Social Work

An Outline for the Intending Student

Noel Timms

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138364226
• eBook ISBN: 9780429775819
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Social Policy
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Originally published in 1970, Social Work is an introduction for students and others who are thinking of taking up social work, or who want to know what social work is. The book begins by outlining the development of social work in the United Kingdom. It describes the methods social workers use, the knowledge they require in order to work effectively, the values they espouse, and the organisations within which they work. The book concludes with a detailed section on education and training for social work.

I
Introduction: Some Historical Considerations

THIS BOOK IS NOT a manual of practice: it is an attempt to introduce students and others who wish to learn about social work to the broad dimensions of the subject. It will be successful if the reader becomes acquainted with the methods social workers use, the knowledge they require in order to work effectively, the values they espouse, the organizations within which they work, and the ways in which they are trained. Chapters will be devoted to each of these subjects, but the objective will not be an exhaustive inventory of all necessary items. The space devoted to each topic varies considerably and should not be assumed to represent any precise valuation of the place the topic occupies in the over-all activity of social work. The aim is to introduce questions which appear to be both interesting and crucial. Thus, references to the history of social work in the present chapter will not rehearse the familiar and misleading story of developments from the time of Christ (‘the first social worker’), down to the present century, with brief stops in the sixteenth century and a longer pause in the nineteenth. We shall be concerned instead with raising questions about the plausibility of existing accounts and the possibility of a genuine historical approach to the development of social work. Throughout the present book social work will be treated as a subject worth sustained intellectual activity, as a topic that rewards imaginative curiosity.

This kind of approach is relatively unusual and may disappoint some in search of an introduction to the subject. Social workers do not usually enjoy a reputation for sustained critical thought about what they do. They are seen characteristically in feminine terms, as high-souled, low-heeled women somewhat anxious to intervene in the lives of others. Their activities are often considered praiseworthy, but not very remarkable or puzzling. They are assumed to raise few questions of interest except to those practising, or those who seek to benefit from, social work. Many would apply to the contemporary social worker Emerson’s comment on philanthropists in the last century: ‘I go to a convention of philanthropists. Do what I can, I cannot keep my eyes off the clock.’ This book questions the inevitability of the boredom implicit in Emerson’s remark and aims to discuss some of the issues in social work that are of general interest. Such discussion may appear to be simply a way of avoiding getting down to the business of helping individuals or of reconstructing society so that the problems with which social workers deal can be abolished. Others may feel that the approach adopted in this book camouflages the essential fact that social work is primarily a question of practical aid and the essentially incommunicable and spontaneous relationships between social workers and those they would help. These viewpoints contain some important arguments about the nature of social work, but they cannot be accepted as satisfactory starting points for an introduction to social work that claims some adequacy. It is impossible to assess arguments of this kind until one has gained some familiarity with the world of social work.

It might be expected that an introduction to a subject would begin with a succinct definition. There is no shortage of definitions, but few, if any, are informative. Sometimes the definitions are much too wide, so that people are included in the category of social worker who do not really look as if they belong. On occasions the category seems to include everyone. Thus, Devine¹ dedicated his book The Spirit of Social Work to

social workers, that is to say, to every man and woman, who, in any relation of life, professional, industrial, political, educational or domestic; whether on salary or as a volunteer; whether on his own individual account or as part of an organized movement, is working consciously, according to his light intelligently, and according to his strength persistently, for the promotion of the common welfare.

On other occasions the definitions of social work are too narrow: they exclude from the category of social worker people who, it would fairly generally be agreed, come within its boundaries. Thus, definitions which emphasize the method of social casework or social work on a small scale leave out the social group worker and the social worker engaged in helping communities. We cannot expect very satisfying returns from the definitions already available, and this chapter will not attempt to add to their number.

This chapter will instead adopt an historical approach and attempt to introduce the subject of social work, firstly by detailed illustrations, and secondly by raising some general questions concerning the history of social work. We shall begin with an illustration of contemporary activity which everyone would agree was social work, and then contrast this with an example from the same social work agency but from a slightly earlier period. These two examples will illustrate themes which will be taken up in more detail later in the book. They are offered as good examples of the social work of their time, not as examples of good social work. This observation applies to all the illustrations in this book. Failure to observe this distinction between description and a positive evaluation has been responsible for some of the definition difficulties encountered in the social work literature. We have not seen clearly enough that ‘social work’ can refer both to an attempt and to a successful accomplishment.

