No abstract

List of Figures and Tables p. vii List of Practice examples and Exercises p. viii Professional identity p. 48 Conclusions p. 50 Knowledge for social work practice p. 53 Building personal knowledge p. 71 Conclusions p. 80 Reshaping organizations and professional practice p. 84 Managing research in practice p. 107 Conclusion p. 111 Service users, 'race' and racism p. 115 Developing anti-racist practice on service user involvement p. 126 Conclusions p. 132 Developing anti-racist educational practice p. 136

No abstract

Placing a child in out-of-home care is one of the most important decisions made by professionals in the child care system, with substantial social, psychological, educational, medical and economic consequences. This paper considers the challenges and difficulties of building statistical models of this decision by reviewing the available international evidence. Despite the large number of empirical investigations over a fifty year period, a consensus on the variables associated with this decision is hard to identify. In addition, the individual models have low explanatory and predictive power and should not be relied on to make placement decisions. A number of reasons for this poor performance are offered, and some ways forwards suggested. This paper also aims to facilitate the emergence of a coherent and integrated international literature from the disconnected and fragmented empirical studies. Rather than one placement problem, there are many slightly different problems, and therefore it is expected that a number of related sub-literatures will emerge, each concentrating on a particular definition of the placement problem.

Placing a child in out-of-home care is one of the most important decisions made by professionals in the child care system, with substantial social, psychological, educational, medical and economic consequences. This paper considers the challenges and difficulties of building statistical models of this decision by reviewing the available international evidence. Despite the large number of empirical investigations over a 50 year period, a consensus on the variables associated with this decision is hard to identify. In addition, the individual models have low explanatory and predictive power and should not be relied on to make placement decisions. A number of reasons for this poor performance are offered, and some ways forwards suggested. This paper also aims to facilitate the emergence of a coherent and integrated international literature from the disconnected and fragmented empirical studies. Rather than one placement problem, there are many slightly different problems, and therefore it is expected that a number of related subliteratures will emerge, each concentrating on a particular definition of the placement problem.

No abstract

Two fundamental questions for social work are considered: one normative and one positive. First, is it possible for social work practice to be based on an objective that maximises social welfare; and second, does social work practice actually conform to some objective, which may or may not maximise social welfare? To shed light on these issues for social work we analyse them from the perspective of economics, in the context of one of the most important decisions involving social workers -placing children in out-of-home care. It is argued that deriving a societal objective faces formidable theoretical problems, and that even if a well-defined criterion was available, actual social work recommendations would still be inconsistent due to a lack of the requisite information and different interpretations of the available data. It is argued that the substantial empirical evidence from around the world on placing children out-of-home provides little evidence of consistent decision making. This may be because the statistical analyses have lacked the data and techniques necessary to detect the underlying patterns, or because placement decisions are largely random.The apparent absence of clear objectives, either specified by society or accepted custom and practice, places social workers in a very difficult position, making them open to press criticism and victimization, even though they acted entirely competently.

No abstract