The nature of organisations delivering social work

1
The nature of organisations delivering social
work social care

• Trish Hafford-Letchfield

2
Key roles for social work

• Key role 1 Inform individuals, families, carers,
  groups
• and communities about your own, and the
• organisations duties and responsibilities.
• Key role 5 Contribute to the identifying and
  agreeing the
• goals, objectives and lifespan of the team
• network or system.
• Key role 6 Review and update your own knowledge
  of
• legal policy and procedural framework.
• Identify and assess issues, dilemmas and
• conflicts that might affect your practice.
• (www.skillsforcare.org.uk)

3
GSCC Codes of Practice

• Code 6.7
• Recognising and respecting the roles and
  expertise of workers from other agencies and
  working in partnership with them.
• (www.gscc.org.uk)

4
Theoretical models to understand organisations

• Draw on sociology, political science, economics,
  social policy and psychology
• Organisational theory has its own discipline,
  research traditions and networks.

5
Organisational strategy

• Is the means by which social care is organised,
  resourced and delivered
• Enables management of change
• Emanates from legislative and policy shifts
• Provides the bigger picture
• Evidence of strategy can be found in the planning
  and design of services and in organisational
  vision documents.

6
Organisational structure

• Physical design of how people relate to different
  parts of the organisation
• Includes external and internal boundaries
• Provides a means of organising work and
  communication
• There is no one size fits all
• Can be hierarchical or more informal.

7
Organisational structurein large bureaucratic
organisations
Political and Corporate Strategy
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Scientific management theories

• Coined by F.W.Taylor at the turn of the 19th
  century
• Organisations described as machine-like,
  concerned with continuous processing and mass
  production
• Top down approach to planning, monitoring and
  controlling work
• Has currency in current social work organisations
  for example in care management.

9
Humanistic theories

• Emphasises social relations and psychological
  needs at work (Mayo, 1945)
• Depends on collaboration, co-operation and
  motivation of employees
• Established relationships between job
  satisfaction, team work and the output or the
  quality of work done.

10
Systems theory

• Organic model base on the ideas of Lewin (1951)
  and the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
• Organisation is complete system in itself
  comprised of
• sub-systems interacting with each other and the
  external environment
• Boundaries allow the organisation to exchange
  with its environment towards a natural
  equilibrium
• Resources and priorities are based on the
  primary task (Zagier-Roberts, 1994)
• The role of management is to manage the
  sub-systems, boundaries and the interface with
  outside world
• Criticised for being politically neutral or
  divorced from the wider agenda.

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Organisational culture

• Combination of assumptions, values, symbols,
  language and behaviours representing
  organisations norms and values
• Shaped by structure, management and leadership
  functions
• Contingent on relationships and power dynamics
  between stakeholders
• Healthy organisational culture depends on
  philosophy and vision and a system where staff
  feel valued and rewarded.

12
The history of social care organisations in the UK

• The welfare state was created after the second
  world war
• Large scale providers and complex patchwork
  provision of services
• Unification of SSDs through the 1970 LA Act
• Segregation and institutional approach to
  provision of care arising from the growth of
  bureaucratic statutory services
• Alongside this, development of the radical social
  work agenda and diverse grassroots provision.

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Community care and the market economy

• Importance of the service user movement and
  criticism of the disciplinary state
• Conservative governments drive to control public
  expenditure
• Led by criticism of inefficient, inflexible and
  unresponsive organisational bureaucracies
• Political belief in market efficiency,
  accountability and consumer choice
• Introduced radical changes via the purchaser
  and provider relationships in care provision.

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Managerialism

• Introduction of business-like approaches to the
  management of social care (Dominelli, 2002)
• Assumption that stronger management will resolve
  efficiency and effectiveness in service
  provision
• Belief that improving service quality is
  essentially dependent on improved managerial
  skills
• Emphasis on management expertise over
  professional expertise (Tsui, Cheung, 2004).

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The independent sector

• Growth of the contract culture and private care
  enterprises
• Threat to the independence and campaigning role
  of the voluntary sector
• Development of the informal welfare state which
  has reinforced sexual divisions of labour
• New partnerships have emerged under the Labour
  government to promote social inclusion.

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Modernising social services

• From 1997 new policy and legislative
  initiatives to address inequality, poverty and
  social exclusion promoted by the New Labour
  government
• Emphasis on interprofesssional arrangements and
  unified care trusts
• Social workers began to be employed in different
  organisational frameworks.

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Whole-systems approachesunderpinned by

• Every Child Matters and Children Act 2004
• Health and Social Care White Paper 2006
• Youth Matters 2005
• Joint appointments between organisations to
  promote strategic responsibilities for main
  client groups
• Promotion of strategic and joint planning,
  commissioning and delivery of social care
  services with other agencies in a whole-systems
  way.

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Summary

• Continuous change to ways in which social care
  and social work services are designed and
  delivered
• Continuous separation of assessment from
  provision believed necessary to achieve quality
• Implications for core roles and tasks of social
  work in these new environments?
• Organisations need to adapt and give attention to
  strategy, structure and culture to secure overall
  improvements in service delivery
• Understanding and active participation in these
  processes are key to influencing and maintaining
  effective social work practice.

19
References

• Dominelli, L (2002) Anti-oppressive social work
  theory and practice. Palgrave, Macmillan.
• Lewin, K (ed) (1951) Field theory in social
  science. Harper Row New York.
• Mayo, E (1945) The social problems of an
  industrial civilisation. Harvard University
  Press, Cambridge MA.
• Taylor, F.W (1911) Principles of scientific
  management. Harper New York.
• Tsui, Ming-sum, Cheung, F.C.H, (2004) Gone with
  the wind The impacts of managerialism on human
  services. British Journal of Social Work, (2004),
  34, 437 442.
• Zagier Roberts. Vega (1884) The organisation of
  work contributions from open systems theory in
  Obholzer, A, Zagier Roberts, V (ed) The
  Unconscious at work, individual and
  organizational stress in the human services.
  Routledge.