Community Involvement— Case-Work or Politics?

Abstract

44 trust and respect can only be maintained by a person able to work competently and confidently within a setting that is unfamiliar to social workers and to the general public and capable of interpreting decisions to those who are often left with a feeling of bewilderment afterwards.The Welfare Officer is often putting forward the needs of children who cannot speak for themselves and can be challenged by both parties.The discussions within our group of oflicers lead us to suggest that specialisation would result in the acquisition of greater skills, the consolidation of knowledge and better research. Such a specialist group would naturally acquire its own expertise and could organise specialisms within itself, possibly in such matters as the application of tests that can give truer analysis of relationships than are usually now available to the courts. It is recognised that such a group would have to consist of officers with a high level of maturity, not necessarily related to age, and we have considered practical implications which, although not discussed in this paper, do not seem to present any major difhculty even in a predominately rural county. Human suffering and its cost in social and economic terms must we suggest be reduced by the o(feriug of a better service and a reduction in the time now spent in trying to rectify errors.