Critical Practice in Social Work
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Also edited by Robert Adams, Lena Dominelli and Malcolm Payne:
Social Work: Themes, Issues and Critical Debates*
Other titles by Robert Adams:
A Measure of Diversion? Case Studies in IT (co-author)
Prison Riots in Britain and the USA
Problem-solving with Self-help Groups (co-author)
Protests by Pupils: Empowerment, Schooling and the State
Quality Social Work*
Self-help, Social Work and Empowerment
Skilled Work with People
Social Work and Empowerment*
The Abuses of Punishment
The Personal Social Services: Clients, Consumers or Citizens?
Social Policy for Social Work*
Other titles by Lena Dominelli:
Community Action and Organising Marginalised Groups
Women in Focus, Community Service Orders and Female Offenders
Love and Wages: The Impact of Imperialism, State Intervention and Women’s
Domestic Labour on Workers’ Control in Algeria
Anti-racist Social Work, 2nd edn*
Feminist Social Work (co-author)
Women and Community Action
Women Across Continents: Feminist Comparative Social Policy
Gender, Sex Offenders and Probation Practice
Getting Advice in Urdu
International Directory of Social Work
Anti-racist Perspectives in Social Work (co-author)
Anti-racist Probation Practice (co-author)
Sociology for Social Work*
Community Approaches to Child Welfare
International Perspectives Beyond Racial Divides
Ethnicities in Social Work (co-authors)
Other titles by Malcolm Payne:
What is Professional Social Work?
Social Work and Community Care*
Linkages: Effective Networking in Social Care
Modern Social Work Theory, 2nd edn*
Writing for Publication in Social Services Journals
Social Care in the Community
Teamwork in Multiprofessional Care*
Power, Authority and Responsibility in Social Services: Social Work in Area Teams
Anti-bureaucratic Social Work
*Published by Palgrave – now Palgrave Macmillan
Critical Practice
in Social Work
Edited by
Robert Adams, Lena Dominelli and Malcolm Payne
Consultant editor: Jo Campling
Selection, editorial matter, introduction and Chapters 1 and 31
© Robert Adams, Lena Dominelli and Malcolm Payne 2002
Individual chapters (in order) © Lena Dominelli; Sarah Banks;
Chris Clark; Nick Frost; Beverley Burke and Jane Dalrymple;
Audrey Mullender; Lena Dominelli; Robert Adams; John
Pinkerton; Helen Cosis Brown; Alastair Roy, Corinne Wattam and
Frances Young; Kate Morris; Kevin Haines; Keith Popple;
Margaret Lloyd; Di Bailey; Bob Sapey; Tim Stainton; Mo Ray and
Judith Phillips; Caroline Currer; Malcolm Payne; Joan Orme; Julia
Phillipson; Malcolm Payne; Judith Milner and Patrick O’Byrne;
Terence O’Sullivan; Jill Manthorpe and Greta Bradley; Robert
Adams; David Peryer 2002.
