Browse

When the corporate banks from Wall Street to Canary Wharf came tumbling down in 2008/9 many commentators were proclaiming that the neoliberal project had reached its endgame. It was none other than the Nobel Prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz who noted at the time that:

Today, there is a mismatch between social and private returns. Unless they are closely aligned, the market system cannot work well. Neo-liberal market fundamentalism was always a political doctrine serving certain interests. It was never supported by economic theory. Nor, it should now be clear, is it supported by historical experience. Learning this lesson may be the silver lining in the cloud now hanging over the global economy. (Stiglitz 2008: 2)

However, far from heralding a new settlement, with the instigation of a dual-track policy of bailouts of the banks and austerity, as Belzer and Wayne (2017) note, since 2008 we have seen the ‘greatest theft from the public in our entire history’. And far from witnessing its demise, we have seen an intensification of neoliberalism, with the consequences most acutely felt by those least able to resist its impacts, resulting, among other things, in a rapid rise in poverty and inequality. A report by Oxfam, for example, estimates that between 2010 and 2020, 25% of British children will be living in poverty and an additional ‘1.5 million working-age adults are expected to fall into poverty, bringing the total to 17.5 per cent of this group’ (Oxfam 2013: 2). Other effects of austerity are a significant rise in suicide rates, particularly among older males and disabled people (Antonakakis and Collins 2015; MacKenzie 2015).

A recurrent theme over the last 40 years, broadly covering the move away from ‘classic’ welfare statism to the neoliberal period in British politics, has been the perceived ‘crisis in social work’. At times this has been focused on a claim that the profession is too concerned with ‘political correctness’, rather than carrying out statutory state duties (Philpot 2000). Occasionally, it is deemed to be a ‘failing profession’ because of its perceived role (whether central or marginal) in a case involving the death of a child (Corby 2005). While, at times, politicians generate the crisis by attacking social work as an ‘easy target’, often alongside an attack on welfare recipients (especially benefit recipients), to play to their support base (SWAN 2013).

Of course, in the debates generated around each of these examples, there may be elements or aspects of social work theory or practice that we can reflect upon, learn from and improve. We do not need to be defensive. We should be much more assertive about what we do right and open to the idea that we can improve some aspects of our activities. But this notwithstanding, the impression is that social work is always in some form of crisis situation – and, at heart, this opens up questions about the nature and viability of what we might term ‘the social work project’ (the possibility of an actively engaged profession, committed to working alongside, and in support of, individuals and communities striving to bring change to their lives and environment).

At present this sense of crisis is more entrenched than ever.

In Reisch and Andrews’ (2002) classic book on the history of social work in the US the authors look at the ‘road not taken’. Their argument is that there has been a rich and varied past within social work, and that, at key turning points, the profession followed certain ‘roads’ or ‘paths’ which has led us to where we are today. By following these roads, however, alternative approaches and visions regarding what social work could or should be were closed down. Reisch and Andrews make clear that the development of the social work profession is not a simple linear process. Knowing our (contested) histories, recognising how things have been different in the past, enables us to consider the possibility of a different present and an alternative future. And there are always alternatives: different ways of conceptualising social problems, different priorities for social engagement, different values to shape our practice, different goals to social intervention. It is possible to do social work in diverse ways; it doesn’t have to be like this.

Collectively, the authors in this book share a concern that we are fast approaching a key fork in the road, with the social work profession facing a question over which road to take: what kind of social work do we want to see, and what kind of a profession do we want to be part of? Is it one shaped by targets and markets, with workers processing people at the behest of an increasingly brutal and brutalising ‘welfare’ state? Or is it one that, in the face of the present crisis (of cuts, austerity and managerialism) asserts its independence, its values and its belief that ‘another social work is possible’?

Collectively we are of the view that the years of austerity need to be brought to an end – urgently.

This chapter argues that a dangerous disconnect has become increasingly apparent since 2010 in England allowing successive governments to claim they are improving child protection while simultaneously promoting and implementing policies that increase the numbers of children living in poverty, reduce the support services available to them, and reinforce the inequalities that limit their potential.

