Table Of ContentPRACTICAL
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
