Gramsci, austerity common sense and the attacks on the welfare state: The need to understand and resist the imposition of the global neoliberal agenda and the role of the social work profession.

During the last 30 years governments almost everywhere in the world are furthering a global neoliberal agenda by withdrawing the state from the delivery of services, decreasing social spending and lowering corporate taxation etc. This restructuring has led to a massive transfer of wealth from the welfare state and working class people into capital. In order to legitimize this restructuring conservative governments engage in collective blaming towards their denizens. This presentation will examine some of the well circulated phrases that have been used by the dominant elite in some countries during the last year to legitimize the imposition of austerity measures. Phrases such as, ‘We all partied’ used by the Irish finance minister, Brian Lenihan, to explain the Irish crisis and collectively blame all Irish people, ‘We must all share the pain’, deployed by another Irish Minister Gilmore and the UK coalition administration’s sound bite ‘We are all in this together’, legitimize the imposition of austerity measures. Utilizing the Gramscian concept of common sense (Gramsci, 1971), I call these phrases ‘austerity common sense’. They are austerity common sense because they both reflect and legitimate the austerity agenda. By deploying these phrases, the ruling economic and political elite seek to influence the perception of the people and pre-empt any intention of resistance. The dominant theme of these phrases is that there is no alternative and that austerity measures are somehow self-inflicted and, as such, should not be challenged because we are all to blame. The purpose of this presentation is to explore the “austerity common sense” theme from a Gramscian approach, focus on its implications for the social work profession and discuss the ways to resist the imposition of the global neoliberal agenda.

Recent policy initiatives in early childhood and the challenges for the social work profession

The Labour Government in the UK has announced, as part of its launch of The Children's Plan, that it 'wants to make this country the best place in the world for children and young people to grow up' in. This latest Plan is further evidence of the surge of interest that there has been in children (and, in particular, early childhood) over the last ten years in the UK and indeed elsewhere. Many of the recent policy and practice initiatives have implications for social workers working with young children. Yet, social work as a profession, in comparison with education, has remained relatively silent on these initiatives and it is hard to find any critical analysis of these developments in terms of either their underlying discourses or their implications for social workers. This article sets out to address these gaps by providing a critical analysis of: what types of knowledge regarding the early years have gained political currency; why and how this is the case; and what the implications are for the role and practices of social workers. The article proposes that discourses of 'need' and 'provision' mask more powerful discourses of economics, social control and risk avoidance, and it concludes by advocating more critically reflexive social work practice with young children and their families.

History of Child Welfare and Protection Social Work in Northern Ireland: Finding Continuity amongst Discontinuity in Case Files from 1950-1968

This article reports on research carried out on 200 child welfare files from the largest welfare authority in Northern Ireland from 1950-1968. The literature review provides a commentary on some of the major debates surrounding child welfare and protection social work from the perspective of its historical development. The report of the research which follows offers an insight into one core, and less well-known period of child welfare history in Northern Ireland between the two Children and Young Persons Acts (1950 & 1968). Using a method of discourse analysis influenced by Michel Foucault, a detailed description of the nature of practice is offered. This paper is offered as a work in progress, with further work being planned for dissemination of more detailed analysis of the method and outcomes. The research seeks to ask a few core questions based on problems identified in the present with our current understandings of child welfare and protection histories. While recognising the limitations of this study and the need for broader analysis of the wider context surrounding child welfare practice at the moment, it is argued that some salient conclusions can be drawn about continuity and discontinuity in practice which are of interest to practitioners and students of child welfare social work.

Mediation and the Social Work profession: particularly in the community context

In 2008, the European Union published its Directive on mediation in civil and commercial matters, offering general regulation of this conflict resolution system, its principles, and its objectives. Social workers have for some time defended their role as mediators, but this reality has changed and mediation appears to have taken shape as an independent profession due to existing regulation, its introduction to universities and the implementation of training courses. This article analyses the differences between the two professions: mediator and social worker. It also considers the mediation that is carried out in the community context. Community mediation is a perfect tool for achieving a changed understanding of public social services, seeking to encourage citizens to participate in and take responsibility for community life and thereby to become active citizens as envisaged by the 2012 Global Agenda for Social Work. However, mediation in this context has certain peculiarities, and at times confusion may arise between the figures of social worker and mediator.