Key developments in the current policy climate will be discussed, locating these in a historical canvas; and alternative understandings drawing from research on the relationship between poverty, inequality and the harms children and their families suffer will be provided. The chapter will explore why a social model of ‘child protection’ is needed, outline its main features, and address how it might offer progressive possibilities for families and those who work with them as well as wider society.

We want every child in the country, whatever their background, whatever their age, whatever their ethnicity or gender, to have the opportunity to fulfil their potential. Children’s social care services have an essential role to play – whether by keeping children safe from harm, finding the best possible care when children cannot live at home, or creating the conditions that enable children to thrive and achieve. To make that happen, it is essential that everybody working within children’s social care has the knowledge and skills to do their jobs well, and the organisational leadership and culture to support and challenge them to keep improving. (DfE 2016: 3)

In 2016 the Department for Education (DfE) articulated its vision for child protection, identifying activity in relation to three areas: people and leadership; practice and systems; governance and accountability.

When we think and talk about ‘social work’, we mostly focus on the first word. We read, discuss and write about the social problems and social issues addressed by social work or the social processes that are the focus of social work’s intervention in people’s lives and the vehicle through which that intervention takes place. In mainstream accounts of the development of social work after the Second World War, it was depicted as a demonstration of social responsibility: ‘As the accepted areas of social obligation widened, as injustice became less tolerable, new services were separately organised around individual need’ (Titmuss 1963: 21). In such accounts, social work, as part of the wider social services, was also extolled as the material expression of the social rights of citizenship:

By the social element [of citizenship] I mean the whole range from the right to a modicum of economic welfare and security to the right to share to the full in the social heritage and to live the life of a civilised being according to the standards prevailing in the society. The institutions most closely connected with it are the educational system and the social services. (Marshall 1963: 74)

However, despite its embeddedness in many and various aspects of ‘the social’, social work is also a job. As a job it involves work and the focus of this chapter is on how the work of social work has been and can be understood from a critical perspective.

The conceptualisation of social work as work was developed in response to its organisational location in Social Services Departments (SSDs) and this is, therefore, the starting point in what follows.

This volume brings together a number of the UK’s most eminent social work professors to ask: what is the future of social work? Social work is regularly deemed to be ‘in crisis’ but after four decades of neoliberalism and ten years of austerity what is left of social work? Or at least, what of the dream that the social work profession, adequately funded, could provide a range of ways of working that supported individuals, families and communities during times of trouble? What happened to the expectation that the social work profession could guide people through the intricacies of the welfare and benefit systems offering empathy, hope and (financial) support when vulnerable people made the decision that they wanted to bring about change in their lives? What happened to the dream that social work could be a profession that stood shoulder to shoulder with some of the poorest and most marginalised people in our society and was prepared to ‘speak truth to power’, so that the voices of the marginalised could be heard, their perspectives and ‘knowledge from experience’ considered? Are these aspirations still relevant in the twenty-first century? Or have the years of neoliberalism, managerialism and welfare service retrenchment undermined the profession – increasingly turning it into ‘a job’, reduced to a series of ‘skills’ that can be undertaken by almost anyone, that implement government policies, often in ways that damage those we work with?

Despite considerable policy and legislative changes over the past century, society continues to exclude, neglect and frequently damage people with learning disabilities. Hence the need for families to advocate on behalf of their relatives. How might social work respond? At the time this chapter was written an initiative from the English government was launched to pilot a named social worker for people with learning disabilities (SCIE 2017). The fact that such an initiative was perceived to be needed in 2017 is, at first sight, quite astounding. As I will demonstrate in this chapter there is overwhelming evidence from families dating over the past 50 years that they want a trusted person to support them both in navigating around the services they may require, and in managing the emotions and stresses associated with bringing up and supporting a family member with learning disabilities. There is also evidence, almost as convincing, that having that trusted person can avert a crisis when family carers become ill. But, with few exceptions, families have looked in vain for such an individual.

