IFSW (EUROPE)

DISCUSSION PAPER PREPARED BY THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION

OF SOCIAL WORKERS

THE ROLE OF SOCIAL WORK

Malcolm Payne
Professor of Applied Community Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University,
799, Wilmslow Road, Didsbury, Manchester, UK, M20 2RR.
Telephone: 0161-247 2098; fax 0161-247 6844; Email: m.payne@mmu.ac.uk

Making claims about social work

What is the role of social work? Do we want to ask:
§ what it is?
§ what we might imagine it could be? or
§ what we might realistically hope it might be?
Sticking with ‘what is’ may seem complacent and lacking in ambition,
although over the last century and a half social work has achieved a lot in establishing
its position in many societies. Seeking a realistic and foreseeable role might fail to
meet our ideals for future progress. Promoting the extent of the possibilities might
seem conceited and pretentious.
Identifying these alternatives suggests that talking about the role of social
work involves what sociologists call ‘claims-making’; that is, saying what something
is, so that our view of it gains acceptance, in preference to someone else’s claim. It
has the image of homesteaders in the American West or gold-diggers putting up
fences round their property. Staking a claim is not final: whether people accept it
depends on the claims that others might make about the same field. That this is so
emphasises that trying to define the role of social work sets out on a political process
in which we engage with other stakeholders in the hope of coming to an accepted
agreement. Therefore, I propose in this paper that simply trying to define one role of
one social work is unlikely to be effective; what will be needed is a constantly
redefined strategy for making and pursuing claims about it that represent the best
understanding of social workers. However, within that complexity, a relatively small
number of principles can describe important aspects of social work’s approach, in its
contribution to the network of professions working in welfare systems.
The reason why we want to make claims, or assert a clear role, is to gain
legitimacy. There is a problem with doing so in the twenty-first century. Castells
(1997) discusses this in relation to social identities. In the past, dominant
organisations and interests in society had the most influence in establishing and
‘legitimising’ identities and roles. They did this as part of the process of maintaining
authority and control in an organised society. The structure of society, traditionally,
had a strong influence on our social roles and our identity. Identities were given
because of the social roles occupied. For example, a woman who married became a
wife and later usually a mother, and there were common assumptions about how they
should behave.
 The Role of Social Work - 2

In recent years, social relations have changed and identities are no longer so
strongly controlled, but they are patterned by how we understand the whole set of
relationships in which people participate. So, to continue with the same example, a
woman has a much wider range of choices of gender behaviours than the traditional
wife and mother models. Even if she takes these on, she has opportunities to live
through a range of different kinds of wife and mother roles. She works these out for
herself, participating in debates within society about these roles and social interactions
with people around her. She continuously modifies her identity as she experiences her
life, other people’s reactions to her way of living, and the debates and discussion that
she hears about. This freedom is constrained by the social and personal need to have
identities in the first place, because this helps people to deal with a complex world.
Applying this to social work, in the past social work only had to persuade
powerful decision-makers to ascribe roles to it, perhaps through legislation or by
establishing respected and powerful agencies to work in. This helped to establish and
maintain through professional organisation a clear and certain role in society. Now, a
range of possible roles exists in a complex mixture of related professions and
organisations, all of which have less status, all of whose positions is less secure and
open to question.
In recent years, important identities have been established as part of a process
of resistance to legitimisation through powerful groups. So women have struggled
against patriarchy, ethnic groups have tried to establish their cultures in countries
where they have migrated, especially where they are in a minority, disabled people
have tried to establish their own culture and power, gay and lesbian people come out;
there are many examples. Creating a strong identity as part of a resistance can only
take a group so far. It can become exclusionary, make a ghetto of the ‘different’ or
‘difficult’. Therefore, many excluded groups try to create new identities to interrogate
and criticise uses of power by dominant groups.
Applying this to social work, the groups that social workers helped in roles
defined by the powerful are being redefined as consumers and service users with
interests, rights and their own identity to establish. Therefore, social work finds its
role squeezed between the interests of the powerful, whose role definitions are treated
with less deference than in the past but may still be strongly asserted by politicians or
the media, and the powerless seeking greater influence over their own identity. There
is a limit to its capacity to define its own role. Social workers can only establish their
role in interaction with the interests of service users, groups with political and social
influence in the definition of professional roles and other related professional groups.
This becomes clear when we examine the idea of ‘role’.

