To see sections of this book in a PDF, please click here.In response to widespread and persistent concern over the ability of social services to safeguard and promote the wellbeing of the most vulnerable children, UK governments have in recent years introduced some of the most far reaching changes ever encountered in this field.
However, this book argues that - in England especially - despite the best intentions of those driving these changes forward, the approaches to reform have substantially diminished the capability of children’s social services to respond effectively to the complex challenges which they face.
In this book, leading authors in the field of social work explore the impact of the reform agenda on key areas of children’s services practice, including child safeguarding, youth offending, children in care, family support, ethical practice and child welfare law.
They describe an oppressive, managerialist environment within which:
process and procedures are prioritised over outcomes and objectivestargets and indicators are prioritised over values and professional standardscompliance and completion are prioritised over analysis and reflection.Key themes include:
failures of analysislack of effective engagement with researchthe proceduralisation, technicalisation and deprofessionalisation of the social work task.Separate sections cover: the policy context; client group issues; and research evidence on services. Chapters include:
The understanding systemic caseworker: the (changing) nature and meanings of working with children and familiesThe deprofessionalisation of child protection: regaining our bearingsNew Labour and youth justice: what works or what’s countedInadmissible evidence? New Labour and the education of children in careManagerialism: at the tipping point?Technology as magic: fetish and folly in the IT-enabled reform of children’s servicesPlaying with fire or rediscovering fire? The perils and potential for evidence based practice in child and family social workFor my next trick: illusion in children’s social policy and practiceThis book argues that effective practice requires research-informed, reflective, confident and critically-challenging practitioners supported by management systems which promote rather than undermine their effectiveness.
Leaning on more positive developments elsewhere in the UK, it challenges ministers and senior managers to commit to the significant change of direction, both practical and conceptual, which is required if children’s services are to escape from the vicious spiral of declining performance into which they are currently in danger of descending.
Paperback. 144 pages. 9781905541645. Published June 2010. £19.95.
READERSHIPStudents, lecturers and practitioners in social work, children’s services and child protection; and their librariesMinisters, managers and those who set policy in social work, children’s services and child protectionCONTENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS:Children’s services: reversing the vicious spiral
Patrick Ayre, University of Bedfordshire, and Michael Preston-Shoot, University of Bedfordshire
The policy contextChildren and young people’s policy in Wales
Ian Butler, Bath University, and Mark Drakeford, University of CardiffSafeguarding children: the Scottish perspective
Brigid Daniel, Stirling University, and Norma Baldwin, Dundee and Warwick UniversitiesThe understanding systemic caseworker: the (changing) nature and meanings of working with children and families
Harry Ferguson, University of NottinghamClient group issuesThe deprofessionalisation of child protection: regaining our bearings
Patrick Ayre, University of Bedfordshire, and Martin C. Calder, Durham UniversityNew Labour and youth justice: what works or what’s counted
John Pitts, University of Bedfordshire, and Tim Bateman, University of BedfordshireChildren in need: the challenge of prevention for social work
Kate Morris, University of NottinghamInadmissible evidence? New Labour and the education of children in care
Isabelle Brodie, University of BedfordshireResearch evidence on servicesLooking after social work practice in its organisational context: neglected and disconcerting questions
Michael Preston-Shoot, University of BedfordshireManagerialism: at the tipping point?
Alex Chard, Director of YCTCS Ltd, and Patrick Ayre, University of BedfordshireTechnology as magic: fetish and folly in the IT-enabled reform of children’s services
David Wastell, Nottingham University Business School, and Sue White, University of LancasterPlaying with fire or rediscovering fire? The perils and potential for evidence-based practice in child and family social work
Donald Forrester, University of BedfordshireFor my next trick: illusion in children’s social policy and practice
Michael Preston-Shoot, University of Bedfordshire, and Patrick Ayre, University of BedfordshireABOUT THE EDITORSPatrick Ayre is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Bedfordshire where he teaches and researches in the fields of social work and child safeguarding. He has worked in child protection and child welfare for over 30 years and was a social worker and manager of child protection services for some 17 years before taking up his present post. In recent years, he has been heavily engaged in the preparation of Serious Case Reviews, and is active as an expert witness in children’s services negligence cases.
Michael Preston-Shoot is Professor of Social Work and Dean of the Faculty of Health and Social Sciences at the University of Bedfordshire. He has worked as a social worker, groupworker, team leader, family therapist and psychotherapist. He was Editor of
Social Work Education: The International Journal between 1993 and 2006 and was Managing Editor of the
European Journal of Social Work between 2003 and 2007. He is one of the Founding Editors of the journal
Ethics and Social Welfare. He is the Independent Chair of a Local Safeguarding Children Board and of a Safeguarding Vulnerable Adults Board.