极速赛车168最新开奖号码 Comments on: Senior leader buy-in critical to success of strengths-based social work, says government guidance

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 By: Heather Tyrrell

Heather Tyrrell — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 18:50:26 +0000

Adopting a strength -based approach is clearly not going to be the panacea that can reverse 10 years or more of austerity or redress the starvation of public sector services; neither is it a magic trick that will instantly lead us to a utopian existence. I would be the first to agree there is a real danger in the approach being hijacked and used as smoke screen for neo- liberal ideologies and policies. People who have experienced cuts in their welfare benefits or social care support are right to be cynical about any approach justifying and masking deprivation and social workers equally should guard against their complicity in this process.
Successful implementation of strength -based practice clearly needs to be endorsed and supported by senior leaders and whilst the are some senior leaders who will not be in the vanguard of change, there are equally some who are. Having strength- based conversations about the capabilities of individuals, families and communities, whilst at the same time recognising the resources of our own workforce, is a start in working out how to “do things differently”
Speaking from a specifically Welsh perspective, there is evidence that systemic change is happening alongside the adoption of strength -based approaches. A handful of local authorities have remodelled their systems and services in ways that support practitioners to develop strength- based practice. Initiatives led by Welsh government such as the Collaborative Communication programme, developing strength based and outcome focussed practice has begun to reframe and reclaim social work practice from the deficit despair ridden care management practice of the last 30 years. What is apparent in those areas where systemic and practice change is happening in tandem, is that it takes time to plan, to do and for the impact to be experienced by practitioners and people using the services.
The Practice Framework provides a useful and welcome link between strength -based practice and supervision of social care practitioners. Bringing strength- based approach into the supervisory both mirrors and reinforces the approach in practice. Research also has a contribution to make in this area and notable studies have begun to explore the relationship and impact supervision has in helping achieve personal outcomes, both in Children services, also, although of a more limited nature within Adult social care services.
Robust academic research is vitally important but so is practitioner/citizen led research modelling the co-productive values and helping “bridge the gap” between providers and recipients of social support, creating the potential for radical rethinking of social work relationships. Of limited scope and focus, my own research study of social work supervision in Adult service teams in Wales is a very small contribution to the strength -based supervision debate and exploration of a co-productive model of social work supervision may be developed. What the research has done is to consider new ways of thinking about supervision- how it is organised and importantly how citizens can be partners in that process and co-producers of the supervisory process.
Whilst it is evident that significant work is still needed to fully appreciate and understand the potential strength- based approach offers and how it can be supported within social work teams, the Practice Framework presents opportunities for a different type of conversation.
As any framework that seeks to redefine social work practice it will be limited by the environment in which is used. We should however, guard against the insidious creep of cynicism and be prepared to continue the dialogue to develop our understanding and practice. After all we have nothing to lose and much to gain by continuing the strength based conversations, involving citizens, practitioners, leaders and academics

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 By: Colin Slasberg

Colin Slasberg — Sun, 03 Mar 2019 08:27:36 +0000

The list of ten ‘enablers’ misses the very one without which the other ten are irrelevant, and will leave strengths based practice to be just the latest false dawn – the ending of the eligibility driven approach to control spending.

The eligibility system uses risk as the currency to determine resource allocation. Determination of risk requires deficits to be the core of the assessment. If support is to build on strengths, the assessment, risk must be replaced with aspiration which will mean deficits are replaced by outcomes. Assessments will have to cease to be about what people cannot do, and become about how people want their lives to be (however dire their circumstances).

This can be achieved by replacing eligibility of need with affordability of need as the means to control spending (http://cdn.basw.co.uk/upload/basw_51900-10.pdf). Until sector leaders face up to the need for this fundamental change, their support for strengths based practice and the litany of other ‘transformations’ that transform nothing will amount to nothing more than fanning the smoke screen that continues to protect this dysfunctional system that serves only the cynical, political expedient of controlling spend whilst denying the existence of the gap between needs and resources.

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 By: Ruth Cartwright

Ruth Cartwright — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 12:53:22 +0000

There has to be a balance between a deficit model and a strengths based approach to service users and their situations. I remember reading in the 90s (or even late 80s) about how harmful the deficit model could be – rushing to judgement on families and assuming there were no positives or potential for improvement unless they did exactly what social workers told them to do; the family (including wider family and community) having little opportunity to explore what they could do and contribute their own ideas about what would work for them. Probably most social workers have tended towards the strength based and empowering model anyway, but we do have to accept that some situations are untenable and intervention is needed. This is exacerbated as A Man Called Horse says by cuts to community-based services, benefits, etc. Some aspects of this strength-based model are in danger of putting too much on to the service user, almost blaming them for their situation. We just need to have a balance and treat people fairly and respectfully.

极速赛车168最新开奖号码 By: A Man Called Horse

A Man Called Horse — Mon, 25 Feb 2019 18:22:28 +0000

The problem is that this approach stems from The Big Society nonsense put forward by David Cameron and George Osbourn. There was no consultation with Social Workers about this policy implemented in the name of Austerity and translated into the Care Act. We as professionals have been told you will have no say in how social work is done but you will implement our vision of it it in your work regardless of your values and beliefs. Many of us firmly believe that strength based is a smoke-screen to push through cuts and impose permanent austerity.

It has always appeared that the policy was based upon we believe in a small state and that communities and families should do more for their own people. To make this happen we will make huge cuts to Local Government funding, forcing them to close day-care facilities and cut funding to community based schemes at the same time. Familes are under pressure now to provide more support as social care funding for older people is slashed and childrens services are decimated by ideological cuts. We have no autonomy now at all and we are expected to cut care packages and tell families do it yourself. If Social workers are not on board it is because we have been subjected to an ideological con trick. We see people who have paid into the systems their entire life denied services, have their welfare cut and forced to endure poverty, poor housing and collapse of the social fabric of Society. What is the role of the Social Worker now? Are we to say nothing about poverty, social exclusion and the destruction of public services? A deficit model may not be entirely perfect but most certainly neither is strength based working. The policy almost presents as the fable of the emperors new suit of gold, I’m all dressed up and naked.