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Contents
Notes on the Contributors xv
Introduction xx
Robert Adams, Lena Dominelli and Malcolm Payne
What critical practice is and why it is important xxi
What you can gain from this book xxi
How the book is structured xxii
How you may use this book xxii
1 On Being Critical in Social Work 1
Malcolm Payne, Robert Adams and Lena Dominelli
Critical practice is still relevant in social work 1
Critical practice in social perspective 2
Thinking critically: working with families 3
Practising critically 6
Using theories in being critical 8
The importance of language and understandings 10
Conclusion 11
Further reading 12
v
vi CONTENTS
PART I Values into Critical Practice 13
2 Values in Social Work: Contested Entities with
Enduring Qualities 15
Lena Dominelli
Defining values 16
Practising values 21
Values and critical practice 25
Conclusion 26
Further reading 27
3 Professional Values and Accountabilities 28
Sarah Banks
The importance of accountability 28
The nature of accountability 29
Accountability and blame 30
Multiple accountabilities 33
Accountability, transparency and critical reflection 34
Conclusion 36
Further reading 37
4 Identity, Individual Rights and Social Justice 38
Chris Clark
Rights and justice in social work 38
Practising rights and justice: five models 39
Critical practice and citizenship 44
Further reading 45
5 Evaluating Practice 46
Nick Frost
Evaluation as a form of practice 46
Issues, tensions and controversies 47
A creative evaluation practice? 50
Utilising and integrating evaluative evidence – a model 53
Conclusion 54
Further reading 54
CONTENTS vii
6 Intervention and Empowerment 55
Beverley Burke and Jane Dalrymple
Intervention and empowerment in critical practice 55
Constructing critical practice with Dawn and her children 57
Continuing reflections 61
Further reading 62
7 Persistent Oppressions: The Example of Domestic Violence 63
Audrey Mullender
The persistence of domestic violence 64
The failure to offer women effective help 65
Rediscovering social work skills – a way forward? 66
Conclusion 70
Further reading 71
8 ‘Glassed-in’: Problematising Women’s Reproductive
Rights under the New Reproductive Technologies 72
Lena Dominelli
The new reproductive technologies: forces for changing
thinking and behaviour 73
Issues for social worker involvement 76
Conclusion 79
Further reading 79
PART II Developing Critical Practice 81
9 Developing Critical Practice in Social Work 83
Robert Adams
What it means to practise critically 83
Engaging with contexts 84
Engaging with ourselves 85
Engaging with knowledge 86
Engaging with practice 89
Engaging with paradoxes and dilemmas in developing
our own critical practice 91
Conclusion 95
Further reading 95
viii CONTENTS
10 Child Protection 96
John Pinkerton
Introducing the practice 96
Values: measuring up to a vision 97
Knowledge: testing working hypotheses 100
Skills: negotiating within a context of inequality 102
Conclusion 104
Further reading 105
11 Fostering and Adoption 106
Helen Cosis Brown
Fostering and adoption practice in their current context 106
Critical application of research to practice 110
Dilemmas and tensions – ‘safe caring’ 113
Conclusion 114
Further reading 115
12 Looking After Children and Young People 116
Alastair Roy, Corinne Wattam and Frances Young
Introduction 116
Communication – relationship skills 117
Access 121
Organisational context 123
Conclusion 124
Further reading 125
13 Family-based Social Work 126
Kate Morris
Introduction 126
Legal and policy framework 127
Importance of family connections 129
Family group conferences: an example of family involvement 131
Conclusion 134
Further reading 135
14 Youth Justice and Young Offenders 137
Kevin Haines
The politics of juvenile crime 139
Intervention, intervention, intervention 139
CONTENTS ix
New Labour and youth justice 140
The managerialist approach 142
Reconnecting with the past 143
Fundamental principles for positive critical practice 144
Conclusion 147
Further reading 147
15 Community Work 149
Keith Popple
Introduction 150
Defining community work and community 150
Traditions of community work 152
The role of the community worker 156
Conclusion 157
Further reading 157
16 Care Management 159
Margaret Lloyd
Social workers or care managers? 159
Issues and dilemmas for the practitioner 161
A framework for good practice 164
Conclusion 167
Further reading 168
17 Mental Health 169
Di Bailey
Exploring encounters with service users 171
Weighing options for intervention within the practice context 172
Making informed judgements, reflection, and critical appraisal 174
Conclusion 180
Further reading 180
18 Physical Disability 181
Bob Sapey
Disability and social work 181
Challenging practice 182
Conclusion 188
Further reading 189
x CONTENTS
19 Learning Disability 190
Tim Stainton
Introduction: constructing difference 190
Defining learning disability 191
