A participatory approach to social work

A participatory approach to social work

Suzy Croft and Peter BeresfordThe modern history of social work is one of constant change and attack. The role, organizational setting and philosophy of social work have all undergone change at an accelerating pace. Over the last twenty years there has been a shift from caseworker, to community social worker and now care manager; from ‘specialism’ to ‘genericism’ and back again. Social work’s critics question whether it even has its own distinct body of knowledge. It is attacked by the political left for being a soft cop, by the political right for inducing dependency and by the tabloid press for the series of child care tragedies and scandals that punctuated the 1980s and early 1990s. Social work is currently undergoing another period of drastic change. This time it’s part of much broader changes in society and welfare, reflected in the move to a changed ‘economy of care’, the ‘purchaser-provider split’ and a ‘contract culture’. Now the rhetoric is of more ‘user-centred’ services and a key idea informing this is ‘user involvement’. There are many different reasons for this development, but most can be traced to dissatisfaction with the postwar welfare state. They include:
• the rise of the political right and election of Conservative governments opposed to government intervention and large-scale public welfare;
• wider public disquiet about the poor quality and unaccountability of welfare and other public services;
• the emergence of a wide range of organizations and movements of people who received and were dissatisfied with such welfare services;
• progressive welfare professionals seeking to work in more egalitarian ways;
• the emergence of pioneering initiatives providing different, more participatory services and offering new role models;
• increased interest in ideas of citizenship, civil rights and equal opportunities;
• the emergence of new philosophies like normalization and a social model of disability.
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