Social Care in the Community PDF
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PRACTICAL SOCIAL WORK Series Editor: Jo Campling lBASWj Editorial Advisory Board: Robert Adams, Terry Bamford, Charles Barker, Lena Dominelli, Malcolm Payne, Michael Preston-Shoot, Daphne Statham and Jane Tunstill Social work is at an important stage in its development. All professions must be responsive to changing social and economic conditions if they are to meet the needs of those they serve. This series focuses on sound practice and the specific contribution which social workers can make to the well-being of our society in the 1990s. The British Association of Social Workers has always been con- scious of its role in setting guidelines for practice and in seeking to raise professional standards. The conception of the Practical Social Work series arose from a survey of BASW members to discover where they, the practitioners in social work, felt there was the most need for new literature. The response was overwhelming and enthusiastic, and the result is a carefully planned, coherent series of books. The emphasis is firmly on practice, set in a theoretical framework. The books will inform, stimulate and promote discus- sion, thus adding to the further development of skills and high professional standards. All the authors are practitioners and teach- ers of social work, representing a wide variety of experience. JOCAMPLING Robert Adams Self-Help, Social Work and Jalna Hanmer and Daphne Statham Empowerment Women and Social Work: Towards a Woman-Centred Practice David Anderson Social Work and Mental Handicap Tony Jeffs and Mark Smith (eds) Youth Work James G. Barber Beyond Casework Michael Kerfoot and Alan Butler Problems Peter Beresford and Suzy Croft Citizen of Childhood and Adolescence Involvement Mary Marshall Social Work with Old Suzy Braye and Michael Preston-Shoot People (2nd edn) Practising Social Work Law Paula Nicolson and Rowan Bayne Applied Robert Brown, Stanley Bute and Peter Psychology for Social Workers (2nd edn) Ford Social Workers at Risk Kieran O'Hagan Crisis Intervention in Alan Butler and Colin Pritchard Social Social Services Work and Mental Illness Michael Oliver Social Work with Disabled Crescy Cannan, Lynne Berry and Karen People Lyons Social Work and Europe Joan Orme and Brian Glastonbury Care Roger Clough Residential Work Management David M. Cooper and David Ball Social Lisa Parkinson Separation, Divorce and Work and Child Abuse Families Veronica Coulshed Management in Social Malcolm Payne Social Care in the Work Community Veronica Coulshed Social Work Practice: Malcolm Payne Working in Teams An introduction (2nd edn) John Pitts Working with Young Offenders Paul Daniel and John Wheeler Social Work and Local Politics Michael Preston-Shoot Effective Groupwork Peter R. Day Sociology in Social Work Practice CaroleR. Smith Adoption and Fostering: WhyandHow Lena Dominelli Anti-Racist Social Work: A Challenge for White Practitioners Carole R. Smith Social Work with the and Educators Dying and Bereaved Celia Doyle Working with Abused CaroleR. Smith, Marty T. Lane and Terry Children Walsh Child Care and the Courts Angela Everitt, Pauline Hardiker, Jane Gill Stewart and John Stewart Social Littlewood and Audrey Mullender Work and Housing Applied Research for Better Practice Neil Thompson Anti-Discriminatory GeoffFimister Welfare Rights Work in Practice Social Services Derek Tilbury Working with Mental Illness Kathy Ford and Alan Jones Student Alan Twelvetrees Community Work (2nd Supervision edn) David Francis and Paul Henderson Hilary Walker and Bill Beaumount (eds) Working with Rural Communities Working with Offenders Michael D. A. Freeman Children, their Families and the Law Alison Froggatt Family Work with Elderly People Danya Glaser and Stephen Frosh Child Sexual Abuse Bryan Glastonbury Computers in Social Work Gill Goren Barnes Working with Families Cordelia Grimwood and Ruth Popplestone Women, Management and Care Social Care in the Community Malcolm Payne M MACMILLAN © British Association of Social Workers 1986 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1986 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-0-333-36319-5 ISBN 978-1-349-18169-8(eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-18169-8 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Reprinted 1993 For Simon and Stuart Contents 1 Introduction 1 Counselling and social care 1 Types of indirect social work 2 The importance of social care 5 The neglect of social care 7 The topicality of social care 9 The community care debate 11 A practical approach to community care 18 The structure of the book 23 2 Making the Best of the Client's Resources 26 Introduction 26 Enabling 30 Support 36 Protection 41 3 Resolving Conflicts in the Use of Resources 49 Introduction 49 Negotiation and bargaining 49 Views about negotiation 51 Preparation for negotiation 54 The bargaining process 59 Overcoming problems in negotiations 65 Negotiation situations and outcomes 67 Negotiation and bargaining - practice and problems 69 Mediation 70 vi Contents 4 Finding and Using Resources: Mobilising Resources 74 Introduction 74 Mobilising resources 75 Identifying resources 76 Making resources available 79 Interweaving resources 80 Mobilising within the agency 81 s Finding and Using Resources: Creating Resources 83 Introduction 83 Finding a building 83 Setting up an organisation 87 Working with volunteers 98 Informal carers 104 6 Finding and Using Resources: Liaison 106 Introduction 106 Availability and positive feeling 108 Passing information 110 Setting up systems Ill Planning together 112 Planning liaison 113 7 Promoting Clients' Interests 116 Introduction 116 Advocacy - principles and problems 116 Advocacy - practice 119 Internal advocacy 126 Public education and cause advocacy 127 Consultation 131 8 Conelusion 134 Awareness and clarity in practice 135 The need for specialised workers 136 The agency's policy and resource commitment 137 Training and staff development 138 Conclusion 140 