Context

A series of projects on Families and Welfare have their origins in the client-centred social work research of the 1970’s (including work done at the University of Sheffield by Sainsbury and others). This revealed the major disparities between users and professionals about the nature and the purpose of the work being undertaken. In spite of the belief among professionals; that they were working on the basis of clear, negotiated agreements,  there was in practice a dearth of shared understanding.

Policy makers, managers, practitioners and academics are generally agreed that clarity and a shared sense of purpose are essential prerequisites for effective intervention. Yet research has repeatedly demonstrated, in every area of social work, that this was all too rarely the case. The challenge for researchers  was to find ways of addressing this problem and providing, in collaboration with practitioners and policy makers, some new solutions to the long-standing problems.

Task-centred practice was a good starting point for the work on this. It was one of the few practice methods of proven effectiveness. Its reliance on explicitly negotiated problems, goals and tasks seemed to provide the sort of foundation on which real improvements in practice could be built. But the improvements need to extend beyond the practice level: sound practice needs to be located in clear policies, it needs to be principled but flexible and can easily be undermined by mechanistic procedures, it needs an organisational base which promotes relevant values, and stands by them for its service users and for its staff. The introduction of practice improvements require a commitment to high quality practice at every organisational level. Inevitably the research has been concerned as much with organisational factors as with practice itself.

In the UK the Children Act of 1989 and the 1990 NHS & Community Care Act gave a welcome framework for a more collaborative and partnership based approach, and implicitly a more research based one. But they also clarified the focus of social work on those in greatest need and at greatest risk. If a new partnership-oriented practice was to be adopted it had to be shown to work at the cutting edge of social work: in situations of statutory power and coercion, such as child protection and youth  justice, and it had to accommodate the fact that partnerships are rarely between individual workers and individual users, they are between a range of staff and the friend and family constellation of the user(s). This emphasis is reflected in the research on, for example, leaving care and the use of Family Group Conferences.

Many of the projects have had an action research element, making extensive use of training, as a means of achieving individual and organisational change. In doing this, it has been necessary to confront the poor record of training in securing lasting change and to develop a range of methods to improve its effectiveness. The development of this training has shown that it is also important to challenge out-dated notions of professionalism at a fundamental level. Task-centred practice, for example, asks that workers explore and acknowledge tight boundaries around their statutory mandate to intervene without active consent, and Family Group Conferences require a commitment to extended family that has not been true of most practice.

Primary care has also provided an important context for the projects, with a number of similarities with social work, including a relatively weak research base, and a need to provide constant attention to the centrality of practice. Inter-disciplinary work between community based health and social work has increasingly been the focus of the projects.

Many practitioners have welcomed the challenge of providing new solutions: some felt it was the first time they had genuinely addressed some basic problems in their practice. But for others it has seemed to threaten their concept of themselves as skilled professionals. In both cases, there have to be concerns about the extent to which professional training, and subsequent professional development equips  practitioners for the job that they actually have to do in modern health and social care services. This has also proved a continuing focus for research.

Overall, this research programme has been established around the principle of partnerships between users and workers. Any partnership involves questions of power and in social work these can be uncomfortable questions. The balance of power is complex and difficult: between children, families and professionals; between users, carers and workers; and between workers, managers and policy makers. Partnership at first sight can appear a cosy concept, but our work has, quite properly, been directly concerned with rights, power and control and not just co-operation and agreement. In doing this it has aimed to provide a contribution towards a sound intellectual base for partnership practice.