Medical, psychological and normalisation approaches 193
Rights, citizenship and self-determination 195
Conclusion 197
Further reading 198
20 Older People 199
Mo Ray and Judith Phillips
Critical debates in social work with older people 200
The contribution of critical practice 204
Conclusion 208
Further reading 208
21 Dying and Bereavement 210
Caroline Currer
Critical practice with people who are dying or bereaved 210
Dying 212
Bereavement 214
Responding to grief: the social work role in relation to
dying and bereavement 216
Conclusion 218
Further reading 218
PART III Managing and Organising Practice 221
22 Management 223
Malcolm Payne
Introduction – management and Mrs McLeod 223
The meaning of management 225
Ideas about management 227
Service management and the people served 231
Organisational structure and culture 232
Work, management and social divisions 233
Conclusion 234
Further reading 235
CONTENTS xi
23 Managing the Workload 236
Joan Orme
Introduction 236
(Mis)managing the workload? 236
Workload, values and practice 238
Organisational responsibilities 238
Individual responsibilities 241
Management responsibilities 241
Critical practice 242
Further reading 243
24 Supervision and Being Supervised 244
Julia Phillipson
Uprooting the roots of supervision 245
Experiencing supervision 246
Using provocations to question how supervision might
be different 248
Regrowing supervision for critical social work 249
Conclusion 250
Further reading 250
25 Coordination and Teamwork 252
Malcolm Payne
Agency, profession and discipline 253
Social work in a multiprofessional team 254
Boundaries, identity and resources 256
Multiprofessional network, setting and community 257
Understanding, power and action 258
Conclusion 259
Further reading 259
26 Assessment and Planning 261
Judith Milner and Patrick O’Byrne
Introduction 261
What the work involves 262
Concepts to be questioned 262
Social constructionism and assessment 263
Implications for workers or managers 265
xii CONTENTS
Conclusion 268
Further reading 268
27 Managing Risk and Decision Making 269
Terence O’Sullivan
What is meant by risk? 270
What are the social contexts of the decision making? 271
How are risks to be assessed? 272
What approach to risk management is to be taken? 275
Conclusion 276
Further reading 276
28 Managing Finances 278
Jill Manthorpe and Greta Bradley
Introduction 278
Poor clients 279
Turning the screw 281
More than a sticking plaster 282
Developing skills 283
Cash not care? 283
Cash and capacity 285
Conclusion 286
Further reading 286
29 Quality Assurance 287
Robert Adams
Quality assurance in social work 288
Four main approaches to quality assurance 288
Implications for critical practice 294
Conclusion 294
Further reading 295
30 Reorganising Agencies 296
David Peryer
Introduction: constant change 296
Multiple objectives, structure and (re)organisation 297
Reorganisation as a way of life 300
Leadership in the change process 301
Using the opportunities of change 302
CONTENTS xiii
Conclusion 303
Further reading 303
31 Concluding Comments: Facilitating Critical Practice 304
Robert Adams, Lena Dominelli and Malcolm Payne
From understanding theoretical debates to practising critically 304
Agency 304
Critical practice and good practice: the example of diversity 305
Changing emphasis: from reflective to critical practice 307
Constructing bridges 307
Managing change and continuity 308
An unfinished agenda 308
Critical practice is transformational 309
Paradoxes and dilemmas of practice 310
Moral hope for practictioners 310
Bibliography 312
Index 343
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Notes on the Contributors
Robert Adams is a qualified social worker who worked in the penal system for
seven years, before running a community-based social work project for
Barnardo’s. He has written extensively about youth and criminal justice, social
work, social policy, protest and empowerment. He is Professor of Human
Services Development attached to the Social Policy Research Centre at the
University of Lincolnshire and Humberside and Visiting Professor in the School
of Health at the University of Teesside.
Di Bailey is the Co-director for the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mental Health
and Director of the postgraduate MA in Community Mental Health at the
University of Birmingham. She has practised as an ASW in different settings,
working for the past six years as an educator and trainer. Her particular interests
are in the mental health social work contribution to interdisciplinary working.
Sarah Banks is Senior Lecturer in Community and Youth Work in the Depart-
ment of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Durham. Her research
interests centre around professional ethics and community development. She has
just completed a second edition of her book, Ethics and Values in Social Work
(Palgrave) and recently edited a collection on Ethical Issues in Youth Work
(Routledge, 1999).