Social Work Home Visits to Children and Families in the UK: A Foucauldian Perspective

The home visit is at the heart of social work practice with children and families; it is what children and families' social workers do more than any other single activity (except for recording), and it is through the home visit that assessments are made on a daily basis about risk, protection and welfare of children. And yet it is, more than any other activity, an example of what Pithouse has called an ‘invisible trade’: it happens behind closed doors, in the most secret and intimate spaces of family life. Drawing on conceptual tools associated with the work of Foucault, this article sets out to provide a critical, chronological review of research, policy and practice on home visiting. We aim to explain how and in what ways changing discourses have shaped the emergence, legitimacy, research and practice of the social work home visit to children and families at significant time periods and in a UK context. We end by highlighting the importance for the social work profession of engagement and critical reflection on the identified themes as part of their daily practice.

Social work and welfare education without discrimination : are we there yet?

The Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has identified education as one of five crucial issues relating to the settlement of African Australians into the Australian community from a human rights perspective (AHRC 2009:5). In this paper I advocate that social work and welfare work in Australia are placed in important and multi dimensioned positions in relation to our complicities, responsibilities and potentialities with this educational human rights issue. As a Technical and Further Education (TAFE) welfare and University social work educator, I offer an outline of the ‘mutual respect inquiry approach’ that developed between myself and Southern Sudanese Australian students as a basis for discussion, reflection and change. I seek to stimulate thinking and action, particularly among those welfare work and social work educators, practitioners and students who identify as critical and anti-oppressive, to consider how these approaches can be realised and reshaped in practice to enhance not only Southern Sudanese Australians' right to education that is 'without discrimination', but indeed all students in our diversity.

Researching the history of social work: Exposition of a history of the present approach.

This paper provides an exposition of Michel Foucault's 'history of the present' in order to make the case for its relevance to the study of social work history. It sets out the general principles underpinning this practice and considers its application to a particular research question relating to history of child welfare and protection social work in the Republic of Ireland. The paper seeks to highlight the challenges involved in its use and illuminate its potential value as an approach for researching the history of social work. It is concluded that this exposition offers one appropriate approach that could be employed within the growing field of social work history research across Europe.

Reducing Child Protection Error in Social Work: Towards an Holistic-Rational Perspective

Social work in the United Kingdom remains embroiled in concerns about child protection error. The serious injury or death of vulnerable children continues to evince much consternation in the public and private spheres. Governmental responses to these concerns invariably draw on technocratic solutions involving more procedures, case management systems, information technology and bureaucratic regulation. Such solutions flow from an implicit use of instrumental rationality based on a ‘means-end’ logic. While bringing an important perspective to the problem of child protection error, instrumental rationality has been overused limiting discretion and other modes of rational inquiry. This paper argues that the social work profession should apply an enlarged form of rationality comprising not only the instrumental-rational mode but also the critical-rational, affective-rational and communicative-rational forms. It is suggested that this combined, conceptual arsenal of rational inquiry leads to a gestalt which has been termed the holistic-rational perspective. It is also argued that embracing a more rounded perspective such as this might offer greater opportunities for reducing child protection error.

Towards critical social work practice in mental health: a review

Progressive social work perspectives that draw on both critical theories and postmodern thought, provide highly relevant and appropriate frameworks to inform social work practice in the mental health field. Despite this, the literature overviewed indicates that the majority of social work practice conducted in mental health settings reflects an uncritical embrace of the medical model of psychiatric illness, and therefore largely neglects social work approaches which utilize critical principles. The following article explores the possibilities for applying a critical model of social work practice to the mental health field, and argues the necessity for social workers to actively engage with critical practice, even in medically dominated settings, to effectively work towards the espoused social justice ethics and mission of the social work profession.

Professional supervision : a workforce retention strategy for social work?

Retaining social workers in the workforce is a significant challenge and a considerable amount of research has focused on identifying and examining the reasons why social workers choose to leave the profession. This paper presents findings collected as part of a small-scale exploratory study into why some social workers have chosen to remain in the social work profession for many years and who consider themselves to be passionate about their careers. In particular, the paper focuses on the potential of effective professional supervision as a factor that can facilitate social worker workforce retention. Supervision was mentioned by all participants in the study as being important for their wellbeing, either throughout their social work career or at particular points along the way, and supervision was also cited as one of the reasons they were still social workers. On the basis of this research, the authors argue that regular professional supervision can increase the retention rate of social worker employees; and it is, therefore, false economy not to allocate sufficient resources for effective supervision.

