Key Concepts in Social Work Practice

Aidan Worsley, Tim Mann, Angela Olsen, Elizabeth Mason-Whitehead, Aidan Worsley, Tim Mann, Angela Olsen, Elizabeth Mason-Whitehead, SAGE Publications Ltd

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781446207307, 9781446207291
• eBook ISBN: 9781446290309
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Work
• Index: Social Sciences

This book is a quick and accessible reference guide to the key concepts that social work students and professionals need to understand to be effective. The authors place practice at the centre of the text, and include a host of case examples to bring the concepts to life.

Examining the essential topics of the social work curriculum, the concepts covered relate to practice, theory, policy and personal challenges. Further reading is included in each entry, so that the reader can explore what they have learned in more detail.

This book will be an invaluable resource for social work students during their studies and on their practice placement. It will also be useful for qualified social workers, who want to continue their professional education.

1

Accountability

Mike Thomas

DEFINITION

Accountability means being answerable to others and is related to responsibility. Being accountable in the professional context means being personally liable or obliged to fulfil a duty to others. One takes responsibility for actions but one is held accountable.

Social work encompasses the core skills, values and characteristics that define a particular branch of knowledge and activity recognised by society as important to its general well-being. The public develops trust and confidence due to the activities of its practitioners and the state usually acts on behalf of the public via a governance structure which oversees these activities, usually through statutory legislation. Roles and responsibilities are aspects of accountability and governance and require clear clarification through role descriptors, expected activities and employment standards. According to Archer and Cameron (2009), such activities are more effective if each team member knows their role and is able to carry most of the role independently of others. Educators and practice managers oversee the level of competence required to join a profession or to maintain continuing membership. They are accountable to statutory agencies such as professional bodies and the government. Having a professional, statutory and regulatory structure bestows certain responsibilities on practitioners; in other words, social work practitioners are expected to protect and support users, carers and fellow professionals. The state allows the practitioner to have a protected title which only they are allowed to use.

Accountability is important for the social work professional as it supports a degree of autonomous action prohibited in other fields of social care activity. Brown (2011) spoke in the context of the future of universities but has relevance to accountability when he points out that practitioners are more effective and efficient when they have a considerable degree of control over their work. However, in order to protect public safety, autonomous choices are restrained by the responsibilities imposed by state control. This is carried out through professional accreditation for the practitioner and through institutional auditing for organisations.

Social workers are obliged to support their governing body (the General Social Care Council until 2012 and thereafter the Health and Care Professions Council), and are liable to fulfil its regulations in its Code of Practice for Social Care Workers and its Code of Practice for Social Care Employers (GSCC, 2010) and the Care Standards Act (2000) (subject to changes in the forthcoming Health and Social Care Act). Social work is accountable to its professional body which in turn is accountable to government.

KEY POINTS

• Accountability is intrinsically related to responsibility and authority.
• Accountability means being obliged and responsible to others.
• Social work has professional, statutory and regulatory guidance for accountability.
• Social workers agree to uphold and maintain professional accountability which is enshrined in legislation and provides them with a protected title.
• Related concepts are responsibility, trust and obligation (see Thomas, 2008).

DISCUSSION

The General Social Care Council (GSCC) held responsibilities for regulating the social work profession until its transfer to the Health and Care Professions Council in 2012. The GSCC regulated the profession via registration. All social workers must by law register with the GSCC in order to practise and following implementation of Section 61 of the Care Standards Act (2000), the title of Registered Social Worker (RSW) has been protected in England since 2005. In terms of public accountability, individuals may be in breach of the law if they declare themselves to be social workers when not registered. Even an implied reference to the title social worker can fall foul of the protected title legislation so employers are also responsible and accountable to the GSCC for ensuring that if there is a substantial amount of social work in a given role then it must be filled by a RSW.

Employers and practitioners have a legal obligation to ensure social work registration, qualifications and roles are met. There are two elements of accountability here; personal accountability to meet role achievement by acting as a professional at all times; and public accountability, to act in a way that is ascribed by society. Social workers have to demonstrate that they are safe to practise by undertaking a series of tests on their competence, accountability and responsibility.

The register of and eligibility for the RSW status is via educational assessments. Employers have a legal duty to assess whether an individual is capable of entering the profession and is suitable to provide social care. Registration involves an annual fee, ensuring professional development and an obligation to inform the Council of any changes in circumstances such as, change in employers, or criminal/disciplinary issues. Most practitioners are perhaps unaware that failure to provide minor changes in circumstances ‘promptly’ can lead to charges of misconduct. To be more efficient and effective the GSCC launched its Code of Practice for Social Care Workers for Employers in September 2002 following Section 62 of the Care Standards Act (DH, 2000). The codes were updated in 2004 and 2010 and empowered the Council to remove an individual from the Social Work Register. A prerequisite condition for entering the profession is an obligation by, and a personal responsibility for, all practitioners to adhere to the codes.

