Social Work and Local Politics

Abstract

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 wellbeing 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.

The political participation of social workers: a comparative study

“…Social workers have always been urged to assume a key role in social welfare policy formulation. This call gained momentum with the rise of the radical movement where everything social workers did was construed as political and engagement in the political process was seen as an integral part of the social work task (Corrigan & Leonard, 1978;Daniel & Wheeler, 1989;Galper, 1980). Making meaningful contact with the political process was seen as the duty of all social workers and social work was said to be 'better placed than any other agency or institution to act as advocate for the dispossessed and to empower the powerless in society' (Daniel & Wheeler, 1989: 21).…”

Mind your own business: technologies for governing social worker subjects

“…Regardless of whether this technology actually produces efficiency, flexibility or higher quality (which seems unlikely), I want to concentrate on the alterations in the forms of interaction between social worker and client and how this may affect knowledge production. Witnessing the predicament of the client at first hand places a social worker in an ideal position to understand the effects of political and social structures, argue Daniel and Wheeler (1989). Similar arguments have been put forward for understanding the critical and structural approach to social problems that developed in the British and North American settlement movements in the late nineteenth century.…”

In-Terrestrial Aquaculture Fields Mapping from High Resolution Remote Sensing Images

“…8. Such an approach is used not only in space-borne data processing, but also in other fields, such as material science [82,83], tobacco industry [84] and food production [85].…”