or assessment plans so that managers are ‘forced’ into taking a particular
course of action. Ignoring, bending or re-interpreting rules and
procedures also has a role to play. It can amount to ‘deviant social
work’—small-scale acts of resistance, subterfuge, deception and sabotage
aimed at maximising help and support to vulnerable people (Carey and
Foster, 2011). Such ‘quiet challenges’ are often hidden and scattered
throughout practice. When it comes to specific cases, let us look at what
a radical/critical practice might entail.
First, disaffected teenage young people can be hard to reach and engage
with. A social worker might be faced with a fifteen-year-old young man
with a disrupted care background. He is challenging in terms of not going
to school, being disruptive when there and often goes missing from home.
Drug and alcohol abuse are other issues. He refuses to engage with social
workers because, at the instigation of managers, they keep changing or
his case is closed. Faced with this, it is important that the young man’s
views are fully reflected in the various assessment and other reports,
together with the need for practitioners to persevere, be available, honest
and consistent in their dealings with him. Admittedly, this can be a difficult
task, given that managers want to process cases as speedily, and with as little
recourse to the public purse, as possible. But attempts can be successful, this
resonating with arguments about the importance of relationship-based
practice (Ruch et al., 2010).
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A second example is that of a teenage girl who is continually absconding,
staying out overnight, sometimes for days at a time. She associates with
other girls who then ‘hang around’ with or are targeted by teenage and
older young men who befriend and sexually exploit them. Again, in
reports written for child exploitation meetings, instead of focusing on
inadequate parenting, in effect blaming often single-parent mothers doing
their best in difficult circumstances, the practitioner could advocate for a
more progressive response such as group work with the young woman concerned
and her female friends, even though few social workers are currently
allowed to use this method. This could, utilising an empowering model (e.g.
Mullender and Ward, 1991), focus on the issues and concerns but with an
emphasis on the young women learning from each other’s experiences.
These experiences could be related to current society, which, despite
changes influenced by feminist thought, is still dominated by men.
In relation to child protection, as a result of Victoria Climbie´ and Baby
Peter, it is easy for practitioners to fall into the trap of seeing themselves
solely as the ‘hard cops’ of the welfare state. This because of the role
they have been forced into in the current neo-liberal world, often merely
intrusively asking questions, gathering information and, in so doing,
inspecting families’ homes and lifestyles. In many cases, this is carried out
not with the aim of finding out what help and support are needed to
provide reasonable care of the children, but rather with a view to defending
the organisation’s reputation if things go wrong. Instead of such defensive
practice, social workers should work with children and families on the
basis that they are potential allies in dealing with the issues under consideration.
In a case of neglect (see Taylor and Daniel, 2005), for instance, you
could have children arriving at school late or not at all, often ill-clad and
hungry, because their single-parent mother is often hung-over from
repeated alcohol abuse and has been unable to get up. Home conditions
could be another concern. A neo-liberal social work approach would be
simply to tell her to change her lifestyle or face the consequences of child
protection procedures and care proceedings. A more critical social work
approach, however, would work on the issues of concern but in a more collaborative/partnership-orientated
way by listening to and, wherever possible,
acting on, the mother’s and children’s view of the situation. This
includes spending time with the family, sympathetically delving into the
reasons for her drinking, her and her children’s worries and anxieties,
and so on. Financial and housing problems, for example, might be
factors. Linking the family members with and, if necessary, accompanying
them to, appropriate local groups and agencies dealing with their particular
issues might be needed. Advocating on behalf of their situation might also
be required. All this takes time, and could well be frowned upon by managers
who merely want to quickly process such cases, but, nonetheless,
the resilient practitioner will find ways round this and create some space.
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Finally, ‘old’ radical social work concerns with politicisation and consciencisation,
for example, can still play a part. As noted, it may be difficult
to engage in some of the potentially radical/critical community/groupwork
initiatives of the past. But, and despite the advent of postmodernism,
which challenges the basis of over-arching ‘truths’, it is still possible to work
with users on an individual basis with the aim of developing an understanding
of the underlying causes of the problems and difficulties they face,
namely the neo-liberal system we currently live in.