The Postmodern ‘Turn’ in Social Work: The Challenges of Identity and Equality

Diversity and demands for equality have challenged fixed notions of identity amongst the diverse populations of Europe. This development has prompted discourses about the significance of fluidity and multiplicity in identities that have given prominence to postmodern theories in the profession of social work. A number of social work educators have contributed to the ensuing debates. Walter Lorenz’s work has contributed substantially to developments on this front by:highlighting the dangers of essentialising fixed identities in professional practice, referring to the failure of social workers to live up to professional values and ideals in the Nazi attack on Jews and others who were different from the Aryan norms that Hitler’s regime sought to impose; arguing for racial equality in multicultural Europe; and ensuring that social work theories and practice engaged with innovations in the social sciences more generally to improve the profession’s research, theoretical and practice bases. In this article, I engage with crucial debates that have shaped the profession during the post-war period, honouring Walter Lorenz’s contributions to them in the process.

Policy Contexts of Social Work in Britain: the wider implications of 'New' Labour and the 'New Legal Regime'

Several commentators have expressed disappointment with New Labour's apparent adherence to the policy frameworks of the previous Conservative administrations. The employment orientation of its welfare programmes, the contradictory nature of the social exclusion initiatives, and the continuing obsession with public sector marketisation, inspections, audits, standards and so on, have all come under critical scrutiny (c.f., Blyth 2001; Jordan 2001; Orme 2001). This paper suggests that in order to understand the socio-economic and political contexts affecting social work we need to examine the relationship between New Labour's modernisation project and its insertion within an architecture of global governance. In particular, membership of the European Union (EU), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organisation (WTO) set the parameters for domestic policy in important ways. Whilst much has been written about the economic dimensions of 'globalisation' in relation to social work rather less has been noted about the ways in which domestic policy agenda are driven by multilateral governance objectives. This policy dimension is important in trying to respond to various changes affecting social work as a professional activity. What is possible, what is encouraged, how things might be done, is tightly bounded by the policy frameworks governing practice and affected by those governing the lives of service users. It is unhelpful to see policy formulation in purely national terms as the UK is inserted into a network governance structure, a regulatory framework where decisions are made by many countries and organisations and agencies. Together, they are producing a 'new legal regime', characterised by a marked neo-liberal policy agenda. This paper aims to demonstrate the relationship of New Labour's modernisation programme to these new forms of legality by examining two main policy areas and the welfare implications they are enmeshed in. The first is privatisation, and the second is social policy in the European Union. Examining these areas allows a demonstration of how much of the New Labour programme can be understood as a local implementation of a transnational strategy, how parts of that strategy produce much of the social exclusion it purports to address, and how social welfare, and particularly social work, are noticeable by their absence within policy discourses of the strategy. The paper details how the privatisation programme is considered to be a crucial vehicle for the further development of a transnational political-economy, where capital accumulation has been redefined as 'welfare'. In this development, frameworks, codes and standards are central, and the final section of the paper examines how the modernisation strategy of the European Union depends upon social policy marked by an employment orientation and risk rationality, aimed at reconfiguring citizen identities.The strategy is governed through an 'open mode of coordination', in which codes, standards, benchmarks and so on play an important role. The paper considers the modernisation strategy and new legality within which it is embedded as dependent upon social policy as a technology of liberal governance, one demonstrating a new rationality in comparison to that governing post-Second World War welfare, and which aims to reconfigure institutional infrastructure and citizen identity.

Professional development of social work in Russia

The aim of the paper was to get an understanding about how the profession of social work explains its relevance and legitimacy in today's Russia, to enlighten the importance of socio-political, professional and educational contexts in explaining the societal position of the social work profession in Russia. This paper begins with the analysis of the processes of legitimization, professionalization and constitution of social work in today's Russia. In addition to functionalist and critical perspectives on these three processes, in its second part the paper employs phenomenological approach looking into everyday life theory of social work that is constructed in routine work at the social service agencies. The third part of this paper talks about the issues of social services and social work with family and children in contemporary Russia.