Greta Bradley is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Hull where
she researches and teaches in community care for vulnerable adults. Her current
work includes a follow-up study of care managers and translating findings from a
multidisciplinary study on ethical dilemmas and administrative justice into
practice guidance. She is joint editor of Practice.
xv
xvi NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS
Helen Cosis Brown is the Course Director for the MA in Social Work at South
Bank University. She was a social worker and team leader for ten years in an inner
London borough. She has continued to offer training in the field of fostering and
adoption and has produced a number of publications relating to social work
practice with lesbians and gay men.
Beverley Burke is a Senior Lecturer on the DipSW at Liverpool John Moores
University. She trained as a generic social worker and her practice and current
research interests are in the area of children and families.
Chris Clark is Senior Lecturer and Head of the Department of Social Work,
University of Edinburgh. His research and teaching interests cover professional
ethics, community care and voluntary action. Recent publications include Social
Work Ethics: Politics, Principles and Practice (Palgrave, 2000) and (as editor)
Better Days: Adult Day Services and Social Inclusion (Jessica Kingsley, 2001).
Caroline Currer is Field Leader for Social Work at Anglia Polytechnic University,
where she teaches about loss and social work. She is a supervisor with a local
branch of CRUSE Bereavement Care. Her PhD (1986) examined the mental
health of a group of Pakistani women in Bradford, drawing on language and
other skills from previous social work practice in Pakistan. She is author of
Responding to Grief: Dying, Bereavement and Social Care (Palgrave – now
Palgrave Macmillan, 2001).
Jane Dalrymple is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the West of England.
She trained as a generic social worker and her practice and current research
interests are focused on children’s rights and advocacy.
Lena Dominelli is Professor of Social and Community Development in the
Department of Social Work Studies at the University of Southampton where she is
Director of the Centre for International Social and Community Development. She
is also President of the International Association of Schools of Social Work. She has
been a researcher and educator for more that twenty-five years and has published
widely, her most recent books being Feminist Social Work Theory and Practice and
Anti-Oppressive Practice, both with Palgrave – now Palgrave Macmillan. Lena has
also worked as a community worker, social worker and probation officer.
Nick Frost is Senior Lecturer in the School of Continuing Education, University
of Leeds. He was formerly a social worker and policy officer in the voluntary and
statutory sector. His research interests include family support, evaluation and
professional training. He has published widely, including Family Support in
Rural Communities (Barnardo’s, 2001).
Kevin Haines has a long-standing interest in youth justice. He has been a
committee member of the National Association for Youth Justice for eight years
and is a board member of the Reseau International de Criminologie Juvenile. His
research interests are focused on young offenders and the youth justice system.
NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS xvii
Previous publications include Understanding Modern Juvenile Justice (Avebury,
1996) and Young People and Youth Justice (Macmillan – now Palgrave Macmillan,
1998), with Mark Drakeford. He has also written critically about developments
in restorative justice, see Goldson, B. (2000) The New Youth Justice, Russell
House Publishing. Kevin Haines is currently working mainly in Romania on the
establishment of community sentences for juvenile offenders.
Margaret Lloyd trained and worked as a social worker in Manchester before
lecturing in social work and social policy at Manchester University and currently
at Sheffield University. She researches community care with particular emphasis
on the health and social care interface. She is Chair of the Welfare Research
Committee of the Parkinson’s Disease Society.
Jill Manthorpe is Reader in Community Care at the University of Hull where
she teaches and researches in gerontology and services for vulnerable adults. She
is Chair of the Hull and East Riding Adult Protection Committee and has a
background in work within community development, the voluntary sector and
the NHS. Recent research has been in the area of student mental health, local
government reorganisation, and risk and care management. Currently she is
working on a study on older nurses.
Judith Milner is a former Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of
Huddersfield. She currently works as a counsellor and as a freelance trainer.