What is a ‘role’?
When we talk about a ‘role’, many people think about acting; that is, a person
assuming a character or position and presenting it convincingly as part of a fiction. It
carries implications of performing, following a script and being directed. Some
phenomenological sociological theories, such as Goffman’s (1968a) ‘dramaturgical’
role theory, start from the assumption that people vary how they behave according to
the situation they are in and their purposes. Goffman writes, for example, about how
stigmatised people try to pass as normal (1968b), or how controlling institutions such
as mental hospitals create particular forms of behaviour (1961). Roles might
sometimes be false impressions, given to achieve a social purpose. However, another
way of looking at it is that we vary the way we behave, depending on our social
situation. Psychological theories like transactional analysis use similar analogies:
 The Role of Social Work - 3

behaviour is analysed according to ‘scripts’ and common reactions to situations that

are played out in ‘games’ (Berne, 1961).
One implication of the dramatic analogy for considering ‘the role of social
work’ is the risk that people may see defining a role as merely presentational, a cover
for some reality that we want to disguise. For example, we might claim altruistic
motives for social work, while others commonly say that this is a disguise for
oppressive and controlling elements of it. It may be important, therefore, not to make
partial or self-interested claims, but to acknowledge all the implications of what we
say. Otherwise, it will be hard to get people to accept our claims. Another implication
of the dramatic analogy is the importance of the situation we are in: the script, the
other actors, the director, the scenery. This emphasises that a role cannot be created by
actors alone, they are part of a social environment that controls, constrains and directs
what role they must play. We have to examine the role of social work, therefore,
within the pattern of services, professions, knowledge and social behaviour that exists,
We cannot define social work with a free hand.
In other forms of sociology, ‘role’ is an outgrowth of structural-functional
theory, and it carries some hidden assumptions. Talking about the ‘role’ of a social
institution or of an individual implies a ‘social order’ perspective, that
§ there is a structure of institutions that we can identify
and be clear about;
§ the structure is relatively stable and ordered;
§ the position of institutions or individuals within the
structure can be understood and agreed upon;
§ the kind of acts and behaviour associated with those
positions can be described and agreed upon.
So, talking about the role of social work implies that we can describe what
social work is and how it fits with other institutions, that its position is clear,
continuous and understandable and that we can say what the social work profession
and social workers should do.
There are two problems with this approach to considering social work:
practical and theoretical. The practical problem is that there are many uncertainties,
and things change and develop all the time, so we can never be sure about maintaining
a continuous definition of social institutions and activities and we end up having
apparently irreconcilable disagreements. The theoretical problem points to these
uncertainties and says that assuming stability and order is clearly an inaccurate
representation of our world. There are two kinds of answer to this theoretical problem.
Critical theories propose that we should focus on change and conflict; that social
behaviour and social institutions emerge from conflict, debate and exchange, rather
than from stability and order. Phenomenological and post-modern theories try to
include uncertainties and changes into explanations of how social institutions work.
They look at historical and social factors that create uncertainty and change. Critical
and post-modern theories are, at least potentially, more creative than social order
perspectives, because they include change, development and the opportunities for
creativity that come out of uncertainty and change. However, social order theories
propose that the world is actually more or less ordered, that people would like it to be
more rather than less ordered and that disorder leads to social problems such as
oppression and poverty. They complain that focusing on change and uncertainty leads
to instability and to taking a relativistic view of social values and behaviour, which
makes it impossible for people to organise their way of life.
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Talking about the role of social work, therefore, can be rather conservative.
We are saying that we want to stop change, stop uncertainty and try to create some
clarity and stability. Is this desirable? It might be desirable if it could help people gain
confidence and security in knowing what they are doing or aiming for. It might be
undesirable, because change and uncertainty provide opportunities for development
and sticking with one view of the social work role would miss chances to develop it.
Is it realistic? It might be realistic because clearer definitions of social work
would help create stability and certainty. It might be unrealistic because there are
uncertainties and changes that we cannot avoid, and so we are seeking a false security,
which in the end may make us uncomfortable with our position and unable to defend
our view.

