The Computer Social Worker: Regulatory practices, regulated bodies and science

Abstract

Social work assessments, and in turn clinical judgment and intervention practices, are increasingly framed by standardised tools and technologies that are digitised. These tools and technologies mediate social workers’ relationships with services users, while also privileging, and in turn reiterating, particular identities and particular forms of knowledge. In this article, I am interested in how standardised tools and technologies, like computers, operate to mediate the relationship between social workers and services users. I work with an autoethnographic narrative in order to examine standardised social work practice. Methodologically, autoethnography rests within a reflexive frame of qualitative research, allowing us to excavate our experiences in order to understand how our lives are ordered and knowledge is socially constitutive. In mining this narrative, I am interested in the body, and in particular, the corporeal dimension of standardised practices. I historically locate these practices, and use the work of Michel de Certeau and Michel Foucault to examine how tools and technologies function in relation to the body, even when there is no direct physical, bodily contact. Ultimately I argue that there is a scientific discourse underpinning current clinical practice and I use the framings of Donna Haraway to understand the implications of this for social workers.

Digital social work: Conceptualising a hybrid anticipatory practice

“…Drawing on empirical evidence of social workers using Facebook to investigate families, typically without their consent, Cooner et al (2020) show how using digital platforms can infringe human rights to privacy, while also revealing risks to children. Philips (2019) auto-ethnographic work shows how professional judgement and practices are increasingly framed by standardised digital tools and technologies. This growing knowledge about how digital and social media and technologies are emerging in the professional work of social workers and amongst groups of young people cared for in child protection social work is shaping a critical agenda towards recognising the potential of the digital in these contexts.…”

Clinical Data Mining With the Listening Guide: An Approach to Narrative Big Qual

“…Their case notes, like all narratives, are constructed in a particular context, for a particular audience, and for a particular purpose, including as a condition of their continued paid employment. The common structure of the notes may reflect, in part, the nature of much social work practice in the current moment, in which digital tools and technologies standardize work practices and products (Phillips, 2019). But case managers also bend the notes to their own purposes, approaching this job requirement as an opportunity to describe the value they bring as workers, whether by connecting families to resources, commiserating with them, offering guidance, or counseling and praying with them.…”

Modern Technologies and Transformation of Social Work Profession and Education: Insights of Teachers of the Lithuanian and Japanese Higher Education Institutions

“…Tyrimų apie technologijas socialinio darbo praktikoje trūksta (Cosner Berzin et al, 2015;Singer & Sage, 2015) ir juose daugiausia dėmesio skiriama pagalbinėms technologijoms, skirtoms konkrečioms klientų grupėms: žmonėms, turintiems atminties sutrikimų ar negalią, nusikaltusiems nepilnamečiams ir kt. (pvz., Nauha et al, 2018) arba kompiuteriui naudoti kasdienėje praktikoje (Phillips, 2019;van de Luitgaarden & van der Tier, 2018;Westwood et al, 2017). Palyginti su psichologijos ar reabilitacijos srities tyrimais, tokį atsilikimą lemia riboti ištekliai, etiniai ir teisiniai klausimai, pasirengimo stoka ir istoriškai susiklostęs socialinio darbo, grįsto tiesioginiu santykiu, pobūdis (Cosner Berzin et al, 2015;Singer & Sage, 2015).…”