The method of case study, whereby a detailed record of a particular situation is discussed in some depth, plays an important part in education for social work. This is so whether students are considering a situation confronting an individual or family, a larger group, or a neighbourhood or area. In the first case study in the present chapter we are able to see how the process of helping an individual or family (social casework) is experienced by the recipient of help. Such systematic emphasis on the perceptions of the consumer of social service is somewhat new in social work. It represents a perspective that is likely to bring considerable benefit to both the and the of social work.

Mary²

Mary is nineteen years of age, unmarried with a daughter of six months. She comes from a fairly prosperous middle-class family. Her father owns a successful antique business and her stepmother runs a secretarial agency. Mary’s account of her experience with a social work agency refers back to the time before the baby was born. The account is given in her own words:

I knew that the news about the baby was not going to go down well at home. Mother was all right, but all father could think of was what the neighbours would say. At the time the business was not going well, and he had my sister to support at boarding school, so he said he could not afford to keep me and the baby. I used to get very upset. We had such rows. Every time I saw him we used to row, and I got to the stage that I simply would not stay in the house if I knew he was there. Mother was good, as I say, even though she was my stepmother, but in a sense she had to choose between us. I would try talking to my older brother, but he just said that I had to learn to cope. In fact he made me feel I had let everyone down, and that everyone was looking down at me for what I had done.

I went to the hospital, of course, as time went on. The doctor was rather abrupt – did I want the baby or didn’t I? He thought I should go and see the medical social worker, but I found I could not talk to her. I went to her office once to get some forms and she kept asking me whether I wanted to see her again. I just said ‘No’. I thought she was trying to take pity on me, and that if people knew I was going to see her they would know that I was not married.

Gradually I made up my mind that I wanted to keep the baby. Mother was not at all sure about this: she wanted to be convinced that I had really considered fully all the implications. A friend of hers suggested that it might help me if I went to see a family social worker. I agreed to go, but I was not sure that they would be able to help me. I expected that they would ask me a lot of questions, and find out a great deal about me – the kind of home that I came from, what my parents were like and so on. The main thing that worried me, though, was the fear I had that they would take the baby from me after it had been born. I thought that they would think that unmarried girls should not have babies and should not be allowed to keep them if they did. At the time I was getting a lot of help from my friend who was in the same predicament as myself. I used to get a lot of relief from unloading all my feelings, but mother thought it would be better if I went to see a social worker. She said that my friend was only my age and that the social worker would know more and understand more, and would be able to help, whereas my friend could only sit and listen.

The social worker I met at the family social service was really very good. I used to enjoy going, and I went every week. She was very understanding and never made me feel that I was completely to blame for the baby. She seemed to take me as I was and not look down on me. We used to talk over my plans, and she quite often made me think about things – important things. She was very comforting, particularly at the time when the baby’s father decided that he would not marry me. She helped me to sort out going to hospital or to a mother and baby Home. I was not keen on the Home, because I had very odd ideas about who went there.

My relationship with the social worker was something of a strange relationship. At first I thought it was like the relationship between a pupil and a teacher, and that she only used to see me because she had to, and that if I did not go she would scold me. Once or twice I would miss going, but she never told me off. I began to wonder about that. When she did not tell me off for missing appointments I began to feel that she did not care whether I went there or not. I told her this, and she asked me what I was trying to prove. But I still wondered if she was seeing me just because it was her job, and not because she liked me in any way. I have decided that she does like me, because whenever I see her in the street she always stops and has a conversation.

I should think that it made a great difference seeing this social worker. I felt that her understanding wasn’t false, that she wasn’t just saying ‘I understand’ like a machine and just repeating it to everybody that came to see her. She really took an interest in my problem. It was funny the thing that made me stop going. It was after the baby was born, and everyone in the family was making such a fuss of her, and I hardly got a look in. Everybody wanted her. They wanted to pick her up and hold her. I took the baby along to see the social worker, and she behaved just like everyone else: she asked to hold her. I did resent that. It made me stop going. The social worker realized what I felt, and wrote to me saying that I must feel she had behaved as everyone else had. But it was no good.