As well as practitioners working with users in progressive, radical/critical
ways, there is also a role for collective action. This means engaging with the
British Association of Social Workers and the nascent College of Social
Work, for example, so as to ensure a stronger professional identity, as
well as the Social Work Action Network (a radical, campaigning organisation
of social workers, students, academics, users and carers) to develop
strategies to resist managerialism. Trade unions can and do assist in such
processes. Broader social groupings also have roles to play. The antiglobalisation
movement is significant because of its ability to bring together
disparate groups—trade unionists, environmentalists, peace campaigners,
feminists, socialists and many others—to challenge the neo-liberal world.
It amounts to ‘unity in diversity’ (Leonard, 1997, pp. 177) and points to
some ways forward in challenging neo-liberal orthodoxy. Working individually
in one’s day-to-day practice, as well as collectively, means social work
can work towards a different, more just and equal world, not least because
more equal societies are better for everyone (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010).
Conclusion
By the end of the 1990s, the welfare state was no longer regarded by neoliberals
as aiding social solidarity, instead being a means to provide consumers
with tailored, cost-effective services. New Labour embraced the new
welfare culture, envisaging a modernised welfare state and its social
workers as having to work with the grain of market imperatives (Page,
2009). Such a view is being developed and taken further by the
Conservative-led coalition. Already, we have seen backtracking in relation
to the SWTF’s (2009) proposals in relation to a Master’s degree qualification,
together with a General Social Work Council, which was proposed
towards the end of New Labour’s term of office. There are also the
doubts about the College of Social Work and the Munro proposals, so
the priority, at the instigation of managers and politicians, remains likely
to be social workers implementing ‘getting more for less’ policies as state
services are cut. This will entail the continued bureaucratic emphasis
aimed at rationing resources and risk assessment. Such a scenario lends
itself to a critical pessimism because of the key problem that confronts
social work.
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All three major political parties in England, along with most of the governments
and the main political parties in the developed (and increasingly
the developing) world, accept a consensus seeing neo-liberalism (or, in
more overtly Marxist terms, global capitalism) as the only way forward.
Despite the global recession of 2008–10, the belief in free markets and
limited state intervention remains intact to the extent that the very the
existence of social work as a profession is threatened. The caring and
supportive side of state social work does not fit in with the neo-liberal ideology,
which emphasises people having to take responsibility for their own
lives, supported by family, friends, local community and voluntary
organisations where necessary—the so-called ‘Big Society’. Perhaps all
that can be expected over the coming years is that social workers will
become even more the acceptable face of the state in saying that no or
minimal services can be offered. People will be expected to ‘stand on
their own feet’, with social workers only intervening if people become a
danger to themselves or others, and then in an authoritarian way. But,
surely all is not lost.
I take a more optimistic view of future possibilities for social work, while
acknowledging the pitfalls (Rogowski, 2010). It is possible to utilise the
space opened up by the death of Baby Peter, reclaim social work and
make the most of the opportunities provided by the current emphasis on
happiness and well-being. There may be many challenges and difficulties,
but spaces remain as the practice examples outlined indicate. This has to
be complemented by acting collectively so as to ensure that there is resistance
to the neo-liberal world. Social workers must move beyond being competent
‘technicians’ towards a broader concept of what is professional,
namely an acknowledgement that knowledge and understanding are
required in order to challenge current managerial obstacles and practices.
This knowledge and understanding points towards the structural connections
that penetrate the surface of what social workers encounter on a
daily basis and involve locating users’ difficulties and possible solutions
within a wider social context.
When it comes to the ‘modernisation’ and ‘transformation’ of social
work, despite the intensification of work and the individualisation of
users, the inconvenience of, albeit reduced, discretion will hopefully
endure (Harris and White, 2009a). A niche can be found for some progressive,
even radical/critical possibilities.
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