Social work as policy innovator: challenges and possibilities in the UK

Smith, Roger

Abstract

In social work practice settings, social problems are, by definition, centre stage. We can think of issues such as child poverty, violence and abuse, social exclusion, family breakdown and migration as closely intertwined with the contexts of social work practice. For social work, such issues are highly visible, and unquestionably associated with the tasks integral to professional practice. The key question for us to consider is how this relationship is played out, and how social work's ‘natural’ interest in such policy issues manifests itself in action to secure change. As the book's introductory chapter explained, this is a complex and challenging field for social work, but one where there are a number of opportunities arising from the obvious common ground between the ‘project’ of the profession itself and the lived experiences of those for whom it seeks to make a difference in their lives. Social work can be considered a natural ally of those experiencing disadvantage and discrimination, but it is also faced with the paradoxical observation that often it is experienced by service users as ‘part of the problem’. Others have written extensively about the complex and ambiguous ‘positioning’ of social work in the UK context, to which this chapter particularly refers. Here, social work is constituted as a formal state function, which must simultaneously represent the notional public interest, and intervene decisively (and divisively) to protect and promote the interests of vulnerable members of the population, in particular (Jordan & Drakeford, 2012). So, ‘Don't Even Get Us Started on Social Workers’ appears in the title of a recent article focusing on the role of practitioners in working with the effects of domestic abuse (Robbins & Cook, 2017). Instead of finding social workers as natural allies in helping them resist and deal with violence, women interviewed for this study spoke of being threatened and judged, and held responsible for the harm they and their children were experiencing. Here, then, the fundamental question for social work of its relationship to service users on the one hand, and state power and dominant ideologies on the other, becomes acute: There was a perceived gulf of experience between the workers and their service users … In a period of gross inequality, as currently in the UK, distances between groups are intensified and exaggerated … The women in the [focus] groups saw social workers as alien in terms of experience, understanding and class.

Citation

Smith, R. Social work as policy innovator: challenges and possibilities in the UK. In U. Klammer, S. Leiber, & S. Leitner (Eds.), Social Work and the Making of Social Policy (21 - 36). Bristol University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvhktj6v.7

• Deposit Date: Jun 12, 2019
• Publisher: Bristol University Press
• Pages: 21 - 36
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Book Title: Social Work and the Making of Social Policy
• Chapter Number: 2
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvhktj6v.7