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British Journal of Social Work (2004) 34, 53-68
© BASW Trading Ltd 2004 all rights reserved
Service Users and Practitioners Reunited: The Key Component for Social Work Reform
Peter Beresford is Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Centre for Citizen Participation at Brunel University. He is also Visiting Fellow at the School for Social Work and Psycho-social sciences at the University of East Anglia. He is a long-term user of mental health services. He is also Chair of Shaping Our Lives, the national user controlled organization corefunded by the Department of Health. His particular area of interest is citizen participation in public policy and the development of emancipatory research approaches.
Suzy Croft is a qualified and practising social worker at St John’s Hospice, London. She is also a member of the Editorial Collective of Critical Social Policy and a Trustee of Help The Hospices. She is a Research Fellow at Brunel University. Her particular areas of interest are citizen participation in public policy and the involvement of palliative care service users. She has written widely on participation and empowerment.
Correspondence to Professor Peter Beresford, Centre for Citizen Participation, Brunel University, Osterley Campus, Borough Road, Osterley, Middlesex, TW7 5DU, UK. E-mail: peter.beresford{at}brunel.ac.uk or Suzy Croft, Senior Social Worker, St John's Hospice, 60 Grove End Road, London, NW8 9NH, UK. E-mail: suzy.croft{at}hje.org.uk
Summary
This article explores the pressures towards both regulatory and liberatory social work. It identifies a range of factors operating to push social work in each direction. It discusses the key significance for more liberatory social work of the roles and engagement of social work practitioners and service users. Highlighting four key characteristics in the current political and policy context of social work: ambiguity, uncertainty, complexity and contradiction, it argues that social work is unlikely to develop a more emancipatory role, unless social work practitioners gain more support to play a central role in its construction and develop much closer links and alliances with service users and their organizations and movements.
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