Question from Community Care – Across the Divide

Across the Divide

By Mark Doel and Peter Marsh

* Consider the ways that you individually, or as a team, develop your practice. How are you building up the learning for practice? What systems do you use to search, appraise and store: legal knowledge; research knowledge; service user and carer views and experiences; practice-based knowledge. (GUIDE TIME FOR DISCUSSION: 30 minutes)

* In the light of this, what role do you think there is for providing a more systematic approach to knowledge building in social work? (15 minutes)

* The following quotation is taken from a social worker’s dissertation on a research project: ‘Mrs Lee said she felt she had been quite involved in planning for some of the young people she had fostered, but marginalised in the planning for others. She felt it depended on the social worker if they included her or not.’
The quotation demonstrates that social workers have considerable power to vary the way that they work, even around some fundamental principles. 

In the light of this: How would you ensure that it didn’t ‘depend on the social worker if they included her or not’ ?
And what role could task-centred practice play in preventing this? (40 minutes)