Defining a social work role

The changes and uncertainties are obvious because different countries and
cultures have different ways of organising social work services and different
interpretations of what social work is. Over time, the main ideas about social work
have changed. This suggests that there is not one thing called social work, because it
changes depending on social, cultural and historical context. Therefore, defining a
role for social work needs to include social, cultural and historical differences.
Since international organisations developed in social work during the 1920s,
there has been an ‘internationalist view’ of it, which argues that there are different
forms of social work, but they are all related and can be seen as fundamentally the
same thing (Payne, 2003). During the 1980s, a critique developed that this was a
colonialist position, that it imposed one cultural interpretation of social work on other
equally relevant and justifiable ones (Nagpaul, 1972; Midgley, 1981). Particularly, it
imposed a view from Western, rich country perspectives on Eastern, poor countries.
During the 1990s, this critique has developed to identify a range of alternative
perspectives on social work, and to claim that there are justifiable differences, which
can and should be accepted. One example is the claim that there is an ‘Eastern’ model
of social work, which emphasises social interdependence on families and
communities throughout life, rather than the Western convention of individualism,
and a greater acceptance of responsibility for directive practice, rather than Western
policies of self-determination.
The internationalist view is modernist, that is, it proposes that social work
mainly develops and progresses and can be understood by rational argument and
scientific research. The critique of modernism suggests that there have been countries
where social work has not progressed, that at times, for example in 1930s Germany
(Lorenz, 1974) or in colonialist countries, it has been oppressive, discriminatory and
socially regressive. The critique also proposes that since New Right or economic
rationalist attacks on public services and welfare states in the 1980s, social work has
been in retreat and is being redefined in a restricted way (Jordan, 2000). The 1990s
have seen a debate between social construction or post-modern views of knowledge
(which emphasise experiential forms of understanding) and more rationalist and
positivist views of understanding (which emphasise the accumulation of evidence
through structured and rational forms of investigation).
If we accept such variation, it becomes much harder to accept that we should
try to identify just one role for just one form of social work. However, the argument
for having a clear mission and set of values is that it might help to defeat regression
and oppression. In a famous early paper on social work, Lee (1929) argued that as
social work became a more established part of the society, it moved from being a
 The Role of Social Work - 5

‘cause’, with ideals for change and a focus on wide social objectives, to being a more
routinised social ‘function’. It loses its mission for change, but may perhaps be able to
achieve results through its steady action within societies. This view argues that
different aspects of social work might reinforce each other: the mission provides
ideals to give inspiration and direction to effective social provision, while performing
the function interprets the mission in ways that are appropriate to the times and
circumstances.
Taking these points together, social work seems to have a range of possible
roles, which gain influence according to current social expectations and
circumstances. The roles are expressed in wide social objectives and values, which are
interpreted through different practices relevant to social, cultural and political
environments. The roles interact with the roles associated with cognate professions.
Social workers face a paradox. On one hand, taking all this into account makes it
difficult to establish a clearly-defined role. On the other hand, ignoring these
complexities makes any role that social work claims seem over-simplified, excessive
and hard to justify to other stakeholders.
However, fortunately it is possible to recognise the complexities while
establishing some clear goals for action that start from some basic aims and
principles. I also argue in the remainder of the paper that many of the complexities are
resolvable to a connected series of analyses.