Bibliography 141 Index 146 1 Introduction Community care is about resources: all kinds of resources, personal, economic, social, political. Social workers are a significant part of the provision of community care: first, because they help clients to make effective use of their own personal resources and, secondly, because they help community resources to provide for those in need. Other groups of helpers, other occupations, share this work: social workers are in a network of helping agencies and professions. Their skills are shared with those other agencies and occupations and with ordinary people in their everyday lives. Social workers, however, have a special role in helping others- both clients and colleagues - make the best of community resources both in personal and individual relationships and in more general social provision. That role, and the skills involved in taking it on, are the central concern of this book. Counselling and social care Much social work uses direct relationships with clients - helping clients and the people around them change their relationships, so as to live their lives in a happier, more satisfying way, and to manage their lives more efficiently. The Barclay Report ( 1982) calls this 'counselling'. While all social work activities have similar aims, many of them are concerned with making client's lives happier or more efficient by indirect action, and the Barclay Report called this 'social care planning'. 2 Social Care in the Community For example, John, aged 13, is in a residential home and returns from school one day depressed and angry because a gang of other youngsters in the playground have baited him about wearing a hearing aid. One approach to this is to discuss with him his feelings about having such an evident physical defect. Residential social workers can train him to handle other people's behaviour better. It is also important to show that he is loved and cared for in the home by adults and by other children and they can be warned to do this. These are direct approaches- the social workers have dealt with the problem by concerning themselves directly with the client, his behaviour, his feelings, and his skills. In John's case, there is a relatively minor problem, and probably these approaches would resolve its immediate manifestations. But this is not enough, for two reasons. First, it makes no contributions to the resources of the community which will resolve other such problems in the future. The organisation of the school which permits such events, the attitudes of the youngsters, the obtrusive design of the hearing aid and the capacity of the staff and children in the residential home to deal with these feelings and problems - none of these issues are dealt with. So next-year David could produce similar difficulties as a result of wearing thick-lensed glasses, and the same rigmarole would have to be endured again. The second reason why the direct response is not enough is that it places most of the responsibility for dealing with what has gone wrong upon John. He has to learn the skills and manage his feelings. People have to restrict their range of responses to be loving and caring to him, and this may produce unreal relationships - they may need to tick him off for something but feel they cannot. This is unfair to him, and may lead to longer-term feelings of bitterness or distortion of attitudes and relationships. Some responsibility and action should be required to deal with the problem at its source. Types of indirect social work What is needed then is some indirect action, and by looking at any social work activities it is possible to see opportunities Introduction 3 and needs for such action. Broadly speaking there are five types of social care. There are no clear distinctions between the five types: they form a continum. Three factors define the differences between them. These are, first, the range of social workers' involvement which starts from the needs and environment of an indiv~dual and expands to broader social concerns. Second, the nature of social work activity changes from an enabling role through negotiation to promoting social action. Third, the kind of resources being dealt with develops from strengthening the client's own resources to trying to change the way resources are developed in society. Each of the first four types of social care has its own part of this book. I explain why the fifth is excluded when I come to it. One is so important that it is given three chapters, each covering a different aspect. First, social workers can influence the immediate surro:11ndings and try to prevent thein from obstructing or interfering with the client, or they help to achieve or strengthen what the cli~nt is attempting. The aim here is to make the best of the client's resources. The target of the social worker's action is the everyday life of the client and how it is managed. In this type of indirect action, only those people in normal contact with clients, as tb,ey go about their business, are involved. The social! worket is thus concerned with indirectly potentiating the changes being developed directly by working with a client: there may be general effects on society, but the main aim is to. benefit the specific client. The second type of social care is concerned with reducing conflict and uncertainty in responding to the client's needs. Clients are often surrounded by conflicts which prevent people from helping them, or interfere with things they are trying to do. Members of a girl's family, for example, may disagree about the best way to deal with her problems; agencies may differ among themselves about what services should be provided; or, again, help may be available,but has to be arranged in a way which suits the client. The focus of work here is with people who are in contact with the client, but not necessarily as part of their everyday lives - the social worker is dealing with a much broader range of people. The aim is
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