Montgomery, Lorna; Doyle, Laura; Bunting, Lisa; Gleghorne, Nicole
2024 British Journal of Social Work
doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcae064
Whilst studies of child welfare inequalities have identified the impact of socio-economic deprivation on child protection rates, little is known about how this relates to intervention with adults who have care and support needs. This article examines the impact of area-level deprivation on adult safeguarding (AS) rates in Northern Ireland (NI). Routinely gathered statistics for community AS referrals (2015–2017) were linked to area-level deprivation across NI using service users’ postcode. The relationship between deprivation and the screening, investigation and safeguarding planning stages of intervention was examined. Our analysis identified a clear social gradient in relation to AS referrals; the higher the level of deprivation, the higher the rates of AS screening and protection plans. Findings for investigations showed more variability. Further research is needed to explore the factors associated with areas of high deprivation that shape AS social work responses. To our knowledge, this is the first time AS rates have been explored in relation to deprivation. The study findings, that structural factors play a significant role in AS interventions, will help to determine how and where social work interventions are best focused, helping to shape policy and AS theory.
2024 British Journal of Social Work
doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcae065
This article seeks to critically engage Chris Maylea’s 2020 provocative call to end official social work by suggesting that the debate it sparked has the potential to expand the contemporary social work discourse. This article explores the complexities and potential dangers of Maylea’s radical call, particularly its susceptibility to co-option by neo-conservative agendas. Whilst the idea of calling for the end of official social work may seem absurd, the article maintains that it might serve as an intellectual tool to overcome the ‘imaginary inertia’ that arguably plagues discussions about reforming the profession. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of ‘episteme’ and Gaston Bachelard’s ‘categories of the real’, it suggests that Maylea’s call for abolition challenges the established boundaries of what is considered possible and probable in the critical social work discourse. This might open new avenues that might otherwise remain invisible to reimagine the future of the profession. Consequently, it is posited that imagining the end of official social work may align with and expand opposing calls for reformation of the profession.
Storey, Jennifer E; Rogers, Michaela M; Hohn, Richard E
2024 British Journal of Social Work
doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcae067
Older adult homicide (OAH) is the most severe, yet understudied, form of older adult abuse. This study examined the case, victim and perpetrator characteristics of OAH. A secondary analysis of national data from England and Wales (2008–2019) was conducted where cases of non-stranger OAH (victims aged sixty years and over) were compared to adult homicide (victims aged eighteen to fifty-nine years) at the case, victim (n = 3,274) and perpetrator (n = 2,763) levels. Logistic regression models used to identify characteristics that were OAH risk factors, showed only a slight increase in predictive power but high accuracy in classifying adult homicide cases. Nevertheless, some risk factors known to be predictors of older adult abuse were significant predictors of OAH (e.g. living with the perpetrator, the perpetrator’s mental state). Implications for research, policy and practice are discussed.
Sanders, Michael; Hirneis, Vanessa; Picker, Vanessa
2024 British Journal of Social Work
doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcae068
Despite the fact that care leavers are at significantly higher risk of homelessness than their peers who have not experienced care, there is a paucity of information on evidence-based interventions to address this risk. Lifelong Links is a program developed and delivered by the Family Rights Group in England. The intervention aims to ensure that a child in care has a positive support network around them to help during their time in care and into adulthood. In this article, we analyse the outcomes of a quasi-experimental evaluation of the Lifelong Links program. Specifically, we make use of a combination of coarsened exact matching, and a triple-differences approach (or difference in difference in differences analysis). Results of our analyses show that Lifelong Links is associated with a reduction in the risk of becoming homeless for care leavers aged eighteen to twenty in the years following its implementation. Our most robust model showed a reduction of around 10 per cent in the risk of a young care leaver being deemed at risk of, or experiencing homelessness, suggesting that improving ties between young people in care and their birth families (and/or building other sources of support) could have beneficial impacts on housing outcomes into adulthood.
Mahajne, Ibrahim; Allassad Alhuzail, Nuzha
2024 British Journal of Social Work
doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcae069
The gap between fieldwork demands and academic knowledge necessitates the sharing of tacit knowledge to ensure continuity of context-appropriate professional knowledge. The research describes and explains patterns of minority social workers’ sharing of their previously tacit knowledge, the knowledge’s significance and the context where it was acquired. In data drawn from in-depth semi-structured interviews with twenty children and youth workers in Arab welfare bureaus throughout Israel, Arab social workers exposed tacit knowledge they had revealed and shared concerning prolonged institutional deprivation in out-of-home settings that dramatically limited their ability to ensure the minors’ rights. This knowledge was shared in four ways: retention, transmission between colleagues, documentation for the future and publication. Social workers invested insufficient efforts to share their tacit knowledge, due to inappropriate relevant professional training and lack of a suitable infrastructure and organisational culture. They were aware that sharing and dissemination of their previously tacit knowledge could serve three players in the Children and Youth Services: the target population (giving them a voice), professionals (uniting their ranks for collective action) and government institutions (reflecting the reality and equipping them with data concerning service gaps). Social work should reconsider the potential value of sharing such knowledge.