A starting point: the welfare regime and system

Social work, as with any other social profession, operates within the welfare
regimes in different countries. How social work is implemented within any particular
country is affected by its welfare regime, that is the approach taken to the state’s
responsibility for the welfare of its citizens. The last years of the twentieth century
have seen considerable debate about the character of different forms of welfare
regime. Titmuss (1968) distinguished between residual and institutional welfare
states. Residual welfare states gave priority to the family and the market, accepting
responsibility only when these failed. Institutional welfare states embody a
‘commitment to welfare’, which involves providing more or less universal social
provision. Esping-Anderson (1990) makes this analysis more complex. He identifies
three clusters of welfare regimes. Liberal states, focusing on individual responsibility
through a work ethic and freedom, have modest universal transfers and social
insurance. Corporatist states, partly influenced by churches, focus on using welfare to
maintain social stability through reinforcing status differentials and the role of family
and work. Social democratic states seek social equality through pursuing high
standards of universal welfare. Leibfried (1993) distinguishes in Europe between four
groups of states. Scandinavian-style universal welfare states make the state the main
provider and guarantor of welfare. The Bismarck countries (Germany and Austria)
rely on substantial social insurance provision for workers. Anglo-Saxon countries use
welfare to reinforce the work-ethic, but social insurance is available as a last resort.
‘Latin rim’ states have rudimentary welfare systems, relying on family and church,
but are moving towards more universal provision.
Social work itself occupies a marginal position in all of these systems, since
the political focus is on the major social welfare systems of social security or social
protection, health, education and to some extent housing and employment. Social
development and regeneration and criminal justice are also important social welfare
provisions in many countries. The attitude to social work may arise from indirectly
 The Role of Social Work - 6

from general attitudes to welfare within these regimes, rather than from views of
social work itself.
Moreover, a distinction must be made between social work and social care,
social protection or social services. Social work is often allied to significant service
provision, which is often not defined specifically as social work. This includes in
some countries social security or social protection services, or health and social care
provision such as domiciliary, day and residential care. In such instances, social work
itself may be a relatively small part of a major service effort, which then colours the
impression of social work. On the other hand, social work may be the dominant
professional group in such services, and its ideology and the regard in which it is held
affects the pattern of provision. Social work may be a secondary profession in a
setting dominated by another profession. Social workers in courts, schools, hospitals
and health care services, or housing services are likely to be defined at least in part by
the purposes and political position of the major service, and their model of practice is
likely to be coloured by medical, educational or criminal justice models.
Discussing the role of social work, therefore, involves:
§ identifying its role within general welfare provision;
§ identifying its connection with related service provision;
§ distinguishing its role in multiprofessional settings.
This is difficult to do on an international basis. Many different systems of
welfare provision exist, each of which has developed an organisation for welfare
professions and these are often associated with different interpretations of the nature
and role of social work. A useful approach is to see social welfare as a field, in which
different welfare systems select and develop different elements of the possibilities of
social work. The field thus becomes a set of networks, which cover a similar area of
human welfare activity, with a different pattern of provision and professional
organisation in each case.

Patterns of social work provision

Rather than see social work as defined by an essence, therefore, it is helpful to
see social work range of networks forming different patterns in different national
systems. Six networks have an impact on how we pattern social work in any welfare
regime (Payne, 2003):
§ Demographic factors affecting its clientele. Social work
changes, as its clientele alters. Clearly, we focus more on children
when the number of children rise, on elders when the proportion of
elderly people in the population rises, on disability when medicine
preserves life better, but in impaired bodies or when new
conditions such as HIV-AIDS emerge.
§ Policy and law. In many countries where government is
an important player in social provision, service development and
social work’s roles change and progress, as policy and legal
changes are made.
§ Education, training, knowledge and research. Social
work’s character changes as education and training for it develop
and as views of the organisation of knowledge and research
change. For example, more competence-based qualifications using
evidence-based practice imply a more technical and less
discretionary form of practice.
 The Role of Social Work - 7

§ Professional organisation. How the occupational group

is organised affects its identity. For example, the character of a
group with organised trade unionism would be different from that
of a group where trade union and professional functions are
divided.
§ Values and political aims. The values represented in a
profession have important consequences for its. For example,
individualistic values would produce a different form of practice
from social justice values.
§ Organisational structure and strategy. The structure of
agencies, large and comprehensive or small and specialised for
example, have consequences for the service.
Obviously, all these different networks interact with each other, but an
analysis of these factors in relation to a particular situation helpfully identifies the
major factors affecting a profession at present.