It is clear that the case of Mary represents only one particular method of social work, that commonly known as social casework. The social worker could have decided, if the circumstances were appropriate, to help Mary through using groupwork: she could, for example, have asked Mary to join a group of girls in the same situation with the object of discussing their common problems and hence of reaching a more clear understanding of their difficulties. In other circumstances Mary might have been one of a number of girls all coming from the same area, though not necessarily sharing the same problem. In such a situation some kind of community-scale action might have seemed appropriate, perhaps in conjunction with social casework for certain individuals.

The record of Mary’s reactions to casework help illustrates a number of aspects of the practice of social work whatever method is actually used. It shows the kind of problem that is brought to a social work agency, the kind of knowledge a social worker needs, and the sort of relationship established between a social worker and his or her ‘client’. (The word ‘client’, here introduced for the first time, is often used half-apologetically with the reminder that whilst it is not altogether satisfactory none better has so far been suggested. In some situations its use does appear somewhat strained: in probation, for example, where it has been argued that the ‘client’ has little ‘real’ choice about whether to avail himself of the services of the probation officer or of the terms on which the service is available. In many respects, however, it seems a useful term, largely perhaps because of its persuasive character. It represents an attempt to recognize some element of dignity and of potential power in the person who receives social work help.)

From Mary’s own account it is clear that the problem she presented to the social work agency could not be described simply as a case of illegitimacy. The fact that she was expecting a baby affected a whole range of relationships – those between herself and her father, her mother and father, herself and her brother, and so on. It is also apparent that she is none too clear about what the agency will be able to do for her, nor about how she herself intends to proceed. The social worker thus has the task of understanding the ramifications of her problem and of appreciating its meaning. She has to try to make sense of the situation.

In order to understand the situation facing this particular client, the social worker can begin to use knowledge of various kinds. She knows, for example, that different theories have been put forward to account for unmarried motherhood in general. Such theories fall into two main groups depending on whether the emphasis is given to psychological or to sociological factors. Thus, some writers on the subject would suggest that the illegitimate birth must be seen as the result of disturbed relationships within the girl’s own family, whilst others would wish to examine the extent to which different social classes place different values on such behaviour as pre-marital sex relations. The extent to which a social worker can rely on any of these approaches will be considered in a later chapter; at this point it is sufficient to note that, in looking at the problem Mary presents, the social worker has certain guidelines of a very general kind which will help in the attempt to understand the situation.

In the case of Mary we can also see the importance of the social worker’s knowledge of the other social services that are available and could be appropriately used (the hospital or the mother and baby Home). Such knowledge includes both acquaintance with the services and some idea about the ways in which people might approach them. For example, it would be important in the situation facing Mary to realize that her feelings of shame, and perhaps of guilt, make it difficult for her to go to some of the agencies from which she might need help. Her own story indicates that precisely these feelings prevented her from making use of the services of the medical social worker. ‘Asking for help’ may seem to be such a simple and everyday occurrence, such obvious and justified behaviour, that we can easily overlook the difficulty it creates. It is part of the social worker’s job to understand the particular difficulties of each client, whether the client is an individual or a group.

Finally, we can see from Mary’s own account some of the significance of the relationship with the social worker. She did not find it easy to describe what the social worker did. For her, as for very many people, there appeared to be something very elusive about the activity. It resembled other familiar activities: it was like talking to friends, though the social worker did not take sides and Mary was not always sure that the social worker cared for her personally. Clearly, Mary valued her contact with the social worker, and also found the relationship somewhat complex. She seems to have valued the lack of censure and a predominant feeling that she was accepted, but she also behaved in ways that tested out her impression that the lack of censure on the part of the worker meant that she was simply indifferent to her situation.

Mrs Smith³

This is the case of a widow who was referred to the same social work agency as Mary, but forty years earlier. The ways in which she was helped and the case history recorded help us to see some of the main changes that have occurred in social work in the present century. (The term ‘c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• 1. Introduction: Some Historical Considerations
• 2. Social Work in Organizations
• 3. Social Work Knowledge
• 4. The Methods of Social Work
• 5. Social Work Values
• 6. Education for Social Work
• Index