The politics of case management and social work

Abstract

A case study analysing the introduction of case management into British social services supports the argument that social work is constructed through political processes. In such processes, the interaction among the interests of stakeholders within service innovations influences the construction of the role of social work. Case management was introduced to Britain, but developed in three different forms: social care entrepreneurship, brokerage and multiprofessional case management, including assertive outreach. The forms adopted were affected by the political interaction of stakeholders rather than the professional possibilities offered by case management itself. Evidence for the politics of case management is drawn from analysis of professional literature, the texts of official documents and empirical research outcomes. The introduction of case management led to a debate about how the nature of social work was affected by the innovation. Three alternative views were that social work was improved, or attacked by case management, or made a valid contribution to case management as a different form of practice. It is proposed that to understand the impact of a service innovation on social work, four factors must be considered: the character of the innovation itself; the economic, political and social contexts in which it is introduced; the political and social interests of the stakeholders themselves; and the political and social processes that take place during the introduction of the innovation.

The collaborative professional: towards empowering vulnerable families

“…The case manager coordinates the intervention and, in collaboration with the family, other professionals and the informal network, is required to (e.g. Payne, 2000;Sousa & Rodrigues, 2009) develop, implement and monitor the intervention plans; bring the various strategies together; manage the institutional process and act as a common thread running through the intervention and keep it going when urgent problems emerge. This role needs institutional (and even political) recognition in order to enable the professional who assumes the crucial role of anchor in the intervention process to play a dual role: therapeutic, centred on building up a rapport and implementing the intervention plan; bureaucratic, focused on managing the process.…”

Translating case management in a service for older people in Berlin

“…Glendinning (1998) notes the emphasis on assessment and care management as key methods for improving the targeting and coordination of services for older people, the former intended to promote a needs-led rather than service-led approach, the latter to maximise the appropriate tailoring of individualised packages of services to the assessed needs and choices of the older person, but highlights the subsequent use of assessment as a mechanism for prioritising needs and gatekeeping. Payne (2000) argues that the need for cost constraints was so influential that the assessment aspect of care management came to dominate practice, primarily as a way to ration services, suggesting this is the key to understanding how care management became bureaucratised. In this respect, the re-naming of 'case management' as 'care management', ostensibly focusing attention back on the personal nature of the service (Gursansky et al, 2003), or emphasising the management of the care process rather than the individual (Onyett, 1992;Wendt, 2001), was seen as contentious by many (Huxley, 1993;Onyett, 1992;Payne, 1997).…”

Innovations and social problem solving: a comparative study

“…According to a case study presented by Malcolm Payne (2000), the political context that underpins an innovation and the social and political process that takes place are highly relevant when trying to understand the impact of innovations in social work. It sounds reasonable to assume that what is seen as innovative in one context is not necessarily regarded as so in another situation.…”