Interpretations of social work

Within patterns of welfare provision, social work is interpreted differently as
part of a network of professions interacting with each other. Each of these professions
overlaps and connects with the others. Health care professionals, for example, are
often involved in health education of patients, have a planning and strategic role in
public health and a social order role in mental health and with problems such as drug
misuse. The police, to give another example, have many welfare roles, are involved in
crime prevention and education, and work using interpersonal skills in rape interview
centres. Different systems place the divisions between professional welfare roles in
different places. Interpretations of social work often have connections with other
professions. The professions within the welfare networks usually contain elements of:
§ a therapeutic model, based on medical assumptions that
people have illnesses (which, in social work, we often call problems)
that may be understood and cured (problems are resolved or at least
‘worked on’);
§ an educational model, perhaps most evident in social
pedagogy, and, in Britain, youth and community work, which focuses
on enhancing people’s capacities to deal with the world;
§ a spiritual model, related to priestly roles, which is
concerned with enhancing people’s personal psychological and social
growth, their relationships and understanding and appreciation of
themselves and their worlds;
§ a social order model, related to policing, which sees
welfare as being concerned with helping people to regulate and
organise their lives and playing a part in dealing with problems that
disrupt society, such as elders, mentally ill or physically and learning
disabled people who cannot care for themselves, or parents who abuse
children, people who abuse drugs;
§ a social change model, related to planning and
development, concerned with achieving social progress and
development;
§ a social provision model, related to public service roles,
where social work often has what Pietroni (1994) has called the
 The Role of Social Work - 8

‘quartermaster’ role, in which the task is to provide services and

organise the provision of resources in situations of social difficulty.
Social work at times incorporates all of these interpretations. Every act of
social work contains some of these interpretations; every system of social work
prefers some rather than others of these interpretations; every agency picks up some
but not others of these interpretations. What particular systems pick up depends on the
discourse that goes on within the welfare system and more widely in society about the
role of social work, and that discourse interacts with internal discourses within social
work about its nature and role.

Social work’s discourse

A discourse is a set of interactions, activities and debates that form views of
something, in this case social work. Rather than try to see social work as one thing, it
is more reasonably represented, as in Figure 1, as constantly reconstructing itself by
rebalancing three aims that are contained within all social work:
§ An social order element - maintaining social order and
providing services within the welfare state;
§ A therapeutic empowering element - helping people
attain personal fulfilment and power over their lives; and
§ A transformational or emancipatory element -
stimulating social change to promote service users’ freedom from
oppression (Payne, 1996; 2000).
Focusing on each of these objectives brings a different form of social work.
All social work contains these purposes to some extent. Services lean towards one or
the other: local government social services give priority to providing and improving
services, while offering a certain amount of empowerment and personal growth to
clients, and with an eye to supporting changes in provision in the long-term. A
women’s counselling service, might mainly aim for empowering developments in
clients’ control of their lives. A community work organisation might mainly aim to
change housing policy. However, in carrying out their function, they inevitably
include elements of the others.
These different balances of aim operate at different levels. For example, at the
national or regional level, services may focus on one rather than another objective;
particular agencies within a national system may have a particular priority, and within
an agency, every social work act, while containing elements of all three, will lean
towards a particular priority. For example, if a hospital social worker works with a
mentally ill woman to help her re-establish her life in the community, her main
professional purpose may be empowering and strengthening the woman’s capacities
for independent living. In different arenas, her agency may primarily see this as
delivering a service and government policy may be that, delivered widely, this service
may change social perceptions about people who are recovering from mental illness.
Elements of these other purposes will be present in how the worker acts as a social
worker, even though they are not at the forefront of her mind.

Arenas for discourse

Social work is, thus, formed in discourses within professional and social
networks, balancing different perspectives on its purposes. Discourses take place in
different arenas. The arenas interact with one another, so that what goes on in one
arena influences what goes on elsewhere. Figure 2 describes three arenas:
§ A political-social-ideological arena;
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§ An agency-professional arena; and

§ A client-worker-agency arena.
However, the arenas in which discourse takes place are potentially infinite and
complex. These three propose cycles of debate where stakeholders are likely to be in a
constant interaction influencing each other and are likely to be concerned with social
work or at least welfare issues, so they may be arenas that are particularly relevant to
social work roles. They are arenas, because they represent centres of action and
debate, rather than mutually exclusive cycles. They overlap: for example, the agency
provides the context for and directs clients’ and workers’ interactions, but agencies
are also crucial in professional and academic debate. The form a larger cycle of
mutual influence, which may work in different directions. Services may change
because clients make demands and respond in new ways, because professionals or
agencies decide on new forms of practice or organisation, or because public opinion
or political impetus creates changes. For example, the disability movement has
campaigned successfully in Britain for a legal change giving disabled people control
of the individual budgets for their personal help (political-social arena). This forces a
change on agencies and professionals. The disability movement has also influenced
how professionals think about disability, giving greater importance to a social model
(professional–agency arena). It has also caused disabled people to demand to be
treated differently by social workers (client-worker arena). The impact of each of
these participations in the discourse has influenced the others. The legal change works
better where professionals are committed and where clients demand the service to be
delivered in this particular way.