Kate Morris is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham where she has
management responsibilities for qualifying and post-qualifying social work
programmes. She is active in research relating to family involvement in childcare
planning and family involvement in adoption planning. She is working currently
on a publication Bringing Together Family Involvement in Child Care Planning.
Audrey Mullender is Professor in Social Work at the University of Warwick and
an elected Academician of the Academy of Learned Societies for the Social
Sciences. She was, for four years until the end of 1999, editor of the British
Journal of Social Work and has herself produced well over a hundred publications
in the social work field, including ten books. She has recently jointly authored
studies of children’s perspectives on living with domestic violence, women’s
voices in domestic violence services, groups for domestic violence perpetrators
and mapping family support services in domestic violence across the UK.
Patrick O’Byrne is also a former Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University
of Huddersfield. He currently works as a family mediator.
Joan Orme is Professor of Social Work at the University of Glasgow. She has
researched workload measurement from the perspective of both trade unions and
management and is firmly committed to the need to ensure that workload issues
are considered as part of effective practice for the protection of both service users
and workers.
xviii NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS
Terence O’Sullivan is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of
Lincoln and author of Decision Making in Social Work (Macmillan – now Palgrave
Macmillan, 1999).
Malcolm Payne is Professor and Head of Applied Community Studies at the
Manchester Metropolitan University, having worked in probation, social services
departments and the local and national voluntary sector. Among his many books
are Teamwork in Multiprofessional Care (Macmillan – now Palgrave Macmillan,
2000), Anti-bureaucratic Social Work (Venture, 2000), Modern Social Work
Theory (2nd edn, Macmillan – now Palgrave Macmillan, 1997), What is Profes-
sional Social Work? (Venture, 1996) and Social Work and Community Care
(Macmillan – now Palgrave Macmillan, 1995).
David Peryer is a former Director of Social Services. He was social services
adviser to the Association of District Councils at the time of local government
reorganisation. He works in the public sector as a management consultant, and
chairs two large national voluntary organisations.
Judith Phillips is Professor of Social Gerontology and Director of the
MA/Diploma in Gerontology course at Keele University. She qualified and
worked as a social worker before becoming a lecturer in social work at UEA,
Norwich and Keele University. Recent publications include two co-edited books,
Women Ageing: Changing Identity: Challenging Myths (Routledge, 2000) and
The Social Policy of Old Age – Moving into the 21st Century (Routledge, 2000).
Julia Phillipson has worked as an independent consultant and trainer since
leaving the National Institute for Social Work and moving to west Wales in 1990.
Her varied work includes practice teaching, service user involvement, inspection
and writing training materials. Through all of these she tries to weave her abiding
concerns of tussling with inequalities, sustaining creativity and ensuring social
work makes a positive difference.
John Pinkerton is Senior Lecturer and Head of the School of Social Work at
the Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, where he is involved with
post-professional qualification training. His publications include At Home in
Care – Parenting, the State and Civil Society (Avebury, 1994), Embracing
Change as Opportunity: Reflections on Social Work from A Northern Ireland
Perspective (Arena, 1997) Making Research Work: Research, Policy and Practice
in Child Care (Wiley, 1998) and Family Support – Direction from Diversity
(Jessica Kingsley, 2000).
Keith Popple is Professor of Social Work and Community Development at
Southampton Institute. Previously a practitioner in the statutory social work and
youth work services, he has considerable experience teaching on social work and
community development courses. He has directed a number of research projects
and is author of Analysing Community Work: Its Theory and Practice (Open
University Press, 1995) and joint editor with Sidney Jacobs of Community Work
NOTES ON THE CONTRIBUTORS xix
in the 1990s (Spokesman Press, 1994). He is editor of the international quarterly
Community Development Journal, published by Oxford University Press.
Mo Ray has worked as a qualified social worker in a variety of community
settings, specialising in working with older people and developing a special
interest in working with people with dementia. At present, she works half-time at
Keele University on a European research project examining intergenerational
relationships. She spends the rest of her time teaching at the Open University,
practice teaching and training.
