Table Of ContentPRACTICAL
SOCIAL WORK
Series Editor: Jo Campling
I BASW I
Editorial Advisory Board:
Robert Adams, Terry Bamford, Charlie Barker,
Lena Dominelli, Malcolm Payne, Daphne Statham,
Jane Tunstill and Margaret Yelloly
Social work is at an important stage in its development. All
professions must be responsive to changing social and
economic conditions if they are to meet the needs of those
they serve. This series focuses on sound practice and the
specific contribution which social workers can make to the
well-being of our society.
The British Association of Social Workers has always been
conscious of its role in setting guidelines for practice and in
seeking to raise professional standards. The conception of
the Practical Social Work series arose from a survey of
BASW members to discover where they, the practitioners in
social work, felt there was the most need for new literature.
The response was overwhelming and enthusiastic, and the
result is a carefully planned, coherent series of books. The
emphasis is firmly on practice set in a theoretical framework.
The books will inform, stimulate and promote discussion,
thus adding to the further development of skills and high
professional standards. All the authors are practitioners and
teachers of social work representing a wide variety of
expenence.
JO CAMPLING
PRACTICAL SOCIAL WORK
Series Editor: Jo Campling
I BASW
I
PUBLISHED
Self:Help, Social Work and Women and Social Work: TOirards a
Empoll'erment Woman-centred Practice
Robert Adams Jalna Hanmer and Daphne Statham
Social Work and Melllal Handicap Youth Work
David Anderson Tony Jeffs and Mark Smith (eds)
Berond Casell'ork Prohlems oj' Childhood and Adolescence
James G, Barber Michael Kerfoot and Alan Butler
Social Workers at Risk Social Work lI'ith Old People
Robert Brown, Stanley Bute Mary Marshall
and Peter Ford
Applied Psrchologr for Social Workers
Social Work and Mental Illness Paula Nicolson and Rowan Bayne
Alan Butler and
Crisis Intel'l'ention in Social Sel'l'ices
Colin Pritchard Kieran O'Hagan
Residential Work Social Work lI'ith Disahled People
Roger Clough Michael Oliver
Social Work and Child Ahuse Separation, Dil'orce and Families
David M. Cooper and David Ball
Lisa Parkinson
Management in Social Work Social Care in the Communitr
Veronica Coulshed Malcolm Payne .
Social Work Practice: An Introduction Working in Teams
Veronica Coulshed
Malcolm Payne
Social Work and Local Politics
Working Ifilh Young a/renders
Paul Daniel and John Wheeler
John Pitts
Sociology in Social Work Practice EfFectil'e Group"'ork
Peter R. Day Michael Preston-Shoot
Anti-Racist Social Work: A Challenge Adoption and Fostering: Why and HoII'
for White Practitioners and Educators Carole R. Smith
'Lena Dominelli
Social Work Ifith the Dring
Working lI'ith Ahused Children and Bereal'ed
Celia Doyle Carole R. Smith
Welfare Rights Work in Social Serl'ices Child Care and the Courts
Geoff Fimister Carole R. Smith, Mary T. Lane
Student Supen'ision in Social Work and Terry Walsh
Kathy Ford and Alan Jones Communit)' Work
Alan Tweivetrees
Fami/r Work lI'ith Elderlr People
Alison Froggatt . Working Ifith Ofj'enders
Hiilary Walker and Bill Beaumont (eds)
Child Sexual Ahuse
Danya Glaser and
Stephen Frosh
Computas in Social Work FORTHCOMING
Bryan Glastonbury
Social Work and HOl/sing
Working lI'ith Families Gill Stewart with
Gill Gorell Barnes John Stewart
Beyond Casework
James G. Barber
M
MACMILLAN
~:J British Association of Social Workers 1991
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civil claims for damages.
First published 1991
Published by
MACMILLAN EDUCATION LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
Edited and typeset by Povey/Edmondson
Okehampton and Rochdale. England
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Barber. James G.
Beyond Casework.
I. Title
361.3
ISBN 978-0-333-54876-9 ISBN 978-1-349-21569-0 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-21569-0
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Contents
List oj Figures lX
1 Towards a Politically Progressive Model of Case-
work Practice 1
The social work perspective 3
The practice model 9
2 Casework Theory 15
The pre-generalist era 15
The generalist era 25
3 A Psychology of Empowerment 29
The psychological legacy of powerlessness 31
Casework with the powerless 38
4 A Slight Digression: Casework with Involuntary
Clients 42
Negotiated casework 48
5 Community Work Theory 61
Consensus models 63
Conflict approaches 70
6 The Transition to Political Activity 78
Bringing clients together 79
Gathering the evidence 83
7 Practical Issues in Forming an Organisation and
Mounting a Campaign 100
Planning and marketing a campaign 100
Formalising the group lO4
v
VI Contents
Obtaining funds 108
Lobbying decision-makers 114
8 Putting It Together 122
Review 122
A case example 124
Social casework and the radical agenda 131
References 138
Index 148
List of Figures
1.1 The ecological environment 6
l.2 A model of social work practice 10
4.1 An adaptation of Janis and Mann's 'decisional
balance sheet' 58
7.1 An example of a simple programme planning
matrix 102
7.2 Financial worksheet III
7.3 Summary budget 112
VB
To my parents, Carmel and Jim, with love and gratitude
1
Towards a Politically
Progressive Model of
Casework Practice
Because of its apparent indifference to broader political
realities, casework has always been a favourite target for
the more radical critics of social work practice. This radical
critique of casework can be traced back at least as far as
C. Wright Mills, who protested that: 'Present institutions
train several kinds of persons - such as judges and social
workers - to think in terms of "situations". Their activities
and mental outlook are set within the existing norms of
society: in their professional work they tend to have an
occupationally trained incapacity to rise above "cases'"
(Mills, 1943, p. 171). Mills points out that the tendency to
identify social work with casework inevitably results in
psycho logistic practice models which seek solutions to
human suffering in psychopathology and interpersonal
relationships. Such models, he claims, are nothing but
subterfuge; they are a confidence trick designed to provide
non-political solutions to politically-inflicted misery. Over
the years radical social theorists have kept up their attack on
what they see as a retreat by social work into casework (for
example, Galper, 1975; Bailey and Brake, 1977; Simpkin,
1983). Society, they claim, is built on conflict of interests, and
the failure of social workers to address the underlying
political causes of individual distress implicates the entire
profession in the domination of the poor by the economically
powerful.
1