Aims and principles

We can bring all these issues together to examine the role of social work by
identifying particular perspectives of social work that implement the main purposes of
social work but suggest how we may interpret the special roles of social work in
contrast to the networks of other professions involved in the welfare system. In Table
1 the left-hand column starts with the three aims that I suggested above are balanced
within all social work, all social work agencies and all acts of social work. In the
second column, I have set out five perspectives on practice that inform all social
work. These move from activities that emphasise maintaining social order through
effective service delivery, through those that emphasise empowerment and personal
fulfilment to those that emphasise transformation; none of these activities exclude any
those purposes - it is a question of emphasis. The third column indicates something of
the social work approach, which would follow from taking up this perspective. The
fourth column indicates some examples of the kind of service that social work would
seek to provide as a result.
How can we see these perspectives as forming the identity of social work?
They constitute claims about the fundamental and distinctive nature of what social
workers do.
The social protection or social assistance perspective emphasises that social
work sees welfare benefits and services as a right, as an essential part of a civilised
society, and sees it as a professional responsibility to pursue those rights on behalf of
clients. Making provision for this is integral to social work services, rather than a
desirable extra, and services are planned to include this element of seeking people’s
rights. Most other personal services, such as counselling, medicine, nursing or
psychology focus on the practitioner’s own treatment or related services. If they want
to have a general check on whether someone is receiving all the benefits that they
 The Role of Social Work - 10

should be getting, they will usually refer them to a social worker. Thus, the welfare
rights role is a recognised and valued service. It is also important for social work,
because it is the basis of much else that social work does. For one thing, as a practical
provision that concentrates on rights rather than an indistinct form of personal help, it
encourages people to make contact with social work, when they might otherwise be
cautious about doing so. It means that, in a fragmented and isolating society, people
can keep their distance if they want to, but still engage in valid social work. National
systems that integrate social security payments into social welfare provision and
provide social work alongside it implement this perspective directly. Once people
gain confidence in the social worker, they may be prepared to call for more complex
personal services.
Second, the social assistance perspective that social work takes is crucial. At a
time when political movements favour liberal individualism, and suggest that people
should look after themselves, insure themselves for risks, take responsibility for their
families and communities, social work emphasises that this does not work for many.
People with inherited medical conditions or experiencing serious social deprivation
cannot insure themselves, and do not have the resources to care for themselves. Social
work’s emphasis on welfare rights is an integral aspect of our approach to social
issues. People’s rights to a reasonable standard of welfare are not an option, as many
right-wing politicians would like to suggest they are an essential to any civilised
society.
Third, therefore, providing social assistance and protection efficiently is a
fundamental service in any civilised country and it is part of the social work
contribution to society. An example that demonstrates this is disaster aid, or in very
poor underdeveloped countries, the acknowledgement that dealing with basic poverty,
starvation and helplessness is an essential first step in social development. This is easy
to forget in European countries with a well-established infrastructure, where social
security and relief of poverty or homelessness is very much a residual part of the
state’s services, since most people are provided for by employment in an active
economy. It may be residual most of the time, but it is nevertheless basic and remains
so. For example, Britain experienced a great deal of flooding last winter, and from
time to time some disaster occurs such as an aeroplane crash. People in Western
societies expect that the services can turn out and manage the personal consequences
of these events for their citizens. Such times make clear that this role is basic to
civilisation, even though it is fortunately rare to have to bring it into play in advanced
economies.
The user participation perspective forms part of the identity of social work
because its actions are holistic, when we compare them with other professions. Other
professions still primarily focus on their expert role, providing information or expert
interventions. As people have become less deferential to professionals over the last
few decades, they have become more open and democratic. This perspective speaks
directly to the sort of identity issues discussed in this paper. People in societies where
they are isolated, excluded and part of fragmented social relations need to be
integrated as stakeholders within the practice of help that is offered to them. Identity
processes in present-day society do not allow social workers to prescribe their clients’
actions and objectives. However, this is a participation approach because social
worker must also be drawn into action with their clients if they are to be effective.
Distancing themselves from clients, being neutral about their objectives will lead to
the failure of social work.
 The Role of Social Work - 11

