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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The nature and culture of social work with children and families in long-term casework
T2 - Findings from a qualitative longitudinal study
AU - Ferguson, Harry
AU - Warwick , Lisa
AU - Singh Cooner, Tarsem
AU - Leigh, Jadwiga
AU - Beddoe, Liz
AU - Disney, Tom
AU - Plumridge, Gillian
PY - 2020/8/1
Y1 - 2020/8/1
N2 - Social work in the United Kingdom is preoccupied with what social workers cannot do due to having limited time to spend with service users. Yet remarkably little research has examined what social workers actually do, especially in long-term relationships. This paper draws from an ethnographic study of two social work departments in England that spent 15 months observing practice and organizational life. Our findings show that social work some of the time has a significant amount of involvement with some service users and the dominant view that relationship-based practice is rarely achieved is in need of some revision. However, families at one research site received a much more substantial, reliable overall service due to the additional input of family support workers and having a stable workforce who had their own desks and were co-located with managers in small team offices. This generated a much more supportive, reflective culture for social workers and service users than at the second site, a large open plan "hot-desking" office. Drawing on relational, systemic, and complexity theories, the paper shows how the nature of what social workers do and culture of practice are shaped by the interaction between available services, office designs, and practitioners', managers', and service users' experiences of relating together.
AB - Social work in the United Kingdom is preoccupied with what social workers cannot do due to having limited time to spend with service users. Yet remarkably little research has examined what social workers actually do, especially in long-term relationships. This paper draws from an ethnographic study of two social work departments in England that spent 15 months observing practice and organizational life. Our findings show that social work some of the time has a significant amount of involvement with some service users and the dominant view that relationship-based practice is rarely achieved is in need of some revision. However, families at one research site received a much more substantial, reliable overall service due to the additional input of family support workers and having a stable workforce who had their own desks and were co-located with managers in small team offices. This generated a much more supportive, reflective culture for social workers and service users than at the second site, a large open plan "hot-desking" office. Drawing on relational, systemic, and complexity theories, the paper shows how the nature of what social workers do and culture of practice are shaped by the interaction between available services, office designs, and practitioners', managers', and service users' experiences of relating together.
KW - child protection
KW - children and families
KW - family support
KW - home visits
KW - organizational culture
KW - social work
KW - ethnographic research
U2 - 10.1111/cfs.12746
DO - 10.1111/cfs.12746
M3 - Journal article
VL - 25
SP - 694
EP - 703
JO - Child and Family Social Work
JF - Child and Family Social Work
SN - 1356-7500
IS - 3
ER -