There are five professional codes for employers (25 specific sub-headings) and six for social work practitioners (41 specific sub-headings). Employer codes include their accountability to the public with guidance for ensuring only suitable individuals enter the profession. Their professional accountability specifically states that they must have written policies and procedures in place which enable social workers to meet the code of practice for practitioners and that they must promote the code of practice and co-operate with the professorial body.

Social work practitioners have their public accountability stated with codes providing guidance on protecting the rights and promoting the interests of service users and carers as well as avoiding harm and being trustworthy and honest. Social workers are to uphold public trust and confidence whilst personal accountability means that the practitioner must be accountable for the quality of work and be responsible for maintaining and improving knowledge and skills.

Accountability for social workers is statutory and the practitioner, alongside the employer, is responsible for ensuring the codes of practice are upheld. This is a professional obligation for which they carry legal liability and is controlled by the state to protect the public.

THE CONCEPT IN SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

Social work practice has been the subject of much central interference since the conservative government of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s. The 1989 White Paper, Caring for People, stressed greater central monitoring of community care and was hugely influential in reinforcing central state control and the eventual marketisation of social and healthcare. It provided three guiding principles to make the state system more effective: the right service should be provided early enough to meet the most needs; individuals should have more choice and say over services; and people should receive care in their own homes or in as near a domestic environment as possible. Baggot (1998) suggested that the impact of the Caring for People White Paper (DH, 1989) led to control of local authority community plans through the mechanism of central funding and a national monitoring system by joint audit commission and social services inspectorate’s evaluations. Central control stopped local community care being local, prevented the inclusion of service users and their carers in planning, and increased management focus on outcome targets. This led to blurred areas of accountability, particularly when the reductions in social services clashed with the role of advocate for the social worker. State interference eventually culminated in the Blair government’s emphasis on targets and evidence based outcomes with many different regulatory bodies.

However, Pyne (2000) argued that this did not meet the public demand for a unified professional regulatory system compared to the reluctance of the different professional bodies in health and social care to work collaboratively and to public concerns over safety and competence. Differences over which was the most appropriate method of exerting state power over the health and social care professions and which was the most appropriate professional and regulatory body have increased public confusion and pressure on the professional responsibility of social work. Thomas et al. (2010) point out that since the turn of the century social work has been subject to more public scrutiny with attempts to increase accountability of practice through research-based evidence with little regard for the complexity of the situations in which social workers find themselves. Increasingly, accountability and responsibility are viewed as being controlled through protocols and problem-based approaches rather than individualised and reflexive approaches. Rogers and Pilgrim (2001) argue that social workers bring important perspectives to care which stem directly from the occupational base it holds in local community structures. Front-line practitioners see and understand the impact of social causation in poverty and daily stress; are frequently engaged in supporting individuals who are labelled as deviant by others; and apply theoretical models from the social and psychological sciences. As such they are responsible for others, act as advocates within services, often with deteriorating resources, and liaise with a range of other professionals who hold different theoretical frameworks for practice. In terms of public accountability, the activities of social work are therefore difficult to measure using the more orthodox approaches to health with outcomes, evidence-based protocols and targets.

It is no surprise that there is some tension regarding to whom the social work practitioner is accountable; the code states to the service user, the contract of employment states to the employer and the registration to the Council. The RSW is responsible to stakeholders depending on situational demands and the practitioner must apply their judgements in each context to ensure priority accountability, or to apply simultaneous accountability to different authorities. Accountability is not a fixed concept but a dynamic guide for practice which alters as the situation – local, political and historical – alters.

Social work has traditionally resisted attempts to have a state-imposed, centrally driven approach to social care and the response to calls for the introduction of evidence-based protocol approaches may account for the resurgence of interest in social work supervision. Yet this is not a new concept. Most approaches are based on Kadushin’s model (1976) which highlighted the three main functions of supervision as educative, developing the skills, understanding and abilities of a social worker; supportive, focusing on relational development; and managerial, examining quality control, processes, ethics and employment standards. There is a responsibility for social workers to work collaboratively with colleagues too (Code 6.5) which includes supervising others in the workplace, line managing staff and, for educators, acting as tutorial supervisors.

Social workers are accountable for their actions at all times, even outside the work situation. They also have to juggle complex situations to ensure they remain accountable to a number of different authorities simultaneously whilst applying independent and autonomous decisions. The employer has responsibilities for ensuring that a RSW is compliant with professional and regulatory codes of practice. Accountability and responsibility is shared between the employer and practitioner, but in the final analysis personal accountability and responsibility rests solely with the practitioner.

