INTERVIEW He added: ‘[Social work] is not a technically
based profession like nursing or medicine. It is in these skills and qualities that it has its unique contribution. It is these which defi ne it.’ Adi Cooper warned that social workers
needed to demonstrate that they are ‘value for money’ in this period of austerity, but her experience of reorganising social work in Sutton was that this can be done. She said safeguarding should be used
proactively to improve outcomes rather than putting all the emphasis on investigation and monitoring. A community social work pilot locally was beginning to show the value of community capacity-building, the role of networking and the importance of inspirational professional leadership. After the de-skilling of care management, social workers were being re-skilled in programmes of attachment-
RESEARCH
PRACTICE
based social work with adults, she said. Making the fi nancial or ‘business case’ for social workers meant that they would have to focus on assessment and judgement as the key to evaluating risks and needs; empowerment and re-ablement rather than dependency; safeguarding; facilitating family and friends to contribute to care and support; and fi nancial ‘gatekeeping’ during tough times. But the jury was still out on the future
eff ects of personalisation, once touted as the Holy Grail. Some were guardedly optimistic, one or two downright sceptical. The optimists saw it as a way to get back to core values: a way to use their judgement and unique set of skills creatively to empower people. But others feared it was also resulting in fewer social workers and, as Beresford put it, ‘the use instead of non-professional workers working with set scripts and considerably less discretion and independence.’ The forthcoming White Paper will show what the future holds. SWM