The social model of explanation distinctively signifies social work. Even if

they know about and respond to the social origins of the problems that they deal with,
other professions focus on individual explanations and operate on a ‘cure’, therapeutic
or educational model of what they are doing. Social work typically goes out of its way
to invest in social networks and listen to explanations of the problems that we deal
with which go beyond the scientific into the interpersonal and social realms of
explanation. This is a crucial contribution that social work makes to reintegrating
fragmented social relations. A definition of the client’s problem that says: ‘You are an
offender,’ or ‘You are impaired,’ takes the person as a damaged individual. To say:
‘We are dealing with offending behaviour to help your social integration…’ and ‘We
are overcoming social factors that prevent you from leading a satisfactory life…’ is a
response to excluding and fragmenting social relations.
The family and community involvement perspective is integral to social work
in a way that is not true of related professions. Most professions, such as medicine,
nursing or psychology, focus on a selected patient or client and see their primary work
as being for and about that patient. They take into account the impact of family or
community limitations on their work and they may keep relatives informed, but they
do not see it as their primary purpose to integrate individuals with their family and
community networks. Other professions have a particular function, such as education
or accountancy. In every case, other professionals would turn to social work to have
an assessment done to inform their work about family and community matters
relevant to their focus. They would also turn to social workers to intervene in family
and community situations that affected their patients or pupils. The nearest similar
role is priests and other religion and spiritual professionals. To go further, social work
calls on links with other professionals as an essential part of its work. Again, by
taking this perspective, social work seeks to extend and build links within social
networks against the fragmenting tendencies of present-day societies.
Finally, social justice is integral to social work. One outcome of this focus is
the strong leadership that social work has provided for focusing on anti-discriminatory
practice. This links back to the concern with social models of explanation, family and
community as well as individual outcomes, and the welfare rights perspective. Social
work, with these perspectives integral to its work, inevitably responds to marked
injustices of this kind with general social responses as well as individualised help and
service provision. To be concerned about justice is to be concerned with the impact of
clients and services on others, and not to focus on the needs of our clients and our
service alone. Thus, a social work service for people with severe behaviour disorders
deals with the consequences for the victims of their violence, or for their families of
their destructive behaviour. Other services focus mainly on the patient or their own
skills and responsibilities.

Conclusion
The analysis in Table 1 shows how our discourse about the aims of social
work can lead us to concrete principles that establish social work’s role within the
network of professions. It does not deny the complexity of social work, but proposes
that the complexity lies, as this paper suggests, in the complex ways in which role and
identity must now be understood in present-day society. While social work must have
its ideals and mission, defining its everyday activities, what Lee (1929) called its
‘function’, in the welfare system, is complex. However, by relating social work’s
mission or aims to the everyday role through a small number of principles, we can
 The Role of Social Work - 12

accept the complexity of its formation while expressing clearly in a relatively small
number of connected principles what its contribution to welfare systems is.

Acknowledgements
Substantial parts of this paper are excerpted from ‘Social work’s changing
identities’, a paper first given at a conference of the Danish Association of Social
Workers, Nyborg, September 2001, and first published as ‘Det sociale arbejdes
identiteter under forandring’ in Tidsskrift for social forskning 2(3): 4-18 (2001). This
paper was also presented as a Research Seminar, Department of Applied Community
Studies, Manchester Metropolitan University, February 2002. I am grateful for
comments from both audiences.
Excerpts from the paper were included in an article published in English as
‘Balancing the equation’ in Professional Social Work, January 2002, 12-13.
Some of the analysis relies on the author’s What is Professional Social Work?
(Birmingham, Venture, 1996).
 The Role of Social Work - 13

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