Cross references: advocacy, empowerment, professional development, quality assurance, values

SUGGESTED READING

Pollard, K.C., Thomas, J. and Miers, M. (2010) Understanding Interprofessional Working in Health and Social Care. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Mccarthy, J. and Rose, P. (2010) Values-Based Health and Social Care – Beyond Evidence-Based Practice. London: Sage.

REFERENCES

Archer, D. and Cameron, A. (2009) Collaborative Leadership. London: Elsevier.

Baggot, R. (1998) Health and Health Care in Britain, 2nd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Brown, R. (2011) Higher Education and the Market. New York: Routledge.

DH (Department of Health) (1989) Caring for People. White Paper. London: DH.

DH (Department of Health) (2000) Care Standards Act. London: DH.

GSCC (General Social Care Council) (2010) Code of Practice for Social Care Workers and Code of Practice for Employers of Social Care Workers. London: GSCC.

Kadushin, A. (1976) Supervision in Social Work. New York: Columbia University Press.

Pyne, R.H. (2000) ‘Professional regulation: shaken but not stirred’, Consumer Policy Review, 10(5): 167–73.

Rogers, A. and Pilgrim, D. (2001) Mental Health Policy in Britain. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Thomas, M. (2008) ‘Accountability’, in E. Mason-Whitehead, A. McIntosh, A. Bryan and T. Mason (eds), Key Concepts in Nursing. London: Sage, pp. 9–14.

Thomas, M., Burt, M. and Parkes, J. (2010) ‘The emergence of evidence-based practice’, in J. McCarthy and P. Rose (eds), Values-Based Health and Social Care: Beyond Evidence-Based Practice. London: Sage, pp. 3–22.

2

Adoption

Jules Clarke

DEFINITION

Adoption is a means of providing a permanent family for children who cannot be raised by their birth parents. Adoptive parents become the child’s legal parents upon the making of an Adoption Order, they acquire parental responsibility (PR) and the child will usually take on their surname. Unless ongoing support services are to be provided, the local authority ceases involvement upon the making of the order. An Adoption Order is the only order in childcare law which severs the birth parents’ parental responsibility and makes the child a legal, lifelong member of another family.

Although the child no longer has a legal relationship with members of their birth family, they may continue to have occasional contact with them, either indirectly by letter through the adoption agency or, more unusually, face to face. Such contacts are aimed at developing the child’s sense of self and their identity, rather than promoting attachments. Indeed, the child’s primary attachments will be with their adoptive parents. Generally, adoption is now expected to be an open process whereby children grow up with a developing knowledge of their background, with the reasons for adoption provided by their adopters in an age appropriate way. At 18, adoptees have the right to access information from their adoption...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• About the Editors and Contributors
• Editors’ Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Accountability
• 2 Adoption
• 3 Advocacy
• 4 Anti-Oppressive Practice
• 5 Assessment
• 6 Asylum Seekers and Refugees
• 7 Care Management
• 8 Carers
• 9 Communication
• 10 Confidentiality
• 11 Counselling
• 12 Critical Thinking
• 13 Dementia
• 14 Direct Work with Children
• 15 Domestic Violence
• 16 Empowerment
• 17 Equality and Diversity
• 18 Ethics
• 19 Family Work
• 20 Finance
• 21 Fostering
• 22 History of Social Work
• 23 HIV and Social Work
• 24 International Social Work
• 25 Law and Social Work
• 26 Leadership and Management
• 27 Learning Disability
• 28 Looked After Children
• 29 Managing Change
• 30 Managing Technology
• 31 Media and Social Work
• 32 Mental Capacity
• 33 Mental Health
• 34 Multi-Professional Working
• 35 Older People
• 36 Partnership
• 37 Personalisation
• 38 Physical Disability
• 39 The Political Context of Social Work
• 40 Practice Education
• 41 Professional Development
• 42 Quality Assurance
• 43 Record Keeping
• 44 Reflection
• 45 Religion and Belief
• 46 Research and Evidence Based Practice
• 47 Risk Assessment and Risk Management
• 48 Safeguarding Adults
• 49 Safeguarding Children
• 50 Service User Involvement
• 51 Sexuality
• 52 Social Exclusion
• 53 Social Justice
• 54 Social Work
• 55 Social Work in Healthcare Settings
• 56 Stress in Social Work
• 57 Substance Misuse
• 58 Supervision
• 59 Team Working
• 60 Theory and Social Work
• 61 Values
• 62 Welfare Rights
• 63 Youth Justice