Prevailing problems and how social work contributes to social injustice

Print This Post EMail This Post November 18th, 2007

Leon, UK

Having graduated this year as a social worker, with my dissertation completed, I have re-entered the job market to face the dilemmas and uncertainties I have been educated to expect, and trained to deal with! During my training the two most compelling guides to professional practice within welfare organisations that I had recourse to, were seventeen and twenty-seven years of age respectively; Michael Lipsky’s “Dilemmas of a Street Level Bureaucrat” (1980) and Michael Preston- Shoot and Dick Agass’ “Making Sense of Social Work, Psychodynamics, Systems and Practice ” (1990).

The relevance of these two texts in highlighting the “wicked issues” policy makers seek to address, and their description of the practice dilemmas front line practitioners and managers cope with, led me to reflect that despite the profligacy of reform many welfare organisations are subject to, the underlying conflicts and contradictions remain unaltered, un-discussed and unresolved. This sense of “stuckness” permeates through our bureaucracies and political system. The continued avoidance of the structural conditions that produce poverty and necessitate eligibility means that Social Work as a profession will continue to endure and suffer the conflicting messages and expectations that emerge; not only from their roles as bureaucrats and professionals, but from a society that does not wish to confront its own role in the production of alienation and distress, and would instead, rather assign blame.

Preston- Shoot and Agass state that “organisations may thus be viewed as socially constructed defence mechanisms” (p.116) while Lipsky concludes that “it is far easier and less disruptive to develop employment for street-level bureaucrats than to reduce income inequalities” (p.7). Given these enduring circumstances, social workers should be forgiven if they conclude that they both alleviate and contribute to the maintenance of client subjugation and discrimination. Lipsky shows how the reduction of a person to their qualification as a client for a bureaucratic service necessarily entails the contradictory expectation that they will be treated as individuals, while being convinced that the routine processing mechanisms they are subject to, will not lead to their being discriminated against. The untenable nature of this position is what operationalises worker bias and provides the basis for the profession to simultaneously discriminate positively in favour of some, while excluding and negatively discriminating against others. This leaves the social work commitment to anti-discriminatory practice, at least incomplete or partially obscured.

At interview in a front-line Duty and Assessment Team I was informed that only two or three per cent of referrals would actually go on to receive a service (rather than the just the assessments). This figure incorporates both Children in Need and Child Protection Investigations; it was acknowledged that eligibility criteria for services were very high and that intervention generally occurred to protect children from the risk of significant harm. These figures correspond to research undertaken by Forrester at Brunel University (2006) and left me wondering whether Forrester’s research that 8.5% of families then go onto account for 52% of all re-referrals was also applicable in this case? While acknowledging that undertaking an assessment can serve to identify problems and propose actions for change, the exclusion of the clients and the withdrawal of the organisation had led me to question whether the 97% of children not receiving an intervention post assessment did go onto to have their identified needs met? This is only ever comprehensively answered if the client is re-referred to the DAT and meets the eligibility criteria for intervention. These concerns are heightened by Spratt’s research (2000), which investigated the decision making process at initial referral, and demonstrated a lack of consistency in the allocation to child protection inquiries or children in need enquiries.

Preston-Shoot and Agass’ observe a vicious circle where society’s expectations may fit and reinforce the need in practitioners to prove themselves, and to be wanted; this symbiosis lends support to the maintenance of the status quo, and the avoidance of conflict. The lack of political engagement on behalf of the social work profession, and denial of the politics in its role within local authorities or voluntary organisations, leaves social work isolated from client groups and other organisations committed to social justice. Ignoring the social work profession’s contribution to social injustice, insofar as client’s needs are often not met and their social rights are often not addressed, will only perpetuate the problems experienced within the profession, and limit the role social work could have in combating social injustice.

References

Street-level Bureaucracy. Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services by Michael Lipsky. Published 1980 by Russell Sage Foundation, New York.
Making Sense of Social Work: Psychodynamics, Systems and Practice by Michael Preston-Shoot and Dick Agass. Published in 1990 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire. RG21 6XS.
Decision Making by Senior Social Workers at Point of First Referral by Trevor Spratt, published in the British Journal of Social Work (2000) vol 30, pp 597 - 618.
Patterns of re-referral to social services: a study of 400 closed cases by Donald Forrester, published in Child and Family Social Work (2006) vol 12, pp 11- 21.
“Leon” works as a social worker in UK.

Topics: professionalization, social policy, social services, social work, UK