Hood, Rick; Goldacre, Allie; Jones, Ed; Martin, Emma; Clements, Keith; Webb, Calum
2024 British Journal of Social Work
doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcae070
The majority of children referred to social care services in England go on to receive a statutory assessment by a social worker. Research has identified consistent categories of demand based on the needs identified in assessments. However, little is known about the relationship between children’s assessed needs and their subsequent intervention pathways. To explore this relationship, secondary analysis was undertaken of a national administrative data-set including all children who received a social work assessment in England from 2015 to 2020 (n = 3.6 m). Children’s characteristics, assessed needs and intervention pathways were compared for each episode of CSC involvement. Regression analysis then explored how the proportion of children receiving different types of provision varied according to their needs as well as intersections of gender, age and ethnicity. The findings showed significant differences across twelve categories of demand, pointing to variation in the assessment and response to similar types of presenting needs. Implications are discussed for the planning and design of services.
2024 British Journal of Social Work
doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcae071
Digital technology plays an increasing role in children’s safeguarding social work practice, where there is a renewed emphasis on the recording and interpretation of data via digital technology, as well as the use of technology to communicate with families and colleagues, particularly since Covid-19. This scoping review delineated extant research investigating uses of digital technology in children’s safeguarding social work practice since 2000 in order to contextualise current emerging practices. The methodology used accounted for the heterogeneity of study designs whilst maintaining a rigorous approach to searching, selection and analysis. Literature searches were conducted in August and September 2022 identifying forty-three studies. Descriptive quantitative and qualitative analyses were undertaken to outline date, location, methodology, aspect of technology investigated, and key findings of included studies. The review generated two descriptive categories which reflect the included studies: electronic information systems and digital communications. These categories subsume a range of distinct platforms and applications whilst highlighting a tendency of the included studies to separate out their focus between these specific aspects of digital technology, with limited discourse between categories. Families’ perspectives are also missing from most research identified in the review.
McCulloch, Trish; Grant, Scott; Daly, Maura; Sen, Robin; Ferguson, Gillian
2024 British Journal of Social Work
doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcae072
Across the Global North, professional learning for social workers has become a matter of concern. Efforts to ‘fix’ the problem have focused narrowly on formal methods of learning and show limited connect with recent research. In this article, we report on findings from a mixed-method longitudinal cohort study, which examined early career social workers experiences of learning over the first five years of professional practice. Drawing on a repeat-measure annual online survey, our findings provide an inside-view of how early career social workers in Scotland experience work-based learning over time and how professional learning for social workers can be enhanced. Quantitative and qualitative data were analysed using descriptive statistical analysis and reflexive thematic analysis respectively and integrated using a convergence coding matrix to identify meta-themes. Our findings support an integrative, developmental and ecological approach to professional learning, embedded in a value-led understanding of social work as practice. We invite the profession to embrace and embed learning as a ‘practice of value’, both as an antidote to managerial approaches to practice and learning and as a way of valuing the extraordinary work that social workers do.
Turney, Danielle; Alfandari, Ravit; Taylor, Brian J; Ghanem, Christian; Helm, Duncan; Killick, Campbell; Lyons, Olive; O’Leary, Donna; Ebsen, Frank; Bertotti, Teresa
2024 British Journal of Social Work
doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcae073
Decision making is an intrinsic and complex aspect of social work practice, requiring consideration of diverse but connected aspects. Decisions are often required as to whether a situation requires protective state intervention or whether it reaches the criteria for public or charitable services. Such instances of deciding whether or not a situation is ‘on one side of the line or the other’ are referred to in this article as ‘threshold judgements’. This article draws on experiences and material from a range of social work contexts to explore generalisable theory-informed understandings of ‘threshold judgements’ and ‘threshold decisions’ to develop knowledge and skills on this topic. The article outlines signal detection theory and evidence accumulation (‘tipping point’) theory and discusses these as ways to understand the key concepts underpinning threshold decisions in social work. We then argue that although these threshold concepts are a necessary part of decision making in social work, as in many other aspects of life, they are not sufficient. Operationalising such decisions requires some form of sense-making. Naturalistic decision making and heuristic models of judgement are discussed as frameworks for practice which seem to be useful in this context.
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