BJSW Advance Access published online on January 27, 2009
British Journal of Social Work, doi:10.1093/bjsw/bcp002
Managing Restructured Social Services: Expanding the Social?
Jane Aronson is a Professor in the School of Social Work at McMaster University. Her research and writing have focused on the restructuring of women's paid and unpaid caring labour, particularly in the context of social care of elderly people in the community. Her interest in the critical management of public services builds on this background and on her experience of university administration. Kristin Smith is a Ph.D. Candidate at the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto (OISE/UT). She has practised social work for over eighteen years in front line health and social service organizations. Her research interests include critical analysis of social work practice; globalization and neo-liberal restructuring in public services; and the politics of resistance.
Correspondence to Jane Aronson, Ph.D., Professor, School of Social Work, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada L8S 4M4. E-mail: aronsonj{at}mcmaster.ca
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Abstract |
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This paper reports the early findings of a qualitative, longitudinal study of women managing health and social services in southern Ontario—a context that has been subject to successive rounds of restructuring and managerial reforms. Study participants, all women with extensive practice backgrounds and long-standing commitments to progressive public services, were critical of yet deeply implicated in organizational practices they judged at odds with the interests of clients and communities. The findings reveal how they negotiate this complex positioning within and against the logic of managerialism to find ways to insert social justice agendas. Even as managerial imperatives pressed them to subordinate these agendas, they found ways to extend the reach of their programmes to those increasingly excluded from receipt of public support and to politicize and expand the scope of their organizations' work. By naming such practices and strategies—often experienced in isolation and as somewhat improvised and formless—the study seeks to contribute to the critical literature on social service management. Participants' experiences open up important questions about both the strains and the opportunities in managers' positioning that will be the focus of ongoing data-gathering and analysis.
Keywords: Social service management, restructuring, social justice