by Allan Norman
I have recently been preparing for a part of a module I deliver to student social workers, which examines the characteristics of a profession, and explores where social work fits in. As usual, I need to address the historical ambivalence to professional status that arises because we fear professional status provides a marker of inequality between us and our service users, and a mechanism to use power to oppress.
The Lucifer Effect
Now, while I fear that my views on the professionalisation of social work may not meet the approval of radical social work commentators whose views have influenced me, I have always favoured increasing professionalisation. Why?
I have come to realise that actually I consider the absence of professional status is more likely to make us oppress than its presence. Specifically, I fear that if our only reference point for our conduct is the authority of the bureaucracy, then there is nothing to prevent ‘The Lucifer Effect’ about which Philip Zimbardo has recently and challengingly written – the way in which systems and situations cause even average and decent people to dehumanise and belittle, even harm others.
Hijacked by employers
By contrast, I do not believe professional values to be inherently dehumanising. Professionals, like anyone, can exploit and oppress. But the external frame of reference – be it the justice to which the law reaches out, or the wholeness for which medicine strives, or, of course the social justice and human rights that are fundamental to social work – seems to me an altogether more wholesome frame of reference than the authority of the bureaucracy.
It is therefore depressing to read Kenneth McLaughlin published in the British Journal of Social Work 2007 37(7):1263-1277 just a few months ago showing that that the General Social Care Council and the Social Care Register have (in my words – he is somewhat more sophisticated in his analysis) been hijacked by the employers as yet another tool to keep social workers in their place. If this is right, then another opportunity to resist and overcome the authority of the bureaucracy has passed us by. Are we yet a profession?
Allan Norman is Principal Social Worker & Solicitor at Celtic Knot, an independent law firm and social work practice.
I've been reading "The Lucifer Effect" myself, mostly to try to understand social worker's behavior. I don't know about the UK, but here in the US, our child protection/foster care system has serious problems. The exact details of the problem change as the pendulum swings back and forth between preserving the family and protecting the child, rarely pausing in the middle to only protect children from families that are actually abusive while preserving families that have problems that can be solved. At one extreme, social workers leave children in the hands of parents they should know are dangerous, and at the other, they exaggerate and distort facts to make parents seem dangerous instead of just poor/stressed/imperfect and overload foster homes with all the kids they take, which means that occasionally abusive foster parents slip through the screening process and red flags are ignored.
In my experience, dealing with social workers is almost always degrading. They don't come right out and insult you, but they make it obvious that they think that you are stupid and lazy and that poor people don't deserve to raise their own children. They find your flaws and act like they are oh-so-superior. They snark and condescend and look down their nose and then put their attitude into their report because once it's on paper, it's TRUTH, and it doesn't matter if it's just them making you look bad. So, tell student social workers not to act like that, it really doesn't help, it just makes people hate social workers.
I am deeply concerned as someone with 36 years experience to see the 'modern' state of social work.
I am far from convinced that more recent entrants have any idea of its origins and have been brought up to see social work as equating with local authorities and, perhaps, some of the larger voluntary organisations.
In respect of the GSCC it is interesting that only social workers who call themselves that or whose employers insist that they be so called have to Register (unless it is an employment requirement) - so you can be a Team Manager, Area Manager, Assistant Director of Social Services and even a Director of Social Services / Social Work and not need to be registered (and in some cases not even need to be qualified in social work!).
Even more alarming is that unregistered managers can have a major influence on casework decision-making which qualified staff have to follow. If we had the 'medical' model in place (and I accept that that is a whole different debate) there would at least be a professional hierarchical structure. Can you imagine a Consultant Physician not having to be registered becauuse he was not called 'doctor'? - it is unthinkable and ludicrous but it is quite alright in social work for the GSCC to insist of registration of 'social workers' but not of hundreds of others who manage them and are decision-makers. How many local authority Adoption and Permanence 'Agency Decision-makers' are not GSCC registered?
So are we a 'profession' - no not really.
Are we individually and institutionally more governed by 'doing as we are told'/ ensuring that our careers stay on track than going out on a limb for those we are supposed to help / enable / empower / advocate for? Often, yes we are.
And on that depressing note I will end!