Downloaded by [National Library of the Philippines] at 23:31 01 November 2017 Social Work with Children and Families

Downloaded by [National Library of the Philippines] at 23:31 01 November 2017 Social Work with Children and Families Professional social work has changed considerably over the last forty years coinciding with the demise of the social democratic consensus of the post-war years and the emergence and now domination of neoliberalism. Rather than the state through the government of the day ensuring citizens’ basic needs were met via the welfare state, the belief in free market economics entails people having to be self-reliant and self-responsible. This has involved social work with children and families moving from a helping and supportive role to one that is more authoritarian, this often involving telling parents to change their behaviour and lifestyle or face the consequences. This book outlines the development of social work with children and families over the period in question, drawing on the author’s unique practice experience and his extensive writings. It charts the highs and lows of social work, the latter including the dominance of managerialism which emphasises speedy completion of bureaucracy so as to ration resources and assess/manage risk. Despite this, the argument is for a critical practice which addresses service users immediate needs while simultaneously aiming towards a more socially just and equal society. This book is essential reading for everyone interested in social work including academics, students, practitioners and managers both in the UK and overseas. Social care and allied professionals more generally will also find it insightful, as will academics, students and educators of social policy and related disciplines. Steve Rogowski has almost forty years’ experience of social work. On qualify- ing he worked as a generic social worker for Derbyshire County Council. Since then he has been a social worker with children and families for Oldham Council until March 2014. He has published widely about his experiences in a variety of social work/policy journals and magazines, recently including the odd blog. His books Social Work: The Rise and Fall of a Profession? and Critical Social Downloaded by [National Library of the Philippines] at 23:31 01 November 2017 Work with Children and Families: Theory, Context and Practice were published in 2010 and 2013 respectively. This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [National Library of the Philippines] at 23:31 01 November 2017 Social Work with Children and Families Reflections of a Critical Practitioner Steve Rogowski Downloaded by [National Library of the Philippines] at 23:31 01 November 2017 First published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2016 Steve Rogowski The right of Steve Rogowski to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-1-4724-3371-8 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-3156-0968-3 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC Downloaded by [National Library of the Philippines] at 23:31 01 November 2017 If we have chosen the position in life in which we can most of all work for man- kind, no burdens can bow us down, because they are sacrifices for the benefit of all; then we shall experience no petty, limited, selfish joy, but our happiness will belong to millions, our deeds will live on quietly but perpetually at work, and over our ashes will be shed the hot tears of noble people. Karl Marx, Letter to His Father (November 1837) Downloaded by [National Library of the Philippines] at 23:31 01 November 2017 This page intentionally left blank Downloaded by [National Library of the Philippines] at 23:31 01 November 2017 Contents Acknowledgements ix Foreword by David Smith x PART ONE Setting the scene 1 1 Introduction: critical reflections on social work with children and families 3 2 Politics, economics and ideology: from social democracy to neoliberalism 17 PART TWO The high points of social work 35 3 Youth crime and youth justice 37 4 Community social work 53 5 On theory: critical, radical and allied perspectives 70 PART THREE The low points of social work 91 6 From child welfare to child protection/safeguarding 93 Downloaded by [National Library of the Philippines] at 23:31 01 November 2017 7 The rise of managerialism and the social work business 108 viii Contents PART FOUR Ways forward 125 8 Critical and radical possibilities in neoliberal times 127 9 Conclusion: the future(s) of social work with children and families 145 Afterword 164 References 165 Index 183 Downloaded by [National Library of the Philippines] at 23:31 01 November 2017 Acknowledgements There are numerous people to acknowledge in a social work career spanning five decades. These include academics such as Peter Beresford, David Smith and David Thorpe from my time at Lancaster University in the 1970s through to Beth Humphries at Manchester Metropolitan University in the late 1990s. Others include, in no particular order, Audrey Mullender, Bill Jordan, Ray Jones, Iain Ferguson and Paul Michael Garrett. It goes without saying that I am especially grateful to David Smith for writing the foreword. Then there are the many and varied colleagues in social work and allied pro- fessions, as well as some important volunteers, with whom I have worked (and sometimes worked against!) over the years. There are far too many to mention, but they will know who they are. Finally, and certainly not least, there are the countless children and families who have allowed me into their lives, sometimes for brief spells and, at other times, for much longer periods. I am grateful to them for putting up with my occa- sional intrusiveness but hope they always knew that ultimately I was there to help and support even if, at times, there was an element of control. Steve Rogowski Oldham February 2016 Downloaded by [National Library of the Philippines] at 23:31 01 November 2017 Foreword As far as I know, there is no one like Steve Rogowski. By this I mean that I can think of nobody else who over almost forty years has practised as a social worker largely in a single area – Oldham in Rogowski’s case – while continuing to reflect critically in published work on that practice and its changing political and policy context. In this, (his latest – last?) book, he draws on his unique experience as practitioner and academic writer – of both short personal or polemical pieces and of extended works of scholarship – to offer a powerful historical and analytical critique of developments in social work during his professional lifetime, with a particular focus on his own specialism of work with children and families. Organised into four parts and nine chapters, the book is helpfully structured and signposted as he guides the reader through the shifting social, political and economic landscape in which he has maintained his efforts to work as a ‘critical practitioner’. He describes and analyses social work’s highs and lows, concluding with a consideration of possible futures for social work in which, taking the phrase from Raymond Williams, he tries to identify ‘resources of hope’ in difficult times. His scholarship is evident in the sources he cites, with approval or dismay, which range widely over times and topics, and from high-level social theory to close-up studies of practice. In reflecting on what has changed for social work practitioners and why it has changed, he draws on work in several disciplines – from political philosophy and politics through to sociology and social policy – and on his own impressive bibliography. Crucially for the book’s arguments, he consistently illustrates the practical meaning of these changes by detailed and convincing case studies and examples from practice. Inevitably, it is easier to find grounds for pessimism than for optimism about social work’s future in his convincing and up-to-date account of the rise of neoliberalism (and its apparent capacity to survive the global economic crisis of 2008 more or less unscathed) and of the associated processes of marketisation and Downloaded by [National Library of the Philippines] at 23:31 01 November 2017 managerialism. Despite these misgivings, his concluding ideas on what positive social work might look like in the coming years are far from rose-tinted. What he offers is an interesting and thoughtful combination of some traditional social work themes – such as the centrality of relationships, and of care and empathy, in human experience and in the process of helping – together with attention to Foreword xi structural and contextual pressures and constraints, with suggestions on how to reduce their damaging effects. Importantly, he is well aware that at times activists and theorists on the political left have been critical of state welfare and of social work, in particular in terms that brought them into uneasy alignment with critics from the political right. He is also clear that at a time when the market economy is becoming a market society, cuts – under the ‘alchemy’ of austerity – are proposed that would bring state spending in Britain into line with the United States rather than with those more progressive countries of Western Europe.

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