Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one Introduction
- two Re-imagining child protection in the context of re-imagining welfare
- three We need to talk about ethics
- four Developing research mindedness in learning cultures
- five Towards a just culture: designing humane social work organisations
- six Getting on and getting by: living with poverty
- seven Thinking afresh about relationships: men, women, parents and services
- eight Tainted love: how dangerous families became troubled
- nine Conclusions
- References
- Index
one - Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2022
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- one Introduction
- two Re-imagining child protection in the context of re-imagining welfare
- three We need to talk about ethics
- four Developing research mindedness in learning cultures
- five Towards a just culture: designing humane social work organisations
- six Getting on and getting by: living with poverty
- seven Thinking afresh about relationships: men, women, parents and services
- eight Tainted love: how dangerous families became troubled
- nine Conclusions
- References
- Index
Summary
One of the important ways in which the meanings of children's lives may be constructed and become powerful is through the assumptions underpinning professional discourses, but such frameworks may reshape and arguably empty out the moral and political aspects of experience and suffering. (Ribbens McCarthy, 2013: 331)
Social workers are charged with entering the lives and moral worlds of families, many of whom have routinely experienced disrespect, and have longstanding histories of material and emotional deprivation. In entering such lives, social workers share with those they encounter universal experiences of loss and disappointment. However, there are additional issues that arise in the course of doing such a job involving the making of decisions that bring pain and hurt as well as joy and support with consequences that can endure for generations. This dual mandate (often known as care and control) is one to be treated with humility and seriousness.
Entering the homes and lives of those who routinely experience disrespect is a privilege but it is not a job for the fainthearted, especially in societies that are increasingly riven by hostility towards those who are vulnerable and in need. As the research evidence suggests, service users often feel fearful and powerless in their interactions with social workers, and this feeds into encounters that may be characterised by misunderstandings at best, and aggression at worst (Featherstone and Fraser, 2012a).
Increasingly, the work takes place in a very defensive climate and that defensiveness takes on particular forms from differing vantage points. Social workers have, for many decades, felt caught between a rock and a hard place, damned if they don't remove children and damned if they do. Their mandate is subject to fickle pendulum swings, with the terms usually set by others, from the government of the day to the media. It is perhaps not that surprising, therefore, that their self-perceptions are subject to the same volatile swings. In less frightening times, social workers seem more able to appreciate their power and service users’ relative powerlessness, whereas in very defensive periods, the focus seems to shift to social workers seeing themselves as powerless. Indeed, the narrative of victimisation has become a very powerful one, and unfortunately can obviate the need for the most rigorous interrogation of work that is so consequential.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Re-imagining Child ProtectionTowards Humane Social Work with Families, pp. 1 - 18Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2014