This article explores contemporary tensions between care and control dynamics within social work practice through the analysis of UK immigration and counter-terrorism policies. Drawing from qualitative research conducted to examine the impact of ‘no recourse to public funds’ (NRPF), a legal condition for those subject to immigration control, alongside the PREVENT agenda, designed to identify those at risk of radicalisation, this article explores the violent consequences created in this context. Understanding social work as biopolitical, we utilise the concept of entanglement to interrogate how these policies are enacted within UK social work and the effect this has on the individuals and communities subject to them. By exploring the interplay of care and control within NRPF and PREVENT policies, we conclude that the ability of social workers to act in an anti-racist manner is detrimentally impacted by the entanglement of neo-colonial violence, the criminalisation of safeguarding and a politics of confusion.
Care home residents are exposed to high levels of social control. Despite this, and regardless of their disempowered and vulnerable status, they receive limited attention from social workers. The social work role is primarily transactional, relating to admission, reviews of placements, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards assessments and investigations of abuse. Evidence suggests that higher levels of engagement with residents are likely to reduce risks of abuse and contribute to reduced levels of social control. There are three routes of impact: a formal ongoing link with care homes; greater involvement with the four existing roles, shifting the focus from procedure to process; and the adoption of a new, more critical role that is informed by political ethics, enhancing rights and social justice. This revisioned role will offer residents access to the knowledge and skills of a social worker and to higher levels of protection from systems and practices that are harmful and controlling.
Putting disabled people in charge of their own support was a central component of the UK personalisation agenda. Austerity, staff recruitment difficulties and local authority retrenchment have meant that the experience for disabled people has not always lived up to the rhetorical promise. In this context, disabled people with marginalised sexual and/or gender identities face difficult choices in everyday interactions of support that trouble the idea that control routinely sits with them. In this article, we draw on two research studies with disabled people who use self-directed support in which they discuss navigating gender and sexual identity. In both studies, there are opportunities for disabled people to draw on support that is empowering, but we also hear about ‘bad bargains’ that they are sometimes forced to make. We argue that the hard-won goals of choice and control are being degraded and confronting LGBTQI+ and non-binary disabled people with sometimes impossible dilemmas.
This article explores the conceptual and theoretical foundation of experiential knowledge. A scoping review shows that limited studies have so far been published about experiential knowledge in the context of social work. Although the value of personal experiences is commonly acknowledged, these are generally not considered ‘real knowledge’. Two main problems are identified, the first being that in dominant positivist scientific conceptions, experiential knowledge is not seen as scientifically relevant. The second is that, epistemologically, it seems problematic to turn personal experiences into collective knowledge. Regarding the first issue, it is argued that from a social-constructivist angle, experiential knowledge is valid knowledge. Not only can denying the value of knowledge based on lived experiences be considered an epistemic injustice, but it also ignores it as a valuable resource for professional education and practice. The second issue needs to be further explored considering the complex processes of experiential knowledge production, using the opportunities that narrative and participative social work research methods offer.
The article examines the use of manuals in child and family social work in Wales and Norway and considers their application in the structuring context of New Public Management and evidence-based practice. It is based on findings from a comparative survey-based instrument distributed to social workers. The problem statement is: what are social workers’ attitudes to and experiences of manuals in professional practice? The key research foci are: ‘How often do you use manuals?’; ‘Why do you use manuals?’; and ‘To what degree do you think manuals are useful to ensure the quality of the work you perform?’ Both workforces use manuals, though more so in Norway than in Wales. This is related to the fact that there is direct and stronger pressure from governmental agencies in Norway than in Wales for provider organisations and workers to deploy manuals. The uptake of manuals in Wales appears to be prompted more by worker self-selection and/or imitation of their usage in cognate practice settings. Norwegian workers to a larger extent than those in Wales think that using manuals enhances the quality of work. We discuss possible conceptual, institutional and practitioner-based reasons for the varied relationship between manuals and their application and highlight under-researched areas.
Recent political changes in Sweden are undermining social work as a human rights profession by accentuating it once again as nationalised and citizenship oriented. This commentary addresses the Tidö Agreement that immerses social work into a politics of surveillance of undocumented migrants. Writing from the perspective of a lecturer who works for internationalisation in a university setting, I provide critical reflections on what internationalisation of social work might mean in the contemporary context and outline some strategies as ways forward.
This article critiques the unique ‘pre-criminal safeguarding’ framework introduced for children by PREVENT – the UK’s counter-terrorism policy and legislation – as one that is anti-child protection. Reviewing the ‘evidence’ within the original turn in policy to address ‘childhood radicalisation’, it proposes that this ‘pre-crime’ focus on identifying children suspected of being at risk of causing future harm through terrorist activity, has implicitly aged, classed, gendered and racialised underpinnings. Utilising research from the time of the PREVENT duty enactment, practitioner insights of the duty’s impact on supporting children and their families in the Liverpool city region are revelatory for understanding how PREVENT’s implicitly biased foundations were reinforced and given life through praxis. ‘False evidence appearing real’ describes not only this problematic suspicion-based praxis but also the practices generating the ‘official statistics’ to this day being presented as ‘evidence’ of the need to implement the PREVENT duty for children.
Since January 2016, Irish family law courts have been obliged to take into consideration the voices of children in proceedings where decisions regarding contact with parents are being made. This article examines the findings of an Irish study that shed light on how young children’s voices are heard in decisions regarding contact with parents who do not, or no longer, live together. The views of key stakeholders who have some involvement with contact arrangements for young children in the 0–6 years age category are highlighted. A thematic analysis of the data was conducted in order to understand various perspectives on how and under what circumstances young children are heard in contact cases. The findings demonstrate that the voices of young children are virtually absent in family law decisions regarding contact. Determining factors relate to the infrastructure of the courts, a significant lack of resources to support the Irish family law system and significant variation in practice approaches between social and legal professionals. As a result of these findings, suggestions are proposed for informing practice and improving service delivery in family law in a way that best meets the needs and rights of young children.
An inherent element of capitalism is the creation of refugee crises, and states’ imperialist policies are one of the main reasons for the ‘refugee crisis’, as we have recently seen happening again with the Palestinian population. Simultaneously, states’ social policies and the human rights approach frequently do not promote people’s needs and human dignity. All these are inextricably linked to social justice and are the main concerns of social work. This article briefly mentions the housing policy in Greece for refugee young adults. It also presents the collaboration between the Greek Social Workers Action Network and collectives and the media to promote public intervention. Moreover, it introduces an alternative/critical form of claiming rights through advocacy and activism as a tool for shaping social policy from below. Specifically, we reveal advocacy practices opposing legislation to remove the right to an extension for health reasons for young formerly accompanied minors staying in shelters.
This article presents a theoretical exposition of feminist egalitarian discourse for social work education by drawing on research findings from interviews with 15 sex workers in the Republic of Ireland. The study claims that feminist social work is not considered mainstream across social work programmes despite social work’s commitment to human rights and social justice. The article presents the complexities of a feminist standpoint when discussing sex work in Ireland in its current binary context of the neo-abolitionist perspective. We argue for a revised critical feminist egalitarian pedagogical approach to the social work curriculum. We apply a feminist standpoint epistemology and an interpretivist/feminist qualitative framework to examine: (1) feminist social work; (2) feminist theory and sex work; and (3) feminist egalitarian discourse for social work education. The positionality of feminist egalitarian discourse within the social work curriculum has the capacity to improve social work’s commitment to social justice.
