CONTENTS


UPDATE


INTERVIEW


PRACTICE


BOOKS


User view from Peter Beresford


was raised by disabled people who felt that social services more readily listened to families speaking on their behalf than to what they themselves had to say. Then it became a key concern as, in childcare tragedy after childcare tragedy, social workers were criticised for not keeping their focus on the child at risk but instead allowed their attention to be diverted by parents and families. Progress has been made in both these areas. There is now recognition that both disabled people and family carers have rights, including the right to be heard, but one should not routinely speak for the other. One of the strongest messages student social workers receive during and after their training is that their primary responsibility and their key focus must be on the child where there are safeguarding concerns, for example.


W But the issue of who is the service user is still


more complex than this. What professionals working with children and families immediately realise is that both groups have rights and needs, and they may not be met in either case. The problems this poses are one reason such work is so diffi cult.


When Eileen Munro was undertaking her child


protection review for the government, she met the Social Work Reform Board. As a member, I raised with her my concerns about this issue and suggested that it made sense in such a situation


ho is the service user? It remains a key question for social work and social care. Early on, the question


for the child and the family to have separate social workers.


She agreed but, of course,


fi nancial constraints rule out the likelihood of this ever happening regularly. Yet in another fi eld of social work, palliative care, there has long been a recognition that there can be two service users with equally important but potentially confl icting needs; the person with a life-limiting condition and those close to them facing bereavement. This recognition of the issue is important in itself. We might want particularly to


Professionals working with children and


families realise that both groups have rights and needs, and they may not be met in either case


address the question of who is the service user now in relation to adoption, given the way that successive governments have so heavily politicised it. Is it the people who desperately want a child to fi ll a hole in their lives – the version that is so often


presented in the right-wing tabloid press? Or is it the child, whose whole wellbeing and future are now at stake, who may have gone through massive trauma, abuse and damage and who certainly can’t just be thought of in terms of meeting someone else’s needs or fi tting into crude political plans and ideological expectations. Adoption is a complex approach to placement


that can break down and certainly doesn’t off er one size that fi ts all. This really is one case where we should be listening to the experts, both by experience and through professional involvement – on a systematic basis.


Peter Beresford is chair of Shaping Our Lives and professor of social policy at Brunel University


THECOLLEGEOFSOCIALWORKMAGAZINE 5


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