Power, Social Change and Children’s Social Work

1. Power, Social Change and Children’s Social Work Antony Schaffarczyk Royal Holloway University of London

2. Contexts of Children’s Social Work • The contexts of children’s social work raises important questions about how we interpret and engage with power and social change • Seems to be a significant gap between theoretical perspectives and practice contexts • Managerialism, bureaucracy and pressure on workers • Deeper problem of how we construct discourse on power and social change

3. Power • Discourse on power doesn’tengage enough withthe need to use power in children’s social work • Social control dimensions of practices • Concern that to theorise power is to validate authoritarian practices • There is a need to discuss how workers use power when necessary, and care should be taken around closing down discussion about social control in social work

4. Social Change • Being explicit about power encourages reflection on how children’s social workers are actually able to support people and work in emancipatory ways • Partnership, empowerment, challenging discrimination and oppression • What do we really mean by social change? Differing conceptions and meanings of social change?

5. Contested Spaces • Root our thinking about power and social change in the contested spaces of children’s social work • Children’s social work occurs in intermediary, contested spaces – supporting families and protecting children, care and control, families and the state, challenging structural inequalities and helping people deal with individual problems • Not just about balance, but being pulled in different directions based on different ethical principles and moral and socio-political mandates

6. Contested Spaces

7. Space for Social Change? • How do we create space for social change in children’s social work? • In the contested position, there are immediate, varied ways of working towards social change • Language we use and the meanings that emerge from discourses • This includes thinking about the sorts of change that are held to be significant by the people experiencing social work involvement in their lives

8. Children’s Voices • Honesty and integrity, and making people feel meaningfully included in social work processes, even when these mean going against their wishes • Children’s views may have to be overridden – doesn’t mean they should be ignored • Critique of how children’s voices can be excluded from children’s social work processes is stronger for being rooted in exploring when it it necessary for workers to act paternalistically