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The nature and culture of social work with children and families in long?term casework: Findings from a qualitative longitudinal study

Ferguson, Harry; Warwick, Lisa; Cooner, Tarsem Singh; Leigh, Jadwiga; Beddoe, Liz; Disney, Tom; Plumridge, Gillian

The nature and culture of social work with children and families in long?term casework: Findings from a qualitative longitudinal study Thumbnail


Authors

Harry Ferguson

Tarsem Singh Cooner

Jadwiga Leigh

Liz Beddoe

Tom Disney

Gillian Plumridge



Abstract

Social work in the United Kingdom is preoccupied with what social workers cannot do due to having limited time to spend with service users. Yet remarkably little research has examined what social workers actually do, especially in long-term relationships. This paper draws from an ethnographic study of two social work departments in England that spent 15 months observing practice and organizational life. Our findings show that social work some of the time has a significant amount of involvement with some service users and the dominant view that relationship-based practice is rarely achieved is in need of some revision. However, families at one research site received a much more substantial, reliable overall service due to the additional input of family support workers and having a stable workforce who had their own desks and were co-located with managers in small team offices. This generated a much more supportive, reflective culture for social workers and service users than at the second site, a large open plan “hot-desking” office. Drawing on relational,systemic, and complexity theories, the paper shows how the nature of what social workers do and culture of practice are shaped by the interaction between available services, office designs, and practitioners', managers', and service users' experiences of relating together.

Citation

Ferguson, H., Warwick, L., Cooner, T. S., Leigh, J., Beddoe, L., Disney, T., & Plumridge, G. (2020). The nature and culture of social work with children and families in long?term casework: Findings from a qualitative longitudinal study. Child and Family Social Work, 25(3), 694-703. https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12746

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Feb 1, 2020
Online Publication Date Feb 13, 2020
Publication Date 2020-08
Deposit Date Feb 14, 2020
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Child and Family Social Work
Print ISSN 1356-7500
Electronic ISSN 1365-2206
Publisher Wiley
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 25
Issue 3
Pages 694-703
DOI https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.12746
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3961008
Publisher URL https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cfs.12746

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