The Named Social Worker initiative was directed at individuals at risk of hospital admission or admission to an Assessment and Treatment Unit, not families. This continues a trend that was noted as long ago as 1996 by researchers Burke and Signo (1996: 109): ‘Many professionals consider that their work is with the person with disabilities, independent of their family … this could worsen family functioning because the whole family needs support and counselling’. Although unfashionable, I tend to agree that attention to the whole family, particularly when the person in question lives with them, is vital.

More than 60 years have now passed since the publication in the USA of The Sane Society by Marxist psychoanalyst Erich Fromm (1955/2001). Fromm’s main argument in that book was that in promoting the idea that the road to happiness and fulfilment lay in consumerism, in persuading people to conform to a very narrow conception of ‘the good life’, and in encouraging people to deny their real needs and feelings, American society in the 1950s was actually creating mental ill-health. Far from being a ‘sane society’, it was in fact an ‘insane society’. Consumer capitalism, Fromm argued, was making people ill.

The book struck a massive chord and within weeks of its publication was fifth in the New York Times bestseller list. Since that time, it has sold more than 3 million copies.

Following Fromm, the central argument of this chapter will be that the world in which we live today – the world of neoliberal global capitalism – is also creating mental ill-health on an industrial scale. Three examples will illustrate the point. Firstly, according to the World Health Organisation, depression now affects over 300 million people worldwide and is the leading cause of disability in the world (WHO 2017). As George Brown and Tirril Harris argued some 40 years ago in their classic study of depression in women, while sadness, unhappiness and grief are inevitable in all societies, the same is not true of clinical depression (Brown and Harris 1978/2011). Rather, depression on this scale tells us something about the nature of the society we live in.

It is clearly understood that social work with older people is one of the least well-developed areas of the profession (Milne et al 2014). While there have been times when it has been positively promoted (for example around the implementation of community care in 1993), more common has been an impression of neglect. This has two consequences. First, and arguably most important, the quality of practice may well have been affected. Second, and this is at least partly as a result of the first point, it has long been an area of social work that is less favoured by students in training (Quinn 2000). Certainly, from my own experiences as a social work educator, there were few students who wished to get into this area of practice.

Of course, this actuality tends to undercut the essential premise of the chapter: in reality, there has never been a ‘golden age’ for social work with older people, from which the current period represents a fundamental retreat. However, even in relatively recent times, there was an expansion in social work with older people, combined with a growth in the scope of academic material which focused upon it (see, for example, Lymbery 2005 and 2014a; Ray et al 2015; Richards et al 2014). Despite this, there have been many practical changes which have led inexorably to a diminution of its role, a number of which are detailed in subsequent sections. It is therefore hard to see how social work with older people can be recovered. Nevertheless, there are in fact a number of steps that would help with this, and the final section highlights what these are.

Our work with refugees on Samos has been rooted in our common humanity and informed by mutual respect, solidarity and empathy. In Samos we have come to recognise that these human qualities are shaped by where you stand with the refugees. If you stand shoulder to shoulder as brothers and sisters it nearly always followed that relationships form where people connect, despite massive differences in background and experience. Even in 2015 when the average stay of the refugees on Samos was two to three days it was astonishing to see so many friendships made between the refugees and the local activists who met them on the beaches and helped provide clothes and food. Even two years later many of these connections have endured.

On the other hand we also saw many ‘helpers’ who did not stand with and alongside the refugees. These people could talk the talk of their concern for the refugees but they saw themselves as both different and superior. Such an attitude prevented meaningful contact with the refugees and often led to ‘help’ being given in ways which were humiliating and disrespectful. This was evident in many ways. Refugees for example were and are viewed as supplicants with almost no rights to even choose the clothes they were given. If a young male refugee refused a needed pair of jeans, for example, he was immediately seen as ungrateful. The very idea that refugees should care about how they looked or comment on the labels/brands on offer was seen as outrageous.