Alastair Roy is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Work at the
University of Central Lancashire. His teaching and research interests are in the
field of substance misuse and criminal justice. He is a qualified youth and
community worker, whose professional experience has focused on vulnerable
young people. Prior to taking up an academic appointment, Alastair was
manager of a therapeutic residential home for children. He still works as an
independent visitor.
Bob Sapey is a Lecturer in Applied Social Science at Lancaster University. His
publications include the second edition of Social Work with Disabled People
(Macmillan – now Palgrave Macmillan, 1999) with Michael Oliver. Prior to his
academic career, Bob was a social worker and training officer, specialising in work
with disabled and older people.
Tim Stainton is a Senior Lecturer and DipSW Programme Director at the
Centre for Applied Social Studies, University of Wales, Swansea. He spent ten
years as a social worker in Canada, working mainly on resettlement of people with
a learning disability. He is an active lobbyist and consultant and has written widely
on issues related to learning disability and social work. He is currently completing
a book on the social construction of learning disability from antiquity to
the present.
Corinne Wattam is Professor leading the Child Care Research Group at the
Unversity of Central Lancashire. She has developed, coordinated and been
involved in a number of childcare research projects both in the UK and in
Europe, including the Concerted Action on the Prevention of Child Abuse in
Europe (CAPCAE). Recent publications, Child Sexual Abuse: Learning from the
Experiences of Children (Wiley, 1999, with Nigel Parton) and ‘The Prevention of
Child Abuse’ (Children and Society, 13), confirm her commitment to the
development of services informed by and with children and young people.
Frances Young is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Work at the
University of Central Lancashire. Her practice experience was in local authority
childcare, specialising in adoption and fostering. Frances currently lectures on the
DipSW, BA and MA programmes in the area of childcare and is a tutor to DipSW
students. She has recently completed research on managing the external childcare
placement market with the North West ADSS and NCH Action for Children.
Introduction
Robert Adams, Lena Dominelli and Malcolm Payne
In this book, we provide an essential grounding in social work practice for all
students and practitioners. We place critical practice at the centre of all social
work practice. The book offers the opportunity to explore the variety of critical
practice and understand the principles and processes involved in all its aspects.
Critical practice is an essential part of being an effective social worker. We
introduce here the multifaceted nature of social work practice. We show that just
as criticality is more than just being critical of things, critical practice is more than
doing. It requires reflectiveness, reflexivity and expertise in putting matters of
practical concern into their wider context. The three parts of this book bring out
the different components of practice, values, knowledge and skills, and those
aspects of management that are central to good practice. This book complements
our companion volume, Social Work: Themes, Issues and Critical Debates, (Adams
et al., 1998) on different debates that arise over values, theories and approaches
in the different areas of social work.
Many of the major points in the chapters that follow arise from discussion of
examples of situations and cases. There is detailed analysis of the principal areas
where the practitioner is likely to encounter particular issues, problems, tensions
and dilemmas and may be working with complex situations, in changing
conditions with widespread uncertainties.
In covering the major aspects of social work practice, this book highlights the
positive opportunities for critical practice not to become stuck with the problems
with which practitioners struggle, but to remain optimistic and become genuinely
transformational.
xx
INTRODUCTION xxi
We hope that our straightforward style and use of many examples from
practice will make the book more accessible to you, the reader.
What critical practice is and why it is important
Critical practice is not social work per se but is integral to social work that makes
use of criticality as the route to excellence in performance and advancing
expertise. The ‘being critical’ is integral to the social work and not tacked on,
marginal, a mere technical task or just a stage to be gone through. Criticality
enables us to question the knowledge we have and our own involvement with
clients – including our taken-for-granted understandings. It enables us to assess
situations so as to make structural connections that penetrate the surface of what
we encounter and locate what is apparent within wider contexts. It is unlikely that
critical practice will resolve the contradictions and dilemmas we encounter in
practice but it will enable us to retain an understanding of them while we act.
This questioning approach is transforming. It transforms our own understanding
and sometimes it can enable us and the client to change an aspect of the situation.
We cannot claim that it will change the world, but the constant interplay between
our actions and the deconstruction and reconstruction that comprise our critical
reflection gives us access to advancing our practice.
Thus, the critical component of our expertise is crucial to good practice and
practice development, a continuous and never-ending process.
What you can gain from this book
In this book we aim to make it easier for you to put criticality onto every agenda
in your social work. This means developing a confident approach to questioning
everything. Asking questions about what we are doing in practice often slows the
action down, or halts it for a while, but that does not mean the practitioner
should feel paralysed. In many of the chapters, critical reflection and practice
proceed together. This is a deliberate method we have used to illustrate what we
mean by criticality.
We do not separate theory from practice. This book is rooted in theories about
social work, but its main purpose is not to interrogate those theories, but to
examine the practice in which they are embedded. If you want to go further into
the theoretical debates, we suggest that you use this book in combination with
our companion volume Social Work: Themes, Issues and Critical Debates (Adams
et al., 1998), which introduces the main currents and controversies in social work
theory, research and approaches to practice.
The discussion of the major topics relies on practice illustrations rather than
taking place at one remove from practice.
The authors and editors of this book are not exempt from the process of being
critical. We have tried to include critical reflection on our own ideas in places, to
indicate how criticality extends to every aspect of social work, including commen-
tary on it.
xxii INTRODUCTION
How the book is structured
Introductory chapter We introduce the book with Chapter 1 on what critical
practice entails. Each of us leads into each of the three major parts of the book
with a chapter setting the scene for that aspect of critical practice.
Part I starts with the broader value-based questions that permeate every aspect
of critical practice and in its later chapters focuses in more detail on some illustra-
tive aspects that highlight the contradictions and dilemmas for the practitioner.
Part II takes many of the commonest areas of practice and uses examples from
practice as the pegs on which to hang discussion of many issues arising for the
practitioner.
Part III explores how management in its various forms is embedded in good
practice.
Further reading At the end of every chapter, the author offers a short,
annotated guide to further reading for those who want to take that topic further.
How you may use this book
We suggest you might turn first to the introductory Chapter 1, which discusses
what critical practice is. Thereafter, the layout of the book enables you to dip in
and out of whichever aspects are of most immediate concern.
If you are a student or beginning social worker, this book offers an introduc-
tion to critical practice.
If you are a practitioner, at whatever level of experience, this book will enable
you to develop your social work practice.
C H A P T E R
1
On Being Critical
in Social Work
Malcolm Payne, Robert Adams and Lena Dominelli
Critical practice is still relevant in social work
Increasingly, social workers and other professionals are asked to follow guidelines
and meet national standards. Their agencies are organised to ‘deliver’ through
‘joined-up government’. Of course, every user of social care services wants to be
dealt with consistently and gain the benefits from policy and service objectives. If
they are being supervised or checked up on through social work’s social policing
role, they want to be dealt with in justice and compassion. However, meeting
guidelines, standards and objectives is not simple, because nearly all of them refer
to how we should meet the aims. Usually, we have to use our judgement to decide
the best way of doing our job.
Furthermore, social work has greater ambitions, because it seeks growth and
empowerment as human beings for the people we serve, development and social
progress for the communities we work in and greater justice and equality in the
societies to which we contribute. It is not that every act of social work will achieve
such large goals, but these values help to guide us in using our judgement about
what is best. Critical thinking helps to implement these values by testing our
practice against them. Making social work values practical is so important that the
first part of this book focuses on making value objectives central to practice.
The needs and wishes of users and carers for the best social services is,
however, a crucial element in all practice, and the second part of the book
demonstrates how moving from critical thinking towards critical action creates a
practice that can help us to develop the best social work. The specialist authors
